A Successful Gospel-Centered Ministry - Part Two

April 27, 2014 Preacher: Randy Smith Series: 2 Corinthians

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:1–6

Transcript

A Successful Gospel-Centered Ministry-Part Two

2 Corinthians 4:1-6
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Pastor Randy Smith


 

The primary belief that permeates our postmodern society is the belief that everybody's beliefs, regardless of the lunacy of those beliefs, are valid and acceptable, and all other people must respect those beliefs as being valid and acceptable as well. Nobody is wrong. Everything, except Christianity of course, is to be accepted and embraced and tolerated.

So with that in mind you hear these comments: "Is she one of those Christians who evangelize?" "Believe what you want about Christ, but don't try to push it on others." "It's arrogant to for Christians to think they are right and other religious are wrong."

So as the world is intolerant of us, is it fair to say we are insensitive and unloving if we share peacefully and respectfully the Christian Gospel and desire to see people turning to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior?

Consider these verses: 1 John 5:11-12, "And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life." John 8:24, "[Jesus said,] therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." John 14:6, "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.'"

Not only are we commanded to share the Gospel (it is the Great Commission after all!), but if we believe the Scriptures, not sharing the Gospel is the most unloving act we can commit. Even an atheist can arrive at this conclusion.

Consider Jillette Penn, the tall guy of the famous comedy team "Penn and Teller." According to Wikipedia, his cars' license plates read "atheist", "nogod", and "godless". He explains his atheism has informed every aspect of his life and thoughts and is as crucial to him as theistic beliefs are to the Christian. He gets what I am getting at.

On day Mr. Penn was evangelized by a polite man and as an atheist had this to say about the experience: "I've always said, you know, that I don't respect people who don't proselytize. I don't respect that at all. If you believe that there's a heaven and hell, and that people could be going to hell, or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward… How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that" (Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine, p. 53).

In 2 Corinthians, Paul has been defending himself against false teachers who sought to undermine his character and his ministry. From chapter 2, verse 14 all the way to chapter 7, verse 4; he goes off on this long excursion describing the glory of the New Covenant. Within that section, chapter 4, verses 1-6, he describes his ministry of the New Covenant. As an apostle his ministry was unique, but in many senses his ministry is no different than the one assigned to us as well. It is simply this: As people saved by the work of Jesus Christ, we have the command, the responsibility, the compulsion, the privilege to share the good news with others. All of us are to be evangelists.

That means we are to understand and cherish the Gospel and then by God's grace allow the Gospel to flow from us in all aspects to some degree in our interactions with others: Personal conversations, formal church outreaches (like the upcoming soccer clinic and VBS), social media posts, school assignments, newspaper interviews, the list continues.

Now is the point in the sermon where we all start dropping our heads in shame. I know if you are truly a Christian that you won't be able to deny the point I just presented. And I also know if you are like me, you are presently scrolling through the missed opportunities, contemplating why your heart is not more burdened for the lost and wondering if you'll ever overcome the fear of what others think.

Jim Elliff put it like this, "Nothing is more discouraging than evangelism. The mere mention of the word strikes fear in most people. If it is my goal when speaking in a church to make all my listeners uncomfortable and convicted, all I have to do is say, "Evangelize!," and the guilt quotient rises as fast as the heads drop. Beads of sweat appear on the pastor's brow. It is the great undone command, and none of us like to be reminded of it" (A More Spontaneous and Genuine Evangelism, Christian Communicators Worldwide).

I want to help you this morning. The title of this sermon is, "A Successful Gospel-Centered Ministry." We started two weeks ago, and Lord- willing we will finish next Sunday. In this three-part message, spread over six weeks, we will see the chief components from the Word of God as it pertains to being a successful minister of the Gospel. And as we learned two weeks ago, these principles will have general application not just to the times we formally share Christ, but also for the times we serve Christ in whatever ministry He calls us to in the church.

So if you are not sharing Christ and serving Him, hopefully the Lord will use this sermon to motivate you to do so. If you are sharing Christ and serving Him, the Lord will hopefully use this sermon to encourage you.

1. Gospel Transformation (3:18 - Review)

Let's begin with the first point by way of review. Successful ministry must always start with personal Gospel transformation. In other words, not only is it hypocritical to impart what we don't believe, it is also unbiblical.

We have been learning about the beauty of the New Covenant that was purchased for us by Christ. Because God's wrath against our sin was fully spent on Him, we have the blessing without fear to enter into and consistently live in the direct presence of God's glory unlike those in the Old Covenant. And because we as Christians are consumed to live in His presence, it is only natural to assume that we will gradually become that which we behold. Our character will become more like God's character. We call it spiritual growth. We call it sanctification. Our lives will be a progressive transformation into Christlikeness. That was the teaching of 3:18, "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit."

So for starters, successful Gospel ministry must always begin with our own personal conversion and then the ministry that flows from the overflow of our personal relationship with God. Only that experience will give us in ministry the right passion and right motives and right strength to be effective in this high calling.

So our Savior wants you to be a disciple of His before you ever become a minister of His. Our Savior wants your heart before you offer Him your hands and feet. And our Savior wants your ministry to Him to overflow out of a life where He is presently ministering to you.

2. Gospel Resolution (4:1 - Review)

Once we have our lives right with Christ, the second point necessary to successful Gospel ministry is to have a resolute heart. By a resolute heart I am referring to a heart that is determined to persevere through the difficulties of ministry without giving up.

I remember when I first came to the Lord back in 1990. I remember the joy I experienced in the newness of my faith. I didn't need to be told to tell others about Christ. He changed my life and I wanted those I loved to experience the same blessings. Immediately it hit me like a ton of brinks. Very few people wanted to hear about it. Some people even began to persecute me to different degrees. I was shocked. Yet what encouraged me when I studied my Bible were all the verses where our Lord predicted this would happen to His followers and then followed these sections with encouragement to persevere.

Well, the difficulty came in sharing with the unbelievers. The people in the church that have supposedly accepted this message will be different. I'll totally have their support. Then I started to serve in the church and again it hit me like a ton of bricks. At the time I volunteered for no pay to serve in the Youth Ministry. The commitment along with others on my team entailed: Sunday morning Sunday school, Sunday night discipleship group, Wednesday night Youth Group, weekly staff meetings, monthly youth activities and two retreats each year.

Many of the parents and students were great. Yet some of the attitudes from the kids and expectations from the parents were enough to make me contemplate throwing in the towel on several occasions. It's hard when you get bit by the mouths you are trying to feed! And it's especially hard when the criticisms are coming from people doing nothing or close to nothing themselves in the church. Yet what encouraged me when I studied my Bible were all the verses where our Lord predicted this would happen to His followers and then followed them with encouragement to persevere.

If you have genuinely served people, you know exactly what I am talking about. And that is why Paul bookends this section on Gospel ministry in both verse 1 and verse 16 with the words, "We do not lose heart."

So why don't we lose heart? Because we need to try harder? Sometimes. Because we need to chalk it up that there are always inconsiderate and insensitive and ungrateful people out there? True. Because we have a job to do? Kind of. The primary reason we do not lose heart is theological, and it is covered right here in 2 Corinthians.

We do not lose heart because Almighty God has promised His people a New Covenant. Every promise of His is fulfilled in Christ. We have been given the Holy Spirit for assistance. We know the ministry He has entrusted to us to share the Gospel and serve His people is a blessed gift of His grace. We live in the presence of the Lord, and as we grow in Christ we learn to be more patient and forgiving and kind to others. Therefore as we minister in His strength, according to His calling, for the glory of His name, from the overflow of His grace we extend mercy to others (4:1). This is the same mercy we have received from Him. So we do not lose heart in this blessed privilege, knowing that as God is using us in the ministry to others, He is also using the tough times in the ministry as part of His own ministry to us to forever make us more like Christ. That is a resolute heart, and I have a lot of room to grow in this area.

3. Gospel Personification (4:2)

So Gospel Transformation - we minister out of a relationship with Christ. Gospel Resolution - we are prepared for heartaches and thus do not lose heart. And now, point 3, Gospel Personification - we exemplify and model Christ in our ministry to others.

Let's look at verse 2. Paul in the context is directly contrasting his ministry and that of the false teachers. As Jesus told us, you will be able to identify true and false teachers by their fruits. In other words, our character will reveal the true God or the false god that we serve. So how does this Corinthian church know which teacher to follow? Should they follow Paul or those discrediting his ministry? They had two opposing choices. The choice, Paul says here, is based on the teacher's integrity. The same applies to us in both evaluating ministers and being a minister ourselves. Our lives should and will personify the Gospel we are proclaiming.

First in verse 2 we read, "We have renounced the things hidden because of shame." I believe this statement is general, overarching the other three to follow in verse 2.

Paul is saying his life is blameless. There is nothing hidden in his life that he would feel embarrassed or ashamed of if it were exposed. He was not one man at church and then another man in private. He had accountability. Others in his life knew him, asked him the tough questions and were not afraid to call him out on sin. Transparency. There was no hypocrisy. No duplicity. No contradiction between his teaching and his conduct.

Unlike the false teachers, he personally renounced all the shameful things that many do under a cover and desperately attempt to hide from others. There was nothing in his life that if exposed would discredit his ministry. His conscience was pure before God who is fully capable of examining his heart. God is holy and He expects those who minister in His name to be holy vessels devoted to His glory. True for me. True for you as well.

Specifically verse 2 says he was "not walking in craftiness." Craftiness is the desire to use trickery to deceive others into ultimately getting what you want. Craftiness in ministry, it happened then and it still happens today.

So we want to see more people come to the church. We'll preach an unbiblical watered-down message. The Bible calls it "tickling ears." We'll put fifty-dollar bills under select seats. We'll do a 50-50 with the offertory. We'll put a keg of beer next to the coffee machine in the fellowship room. We'll manipulate people with smooth talking, mind-numbing music and laser light shows. The end product is noble, but the means to get people here and get them to participate are crafty.

Sometimes you have just the opposite - solid means that result in crafty end results. There is oftentimes the desire to use God through good means for the ultimate goal of self-interest: Making money, elevating popularity or gaining power.

Sometimes, and the television airwaves are filled with them, you have craftiness across the board - unbiblical means used to achieve unbiblical ends.

"Craftiness" is the same word Paul will go on to use in 11:3 of Satan in his deception of Eve in the Garden. Satan is crafty. God's people who do ministry in His name are not crafty. Pure motives. Pure lifestyles. God's directives done in God's strength desiring God's glory.

Next verse 2 also tells us God's true servants are not "adulterating the word of God." What this means is that they are not manipulating Scripture to make it say what they want it to say, to achieve their own purposes. Twisting Scripture. Misquoting Scripture. Omitting parts of Scripture. Wrongly interpreting Scripture. Taking Scripture out of context. For what reasons? A desire to be clever. A personal hobby-horse or agenda (we used to call then "one-trick ponies"). A pursuit to be popular. A fear to offend. A disregard to understand the text. A longing to make things more acceptable or relevant.

I've always held to two principles that have helped me in this area. One is the consistent reminder to you that you must examine everything I preach with the Word of God. The only reason you should accept what I say is because you personally believe that the Scriptures fully affirm it. That's why you bring your Bibles and I keep referring you to your Bibles when I preach. And two, I believe with all my heart that there are no contradictions in the Word of God. And since there are no contradictions, I will eventually back myself in a corner if I fail to preach the truth, because if I preach falsehood, something sooner or later on in another sermon will contradict it!

So adulterating the Word of God takes Scripture, preaches a message not from God, claims it is from God and then uses the result to further not God's agenda, but the person's agenda. That is why it is called Scriptural adultery.

By way of contrast to the false teachers, as we see in the end of verse 2, Paul claims he is both honest with himself and honest with the Scriptures. He says he is "by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God."

Because Paul's conscience was so clear, he could boldly commend his life to the conscience of those he ministered to. Yet as this verse declares, his ultimate concern was a pure heart "in the sight of God" who knows and sees all and can never be fooled. In other words, his life was an open book, horizontally before others and vertically before the Lord. And regardless of what people chose to do with his "manifestation of truth," his life did not detract from his message, but only sought to adorn the message he proclaimed in the ministry where he served.

By God's grace we'll definitely seek to wrap this up next week. But what have we covered so far? Lives transformed by the Gospel will minister the Gospel through sharing and serving. They have resolved not to lose heart in the ever-present struggles of ministry. And when they minister, they display the heart and character of God, in the sight of God and people, to honor God in their ministry and model what they are proclaiming to teach.

 

More in 2 Corinthians

March 8, 2015

Optimistic Admonitions

March 1, 2015

Severity In Weakness

February 22, 2015

Signs, Sacrifice, and Sorrow