Aim for Holiness

 

Read 2 Corinthians 7

If P, then Q.  Who remembers conditional statements from algebra or geometry? You can make truth tables and all sorts of cool stuff.

Back in the 90s, I took my first computer class. I was self-taught up to then, and there wasn’t a whole bunch to learn back then. Then I took a computer class at Drake University.

It taught me a lot. I loved the Word program. I graduated OSU in a degree with a lot of papers to write, and I wrote them on a manual Olivetti typewriter.

When I got to try a word processor a few years after I graduated, I thought I was in heaven. The thing was bigger than a refrigerator and all it did was word processing, but my language improved immensely as I didn’t have to start over after three mistakes. I just backspaced and retyped it.

Some years later, in this class at Drake, I was introduced to a relatively new software called Excel. It’s commonplace now, but it was cutting-edge back in the day. Nevertheless, I was underwhelmed. I wasn’t a numbers guy.

Then I discovered that Excel did conditional statements. If condition one is true or meets a specified criterion, you get condition two. Formulas use alpha designators instead of conditions one and two, but you get the idea.

You could imbed conditional statements inside of each other. That’s some fun stuff there. Or, it might just be me, but don’t we all like to get through the week and instead of going out on the town like we once did, we settle into our homes on Friday evenings and do conditional statements.

That’s how Paul started this part of this letter. Condition one is that we have these promises and that should produce condition two in us.  What?

We are promised life, abundant life, and eternal life in Christ Jesus. We are promised more, but these are three big ones.

Therefore, we should live holy lives. Holy means set apart for God. Our lives should be given entirely to God.

Our lives going forward from our professions of faith should not be tainted or tarnished by the ways of the world. It should be a no-brainer.

God gave you life—a full life—and the promise of eternal life—a promise we know to be true because it’s from God. Paul notes that alone should be enough for us to sing: Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe every day of our lives.

You shouldn’t need a moving sermon.

You don’t need a sign from God. We have all we need in this gift of life and the faith that God gave to each of us. We have what we need.

We don’t need a Blood Moon, a Hunter’s Moon, or a Moonpie to get us in the right frame of mind.

We love God because he first loved us. His love manifests to us in the life, death, blood, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. That should be enough for us to live fully for God.

And yet, it is a challenge for us. It should be a conditional statement without variation. God loves us. We love him back by being holy and untainted by the world.

We are his. That should be an unqualified statement—no conditions and no exceptions; yet, we continue to miss the mark. We still fall short.

What is it with you people! Other pastors don’t have to contend with this. Their congregations are set apart entirely for God. They don’t give in to their own understandings.

Well, maybe some do. OK, they all do as do their pastors and your pastor. We all fall short. We all miss the mark. We all transgress.

I bet that God wished he had known this about us before creation. I am quite certain that he did, and he made us anyway. He loved us anyway. He still loves us and keeps on loving us.

He knew that we would struggle. We wouldn’t always hit the target dead center. Sometimes, we miss it altogether. We struggle.

Struggle is part of life.

Look at the calf or the deer when it’s first born. It struggles to stand.

Look at the vegetation in nature. Everything struggles to get water and nutrients out of the ground and sunlight from above, except what grows in the parking lot cracks. That stuff doesn’t struggle. It thrives and would keep growing through a nuclear winter.

Look at the human child transitioning from crawling to walking. Learning to crawl was challenging, but the struggle in learning to walk is more pronounced. We all struggle.

Struggle is a part of life, but for Christians, we have a target to aim for—a target that we want to hit. We want to be holy as God is holy. That’s a holy target.

We can’t hit it every time, yet. I am confident that in the life to come, we will all be wearing those expert badges. But for now, it is a struggle.

You might be thinking. Like I needed a sermon to tell me that I fall short of God’s glory. I know the verse.

The first time that I qualified with a service rifle and pistol, I didn’t shoot expert. That was disappointing, so I threw in the towel.

No, I didn’t. I kept working on hitting the target every time until what I wore on my chest read double expert. That’s the only standard that was acceptable.

Condition one was that I was a Marine officer. Therefore, condition two must be that I could hit what I aimed at. It didn’t happen right away, but it happened.

The message isn’t that we fall short. It is that we have a target. That target is holiness. We can only hit it through life in Christ and even then, it is a struggle.

But it is still our target.  Holiness is still our target.

Holiness is our target!

Will we throw in the towel or keep aiming for the target?

Jesus made us right with God. Will we continue to aim for the holiness that we have been given without struggle?

The gift is salvation. The struggle is our discipleship. Condition one is that we are saved by the grace of God and have life, life abundant, and life eternal.

Condition two is our target, which is holiness. Can you keep your sights fixed on the target? Can you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus?

It’s a simple dichotomy. Throw in the towel on this discipleship business or keep aiming for the target of holiness?

Paul gives us a bunch of dichotomies.

·       Away from the body, with the Lord.

·       We are a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come.

·       Focus on what is unseen, not the things of the world that are seen.

·       Seeing is believing or believing is seeing?

·       By faith, not sight.

Now we get one for our modern age. Throw in the towel or pursue holiness?

You know the choice we are called to make so that we may grow in God’s grace. Just in case you don’t, it’s to pursue holiness.

Amen.

Sorrowful Repentance for the Believer

 

Read 2 Corinthians 7

Why do bad things happen to good people?

That’s the question that people have struggled with since the time of Job, likely earlier than that.

And we answer, “It’s a broken world.” We retort, “Sin is still at work in the world.”

We postulate our godly theorems to address the why of everything, and come up short every time.

We have dissonance when we think of a perfect God and a broken world and wonder why he doesn’t fix it. I want to be with God and like God in so many ways, but we live in this world and much of it does not live God’s way.

God says that I am his, but I feel like I belong to this world. It’s got its hooks in me, for sure. Why can’t the Christian be free of the world?

Why are we not set free?

But we are. And this is where the preacher steps on toes. We like the bondage of the world. Just as the Hebrew people complained to Moses that life was better back in Egypt, we hold on to and long for our old ways.

We are made new. The old has gone. The new has come. You know these words, but it seems so hard to live them.

We still hold on to the old self—the person that we were. We won’t let go. We try to make the old me fit into the godly new me and it doesn’t work, but we keep trying.

You know what’s easy to let go of? An electric fence. We have all touched an electric fence, got the little shock, and pulled our finger back. But have you ever grabbed the fence wire while it’s hot?

That takes a little more effort but you sure let go and don’t want to grab it again. It’s the same voltage either way but you feel the sting when you are holding on and there is no doubt that you want to let go.

Paul said that he wrote the church body in Corinth and chastised them in many ways. He didn’t want to, but it was necessary.

Paul didn’t want to lose the sense of fellowship that he had with this body of believers, but he couldn’t short change them either.  He had to do what he coined as speaking the truth in love when he wrote to the Ephesians.

Paul had to speak the truth in love, and it hurt him a little to have to say what he said, but Paul didn’t opt out of difficult tasks. He now told the Corinthians that he had to bring them to this sadness, this sorrow, this state of being that was ready to repent.

These were believers who had repented. They were saved, but their discipleship was lacking, and Paul could not ignore it. Love demanded that he address many issues.

This hurt the Corinthians. They knew Paul. They enjoyed Paul. They loved Paul, but now they had come to a point where truth was essential, and the truth might hurt a little. It did and it did its work.

Paul noted that Titus validated all of this. The Corinthian believers were wonderful people who sought God. They messed up a bunch, but they never gave up. Paul’s words were hard to receive, but they were received.

Paul’s words were hard to send, but he sent them, and the godly sorrow of the Corinthian believers brought about repentance. This is not the repentance that precedes salvation. This is a daily repentance where we measure ourselves against what God expects of us now that we have been saved from sin and death.

Perhaps Paul should write a few letters to the churches in America. We could use some stern counsel, but Paul finished his race and has his crown. I keep checking the mail and email, but no letter.

What do we do? Let’s try God’s word.

·       God’s words seem to be alive.

·       His word is more powerful than the best sword.

·       It can divide that which is spiritual and that which is physical.

·       It will cause us to examine ourselves as nobody else can.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, capable of dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

The word of God can bring us to sorrowful repentance. Sometimes, that is what we need because our comfort zones are so comfortable that we don’t even recognize they are present.

We are not getting a letter from Paul. We have more than just Paul’s letters. Everyone here has access to the word of God. It is available to you 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

Here’s the question. Will we let it do its work?

Will we let it do its work?

God has completed us. We are whole, complete, and reconciled to God. He did all of this.

Don’t you think we could look in that spiritual mirror which is the word of God and receive its counsel, even if it chastises us much of the time.

We celebrate because God has rescued us, but from time to time, we need to revisit repentance, not to be saved but to fully live and to bring glory to God.

We are more than conquerors, but we still need humility for none of us truly have attained a life lived completely in love.

Sometimes there must be something introduced into our comfort zones to bring us to our knees so that only God can pick us up again.

Sometimes, the blessing of life is forgotten until we lose someone or someone is seriously hurt. Sometimes there must be trouble and hurt to get us out of our comfort zones.

James tells us to celebrate our trials.

Jesus told us that if we go through trials because we follow him, we are in league with the prophets.

Why do bad things happen to good people? I don’t have an all-encompassing answer, but add this one to your list.

Sometimes, it takes sorrowful repentance to wake us up and refocus us on Jesus.

So what do I take home from this?

·       Don’t get too comfortable in your discipleship.

·       Don’t check the mailbox for a letter from Paul. Read the text from God.

·       Quit fighting the new creature that you are now. Be transformed. That begins in the mind and manifests itself in action.

What do I do?

·       Let the word of God examine you.

·       Embrace sorrowful repentance.

·       Celebrate that the truth will set you free so don’t be afraid. Don’t be anxious.

What do I get?

·       Grow in grace.

·       Look more like our Master.

·       A preview of standing before the Judgment Seat of Christ.

But what will I do? And I return to a familiar thought.

The curse of modern Christianity is to acknowledge God, acknowledge Jesus died for our sins, and acknowledge that the Spirit lives within us, and then live unchanged lives because we hold our own understanding in such high esteem.

Will we remain unchanged even in the light of the blessings and promises we know in Christ Jesus?

Will we quit fitting Jesus into our comfort zones and let sorrowful repentance do its work?

Let the word of God do its work. It is better to do that now than wait until we stand before Jesus.

Amen.

Leviticus in Paul's Second Letter to Corinth

 

Read 2 Corinthians 6   

 Anyone remember the message of Leviticus?  Don’t do anything that will get you stoned. That’s one way to say it, but let’s go with: Be holy became I am holy.

Be holy. That’s our model.  Why is it our model? Because we model our lives after God and his standards.

Christ changed a lot, but he didn’t change that. We are still to be holy as God is holy.

We are set apart by God for God’s hands to do the work of the potter and for us to return to the lost world with good news. We are set apart.

Paul’s words should not surprise us. He took some of them from the prophet Isaiah.

For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will live with them

    and walk among them,

and I will be their God,

    and they will be my people.”

Therefore,

“Come out from them

    and be separate,

says the Lord.

Touch no unclean thing,

    and I will receive you.”

And,

“I will be a Father to you,

    and you will be my sons and daughters,

says the Lord Almighty.”

 

The church—the ekklésia—is called out of the world by God, set apart by God for his work, and sent back into the world to do that work.

We don’t go to church. We are the church and the church is to be holy as God is holy.

In the midst of our searching for answers to what’s happening in our lives, we sometimes forget the mission. We are to bring the lost to Christ and to bring glory to God.

We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Our eternal life resides in a relationship with God through Christ.

We are on a mission from God.

Why does the preacher keep on preaching this?  We can’t say “Mission Accomplished” just yet.  There is still much to be done and we are the ones God chose to do it.

I will conclude both services this way. Please stand and receive you commission anew.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

You have been set apart, made holy by God, and sent back into this world as the commissioned of the Lord.  We’ve got work to do.

Amen.

Grist for the Mill

 

Read 2 Corinthians 6   

It’s almost like six chapters into this letter, Paul felt the urge to answer the question: Sup? What’s up? What’s happening?

This is Paul’s take on the question: What’s up?

We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. The next sentence goes on for 6 verses. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way:

·        in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses;

·       in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger;

·       in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love;

·       in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;

·       through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors;

·       known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed;

·       sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

In the writing and perhaps the ministry worlds, this is called grist for the mill. Everything that happens to us is somehow incorporated into the fruit that we produce. Good, bad, happy, sad, mean, nice, boring, and exciting—it’s all grist for the mill.

Paul suffered for Christ, for the sake of the gospel, yet he rejoiced at the same time. He was on a mission from God, full of hardships and victories.

What kept Paul going?  This was the time of God’s favor. This was the day of salvation. This was the time for action.

For every hardship that Paul encountered, he pressed on towards the goal.

For every victory he celebrated, the celebration was short-lived, for this was the time for men and women to be saved. Celebration would come later. The harvest was before Paul.

This was the time for the separation of the godly from the ungodly. This was the time for the church—those called out of the world by God, set apart for his holy purpose, and sent back into the world with good news.

Without catching his breath, Paul dives into counsel of marriage.

Paul noted that believers and unbelievers should not be yoked together. The believer and the pagan should not be married. If they already were when this good news was received by one of the couple, Paul gives other instructions elsewhere. In the future, stick to the dating apps for believers.

Light and darkness don’t mix. Neither do good and evil. God doesn’t hang out with Satan at the end of the workday. Your spouse should come from the body of believers.

The message of this short chapter is the time is now. This is the time of the Lord’s favor. This is the time to be saved. This is the time to take the yoke of our Master.

Paul said the best argument that I can give is our ministry, our lives. When it’s bad, it’s really bad but we press on.

When it’s good, we pause only for the moment to catch our breath and some encouragement and then back to our race of faith.

Why such persistence and perseverance? You have taken the gospel to so many already. Why must you press on?

Now is the time.

As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says,

“In the time of my favor I heard you,

    and in the day of salvation I helped you.”

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.

That was two thousand years ago. So, what about now?

Now is still the time. The Lord is not slow in coming as we frame slowness in our minds. He desires all to come to repentance and to know him as Lord.

This time we live in is still the time of the Lord’s favor. People may still repent. People may still cross over from death to life. This is still the day of salvation.

We have the same marching orders that Paul did. Take the good news to a lost world. We today, are perhaps better served by Paul’s counsel than the letter’s original readers.

Paul met difficulty, but pressed on.

Paul celebrated victories, but not for long. There was work to be done.

Paul was an overcomer, not because he was extra tough. He didn’t do a tour with the Roman Legions. He overcame because God set him upon this mission.

We have also been given missions and commissions. Do we press on when things are difficult, or do we become snowflakes?

Once upon a time, I didn’t use the word snowflake. I thought it was a bit harsh, but the more I saw people throw in the towel without really trying…

Let’s just say, the word grew on me.

We are to be overcomers, not because of our own strength but because God himself empowers us for his work.

The work has urgency because the time of salvation is now and we don’t know when the clock will run out on us. Those of us who have the Lord have assurance, but so many do not know him.

That’s where we come in.

Whatever comes at us—good, bad, ugly—is just grist for the mill, and the mill produces witness and testimony.

Whatever life has put you through becomes part of your testimony to other believers—who do need encouragement—and part of your witness to the unbelieving world.

You have the same story to tell that every Christian has had for two millennia, but you have your unique story of salvation, discipleship, and response to God’s love to share with others.

It’s the same mission.

It’s the same commission.

It’s the same story.

Your unique life experience will reach someone and prepare them for the Holy Spirit that will follow.

Your hardships have purpose. Your victories have purpose. Your times of solitude have purpose. Your trust in the Lord when it would have been so much easier to just go with the flow says that you can do what God has called you—called us all to do.

This is the time of the Lord’s Favor! This is the time of salvation!

Now, stand and be blessed once again by your commission.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Everything that happens to us is grist for the mill. Take your life experience and your commission from God and go make disciples.

This is the time of the Lord’s favor. This is the time of salvation.

Amen.

We no longer live for ourselves.

 

Read 2 Corinthians 5

Let’s look at verse 15.

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

OK, we get this part. Christ died for all. It’s a gift. We didn’t do anything to earn it or deserve it. It is a one-hundred-percent gift. We know that.

People just need to turn away from the world and turn to God and receive the gift to be saved. We get it.

But what about the second part of the verse? Do you remember what it said?

We should no longer live for ourselves but for Christ himself. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. That’s the thinking here.

It is very familiar to other things that you have heard from Paul and others.  Live a life worthy of the calling that you received.

How many times have you heard me ask you, usually in the context of the Parable of the talents, what did you do with what God gave you.

Everything that we do must put God first. Everything!

How could we do that? We would never get anything done. On the contrary, your life would be full. You would be rested. You would know the peace of the Lord.

You wake up and your mind goes immediately to thanking God for the day.

You head to work or school and think about how to glorify God as you teach, learn, or make sandwiches.

People who cross your path are not nuisances. They are opportunities to show God’s love.

It’s a challenge for a while. Going from, I really want to have a good day to I really want to bring glory to God by loving others.

In the course of serving God by loving others, we end up having a good day after all, even if it was nothing like we thought it would be.

When we get into this mindset, it helps us with the dichotomy that Paul gave the Corinthians. Do you want to be serving Christ in these bodies in the here and now, or do you want to be with him in his heavenly kingdom?

Of course, I want to be with God now, well, except that I just got back from camp and am on fire and want to serve the Lord with all that I am.

That is our disposition. Elsewhere, Paul would call this a win-win scenario.

If I am in the body, I am giving myself fully to the work of the Lord, even if my paycheck comes from Bar-S or the Ford Dealership.

If it’s my time, then it’s time to be with the Lord in heaven. Celebrate, Jesus, Celebrate.

To live is Christ. To die is gain. But that’s only if you chose to live for the Lord and not yourself in response to his gift of life, life abundant, and life eternal.

It’s sort of like the well-timed pass in football where the receiver catches the ball in stride. The defender is all over him but the pass is so perfect that the receiver never breaks stride and the ball is six inches beyond the reach of the defender.

One moment, he is a potential receiver. The next, he is a ball carrier 30 yards down the field.

One moment, we are running our race and serving the Lord. The next we are with him. It’s a good deal.

We don’t really give up anything of eternal value by living for Christ in the here and now.

Live a life worthy of the calling that you have received. Respond to this great gift of salvation by putting our Master’s words into practice.

Know that Christ has prepared a place for you with him for eternity. Run your race with your eyes fixed on Jesus for however many days you have life in your body. It’s a win-win.

Amen.

 

By Faith, Not Sight

 

Read 2 Corinthians 5

This may be one of the toughest chapters for me to preach. It’s not that the concepts are difficult. They are not. In fact, the theology here is very much within our grasp.

It is difficult for me for the same reason that Romans 8 is. It is jammed packed with what I will call golden nuggets—phrases that are full of rich teaching, some even proverbial .  For instance:

To be at home in the body is to be away from the Lord. To live is Christ. To die is gain. We know the concept. While we are on this earth, we fulfill our commissions, learn from our Master, and are known by our love. When we die, it is celebration time.

Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. You old people out there and yes, it was a shock to find out that I am the same age as old people, do you remember deposits on Coke bottles?

When I was a kid and saw a glass bottle that used to contain a soft drink, I saw potential income. I would collect the bottles, put them in my little red wagon, and walk the two or three blocks to the neighborhood store and cash in. If my load was big enough, sometimes I got folding money.

I even gathered up Coke bottles in high school and threw them in the back of the car or truck I was driving. They were the promise of gas money.

The Holy Spirit is our deposit from God, guaranteeing that his promises are true.

We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ. That’s gravitas right there. That is a solemn realization that though I am saved in the blood of Jesus, I will still stand before him and be judged for how I lived once he took away my sin. What did I do with what he gave me?

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. And in a similar vein we receive these words. We are to live a life worthy of the calling that we have received.

So, from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. That is a challenge. For as long as we exist in these bodies, our nature is to see people from a worldly perspective instead of someone made in the image of our Creator. That’s a big paradigm shift for most folks, and some never get there while we remain in these jars of clay.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! This is one of the biggest challenges in Paul’s writings. Regarding others from Christ’s perspective is tough. Regarding ourselves as a new creature, that’s even tougher.

We look in the mirror and see the same person that was looking back yesterday. For all the physical indicators that we have, we are the same.

But, that’s not the message that accompanies the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We are made as one who has never sinned, even though we did and we still do to some extent.

But if we are to grow, we must see the new creature. If God can speak creation into existence, call it good, and even very good, how can he not bring righteousness to our lives in the blood of Christ Jesus?

We need to see all who have called upon the name of Jesus, including ourselves, as new creatures who desire to bring glory to God.

We are Christ’s Ambassadors. What is an ambassador? It’s someone who represents his or her nation at the highest level, but lives in another country. Where they serve is not their home.

When I was assigned to the United Nations at the end of the First Gulf War, I was the senior Marine in Iraq, maybe Kuwait as well. I went through all sorts of training before I went to the big sandbox, but the one piece of counsel that I received before I left was this: “Don’t go native.”

What did that mean? Never forget where you came from and who you represent. It’s the same for us. We are Christ’s ambassadors. Christ is the image of the invisible God, and we are Christ’s ambassadors. People will know Jesus through us.

We don’t go native and abandon the ways of God for the ways of the world.

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This is an old self—new self conversation.

God did everything required to save you from sin and death. He did it all.  We are to live up to the right standing granted to us in the blood of Jesus.

Quit trying to live by, seek satisfaction in, and glorify the things that we said we turned away from. Be the new creature you are.

There are so many golden nuggets in this chapter, and there is much in between them that are harder to package as nuggets but still of great value.

But I skipped a big one. Some of you who read your Bibles frequently have been waiting for it.

We walk by faith, not sight. We live by faith, not sight. We live a whole bunch not by what is seen but by what is unseen. What is seen is of the world and what is unseen is what is to come.

The world teaches that seeing is believing. We know that believing is seeing. What do we see that the world does not?

We see the promises of God as if they had already been fulfilled. In God’s realm they have.

In spite of daily evidence to the contrary, we see the work in progress as the completed product, whether in others or ourselves. God has finished the work.

In spite of some of the boneheaded things that we do, know that God’s Spirit is living in us and is a deposit on what is to come.

In spite of being saved by grace in the blood of Jesus, we know that we will all answer to him for how we have responded to this wonderful gift of life in Christ.

In spite of looking very much like the person who never professed Christ, we are a new creature.

In spite of living in this world, this world is not our home. Our home is with God and our room has been prepared.

In spite of what seems to be evidence to the contrary, we are being made in the image of God, in the image of Christ.

In spite of what seems to be evidence to the contrary, we are growing in God’s grace.

In spite of what seems to be evidence to the contrary, we have been made complete in Christ. We can only see the brokenness now, but God finishes what he starts.

In spite of a budget that seems to get tighter and tighter, we have done the work of the Lord with an abundant spirit most of the time.

In spite of a world that is always selling fear, and it’s always on sale, we are not afraid and we are not discouraged. We are strong and courageous.

In spite of cancer, strokes, joint replacements, serious accidents,  and other ailments and afflictions, we know that in the blood of Jesus we are healed.

In spite of the world coming at us from all directions, and I will go back a chapter for that verbiage:

·       Hard pressed but not crushed.

·       Perplexed but not in despair.

·       Persecuted but not abandoned.

·       Struck down but not destroyed.

In spite of the trouble we have in the world, our hope and peace reside in the One who has overcome the world. Every promise of God is yes in Christ Jesus.

The world says that seeing is believing. We know that believing is seeing.

We walk by faith, not sight.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. We live by faith, not sight.

Amen.

 

What is seen is temporary. What is unseen is eternal.

 

Read 2 Corinthians 4

I will touch on a little at the end of the chapter.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

How many can identify with outwardly, we are wasting away, and I don’t mean my waistline. That sucker doesn’t give an inch.

Our aches and pains,  our signs of age, our weather predicting parts of our body tell us we ain’t what we used to be.

It’s not just the old people's pains. This world takes plenty of shots at us. We have jobs, and then we don’t. Our money goes a long way, and then it doesn’t. Family relationships are good, and then they are not.I got my body in top shape, and then I pulled a muscle.

I read a fair amount about self-improvement and discipline. There is a quote about what you want now (immediate gratification) and what you want most (goals and objectives). It’s about how our daily decisions impact our comfort and achievement.

We reward our comfort zone demands, or we feed our goals. It’s a trade-off, sometimes a significant one.

That’s sort of what Paul is saying. We are suffering now because we won’t back off from the truth, but this course of action that we are set upon will pay eternal dividends.

Speaking the truth can cause you to suffer. We are to speak the truth in a spirit of love, which is a sign of Christian maturity, but the truth may alienate us from being comfortable in the moment.

But how will my friends react if I’m always talking about God’s goodness and glory and redemption, and…

We have been told that we are in good company—the company of the prophets—when we are persecuted for following Jesus. Maybe we should be more concerned about how God will feel if we opt for comfort instead of sharing the truth.

We have heard this from Paul before. I consider this present suffering…

Eye has not seen and ear has not heard what the Lord, God has in store for those who love him.

We sing, when we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing it will be.

The prophet Isaiah tells us that even the young get worn out, but those who wait upon, hope in the Lord will be renewed.

We are repeatedly told that God’s got this. Trust him in your present suffering and see if what is to come isn’t better, even if you have to wait for what is to come after life in these bodies.

So how do we endure our daily trials, aches and pains, hurt over loss, broken relationships, and stuff that just stinks?

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Keep your focus—your thought life—set on things unseen

Think on, meditate on, and be fixed on what is eternal as you go through what seems unbearable. It might seem like a cop-out if anyone still uses that term. But do we believe what we say we believe? Is our life in our circumstances or in the Lord? Is our joy in the world or in the Lord?

We can be stoic and persevere as if the things of this life don’t affect us. You can for a while, but eventually, you must have some release.  You can’t press on relying on your own fortitude to get you through forever. We all have that point where we finally realize that we can’t do it all.

We all need something more. That something more are often the promises of God. We must look beyond what we can see, be they blessings or burdens, to what is promised.

Jesus said that we would have trouble in the world, but to take heart—take courage—for he had overcome the world. We will have trouble, but much of the time, the answers are not in what we see, touch, or feel but in what is promised.

Sometimes we tough out the tough times not because we are tough, but because we trust.

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.

It may look like we are wasting away, and in many ways, we are, but we are not diminished. We grow in our trials when we trust in the Lord.

·       Share the truth.

·       Speak the truth in love.

·       Put his words into practice.

·       Share the gospel.

If that brings us trouble, then so be it. God tells us that it is all worth the trouble and that in comparison to what’s coming, that trouble is not as big as you think it is.

Amen.

 

Rescue Mission

 

Read 2 Corinthians 4

In the last chapter, Paul noted that the Corinthians were letters from Christ. Paul and whatever crew he was leading had their letters of recommendation written in the testimonies of believers who wrote them not with ink and paper but with the Spirit of God on the hearts of men who would receive the message that Jesus is Lord.

The Jews, at least many of them, fought this. Some just rejected it. Some went the extra mile to make trouble for Paul and company and ran them out of many towns and places. The message of hope was not always well received.

There were the followers of Jesus, whom we call Christians by this point, the Jews, and those whom we call pagans, or perhaps Gentiles. That last group either had no gods or bunches of them. If you caught the closeout sale on Prime Day just right, you can get a buy one god, get two free special every once in a while.

For the purpose of this chapter, Paul divides the world into two groups: those who have eyes to see and the blind. Some have seen the truth and profess Jesus as Lord. Satan has blinded others and they cannot see the truth.

Those who are blind probably entertained thoughts of God and might have even listened to a sermon or two about the Son of God, whom we know as Jesus, whom we know as Lord. But they were not moved.

Perhaps they wanted a grand sign. If this God they keep talking about actually made everything and parted the Red Sea and brought this man Jesus back from the dead, then I want to see a mountain or two moved in my neighborhood.

Those are the questions one asks if one's mind has been given over to Satan. They are blind to the blessing of life. They are blind to the miracle of creation and life itself. They are blind to the truth which is evidenced all around them.

The message of salvation and truth was to be delivered in human form—in jars of clay. We are the messengers, the letters from Christ, the written invitation to life.

We are the commissioned who take the truth to the world. OBTW—much of that world is blind.

So, to update the SitRep, we have the truth and have eyes to see and lips to proclaim Jesus is Lord. We have a mission to go into the world with the gospel.

The world—at least much of it—is blind to the truth and is perishing. We are commissioned, but what sort of mission have we been given?

So, what sort of mission are we on?

We are not sent into the world to destroy the enemy. It’s not a combat mission.

We are not sent into the world to gather information about Satan and his plans. It’s not a reconnaissance mission.

It is a rescue mission. We are sent to rescue those who are perishing without the truth.

It’s still an arduous mission. There is nothing easy about it, except committing to it, for how could we not share this most incredible news with everyone?

Knowing what God has done for us in his own blood, how could we not go all in with this mission commission? We are all in, but we know it won’t always be easy.

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

·       Hard pressed but not crushed.

·       Perplexed but not in despair.

·       Persecuted but not abandoned.

·       Struck down but not destroyed.

·       The life of the disciple of Christ Jesus is, well,  it ain’t no picnic.

We carry the death of Jesus with us so that life in him may be revealed to others. Do you ever wonder why Jesus is still on the cross that many Catholics wear?  We know that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father and most of our crosses are empty, but don’t beat up the Catholics too much.

We carry the death of Jesus with us—we are messengers in jars of clay that proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again. We all love salvation. We must be a little more deliberate to remember the price that God paid in his own blood.  We don’t shy away from that part of the story.

We hear a lot of Christians say that they are wrestling with Satan or that Satan is fighting them.

That could be the case, but more than likely we are fighting our sinful nature, our comfort zones, or our habits.

Many are fighting Satan. Many are in a life and death duel with him. Many have surrendered to him. Who? Those without Christ, and in their present state they will perish. They are not equipped to fight him or his schemes. They don’t have the full armor of God to protect them.

We who have Christ are well armed against the enemy. In the name of Jesus, we tell that lowlife to depart from us. We will still have trouble in this world, but seldom are we head-to-head with the Evil One.

Those without Christ are subject to every trick of the enemy.  

We who know and serve the Lord, sometimes may look like we have been put through the wringer, but inwardly we thrive on doing the Lord’s will.

We feel our circumstances, but our circumstances do not govern our disposition. We are always disposed to bring the good news.

We are always ready to complete our mission.

We are always ready to rescue the lost, and those whom we have been sent to rescue are blind. We don’t need to scare them into believing. They are already scared for there is no legitimate hope in their lives.

We can’t do that from the sidelines. We can’t do that with pointing fingers. We can’t do that from the cheap seats.

This brings me to one of my favorite quotes. You know it. It’s from President Teddy Roosevelt, delivered in 1913.

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Paul had been in the arena for sure.

·       Hard pressed but not crushed.

·       Perplexed but not in despair.

·       Persecuted but not abandoned.

·       Struck down but not destroyed.

This incredible gift that we call salvation, life, life abundant, and life eternal is carried by human vessels, by us.

It is a gift of hope and peace, assurance and godly comfort, purpose and mission, and other attributes. It’s a really good gift that we bear.

And it is entrusted to us even when, perhaps especially when, we are hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down, for while we have trouble in the world, we take heart in the One who overcame the world.

The people we reach don’t need to see us in the finest clothes, with polished speech, or coming in a parade of our own righteousness. They need to see regular people who have been transformed into extraordinary ministers of love, who have overcome persecution, suffering, and even our own sinful nature to deliver good news.

We are but jars of clay and still a work in progress, but God chose us for this work.

Others need to see the people of God coming to rescue them from the devil's wiles. We are on a rescue mission and are armed with the truth.

It is an essential mission, and God chose you to complete it. Never approach it capriciously or with a cavalier spirit. This is what we are called to do.

There are many blind people out there who need rescue. If you want to make a difference in the here and now, saddle up! We are headed out on a rescue mission.

Amen.