Read 2 Corinthians 11
Let’s catch a little from Paul at the beginning of the
chapter.
I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness.
Yes, please put up with me! I am jealous
for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one
husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived
by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your
sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For
if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached,
or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a
different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
What’s this foolishness business that Paul is talking
about? It’s this whole Paul is not as
good as others. He didn’t walk with Jesus. He is not a super apostle.
We have talked about this before, and Paul’s direction to
the church in Corinth was just Don’t play that game. Paul’s counsel to
himself might have come anachronistically from Winston Churchill, who might put
the counsel in these terms. You won’t get anywhere if you stop to throw
rocks at every dog that barks at you.
The counsel to us? You are in the good news business. You
are to bring glory to God. You are to be holy as God is holy. You are to be
known as followers of Jesus by your love.
Paul was talking to the church at Corinth, and he is
talking to us. It’s the Hebrews 12 message—eyes fixed on Jesus.
Sometimes the attacks were against Paul himself, the ad
hominem strategy often used when the facts and logic don’t support your
position or cause, but in this chapter, Paul shifts the focus of what he calls
foolishness to the vulnerability of these relatively new believers.
Had he been writing to the churches in Galatia, he might
have said you were running a good race, who cut you off? What’s he
talking about?
He doesn’t specify much here, but from his other
epistles, we can presume that he is talking mostly about the Judaizers.
There is one God. There is one Christ. There is one
Spirit. There is one gospel. There is one way to the Father.
If anyone preaches anything else, they are full of horse
hockey! I’m not talking about equestrian ice sports. I am talking skubalon!
But you wouldn’t be the first to be deceived. He recounts
the story of Adam and Eve and the minimal effort that the serpent had to put
forth to get Eve to rely on her own understanding.
We humans are vulnerable to things that should not make
sense to the sound and sober mind. Paul uses an analogy that he also used with the
Ephesians, Christ and the church as Husband and wife.
You were promised to one husband. It might be hard for
the guys to get in tune with this analogy, but don’t be afraid. It’s
metaphorical not allegorical. Try this. Don’t be two-timing the Lord. That’s our
motivation. The term is fidelity.
We are motivated to please our Lord and be faithful to
him, but motivation doesn’t get us to the goal. It might get us started, but it cannot finish the work.
What gets us there? Discipline.
You might think that is just modern leadership wisdom,
and it is, but it is in concert with the concept of discipleship.
Discipline is to follow a course for efficacy.
Disciples follow a leader and put his words into
practice. For a disciple to achieve the desired results of becoming more like
his teacher—his rabbi if you will—he must have discipline.
Motivation is great for getting you started. Discipline
stays the course. Discipline moves you closer to the goal. Discipline corrects
you when you veer from the course.
And discipline, I dare say, promotes passion.
Motivation: I want to please God.
Discipline: I take this step to draw nearer to God and my
goal of pleasing him, whether I feel like it or not.
Passion: I love it when I sacrifice, face resistance, get slapped on the back of the head, stumble,
and get back up and press on towards the goal. I can’t think of what life was like
before I was compelled to bring glory to God with every step, even my missteps,
when I am strong and especially when I am weak.
More on that in the next service.
Passion, purpose, and pressing on toward the goal are more than alliterative. They please God because we continue in steps big and
small, and even some repeated, towards the goal we have been given by our Lord
and Master.
And here’s the thing, you can’t get me off course. You
can’t sell me a bill of goods.
In the context of Corinth, I’m not falling for the
serpent’s ploy to use my own understanding against me, so I steer off the godly,
Christ-centered, Christ-anchored course set for me.
For us, there is but one name by which we may be saved.
There is one gospel and one Spirit of God. We have one Master, one Lord, and
one Teacher.
But there is so much more stuff out there these days, and
the marketing strategies are both bold and subtle.
I read a post a while back. I knew the person. It dealt
with addiction and faith. It went something like this.
I am thankful for God and the scriptures that got me
through my addiction and into recovery, but now it’s time to move on to
something more. I need to see what else is out there.
Was your husband with you through this time? I knew he was, so I crafted this
statement in parallel to the post. I did not post it. Those are personal
conversations, not public discussions. Here goes.
I am thankful to my husband, who stood by me through my
addiction and into my recovery, but now it’s time to move on and see who else
is out there for me.
Ouch! I thought my comparison with discipleship and
discipline was on target. It leads to efficacy. But it also led me to Paul’s statement
once again.
I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might
present you as a pure virgin to him.
Think about your husband or wife telling you they were
mostly faithful. What’s a good percentage?
How about eighty percent? Ninety percent? Ninety-nine percent?
Fidelity means all in. We are all in
following Jesus. We are all in on the one true gospel. We are all in
as belonging wholly to the Lord.
Don’t be fooled. Salvation is in Christ alone. We will
fall short. We are weak in so many ways, but we had better be faithful to the Lord
and his word.
As Peter said when so many turned away from the Lord and
he asked the twelve, “Do you want to go too?”
Where
would we go, Lord. You have the words of life.
So, what do we in this body do in this time? The answer comes via the letter of our Lord
to the First Century church in Ephesus.
You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height
from which you have fallen and repent. Do the things that you did at
first.
Don’t be fooled by false gospels, concocted doctrine,
cunning, and deceit. Be faithful to your one and only husband, who is the Lord.
Do the things that you did when you first fell in love
with your Savior. Don’t go two-timing
the Lord. Stick to the gospel not what
is trending.
Stick to the gospel!
Amen.
