Well, good evening, everyone. Good to see you tonight. Go back with me to August 1914, the British Imperial Transatlantic or Transantartic expedition, left England under the great leadership of Ernest Strackelton, planned to qualify an article from a basal novetal sea to Macurtor Sound via the South Pole. But the expedition ship endurance was strapped in ice, all of the care of coasts, and drifted for ten months before being crushed in the packed ice. Members of the expedition drifted on ice flows for another five months and finally escaped in lightboats to Elephant Island in the South Settlin Islands where they subsisted on seal meat, penguins and their dogs. Shackelton and five others sailed 800 miles to South Georgia in a little whale boat, leaving the bulk of the team back on Elephant Island, going to get help to rescue them and to bring them home. They journeyed sixteen days across a stretch of dangerous ocean before landing on the southern side of South Georgia. Shackelton and his small crew then made the first cross-signal the island to seek aid. Four months later, after leading four separate release relief expedition, Shackelton succeeded in rescuing his crew from Elephant Island through the entire ordeal, not one of Shackelton's crew of the endurance died. Shackelton is one of the men I like to read about. Not only was he staring the ship endurance, indeed he was a man of endurance. This was his third attempt to reach the South Pole, and he didn't make it. But he was able to rescue his men and bring them back safely to England. And then in 1921 he tried for the fourth time, but by this time he had spent all of his energy and all of his health, and while on pursuit this fourth time he died on board. I would say that this man is a picture of endurance. He is a man who didn't quit. He is the kind of man that you want to follow. Well tonight, in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 1 through 10, we see another man of endurance. But the difference between Shackelton and St. Paul is that Paul knew the Lord, and the endurance that he went through was not something he mustered up on his own. So was that indeed given to him by the indwelling Holy Spirit. So with that thought in mind, turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 1 through 10. While writing this to the church at Corinth, church had given him holy fits, a church full of problems, a church that had false teachers that snuck in and began to plant the seeds of doubt in the minds of these young Christians. The Paul, the man that he was, the shepherd that he was loved his flock. And so he writes, working together with him, then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says in a favorable time, I listen to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry. But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way. By great endurance, underline those three words, or two words great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, slavers, sleepless nights, hunger, viperity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love. By truth will speech in the power of God with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left, through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as imposterous and yet are true, as unknown and yet well known, as dying and behold, we live, as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything. Now I draw your attention to the fact that Paul was continuing what he said in chapter 5. And this is just a side note. This past month we have been taken into the heavenlies on Sunday night, as we've been once again, been introduced of those great grand doctrines of the Bible, regeneration, reconciliation and last Sunday night justification. And if you remember in chapter 5, in verse 18, Paul talks to them about their responsibility. So if you look at this portion of Scripture, we see mainly three things. We see commands for faithful service in verses 1 through 4. And then we see in verses 5 through, or rather 4b to 8a, courage in faithful service. And then knowing what he's just said and looking back, we see here in verses 8 through verse 10, the consequences of faithful service. So with that in mind, going back, we saw in 2 Corinthians 5 that if we have been reconciled to God, then we, that's all of us here, have been given the ministry of reconciliation. Well this is from God who, through Christ, reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. It is a ministry that God has committed to each of us, not just to us elect you. Although Paul was referring to himself, he also included the believers at the church of current. And though this text is speaking to Bruce Cresswell, it is too speaking to the body of Christ Cavanagh Church. Paul says in verse 19, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting us the message of reconciliation. Tonight you and I were on a mission for King Jesus. We are indeed His ambassadors. Paul reminds us of that in verse 20 of chapter 5, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. With that in mind Paul says, working together with Him. Paul gives us two commands, being an ambassador of Jesus Christ. The first one here is in verse 1, and that command is not to receive the grace of God in vain. And the second command is given in verse 3, that we are not to discredit the ministry, the testimony of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Paul says here in verse 1, working together with Him, then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. Now again going back to chapters 3, 4 and 5, Paul is talking about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. To receive the gospel in vain means that our practice does not measure up to our profession as Christians. Paul reminding the folks of who they are in Christ, he then gives them the warning, make sure that your practice measures up to your profession. And that's very important, because as ambassadors we are to represent the King. And so we need to have the mind of the King. We need to have the words of the King in our hearts. Our path is to be walking in the path of holiness. And so he says here, not to receive the gospel of God in vain. Our focus is to be on the Lord and not on self. And then he says in verse 3, the second command, giving no calls for offense in anything that the ministry be not discredited, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God. How do we keep our testimony, our ministry, from being discredited? Well, this is the answer here in verse 3 as well as in verse 4. He says you keep your ministry from being discredited by not giving any calls for offense. That's what he says here in verse 3, but also in verse 4 he tells us that we protect our ministry by being servants. Yes, we are ambassadors, but we are servants, and we are under the leadership of King Jesus. How do we keep our testimony from being discredited? Paul says here by not closing any offense. The Greek word for discredited is used only here in this verse and in chapter 8, verse 20. It means to find fault. It means to blame. You know, we discredit our Lord, our service for Him in simple ways, that we may not be aware of, that we're doing it. We discredit the Lord, our service for the Lord, when we break a promise, when we don't keep our word, when we exploit people for our own benefit, when we are unfaithful in the means of grace, when we become greedy, when we compromise or truth, or we expect to be treated special. So Paul gives these two commands. Number one, that we not treat the gospel in vain, number two, by not discrediting our testimony for the Lord. Now saying that, if that's all he said, you would feel kind of deflated and defeated, maybe feel that you've been beaten up. But Paul takes us now to the thrush of our text, verses 4 through 8. And he opens his heart to us, and he shares with us the trials that have flooded his life, and how he was able to work through them, showing how the Spirit of God sustains him, and gave him the courage that he needed. And so we come to our second thought here, courage in faithful service. And I will take you now to verse 4. He says, but as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way. And now Paul is going to open his heart, and he starts out with the words, by great endurance. And he begins to list different phrases of his ministry. And he begins this list with the singular endurance, qualifying it as great in contrast to all the plural descriptives, which means that great endurance is indeed the heading of all that follows in these verses. Great endurance, yes, that could characterize the Apostle Paul. He could say at the end of his life, I have bought the price, fight, I kept the faith, I finished the course. But notice here, that as he opens his heart, he begins with those two words, great endurance. When commentator said the overarching quality of transparent ministry is great endurance, the overarching quality, we look at Paul and we say he is faithful indeed to the end, the revographer of John Stott, revealed how John Stott sometimes felt regarding ministry. And he said, and I quote, well, the first temptation is to run away, not to give in. What's the word to leave? He goes on to say, I sometimes say, my favorite text is Psalm 55, oh for the wings of a dove that I may flee away, that I may be at rest, so I found there's constant controversy, there's constant battle for the truth, very wearing, oh the Lord bless him with a long life, he lived to be 90 and he too is another example of a faithful man. I look back over 40 plus years in the ministry and though I'm no John Stott, I can certainly enter in into his emotions and his thoughts. I too have contemplated many many times of running away, one of the expressions I picked up in West Virginia is I'd rather get stung by 12 winners than face conflict. Well, thank God for Paul's teaching here, for the example of Godly men like John Stott, but Paul's great endurance is now manifested in the list of trials that is before us. They fall naturally into three groups of three trials. Now, things that faithful Christian, a faithful minister may be expected to endure, and notice if you will, sufferings, trials to endure listed here for us in verse 4 and 5. He says here by great endurance in afflictions, hardships, calamities of that's the first group. He's talking about trials in general, trials that come in his life, trials that come in your life, afflictions. Paul practiced well, the advice, and the reminder that the Savior gave us in John 1633. In this world you will have affliction, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. And one thing that Paul revealed to us in our reading tonight in Romans 8, one thing that he learned that no affliction could separate him from the level of God. Affliction's hardships, all the many hardships that Paul went through, as listed in 2 Corinthians 11, the trials that came his way, the demands that were placed upon him. Their most was his commitment to the preaching of the Word of God, and nothing could stand in the way of that. And then notice the third thing mentioned here in these general afflictions, these stresses. It means straights. Situations of utter perplexity with difficulty which humanly speaking appears to be insolable. But you know what the blessing of being in a straight? You know what the blessing is in being in affliction, and in being in straights? Because being in a straight we realize our weakness is the opportunity for Christ strength and is able to take those things that come our way and know that He is with us through them. He says in 2 Corinthians 12, just 6 chapters over, for the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for when I am weak then I am strong. Well now he takes us from general afflictions to afflictions outside, external afflictions and he lifts three of those, beatings, imprisonments, and two moths. She hears what Derek Redford said in 2 Corinthians 11, 5 times Paul received 39 stripes from the Jews, and three of those he was beaten with rogues. Folks, I remember being spanked when I was a little boy. I probably got a lot of them, by be honest with you, but those spankings were nothing, compared with the beatings that Paul undertook. In fact, remember in Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas were beaten. Well that leads to the second external trial. He went through imprisonments. Remember Paul and Silas was cast into the inner prison and put in stumps. Oh, the indignity of being in prison, but yet that was a part of the trial that Paul went through. And then two moths. Two moths rising out of the malice, malicious heart of the Jews and the Gentiles. Insighting riots and uprisings. Antioch, aconium, Lystra, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephesus, and Jerusalem. Paul was subject to two moths. And now we come to the third group of trials that he went through and you might labor days as self-inflicted sufferings. Tribulations involuntarily endured. First was labor. Paul worked hard in the ministry for the gospel's sake. He spent of himself to get the gospel yet out. And you know what? Paul realized what he was doing. And he writes to us in 1 Corinthians 1558. He says that our labor is non-invain in the Lord. From labor sleepless nights. Would it be times of insomnia or times he voluntarily went without sleep or shorten his hours of rest in order to devote more time to the work of the ministry?
Paul sacrificed sleep for the cause of Christ. And then it says here hunger. He went without meals. I don't think this necessarily is referring to fasting, but he got so involved in the ministry of preaching and helping and coming alongside of people that he put his meals or sign to get the work done. So folks, how did he go through all of these things? How was he able to pull it off? I mean, Paul is human just like you and me. He too can only do so much. Well, that's where we see here. The sufferings that he's just shared with us. Now he brings us to the source of sustaining this time. And that's the spirit's ministry here in chapter 6 and verse 6. Notice here, by purity, knowledge, patience, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, by truthful speech and the power of God, with the weapons of righteousness for the right and for the left through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. Paul tells us here that he was able to endure these trials by the gifts of the indwelling Holy Spirit. You realize tonight, beloved, that we have the comforter, the blessed Holy Spirit, abides within us tonight. The agent that gives us insight to the Word of God that convicts us when we sin, that encourages us when we need to be comforted. And here in verse 6, he shows us that in working of the spirit inside of his heart in his walk of faith. He mentions, again, a list of things he starts out with purity, interesting that this is mentioned first as it's mentioned first in the Beatitudes, blessed or the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And if you see God, you're able then to understand what you need to get done. And he says, purity, by the work of the Spirit of God in his heart, he's able to serve and to labor with a pureness of motive and a pureness of heart, that he wasn't in the ministry to build up a name for himself but to draw attention to himself. He went through those trials, the work of the Spirit of God, and then he says, knowledge. The knowledge here is the knowledge that he has received from both the Word of God and the Spirit of God. He writes in Colossians 2.3 regarding Christ Jesus in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. And for us tonight knowledge is enshrined in this book. It is the Word of God, truth. And then notice the next thing he mentions is that going through these trials that he had patience. Now folks, this word patience here means long suffering. It means patience with difficult people. Do you know difficult people? I do. And probably some of you might think I'm difficult. But you know what? The Lord gave Paul the long suffering to come alongside of difficult people and to carry on the work of God. Do you notice here that patience, knowledge, purity, and now we come to kindness, all fruit of the Spirit? Kindness has always coupled with long suffering. It's the fruit of kindness that helps for us to minister in the midst of difficult places and difficult people. And then he stops there and he highlights the Holy Spirit. The gifts that Paul just mentioned are not just virtues. They're super natural. Paul's endurance rests in the purity of motive and life and spirit giving knowledge of Christ himself. And then notice what follows Spirit. Genuine love. Paul is speaking of an hypocritical love. Love follows immediately the Holy Spirit, the primary fruit of the Spirit, who governs the use of these gifts in our lives. So we have here the in working ministry of the Holy Spirit. And now in verses 7 and 8 we see the outworking of the Holy Spirit working throughout. And he mentions here, truth will speech. The word of truth is the message of truth, the gospel salvation, but also Paul could very well be alluding to the sincerity on the truthfulness of his own words spoken in person and written in parchment. Truth will speech. We'll let the words of my mouth and the meditation to my heart be acceptable in my sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. And going from truth will speech, he notice we notice here the power of God. The divine power manifests it in his preaching of the truth and as experienced by the Corinthian converts. Paul writes to them in 1 Corinthians saying, and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. It's Paul's weakness which fits him to receive and carry divine power. He knew he was weak and as the songwriter says, I need Jesus, my need, I now confess, no one like him in times of deep distress. Paul knew it was the power of God that was going to do the work of God that was required from him. Then he goes on to talk about weapons. Paul realized that the Christian life wasn't a playground, but a battleground. And Paul realized that he was in a spiritual battle that called for spiritual weapons to kinds of weapons in the right hand of fence of weapons, that is the spear and the sword and in the left hand the defensive weapon which is the shield. Brothers and sisters tonight, we are in a spiritual battle and we're called upon to put on the whole armor of God that we may be able to withstand in the evil days. Paul wrote in just chapter 10, just four chapters over, he says, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. You know what folks, this begs the question, how skillful are you with God's weapons?
And he says with those things in place and he can carry through in times of honor and dishonor, you and I will have bitter enemies and devoted friends. Some will hold us in high esteem and others will keep insults and dishonor. But then I remember what Jesus said and I remind you tonight and John 15 verse 18, our Lord said that the world hates you. You know that it hated me before it hated you. A servant is not greater than his Lord. Through slander and praise, Paul's task here is to steer a straight course and giving heed only to the word of the Lord, regardless of what others say about him. We need to get a hold of that tonight. I want to have the acceptance and approval people at times. So I'd like to listen to when they say good things. I send those who have something worthwhile to contribute to my Christian life. Paul says, stay clear in the path. It is the ministry of the holy spirit working in Paul that he's able to endure the trials in his life and ministry. And my friends, when that is the case, the believer's life will bear evidence of that. And we come now in closing to verses 8 through 10. Now, Paul is in a way you might say looking back over what he's just said and looking back over his life, ministry so far, Paul's humility radiates brightly through this portion of scripture, yet it shines especially here. Paul has a just understanding of himself. Regardless of what others may think of him, he knows who he is in Christ and where he stands. And we see this unfolded in these seven paradoxes here as these sewers yet true, despite his critics slander. Paul knows before God that his call in ministry are from God and are true. As I know, yet well known, Acts chapter 8. We see Paul bragging about who he was. The Pharisee of Pharisees. He came from the tribe of Benjamin. He was a blue blood and he had one of the greatest professors of his day, Gamelio. Indeed, he was well known, but he says as unknown, yet well known, the Pharisee of the Pharisee had become an unentity. In fact, Paul doesn't boast about his past. Notice what he says in 1 Corinthians 4 verse 13, we have become and are still like the scum of the world, the refuge of all things. However, the unknowledge, unacknowledged by the world, Paul was fully known by God, and you know that's what counts tonight, that he knows you and you belong to him. And no one can take you out of the hands of the good shepherd. He says as dying, yet we live. Now, folks, when Paul is writing this, you realize he was slowly dying through his repeated beatings and illnesses and stresses and dangers, but he was still alive. And God gave him the energy and the vitalities that continue on till he called him home. As punnies yet not put to death, yes, Lord did chastise Paul at times. It was remedial, but it didn't kill him. In fact, it elevated his life. As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, friends had failed. Paul converts had turned against Paul, and his works are threatened by wicked men, but Paul knows that all things worked together for good to them who are called according to his purpose. And then he goes on to say, yes, poor, yet making many rich. Rich. As Paul was poor, he gave all of his belongings away. He was a tent maker to make ends meet. He lived off of the graces of other believers, but everybody he came to, he made rich with the gospel of Jesus Christ. As having nothing, yet possessing all things, he wrote back in 1 Corinthians 3 verse 21, for all things are yours, all are yours, and you are Christ, and Christ is God. Paul knew that he was the heir of all things, and you so are you. We hear the heir of all that Christ has for us. He endured triumphantly, and this is why his endurance was great. Your possible Paul was faithful following his commander. Paul was weary, he was battle-worn, he faced many trials, but he continued to fright on, and he didn't quit. He could say at the end, writing to a young preacher, seeing his ministry closing, he says, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I kept the faith. The key to faithful service. Faithful Christian living. Just don't quit. Oh Lord, so much in your word that we need to take in. But if there's any one great truth that comes out of here tonight, that whatever you put Paul into, he went all the way and gave his best, and he didn't quit. He didn't quit you, and he didn't quit the people that you put under his care. He never quit when the going got tough. He served his king well. And by God's grace, so may we, Lord, in this day of encroaching darkness, may we say, I know whom I have believed and persuaded that he is able to keep that, which I have committed unto him against that day. Oh Lord, there might be some here that are going through great trials. Some are even contemplating, just walking away and calling it quits. Oh Lord, strengthen and comfort them. May this example of Paul be a challenge to them, to persevere, to fight the good fight of faith, to live godly in Christ Jesus. So ask in his name, Amen.