We're beginning a new series this morning in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians and for the next several months we'll work our way through this letter and we're doing this because several months ago one of the members of the congregation wrote me a little note in response to an invitation which I extended the U.S. of congregation. That invitation was that you provide me with some input regarding concerns you had or questions you had or books in the Bible that you might be interested in working through in the course of the next year and I asked for that in August and put together a preaching plan that began with September and will continue through the summer and one of the suggestions was this second letter of Paul to the Corinthians. So I appreciate that little bit of inputter I guess I should say I appreciated it more back then than I do now and here's the reason after that initial suggestion I took this letter with me and got away for a few days and read through it a couple of times and then since then I've read through it several more times and my reluctance or my hesitation or my sense of regret about this letter has to do with the fact that in reading and rereading this letter this letter has done for me what Scripture often does for us it has been a mirror into which I have been forced to gaze the Scriptures do that for us don't they and and they do that by design that is God's intention that the Word of God be held up before us and that it be a mirror and that we look into that mirror and we see ourselves that's really where the gospel begins the gospel begins with us taking a sober look at ourselves in light of the truth of God in light of the law of God in light of the Word of God in light of the whole Council of God and when we do that and take that seriously there are things which show up and those things which show up have the desired effect of driving us to the only one who can do something about those things which show up as we gaze into the mirror of the Scriptures the Lord Jesus Christ who is a Savior and a Restorer and a Healer and a Transformer and a beautifier of sinners such as ourselves that's what the Scriptures do that's what they're supposed to do they're supposed to examine us they're supposed to search us out and then when they've done that work they drive us to Christ and so you see there a mirror well in reading through this letter I've had to stare into the mirror I've had to look at the lofty example which the Apostle Paul is of a pastor and it's a tough example to look at because if you look at it and you take it seriously what you come away from a reading of this letter with is a great sense of your own inadequacy your own weakness and I have to say to you your own failure but I hope we'll see as we look at this letter is the heart of the Apostle Paul my first clue to this was during our missions conference when Sinclair Ferguson had us look at chapters four and five of second Corinthians and said that in those chapters we see the heart of a missionary the heart of the Apostle Paul the missionary who loves the gospel and who loves sinners and who wants to see sinners embrace the gospel and who reasons and persuades and does everything he can to set this gospel before sinners well the whole letter is like that it is a window into the heart of the Apostle and the kinds of things that are exposed the kinds of things that are on display are his passion for the gospel and his passion for sinners in his love for the Lord Jesus and his love for the Lord Jesus bride the church and he is passionate and persevering and uncompromising in loving in loving sinners like those he found here in Cardinal that's what I hope we'll see that's what I think we'll see and and I have to say to you and I hope I remember to say this frequently through the course of the next months I hope you'll pray for me you know this is family we're family here and I'm just sort of disclosing to you as a family member my longing for you to pray for me that I might be a better pastor that I might more emulate the the Apostle Paul as he seeks to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and I will also would manage you and encourage you to pray for yourselves that you too might be more passionate and devoted followers of Lord Jesus and more passionate ministers of his gospel as together we seek to emulate the Apostle Paul something which he does by the way under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit call us to do the imitators of me he says so I hope that we will see him I hope that he will be set before us and I hope that we will pray for one another that we might emulate him follow him and his example more fully now what of this church this church at current to whom this letter is addressed well the Apostle Paul during his second missionary journey in the years 50 to 52 or so spent a year and a half in corn and for that year and a half he preached and he taught and the Lord was pleased through his ministry to gather his people together and establish in current the church and presumably the Apostles pattern in current was like his pattern in Ephesus you can read about Paul's second missionary journey in Acts 15 16 17 and 18 and then if you jump ahead a few chapters to Acts 21 you will have there in that chapter Paul's conversation with the elders from Ephesus he called them to himself at a place called my elitist and he met with them before going off to Jerusalem said he'd probably never see them again but when he was with them he reminded them of his manor among them his conduct among them that for months on in he did not hesitate to preach and teach the whole council of God everything from Genesis to maps you know you've got those maps in the back of your Bible everything not withholding anything from them that would be profitable to them and seeing this whole council of God the whole thing everything about the nature and character of God and everything about the nature and character of men and women and everything about the nature and character of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ and his work in their behalf and the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the goal and purpose of it all is that we might be conformed to the image of his son that he might delight in us and we might delight in him he withhold nothing from them and he did it publicly in settings such as this in the marketplace wherever he could gain a hearing and he did it from house to house in smaller groups and he did it with individuals and he reminds those elders that he took those elders under his wing and he used contemporary vernacular disciples them brought them along in the way and he did it day in and day out weekend and week after month and presumably he did the same thing among the Corinthians as he had done among the Ephesians and so there was a relationship established between the Apostle and this church in car and again you don't have to go very far into this letter to see the deep affection and love which the Apostle felt for these people get to the end of the first chapter and he says he didn't come back to them he didn't return to visit them because he didn't want for that second visit to be a painful visit and then in the first four verses of the second chapter he talks about his great affection for them and love for them so relationship there they had been together for an extended period of time and what was this church like what was this body of believers like who received this letter and then the first letter from the Apostle Paul oh is it church just like Saint Paul's is it church filled with four or 500 people imminent in their godliness and righteousness elevated in their spirituality a model of conformity with the image of Christ just like us right a group of people who loved one another so passionately and who loved the Lord Jesus so passionately and followed the Lord Jesus so faithfully that the world around would look at this body of believers and say aha the Lord Jesus must certainly have come look at how they loved one another look at the manifestation of the righteousness of the kingdom in their midst if you know anything about the Corinthian church you know that it was far far removed from being an eminent church a lofty church in terms of its spirituality or its righteousness first the Christian and maybe you had this experience as well 25 years ago sort of caught up in the Jesus movement maybe some of you were caught up in the Jesus movement I remember hearing people say is a sort of a response to the to the dead institutional church we want to be like the first century believers we want to be like the first century church that you read these two letters to these Corinthians and you think that's the last thing in the world I want to be like I would be like those people just to be a little bit more autobiographical when I first became a that's for the first time after having come out of the counterculture and having gone into the counterculture as a non-Christian with all of these hopes and dreams and aspirations about the counterculture being a people committed to love and to peace and to justice and
having been burned by the counterculture and having seen divisions and favoritism and powerful and powerless people read through the book of Acts and saw the things that God did is the gospel first began to sweep the Roman Empire and said this at last is it this is what I've been longing for this is what my heart is desire a people committed to a cause who are self-sacrificing in the way they live with one another and then for the book of Acts I went on to the letter to the Romans and beyond Romans I got the first and second Corinthians and my opinion or view of the church began to change the Corinthian church was not highly elevated in its righteousness and Godliness the church that Corinth was a gathering of great big sinners the church of Corinth was characterized by divisions and strife and party spirit and favoritisms and loyalties that had to do with people and theologies other than the Lord Jesus Christ the church of Corinth was a place where sexual immorality was tolerated the church at Corinth was a place where people who had certain spiritual gifts thought of themselves as better first-class citizens in the kingdom of heaven and looked down their noses at everybody else thinking that they were second-class citizens because they hadn't had the experience or didn't possess the gifts that they had the church at Corinth was a church which denied a key doctrine of the Christian faith they denied the reality of the resurrection this core and cardinal thing which has us here this morning they denied so you see the church at Corinth it's not this eminent highly elevated super spiritual bunch of folks it was a gathering again I say a gathering of great big sinners just like us just like us yeah I'm not suggesting that we have the same problems and the same difficulties I'm not saying that there are people here who are denying the resurrection of Christ as a matter of the historical record and a central tentative of the Christian faith I'm not suggesting that we're tolerating sexual immorality but what I am suggesting is that as you look around this room as you consider this place as you consider this body of believers what you have here is a bunch of great big sinners a bunch of great big sinners I am you are we all have we've been changed yes yes at the core of our being we have been changed are we being changed yes we are and I'm being changed all too slowly for your taste say am I not and you're being changed all too slowly for one another's taste sorry you not but you are being changed and the outcome of it all is that you will be conformed to the image of Christ but until that day you are like broken glass to one another the rough edges have not hold and knocked off and this is sort of strange I suppose but when I read these letters to these Corinthians I am greatly encouraged because these are people with whom I can identify a bunch of great big sinners but look at what the Apostle calls these great big sinners these people who live in this very chic very cosmopolitan city and the south of Greece look at what the Apostle calls this gathering of misfits he calls them the Church of God the Ecclesia of God Ecc meaning out or out from the rest of the word from a Greek word which means to call those who have been called out those who have been summoned to God those who have been gathered to God the Corinthians were the Church of God we had an officer orientation class early Saturday morning about 10 of us got together and in the course of that time and in the initial remarks that I made to these guys I took into the Peter to the passage in first Peter the second chapter where Peter refers to the Christians as a holy nation a royal priesthood those who have been called from darkness into God's marvelous light and I took him back to Exodus 19 which is a parallel sort of passage a similar sort of passage where God gathers the Israelites out of their bondage in Egypt brings them to himself at Sinai and marries them wedged them to himself so that they become his treasured precious special possession out of all the nations of the earth he sets the Ecclesia this great big bunch of great big sinners is the treasure of Almighty God called out by him to him for him at you and the apostle calls them something else it calls them saints I've been to Rome I've been to St. Peter's I've seen those bronzed bodies behind glass those saints preserved for centuries because in the perception of the Church they were eminent in their holiness and their righteousness they were lofty and so they were canonized and they are called saints canonized because they're associated with miracles as well as righteousness we joke on staff that Bob keeps singing he's going to learn to sing and it'll be a miracle and by his admission he'll have to be canonized it's happened five times they're only two more to go he sung and he sung on pitch and Linda is listening and two more times he'll be a bronze body behind glass the apostle called this whole gathering of people saints and you know what saints are they're not only called out and called to God and for God they are sad part unto God that they might reflect and bear his glory before angels and principalities and before the nations of the earth he calls them saints holy ones this band of great big sinners not bronzed bodies under glass not those who are eminent in holiness and righteousness but those who are sinners saved by the grace of Jesus Christ restored to relationship with God by the grace of Jesus Christ being transformed all too slowly for our tastes from one degree of glory into another that they might be that for which they have been set apart the glory bearers of the living God those who reflect his glory to the principalities and powers and the angels do all rational moral beings striking language isn't it when you consider what this church is and the kind of activity that was going on in the midst of it that the apostle would call them the church of God with all of that background all of that biblical imagery associated with it and saints holy ones the holy ones of the holy God see this is encouraging to me because it really does level things and it really does have the effect of reminding me that we are in this thing together as a traveling band as a family of God redeemed by his grace and headed in the same direction being constrained and compelled and let along by the Lord Jesus Christ by the agency of his holy spirit to that for which God has set us apart. We're in this together so look around you look around you and acknowledge that the person in front of you or the person behind you the person to your right the person to your left is the beloved possession of Almighty God a treasure to him look around you and consider that the person in front of you or the person behind you or to your right or to your left is a person with home you have the great privilege of spending eternity in the presence of Almighty God this is your family this gathering of great big sinners these are those for whom the Lord Jesus has given himself that they might have life that they might have it in abundance and forever so who is the Apostle Paul well the Apostle Paul is an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God for the church what was happening in this particular situation is that some false Apostles were making accusations directed at Paul they were accusing him of worldliness they were accusing him of vacillation they were accusing him of being unreliable and unpredictable and the reason they were accusing him of that is because he had changed his plans he had told the Corinthians that he would come back to them but he didn't do it he changed his plans and because his plans changed his integrity was in question and this letter this second letter to the Corinthians is an explanation of why the plans changed it's a defense of his decision and so what does he have in mind whom does he have in view when he says that he is an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God he has in view these false Apostles who would impune his integrity and would discredit him and he wants to remind these Corinthians that he is what he is because God has made him what he is and he invites them to examine his life and see whether or not his life is not sufficient testimony of his determination to love and serve the people of God with every fiber of his being for as long as the Lord should give him that's who he is that's what he is determined to do remember reading or seeing actually a videotape several years ago it's a tape produced by Ligonier Ministries the speaker was John Gerstner who is now with Paul and with the Lord Jesus and his lectures were on the life and ministry of Paul and he used the name of Paul as an acrostic to describe the Apostle and I don't remember the P and I don't remember the A but I do remember the U and I do remember the L the U stands for Paul's being uncompromising uncompromising he is relentless when it comes to opposing these false teachers he is relentless when it comes to preaching and teaching the whole council of God and insisting that people embrace it and believe it and not depart from it you see that most clearly in his letter to the Galatians whereas the Apostle of Christ he would unathomatize people who would convert the gospel of Christ into another gospel he by the authority of Christ would condemn them so uncompromising is he and here in this letter the Apostle Paul manifests the same determination the same uncompromising zeal in the 10th chapter I Paul myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ who in presence and lonely among you but being absent and bold towards you there's satire in that phrase but I beg you that when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh for though we walk in the flesh we do not war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or fleshly but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds the casting down of arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled uncompromised then I remember John Gerson saying that the Apostle Paul was uncompromising precisely because he was loving he loved these Corinthians so much that in pure and simple terms he loathe the thought that they might slip away from the gospel and perish forever he loved the Corinthians so much that he could not abide the thought of immorality in their midst because immorality leads to death he loved the Corinthians so much that he could not abide the thought of false teachers disrupting the unity of the fellowship and destroying the work of Christ and he would oppose them and tear them down and even punish them by the power and authority of Christ why because he's a megalomaniac with a mission no because he is a pastor who loves his people so who is the church what is the church the gathering of great big sinners who are the treasured possession of God destined for perfection and conformity with the image of Christ and who is Paul second only to the Lord Jesus as a lover of their souls and so again I ask you pray for me and pray for us that we might be like the Apostle Paul let us pray together Lord Jesus these are flimsy and flabby days these seem to be days of accommodation and compromise they seem to be days when it's hard to find people who love the Lord Jesus love the whole council of God and who love the people of God with the passion of the Apostle Paul and we recognize ourselves as those who are flimsy and flabby week accommodating and compromising at too many points and that is just how our sin manifests itself but it is grand O Lord to contemplate the sufficiency of the work of Christ and rather than being beaten down or overwhelmed by this it is a grand thing to be encouraged to come to the Lord Jesus and plead with him yet again for his great and marvelous grace O Lord stir us up and transform us from one degree of glory to another that we might look more like the Apostle Paul in the living of our lives and so be worthy of the name we bear as a congregation hear our prayers Lord please for the sake of your own name for the sake of the work of the Lord Jesus hear our prayer and do this work among us in Jesus name we pray amen