Get Yoked

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Get Yoked

2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1

October 24, 2021 • Shane Sikkema • 2 Corinthians 6:14—7:1

Audio Transcript:

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Good morning. And welcome again to Mosaic. If you're new, my name is Shane, I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic, and we're so glad to have you with us this morning. We would love to connect with you. And if you would like to connect with us, we mentioned this earlier, we do that through a little connection card in your worship guide, you can fill that out and just drop it in the little white box back there at the back of the room. We have a little gift we'd love to send you in the mail. Or if you turn it in at the welcome center out front, we have another gift that we'd love to give to you just to thank you for being our guest here this morning. We can get you some more information about the church there if you're interested in that as well.

Last weekend, my family did the stereotypical New England fall drive. We went out across Massachusetts, up to Vermont and around and saw all the colors and that. And really the highlight of the trip though was along the way we came across some sky divers. And they were actually pretty low, they were kind of coming in for a landing and we're all looking, watching out the window as they're coming in. All of a sudden I hear my daughter Nora, from the back set just scream out, "Why on earth would anybody do that? That's so dangerous." And I'm like, "Okay, that's fair enough." I don't know, what's the most dangerous situation that you've ever been in? Have you ever been in a situation where the distance between you and death was thin, thin like the string attached to your parachute, thin like the foothold that you take when you're peering over the edge of a cliff and you get that kind of uneasy feeling in your stomach?

My friends and I in college, we were kind of thrill seekers. We liked to go snow boarding and rock climbing. But one of the things that we really got into early in college was spelunking. You know what spelunking is? You put on helmets and knee pads and headlamps, and then you crawl and you climb and you sometimes even swim to go through exploring these underground cave systems. And really, normally, usually in order to explore an actual wild cave, a cave that hasn't been commercialized for the public, you're supposed to belong to an official caving organization. And you have to oftentimes go downtown to the city hall and they'll have a key that lets you get access to the property that the caves are on. We weren't in one of those. But my friend somehow this one mythical place in Southern Indiana that was completely off the grid, under the radar.

So we made this trek from Northwest Illinois to Southern Indiana. And we get there and you're going down this country road, all of a sudden you hit this T intersection and there's just some woods and a small little opening in the trees, just big enough to drive your car through. And so we drive it down this old dirt road until we get to this rusty metal gate and next to the gate, there's a box and a sign and the sign says basically, "Drop $20 in the box, sign this piece of paper and enter at your own risk. If you die, you die." And as college students, this sounded amazing. This was the adventure that we were looking for.

And so we go, we set up a little campsite and we spend a couple days exploring these caves. And some of them had these big, big, beautiful openings, like stereotypical caves. I've got a picture of one of them. Most of them were really just a hole in the ground. If you weren't looking for it, you could easily walk right past it and not even know that they were there. You'd come across this hole just barely big enough to shimmy your way down inside and then you'd army crawl for 10, 20, 30 yards. But then eventually they would open up into these big cavernous rooms and literally inside there would be miles of tunnels to explore.

And so what's the point? The point is, I remember a moment when we were probably over a mile deep into one of these caves and it really finally hit me. I knew it going in, but it hit me in a real way, that if for some reason the batteries on our headlamps were to die, then we were to die. The only light that we had was the light that we had brought in with us. And if we were to lose that light, we would be lost. We would be left to grope through the darkness, never knowing if we were getting any closer to where we were going or only further and further into the darkness. It's a dreadful feeling, which is why we brought extra headlamps, extra batteries, extra everything just to be safe. But the danger was real.

We have been going through a sermon series on 2 Corinthians. And Paul has been repeatedly pleading with this church to remember the darkness that they were saved out of, that they were lost, dead in their sins, lost in the darkness and pleading with them not to go back into that darkness. A couple weeks ago in chapter four, he told them this, he said, "Listen, the God of this world...", 2 Corinthians 4:4, "... has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness.', has shown our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

"Corinthians, remember you were in that darkness, you had no light. You had no life. You had no hope. And you got yourself into that darkness with no way of getting yourself back out. But while you were lost, while you were dead in your sins, blinded by the false God of this world, the true God of this world, because of the great love with which he loved you, he sent us to you with the light of the gospel to save you out of darkness. Now, whatever you do, don't go back." This is his plea. Why? Because some of them were. What we see is that false teachers, unbelievers were creeping into the church, gaining influence over people's hearts and minds and like wolves in sheeps' clothing, they were leading them away from their savior, away from the safety of the flock and ravaging the church.

If you have your Bibles, open up to 2 Corinthians, chapter six, we're going to be looking at 2 Corinthians 6:14 through to 7:1 And what we're going to see is that Paul is again, he's giving us a warning to not return from where we came. He's giving us a reminder of who we are and he's giving us a vision of where we're going. So if you have your Bibles, you can open up. If not, the words will be up here on the screen, but would you please look at our text with me this morning? This is 2 Corinthians chapter six, beginning in verse 14.

"Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an believer? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of living God. As God said, 'I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me.', says the Lord almighty.' Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion and the fear of God."

This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer for our sermon today? God, we thank you for your word. Your word is holy. It is an errand. It is infallible. It is authoritative. It is a light for our path. It is a lamp for our feet. I pray that you would write the truth of your word upon our hearts to know it, to understand it, to believe it, to love it and to apply it to our lives in obedience and faith. My father, I pray that you would give me grace now and the power of your spirit to speak as I ought to faithfully preach, and to teach your word to your people this morning. I ask this in Christ's name, amen.

Three points today. Point number one, completely cast off the yoke of slavery. Point two, completely take up the yoke of salvation. Point three, get completely yoked with your savior. Arm pump emojis all around, we're going to talk about what that means in point three. But point number one, Paul begins right off the bat, verse 14, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." Four, what partnership has righteousness with lawness or what fellowship has light with darkness? What a court has Christ with Belial, with the worthless one, with Satan? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of with idols?"

This metaphor of being yoked, it's used in a few places throughout scripture, but there's only two other places in the New Testament where it's used in this negative sense. The New Testament uses it a few times literally. Jesus uses it one time as a positive metaphor. And we're going to talk about that later. But it's only used three times in this negative sense. It's used here and it's used in Acts 15 and it's used in Galatians 5. And we're going to take a look at these two other passages because they help us to understand what Paul is talking about and give us a good commentary on what this means. But in summary, both of these passages, they're addressing two things.

On the one hand, both of these other passages, they are warning the church to not be yoked to false teachers and to false teachings that were telling them that in order for you, Gentile Christians to be saved, you first need to be circumcised and to keep the Mosaic Law. Not just the moral law, but the ceremonial law and the civic law as well. And it's warning them that that you don't need to earn your righteousness through works of the law. And it's warning them there on the one hand. But on the other side, both of these passages also come with a warning against being slaves to the flesh, of living in immorality and sexual immorality and idolatry, as you did in your former lives as pagans. And so Acts 15, this is what we see.

We see in Acts 15:1 that some men came down from Judea and they were teaching the brothers unless, "You are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." And so verse six, the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and he said to them, "Brothers, you know that in the early days, God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentile should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them having cleansed their hearts by what? By works of the law? No, by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither are fathers, nor we have been able to bear, but we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will." And so, in response to this at the end of the chapter, the apostles decide they're going to send a letter to this church to clarify their stance on the issue.

And this is the letter in Acts 15:23, it says this, "To the brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourself from these things, you will do well. Farewell."

So he's saying, "You don't need to earn your righteousness through these works of the law. You don't need to be circumcised to be saved. But this is also not giving you a license to continue to live in your former pagan lifestyle." These things at the end, they're describing practices of idolatry and sexual immorality. We see the same thing in Galatians, chapter five and Galatians 5 is just such a great commentary on this issue that I'm actually going to read this entire chapter, because it really helps us to grasp the fullness of what Paul is talking about.

And this is how he begins Galatians chapter five. He says this, "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law." If you think that that is going to save you, you need to keep the entire law perfectly. He says, "You were severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen way from grace. For through the spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

"You were running so well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and that the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettled you would emasculate themselves." That's a Bible verse.

"For you are called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one in word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. These opposed to each other to keep you from doing the thing you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

"Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."

You see, both. On the one hand, you can't save yourself through the law. And the other hand, this grace that we have in Christ does not give us a license to continue living an unchanged life in the flesh, continue practicing the idolatry and the immorality of our former lives. He's saying, "You once lived in that darkness." But then the gospel came and the light of the gospel revealed that salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in the work of Jesus Christ alone, to the glory of God the Father alone. So therefore do not be yoked to anyone who teaches you that you need to add anything to the work of Jesus in order to be saved. And do not be yoked to anyone who says that your freedom in Christ is a license to sin and to live an unchanged life as a slave to your flesh. And do not be yoked to anyone who practices or promotes permits idolatry in any form. That's who we are not to be yoked to.

Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to be unequally yoked to these things? Well, Paul gives us five descriptors in the text. And he frames them in these five rhetorical questions. "What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?" It's a rhetorical question. There is none. "What fellowship has light and darkness?" They can't exist in the same place at the same time. "What accord has Christ with Belial??" It means the worthless one. He's talking about Satan, the devil. "What portion has the believer with the unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of God."

James 4:4 says this, "You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." What's going on here? What does this mean? Does this mean that we as Christians need to completely separate ourselves, cut off every we have with every unbeliever in our life? That we need to just completely isolate ourselves from the world? Does this mean that Mosaic needs to go buy some property in rural Pennsylvania and build a homestead with a lake and a garden? And the longer I live in Boston, the more I think I'd be a really great monk. I'd be a married monk, but still. Is that what he's talking about?

No, if that's what he was talking about, James would be contradicting Jesus. Paul would be contradicting himself. Jesus says this in his high priestly prayer. He's praying to the father in John 17. He says, "I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in the truth.

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians addressed this issue as well. 1 Corinthians 5:9, he says this, "I wrote to you in my letter..." His former letter, 1 Corinthians is actually kind of 2 Corinthians, but we don't... The first letter was not part of scripture, it was not part of canon. We don't have that. But he's referring to a previous letter that he'd written the church. "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and the swindler or the idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church who you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you."

And so it is not commanding us to leave the world. He's not telling us that we need to cut off all relationships with unbelievers. We need to reach them with the gospel. But he is saying that Christians need to remain sanctified, set apart and utterly distinct from the world around us. The church needs to be in the world, but the church can't allow the waves of the world to creep into the church, into the lives of believers. We talked about this a few weeks ago. This is not our home. We don't belong here. We are ambassadors here for Christ's kingdom. Our citizenship is in heaven. God has placed us here and called us here to change the world, not for the world to change us.

And so what that means is that as we carry out this ministry, we can't build the kingdom of light using the tools of darkness. We can't fight the good fight using the enemy's weapons. We can't ,arch into battle allied with the enemy's soldiers. It's not that we're fighting against them, we're fighting for them. We want them to be saved, delivered from that darkness. But we're not on the same team. We can't partner in the gospel with those who have yet to repent and receive that gospel. And I believe that is primarily what Paul has in mind here when he says, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers."

Now, most of you, if you have heard this passage before, if you're familiar with it, you've heard it used in what context? In the context of marriage, right? This is why a believer can't pursue marriage to an unbeliever. Now, is that what Paul is talking about here? And when you read the text, this text has nothing to do with marriage on the surface, but it has everything to do with marriage when you properly understand it. Because what Paul is talking about here is a partnership in ministry and marriage is ministry. If you don't understand that, you don't understand marriage. Marriage, Christian marriage, is a missional covenant between one man and one woman in submission to one God. It is two people coming together to say that from this day forward, we until, death do us part, are going to be partners in gospel ministry together. Marriage is a commitment to work together toward the shared goal, of building a relationship, building a family, building a home that glorifies God, and that intentionally reflects the gospel out into the world around us.

And we see this very clearly in Ephesians chapter five. And read this chapter with this in mind, and look at this, Ephesians 5:22, "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands." Why? To give the world a glimpse of the gospel, to reflect the truth of the gospel to the world around us. Likewise, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that, she might be holy and without blemish.

"In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes, it just as Christ does the church, because we're members of his body." Husbands cherish your wives, lay your lives down for the sake of your wives. Why? To give the world a glimpse of the gospel. He roots this in the gospel. He also roots this in creation, that this is how it was meant to be from the beginning, verse 31, this is quoting Genesis, "Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

And then he continues, "Children...", in chapter six, "... obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, this is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." This is God's purpose, this is God's vision for marriage and family. And so therefore, before you yoke yourself to someone for the rest of your life, the most important question that you need to be asking and answering is, "Is this person going to help me plow in that direction?" If not, you need to take off that yoke. You need to break off that relationship.

Now, one caveat here, does this mean that if a Christian is for some reason already married to an unbeliever that they need to seek a divorce? No. Paul made that clear in 1 Corinthians, you can look up instructions for that. It's 1 Corinthians 7:12-16. But the big idea is that going into marriage, that this is God's desire, this is God's vision, it should be ours as well that marriage is ministry, ministry to one another, ministry to our children, and ministry to the world around us. So while the text is not talking about that, it is a proper application of the text. What are some other ways that this principle of being unequally yoked applies to us? The most direct application of this, that Paul is talking about primarily in the text, has to do with ministry in the church.

He says, "You are the temple of God. And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?" Paul's writing to a church that had been deceived. They'd begun yoking themselves to false teachers and false ideas. And he wants them to see that behind these false teachers, these false ideas were false gods, were false idols. And so some of them were embracing legalism, a self righteous works righteousness. Others were tolerating paganism. Most of them were probably mixing the two together. And Paul wants them to see. As good as these teachers might look on the surface, they come to you and say, "Oh no, we're just trying to help people be more holy, or we're trying to make sure that people are really committed, and that's why we're demanding these works of the law. Or we're trying to be more tolerant, we're trying to make things more palatable so that more people will come."

He says, "However good. It might look on the outside, inside these teachers and these teachers aren't just different, they aren't just bad, they're demonic." And he gets to this later on, we'll get here eventually in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, but just to give us a glimpse of where he's going, this is what he says. He says, "Such men are false apostles." An apostle is someone who's sent, so if these are false apostles who sent these apostles? They're, "Deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it's no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds."

The New Testament warns us over and over and over against the deadliness of false teaching and false teachers. Because they so often come to us in disguise. They don't always appear as these hideous demonic forces on the surface. They come and it almost seems good if you don't have discerning eye, if you aren't looking through the eyes of faith. But it warns us because we need to keep these false teachings, these false teachers out of the church. Don't give them a platform, don't give them influence, don't give them any kind of foothold. This means we need to know God's word and understand where it is that Jesus, our good shepherd, is leading us.

We need to avoid partnering with these false teachers, but we also need to understand the positive side of this as well, what the application is there for, what you should be doing is you should be partnering yourself. You should be yoking yourself with other believers who you know are going to pull strong and straight and steady after the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is why church membership is so important. This is why we take church membership very seriously here at Mosaic. It's people coming together and committing and saying, "We are committing together to pull strong and straight and steady after our Lord Jesus Christ. And if one of us wanders to the right or one of us wanders to the left, we're there to encourage and to correct and hold each other accountable to staying on this straight and narrow path." If you're interested in a membership, we're actually having a membership class next week, you can get signed up for that. But that's how this applies inside the church. There needs to be purity inside the church.

But where else does this apply? Because obviously ministry happens in the church, but ministry happens in all areas of our lives as well. And so we read this passage, we begin to think, "What are some of the other ways that this is fleshed out in our lives?" And this is where things get a little more dicey. This is where you got to really rely on the Holy Spirit and have a discerning mind. And there's so many variables involved that it's hard to give a one size fits all response to, "How do we apply this in all the other areas of our life?"

I'm going to give a few examples, but before we do just, we need to start by just asking ourselves honestly, in your friendships, in your relationships and in your partnerships at work, at school, wherever life takes you outside of the church, is there something there that is pulling you away from Christ? Are you there as an ambassador, bringing the values of Christ's kingdom into the world? Or if you're honest, is the world winning? Is the world instilling its values in you?

So college students, many of you are paying a lot of money to sit through courses. And some of these courses are education. Some of these courses are indoctrination. Are you discerning enough to know the difference? And are you strong enough to stand firm in what you believe? If you're going to a school, if you're sitting in a class where you are always being told what to think and never being taught how to think, if you're going to a class, to a school where it's not safe to ask questions about God, about origins, about purpose, about destiny, about morality, where everyone is expected to hold this same opinion and terrified to speak their mind, you're not in a classroom. You're in a cult. A very expensive cult.

Now be honest. How is your soul? Are you there as a light in the darkness? Or are you becoming one with the darkness? If you are yoked to an institution, a person, idea, anything that is pulling you away from Christ, you either need to be strong enough to pull back and stand your ground against that at force or you need to be wise enough and humble enough to cut your losses to cast off that yoke before it drags you away. Parents, you need to ask questions of your kids. What are they hearing? What are they seeing? What are they feeling? What are they reading? What are they being told in the books that they read and the TV shows and the movies that they watch? Even at school.

Our son was four years old the first time he had to stand his ground against a teacher at school. He was in a classroom of 19 boys and they were told it was time to play dress up. And Owen said, "I don't want to play dress up." The teacher said, "Why?" "Because all of the costumes are for girls, and boys shouldn't wear dresses." And his teacher scolded him. Now, if you know Owen, he's a very thoughtful and sensitive kid. He took this really hard. He felt ashamed. He thought he had done something wrong. So we talked about it that night at dinner. We assured him that he did the right thing, and we talked about why.

We talked about why boys need to present themselves as boys and girls need to present themselves as girls, because God made us different, that those differences matter. And that as a son of God, God calls his sons to stand up to defend and to make sacrifices for his daughters, just like his son, Jesus Christ, did for his church. It matters. And so we told him, "The next time that this comes up, you look at your teacher and you say, 'Miss teacher, the facts don't care about your feelings.' And then take a long drink out of your mug of leftist tears." No, we said, "You tell this teacher, 'I love you, but we don't agree.'"

Within a week, it came up again and he did exactly what we taught him. And you know what he found out? His teacher didn't get mad this time. He found out that actually I think he caught her totally off guard and we noticed a change in her, that from that day forward, she looked at him with a new respect. And she actually voiced that to us at some of our conferences. But when he said, "Teacher, I love you." He meant it. And when he said, "I don't agree." He meant that as well. But as it turned out, she turned out to be one of his favorite teachers. But the point is your kids need to know what they believe and they need to know why they believe it. And they also need to know how to lovingly, but firmly stand their ground. And so as parents, you need to ask questions, you need to debrief and you need to disciple your kids. You need to shepherd their hearts and you need to sharpen their minds or the world will do it for you.

What about the workplace? When I read this passage, that's one of the things that comes to mind, because there's partnerships that are formed in work, in career. And how does this play out? Well, there are some occupations and some organizations that are so at odds with Christ's kingdom, that a Christian cannot patronize, cannot partner with them in any way at all, period. But by God's grace, most work can be done to the glory of God as it contributes to the common good under God's common grace. And so assuming that that's the case, if you're the boss, praise God, I hope you're tithing. I know you are. I don't even need to say it.

But your goal as the boss, hopefully, is you're trying to build a business and an organization and a culture that honors Christ. And so therefore you need to be careful about who you hire, who you partner with, who you yoke yourself to, who you give leadership and influence to. Because if you want to build a business that honors Christ, you need to be yoked with people who are going to help you pull in that direction and not pull things off course.

Most of you aren't the boss, and maybe you don't have much say or sway at work. Some of you might be asked in the workplace to push forward to support agenda, immoral, unethical agendas that conflict with the agenda of Christ. Are you going to be able to stand up in those moments and speak for what is right, even if that means risking your position, your promotion, even your presence in the workplace? What does it profit a person if they rise to the top organizational hierarchy and yet forfeit their soul? We need to be careful about what we attach our hearts and our goals and ourselves to in this world, to make sure that we are pulling after Christ and that these things aren't pulling us off course.

So we need to completely cast off the old yoke of slavery, that's point number one. But in order to do that, we need to completely take up the yoke of salvation. Now, verse 16, "What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said, 'I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord almighty.'" To completely take up the yoke of salvation is to completely understand God as a father, a father who loves you, has loved you, has loved you to such an extent that he paid a price. He sent his son to redeem you out of slavery and to adopt you into his family. When you understand this, it changes everything in your life.

We called this series Prodigal Church, because the Corinthians had so much in common with the two brothers from The Parable of the Prodigal Sons. I say prodigal sons, because the point of Jesus' parable is really that both sons were lost. Both sons had recklessly abandoned the love of the father. The younger brother abandoned the father to pursue sex and drugs and pagan parties. The older brother abandoned the father, he didn't abandon the father physically, but he abandoned the father in his heart. He honored the father with his actions, he was a slave to the father's laws, but his heart was far from him. And both sons were miserable. Both sons were yoked to a false understanding of God. They knew him only as a force to either be avoided or to be appeased. And they failed to see him for who he was, which was a father to be loved and embraced.

Now, Jesus calls out in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yo upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." To completely take off the old yoke, you need to yoke yourself to Christ. In Christ, you are no longer a slave to sin. You are no longer a slave to the law. You are a son, a daughter adopted into the family of God. And so you need to take up that new yoke, take up that new identity.

And then Jesus says, "And learn from me. Learn to follow my lead. Learn to pull in the direction that I am going in every area of your life." So whether you're more like the younger brother or more like the older brother, Jesus is the better brother. Jesus is the brother who was sent to find us, to save us and to bring us back home to find a father who was waiting, not to scold us, not to cast us away, but to embrace us and to welcome us home with open arms. So completely cast off the yoke of slavery, completely take up the yoke of salvation.

Point number three, get completely yoked with your savior, arm pump emoji. This is chapter seven, verse one. "Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God." People cringe at this idea of holiness. But deep down, everybody wants it. Everybody wants holiness. Everybody wants people to treat them that they would want to be treated. Nobody wants people to lie or to cheat or to steal or to sin against them. Deep down, everyone wants holiness for others. Just not so much for themselves.

Now as Christians, this cannot be the case. We desire holiness and we desire holiness because holiness is our destiny. As Christians, we look forward to an eternity without sin, no selfishness, no pride, everyone is working in the best interest of others. People are humble, selfless, they're full of peace, full of joy, no rivalry, no jealousy, just happiness for one another and the Lord. We look forward to that, that is our destiny, and therefore that holiness is our desire. To take that glorious future that we are waiting for and to do what we can to make it a reality right now. And so read that verse again, "Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion and the fear of God." Bring holiness to completion. In other words, we all are going to be completely holy. We're going to be spiritually yoked in eternity. Therefore, start working out right now.

What do I mean? I mean if holiness had muscle, if holiness had mass, then God's desire would be for all of his children to be completely yoked like professional baseball players. Not like today's professional baseball players, like the players of the 1990s when steroids were still mandatory, that's what we're talking about. When people look at your spiritual gains, they should say, "There's no way that's natural." Because it's not. You're not natural. You're supernatural. You are a new creation in Christ. The Holy Spirit of God lives in you. Therefore, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the body and spirit, not just the outside, but the inside as well, and bring holiness to completion in the fear of God.

The reason that Jesus could say that his yoke was easy and that his burden was light was not because there wasn't a heavy burden to bear. There was. But he took that burden alone. What was the yoke that Jesus took? What was the burden placed on his back? It was the cross of salvation for sinners to be saved. Long before Christ was born, the prophet Isaiah looking forward to that day, he wrote an Isaiah 53, "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our inequities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed."

We all like sheep have gone astray/ we've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Jesus took the soul crushing weight of our sin upon himself. And he carried that to the cross. He did that for us. And now he invites us to come, to take his yoke, to take up our crosses daily and to follow after him. Not because we need to bear the burden of our salvation again, not because there's more atonement yet to be made for our sin, but in order to bring holiness to completion and to carry this good news of his cross to the ends of the earth.

If you are a Christian, you're here this morning, are you yoked fully to your savior Jesus Christ? And if you're not, if you've been trying to carry this burden, if you've been trying to prove yourself through your own righteousness or run from God into slavery, to sin, come and lay that burden at the foot of the cross. Take the yoke of Christ upon you and know that he loves you. He died for you so that you could be saved. You can do that today. Just repent, put your faith in him. Let's pray.

Jesus, you are the light of the world. You are the light that will never grow dim, the light that will never go out. Your words says that you shine in the darkness and that the darkness will not overcome you. And you've also told us, you have called us the light of this world, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. God give us the grace and the power to shine this light without compromise, without fear. God give us the grace to be the holiness that we long to see in the world. Fill us as beacons of light, the beacons of your hope to a world that is run by darkness.

God, I pray that you just help us to grasp the gravity of what is at stake, so that we're never tempted to run from this responsibility or to try to push forward in the works of our own flesh, but to rely fully on you, on your spirit, every step in submission to your word. God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your spirit. We thank you for your son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, our savior. It is in his name that we stand before you and pray. Amen.

Severe Mercy

January 30, 2022 • Jan Vezikov • 2 Corinthians 13

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's word? Heavenly father, please remind us that it is not possible to be incidentally a Christian, just a bit. You demand to be first or nothing, and we are not to keep you in balance with the rest of our life, but to keep you first, primary at the center, preeminent. Lord, we thank you for being merciful and gracious, slow to anger, bounding, and steadfast love and faithfulness. Keeping your steadfast love for thousands, for giving inequity and transgression for sin, and thank you that you will by no means clear the guilty unless they repent and turn to Jesus Christ and I pray this for each one of us and I pray this in Christ's name, amen. I pray that 2 Corinthians has been as much of a blessing to you as it has for me. Today, we're close closing our sermon series through 2 Corinthians. Next week we're starting our sermon series through Romans. So, I'm praying, I'm fasting. I'm preparing, I feel the weight of Romans. Romans is one of the most powerful books in all of the Bible and it's one of the most powerful books in world history. It has changed the world like very few books have, so we'll be starting that next week. The title of the sermon today, as we look at 2 Corinthians 13 is severe mercy, and the title of the sermon comes from Sheldon Vanauken's book, A Severe Mercy: A Story of Faith, Tragedy and Triumph, and the story's important because of how CS Lewis ministered to this couple and brought them to the faith, and then Sheldon wrote about it later, but it's a story of the love between Sheldon Vanauken, calls himself Van, and Jean Davis, Davy. They fell in love at 19 years old. They were both pagans and that's what they called themselves. They knew nothing of God, everything they saw, beauty in the world, everything they saw that delighted the heart, the mind, the soul, everything they saw, they just attributed to the natural realm and they loved each other as no ordinary love. They wouldn't let it be so. They even created a shining barrier to protect their love from intruders, and then they get married and they went to college, and then after college they went to grad school in Oxford. In Oxford, they met CS Lewis and with CS Lewis they met a lot of very thoughtful Christians and they were converted and they discovered that Christianity isn't compatible with this exclusivity that they promised to each other. They loved each other with a great love, but they realized that God demands a greater love than that. And, what happened is Davy started... So, Van's wife started growing her love and affection for the Lord and Van started to resent her faith. He said, "I did no, I thought, resent her for being a Christian. I resented her for acting like one, for going a church without me." He says it's practically unfaithfulness. So, while Van wrestles with his own faith, Davy contracts a virus, it destroys her liver. It led to a protracted illness, after some time she died. In the rest of the book, Van is wrestling with why would a loving God allow this to happen? Why would a loving God take his spouse? And, letters between him and CS Lewis helped him work through his faith, and in the letter, CS Lewis wrote the following. He said, "The root cause of your struggles is the fact that you've made love for a person, an idol. That's the root cause of everything, and it's killing your faith." And Lewis wrote, "You have been treated a severe mercy." And by severe mercy, he means when God deals with us harshly, just on the face of it, you look at the facts, and you're like, "You know what, that was harsh," but God does it all the time. And, God does it in order to save you from a greater severity that is to come. It's a severe mercy. It's a severe love. God does this with Moses. No, Moses, you will not see the promised land. God does it with David, no David, you will not build the temple. He does it with Jonah, severe mercy to be caught in the fish. Peter, get behind me, Satan. Paul, God just stops him and says, "You're mine." Paul had no choice in the matter. You are becoming a Christian, severe mercy could be argued. And Lewis wrote, "You have been brought to see that you were jealous of God. So from us, you've been led back to us and God, it remains to go onto God and us." And Vanauken writes toward the end, "That death, so full of suffering for us, both suffering that still overwhelmed my life was yet a severe mercy, a mercy as severe as death, a severity as merciful as love." This is the God of the Bible. If you don't understand that God often does send severe mercy for his children, for our sanctification, to strengthen us, to empower us, to cleanse us from sin, and to grow some maturity and fruitfulness, if you don't understand that, you don't understand the God of the Bible. It's everywhere. Romans 11:22, "Note then the kindness and severity of God. Severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you providing you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off." Those are severe words. If you reject God, there is a point where that's it, you're done and we should fear that, and we should fear coming even close to that because God will bring severe mercy. So, today we're at 2 Corinthians 13. Would you look at the text with me? 2 Corinthians 13. "This is the third time I'm coming to you. Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. I warned those who sinned before and all the others and I warn them now while absent as I did when present on my second visit that if I come again, I will not spare them. Since you seek proof that Craig is speaking in me, he's not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you for he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God, for we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you, we will live with him by the power of God." "Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith test .yourselves, or do you not realize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail to meet the test. I hope you'll find out that we have not failed the test, but we pray to God that you may not do wrong. Not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth, for we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. For this reason, I write these things while I'm away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down." "Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort. Comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss and all the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus and love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." Amen. This is the reading of God's holy and infallible authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We'll just walk through the text verse by verse, four points, the frame of our time. First, live by the power of God. Second, examine yourself, is Jesus in you? Three, do nothing against the truth, everything for the truth. And finally, the final greetings. So, number one is live by the power of God. Verse one, "This is the evidence..." Excuse me. "This is the third time I'm coming to you. Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses." Paul has written the second letter to Corinthians. He's done everything he possibly could from a pastoral perspective, inspired by the Holy Spirit. He has given them the Gospel. He's given the hard words of rebuke and warning, and now he's saying, "I'm coming and I pray that God's word will do its work and that it will lead you to repentance. If I come and the church is in order and everyone is living a repentant life in the church as members of the church, then we're going to have a wonderful time of fellowship. If not, we're going to have to put the church in order." And, here he begins to talk about church discipline, and if you don't understand church discipline and most likely it's because you haven't read the word or you've grown up in an American church, it's one or the other. Any other churches, any other colleges, they're like, "We get church discipline." Koreans get it, Russians get it, Slavs of the Ukrainians definitely get it. American churches? No, you can't discipline me. I want to be on the roles. I don't want to attend church or give or serve, but just in case this does anything and get me into heaven, I'm in, sign me up. Those are most American churches. That's not us because we love the Bible, and we actually do what the Bible says. We read it and we do it, and the Bible talks about church membership. And one of the biggest... A lot of people are like, "Give me a verse for church membership." Church discipline, Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians five, it's everywhere. The fact that Christians are to hold one another accountable, that we are in a family, and in a family when someone's not doing well, the family gets together and the family chats. That's what church membership is. If a brother sins against you, go to him and if the brother repents, you've gained your brother. And if the brother doesn't repent, now you got to bring the church in, and the whole point of church discipline is to bring a person back to a restored relationship with the Lord and with the brother and sisters with the church. That's what St. Paul here is talking about. So, if you're not a member of a church, most of you here are. If you're not a member of a church, that's the camera, you should join a church. It's in the Bible. I tell people, I don't think you're a faithful believer if you are not a member of a church. I don't. Who's keeping you accountable, your roommates? We need accountability, we need church. This is why we practice it. It's in the Holy Spirit. So, none of what's about to happen is going to make sense unless you understand that's a biblical category. We have sermons galore online. Go to the membership section. We've explained all of this. We've built the theology for it. We've done the work. We just assume it's true. So, St. Paul says, "Look, I don't want to do the church discipline part. I've already done the discipline, which is the positive discipline of telling you the truth and hopefully you get yourself in line with the truth, and if not, you repent where you're not in line with the truth and then there's order in the church." The word for evidence here, he says, "Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses." Here he's talking about the fact that in the Old Testament, if a charge is brought against a person in the community of faith, you have to have at least two or three witnesses, and it's not just witnesses who write something. Here the word for evidence is the word stoma and stoma just means mouth. And, this is really important to understand that the charge has to be brought in person. If you have a charge against someone, you go to that person in-person and you speak to them. You look at them in the eyes and you tell them the truth and like, "Hey, you're sinning here. Here's the verse that you've transgressed. Here's the commandment that you've..." You've got to look them in the eyes. This is crucial because we live in a day and age where there's a lot of keyboard warriors and both keyboard on your computer and on your phone, just keyboard warriors, where it's like, "Church discipline off my phone." No, you got to go to the person and you got to talk to him. There's something that happens when look eye to eye, when you look someone in the eye, and when there's two or three people and you speak from your mouth, that's what's going on here. And, any charges must be brought together, and the reason why Paul does this is because he's creating order in the church. An order has to be created in an orderly way, which a lot of people don't understand today. A lot of people look at the world out there and they're like, "Everything's wrong. We're going to fix it with more chaos." That doesn't work, that's not God's way. The way that God wants to fix chaos is through a very orderly way, and this is what the Lord does. The word for charge here is a word, like if you have a word against someone, don't speak it behind their back, speak it to them one on one, first of all, and then there's the two and three witnesses. Verse two, "I warned those who sinned before and all the others and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present in my second visit, that if I come again, I will not spare them." All right, what does Paul mean here? I will not spare them. Whatever he means, it's got to be something that you want to be spared of. So, whatever he's talking about, this thing, I want to spare them. I've given them a warning, a warning, a warning, a warning, but there comes a time where if you persist in your unrepentant sin, you will not be spared. He speaks about this in 1 Corinthians 4:18-21. "Some are arrogant as though I were not coming to you, but I will come to you soon if the Lord wills and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people, but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power. What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love in a spirit of gentleness?" So, he's saying there's two weapons at his disposal, tools if you don't want to use the word weapon, gentleness, spirit of love and gentleness. That's the rule. That's the rule, that's how we are to pursue relationships with one another, and in particular, when it comes to a person in authority over another person, we as Christians, the general rule we operate from is this, gentleness, spirit of gentleness and love, but there's a rod here. What's he talking about with a rod? He's talking about corporal, physical punishment in the church. Most likely not, but whatever it is, it is contrasted to a spirit of gentleness. And in context, St. Paul talks about severity and not sparing, and he's talking about in the context of ecclesial authority. He is in apostle. He is one of 12. He is an apostle, and he is in a role over the church that he has planted in authority and he says, "There's a spirit of gentleness and not gentle. There's a spirit of severity." And, Paul has warned time and again that there ecclesiastical consequences for unrepentant sin, and we call that being disfellowshipped or being excommunicated. So, a person becomes a member of the church and the person begins to live in unrepentant sin. What do we do? First, we just follow Matthew 18, go to them one on one. If the person repents, then that's it. Church discipline is only for unrepentant sin. If the person does not repent, then you get the elders of the church, now you got two or three, and then you call the person to repent this again, and you go through that, and the church is praying for the person. If the person does not repent at that point as the church, we say this person is not a member of this body. This person is not walking in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We cannot say that we see the fruit of the Holy Spirit in this person's life, and we believe that membership is only for regenerated believers and regenerated believers live a repentant lifestyle. St. Paul says, "I will not spare them." And, here the word for spare, pheidomai, it's used in the following context. Acts 20:29, "I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock." So Paul says, "I need to spare you from something worse." If you are living in unrepentant sin, and we leave it as is, this leads to the destruction of the church from within. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. If, the church spares unrepentant sinners, they open themselves up to not being spared by Satan and his false teachers. Romans 8:32, "He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" God did not spare his son Jesus Christ, not so that we can continue living in sin, and thanks be to Jesus. We go to heaven because he died on the cross for our sins. That's not how it works. God did not spare his one and only son to redeem you from sin, to save you from sin, to free you from sin, so that you walk in a life of freedom on a daily basis following the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, church discipline is crucial for the purity and the witness of the church and for the power of God to pour out in the church. And, I don't think enough people talk about this. In the Old Testament, it's clear. There's this clear pattern that when there's someone in the community of faith that's living in unrepentant sin, God withholds his power. Look up the of Achan, this guy in the Old Testament. God said, "I'm calling you people of Israel, kill everything. Do not take a thing." And, Achan decide to take some stuff for himself and hid it in the tent, and then the next time they go to battle people died because of this one guy's greed, and then the guy gets stoned, he and his whole family. It's in the Bible. God hates sin. God has a blazing fury against sin, and I will tell you if you want to see the power of God in this church, and a lot of people ask, why aren't there more miracles today? Why isn't God doing more miracles and healing? He is, the question is, why isn't he doing more of it? Why isn't he doing more of it? Could it be because there are Christians in his church that are secretly living in sin and loving it. So, God calls us to repentance. This is a church discipline sermon. The discipline comes proactively, first of all. If you're living in sin, repent of it. Leave that sin, draw near to the Lord. 2 Peter 2:4, "For if God did not spare angels when they sin, but cast them into hell and committed them to change of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment." So, it's better not to be spared from church discipline than to not be spared from hell. 2 Corinthians 13:3, "Since you seek proof that Christ is speaking in me, he is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you." The charge against St. Paul was, "You're so weak. In person, you're just a weak dude." And St. Paul is like, "Well, because everything that I'm doing, it's not me, it's the Holy Spirit through me. It's the power of God through me." So they were like, "Where's your power? Where's your power? Where's your power?" And he's like, "Look at the church, look at the church, look at the church." And then here he's like, "Look, you think I'm weak? You don't think that Christ is speaking through me and in me? Just wait." That's that's his play. He says, "But watch God's powerful among you, watch." And, here what St. Paul is doing, this is fascinating, he is saying to everyone who's raised their hand against St. Paul, the anointed of God, he's saying, "Be careful. Be careful raising charges against me and see if God doesn't show up in power and rebuke you himself." That's what he's saying. Well, the question that he's preempting, the criticism he's preempting was, "How do we know that Christ is speaking through you, Paul? Who are you to judge us? Who are you to judge our church?" And St. Paul says, "Okay, watch Jesus bring power." And when the people of God gather and the power of Christ is among them, 1 Corinthians 5:4, "When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, my spirit is present with the power of the Lord Jesus." This is fascinating. Paul knows who he is. He knows his calling. He knows his integrity. He knows his resume, and when people criticize him, he didn't respond to the full force defense of himself, of his skillset, instead he lifted it up to God. He follows the pattern of Romans 12:19, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for is written, 'Vengeance is mine. I will repay,' says the Lord." Okay, you want power? Power will come. 2 Corinthians 13:4, "For he, Christ, was crucified in weakness, but lives in the power of God for we are weak in him, but in dealing with you, we will live with him by the power of God." This is very, very, very important. This is a crucial word for the church today, crucial. I just spent a week in a doctoral class at one of those powerful seminaries in the nation, at Westminster Seminary, and I had a professor. I shall not name him, but I've already let him know everything in my papers, my final papers because I'm at the point in my life where grades don't matter. What are you going to do? You're going to give me a B? He said the following. He said, "Christians should aspire to weakness." To weakness? I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Christians should aspire to weakness in every aspect of their life. That's what the Bible teaches." I said, "That's literally not what the Bible teaches." I was like, "Why should we pursue weakness?" He said, "Because Jesus went to the cross in weakness." I was like, "Yeah, but he didn't stay there." He didn't like that part, my professor. He also didn't like the part where I asked him if he's a pacifist, which makes sense because if you're a pacifist you write that kind of theology. Thanks, Edgar. I love the guy. It's not true, man. It's not true. Jesus isn't on the cross, he's no longer weak. He did the weakness thing. He's no longer weak, he's no longer crucified. He lives, he reigns, he rules in power and in glory. Yes, we are called the weakness in that we humble ourselves completely. Lord, I am nothing. I can do nothing apart from you, nothing. That's my weakness, and that's also my strength because now I walk in the power of God, for we are weak in him, but in dealing with you, we will live with him by the power of God. Therefore, Christian, it is your duty and you're calling to live with God in power on a daily basis. You wake up and you say, "God, fill me with power. Give me the power of the Holy Spirit. I am today more than a conqueror. You have won the ultimate war, you have, you have, you have, but there's a battle today. Lord Jesus, fill me with your power." That's our duty. Matthew, 22:29, Jesus answered them, "You are wrong," talking to the Pharisees, "Because you know neither of the scriptures nor the power of God." Know the scriptures, and by doing so, you will know the power of God. Obey the scriptures, you shall know the power of God, and only by the power of God's spirit can those who are dead in sins be regenerate, resurrected to a new life. Paul is ready to exercise his power and authority to judge the unrepentant sinners in the church. One last word before I continue to point two, because we have the kids here today, and my kids are here, my daughters. They're tremendous, they're awesome. Let me just talk about love gentleness as the rule when you have authority. I'm a father, I have authority over my children. God gave me that authority, and then there's a severity part of raising children. There absolutely is, and if they did not know that there's a severity part in the repertoire of my love for them, they would not be as delightful as they are today. Have you met my daughters? They are delightful. If people meet them, they're like, "How did you do that? How did you do that? Were they born that way?" I say, "Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They were not born that way." They never are born that way. They're born as little degenerate sinners. They need to be parented, and the severity part, scripture does teach. So, I don't care if we're in Boston, I don't care if it's 2022. I'm just going to say it, because that's where I am in my ministry if you haven't noticed, yeah, I spank my kids, just a little bit, a little spanky-spanky on the tush. I don't call it corporal punishment it sounds too like, "What are you doing, corporal?" It sounds too corporate. It's just a little spank just in the tush, just a little bit when they're a baby, just on the diaper, they got the cushioning, just a little bit, so they know that it's in their repertoire. Baby, I love you. No, you shall not play with the knife. What's more severe, let her play with the knife or a little on the tush? The flesh all of a sudden wakes up and like, "Yeah, you're right. I don't need that knife." It's true, there is in all of authority, the rule of gentleness, love, but there is a severe part everywhere. In your job, even if you have the nicest boss, he can also fire you at any point, so it's just there. That rod part is always there. That's what St. Paul is getting at. Number two is examine yourself, is Jesus in you? Here what St Paul is doing is turning the table on these false apostles, these false teachers who accused St. Paul of not even being a believer. You're not even a Christian. So St. Paul says, look, verse five, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves, or do you not realize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you failed to meet the test." The word for examine here is peirazó, and this is fascinating because word for exam or test is also the same word for tempt, peirazó. Sometimes it's used as Satan is the one that's tempting, sometimes it's used that God is the one that's testing. This is very important. Every time Satan sends a temptation, it's also a test from the Lord to see, are you going to pass the test? Are you going to reject the temptation? Are you going to get stronger? Are you going to learn something from this? And St. Paul here says, "Hey, examine yourselves, give yourself a test." So, watch yourself, in particular when the temptations come, am I in the faith? In particular when the tests from God come, but we ourselves are to test, test yourself to see whether you are in the faith. How would you pass if you gave yourself a little pop test right now, a pop exam whether you are on the faith? The question is, am I a Christian? The question is, am I a Christian? Well, if you were giving yourself a test, what would the questions be? What would the questions be? This is a very, very important exercise. If you think that you are a Christian, give yourself a test. First of all, you've got to figure out what questions need to be on that test. St. Paul only gives one. He doesn't say, here's this confession of faith, I want you to memorize it and I want you to articulate it. He doesn't say, here's Bible verse that I want you to memorize them. He doesn't say, here's some good works to do a test whether you're in the faith. He doesn't say, give X amount of finances or money to an organization. He doesn't do any of that. He says, test and examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize this about yourself that Jesus Christ is in you? He's asking one question. St. Paul's, test, exam. Are you in the faith? All it says is, is Christ Jesus in you? Is Christ Jesus in you? That's the question before us. Can you answer, yes, Christ Jesus is in me? The son of God is in me by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is in me. Is Jesus Christ in you? The super apostles have been demanding proof and St. Paul's like, "All right, the most important proof is, is Christ in you?" If Christ is in you, well, that's verifiable proof of the fact that Paul has authority from God. And, are you a Christian? If so, you should be able to confidently say, "Yeah, Jesus Christ is in me. He is in me." I wake up and I have affections for Christ. I wake up and I want to do things for the Lord. I want to study the word. When things get hard, and when I sin, and there's temptations, all of a sudden my conscience just awakens me and says, this is wrong. Is Jesus Christ in you? Paul leaves this question up to the conscience that Jesus Christ is in the center. That's the exam. Do you live like Jesus Christ is in you? And, there should be fruit of the Holy Spirit and he says, "Unless indeed you fail to meet the test." And, that's too nice of a translation. He's like, "Oh, if Christ isn't in you, then you didn't meet the test." The word here in the Greek just means disqualified. If you do not pass this test, what hangs in the balance is not just GPA or just the letter grade, it's your eternity, your eternity, your soul hangs in the balance between heaven and hell for all of eternity. So, make sure that you are not disqualified. Make sure that you meet the test. 2 Timothy 3:8, "The word is used just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith." Titus 1:16, "They professed to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good word." That's the same word. If Christ is in you, then you should be able to point the spiritual fruit produced by God through you. That wasn't me, that was the Lord. Follow the date of your life, examine yourself to see whether your faith is genuine. And, then when you begin to examine yourself and that's Matthew seven, you start with yourself, that's the spec and the rod and all, when you begin to examine yourself, now you can begin to examine the teachers in the church. Revelation 2:12, "I know your works, your toil, your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false." So, this is a very important exercise. Do test yourself, examine yourself, ask the question, am I in the faith? Is Christ Jesus in me? It doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian, by the way. It doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian. I tell people I live like an Armenian, I might lose my salvation, I don't know. I sleep like a Calvinist. God's got me. It's all good. I study the Bible like a Baptist or a Presbyterian, I'm not sure yet. I pray like a Pentecostal, I worship as a charismatic and I do evangelism like a Jehovah's Witness. That's my that's my whole... But, we are to examine ourselves. We are to examine to see whether... Especially, church before holy communion, I don't think enough people talk about this. It's clear in scripture. When people trifle with holy communion, God sometimes kills them. That's a fact. 1 Corinthians 11:27, "Whoever therefore eats of bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why so many of you are weak and ill and some have died, but if we judge ourselves truly would not be judged, but then we are judged by the Lord. We are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world." And in that text later he says, "And that's why some of you are sick, and some of you have fallen asleep, and he's talking about death. It's when believers living in sin, a seared conscience, approach the table as if God doesn't care about sin and they remember the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what it took for God to pardon us from sin. God does not take too kindly of that. That's where severity comes in and I've seen this happen. I've seen this happen in my life in ministry. I've seen Christians who just mess with sin, mess with sin and pretend that everything's fine in their Christian life, and all of a sudden, God just takes them. So Christians, if you're wrestling with sin, wrestle it, but also win by the power of the spirit, whatever it takes. Put it to death, get accountability, share your struggles, repent of sin, turn to the Lord. Next time we partake in communion, come prepared. Verse six of 2 Corinthians 13, "I hope you'll find out that we have not failed the test." Paul says, "Examine yourself before you examine the Christian." Paul's been examined himself his whole life. So, he's not saying he's failed the test. Obviously he hasn't, he's done everything he possibly can to not disqualify himself from the race that is the Christian life and ministry. 2 Corinthians 13:7, "But we pray that God may not do wrong, not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed." St. Paul says, "If the unrepentant sinners in the church repent and turn from sin, tremendous, Paul, can't wait to bring them back." He doesn't want to use his severe authority, but if they haven't, he says, "Then they have to take action." And, the lesson here is that St. Paul is willing to do the hard thing. He doesn't want to do this, he doesn't want this emotional toll, he doesn't want people to not like him, he doesn't want to say hard things. He wants to be buddy-buddy, fellowship, everything's great, but that's not loving sometimes, and sometimes you have to speak the truth and the lesson here is that spirit-filled leaders care more about what's best for the person they're leading, the person under their care, than how the person esteems them. Third is, do nothing against the truth, everything for the truth. Verse eight, "For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth." This is an incredible verse. This is this week's memory verse. This is the one, this is the memory verse. In particular, in a day and age where there's so much fake news and lies, just lies, lies, lies, lies all around us, we should have people that care about truth. Truth from holy scripture and truth in the world, we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. Do you do anything against the truth? Is there anything you do that doesn't support the truth? And, it starts with our relationship with the Lord. Jesus is the truth, and if there's any place in your life that you are not following Jesus completely, then you are not walking in the truth. You're not abiding in the truth, and when Christians are living in sin, they're not living for the truth, but against truth and Paul is coming back to reestablish the truth. In verse nine he says, "For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for." That's his whole goal. The word for restoration, it's a building term, it's a construction term. It's like if you get an old house and you got it and you restore it to its original beauty, that's what he's talking about. The restoration, now we care about the restoration of the believer. That's what St. Paul says. It has to do with a process of perfecting, maturing to make someone completely adequate for something, a cause to be fully qualified. 2 Timothy 3:7, the same word for restoration is used, "That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." Restored, perfection, complete, that's the same language. 2 Corinthians 13:10, "For this reason I write these things while I'm away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down." He says, "I don't want to tear down. God's given me authority. I want to build you up, whatever is missing in your life. I don't want to come with severe or harsh authority." That's the same word that's used Titus 1:13, "This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith." So Paul says, it's there. I want you to know that it's in the repertoire. The severity of the authority is in the repertoire, just as long we're on the same page, so that when I come to you and gentleness, you actually appreciate it. That's what he's saying. So, how does this supply at Mosaic? Well, for most of you, if you already know me, the severity's there. It takes everything from me to not be severe sometimes because you got to do the hard work, this sinful anger is there. So, the severity is there, that's the point. The point is it's there. Most of the time it's gentleness, but once in a while when someone is in a spiritual stupor... And by the way, this is how I respond if I'm in sin and someone's like, "Hey, Jan. I think you're sinning. Here's the text." I'm like, "I don't even think you really believe I'm sinning. Do you even believe? Can you just yell at me, please? Just yell at me, God." That's the way I operate. All the most influential people in my life are people that yelled at me, from my coaches to stern teachers and... But it's there, that's what St. Paul is saying. "I don't want to use it," he says, "I want to build you up." To build someone up means to assist them with the construction, the completion of their life, whatever is missing. The goal is always to build up, not to tear down. And, God sometimes does tear down and he does inflict pain, he does bring severe mercy. Sometimes people ask me like, "Pastor Jan, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?" My response is so that people finally ask, "Hey, how could God be allowing this?" Good, we are finally talking about God. What did it take for you to finally start talking about God, a little pain and suffering. God often sends severity here, pain here, harshness here to wake us up and see as the Lord says, God's megaphone to a deaf world. Isaiah 19:22, "The Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will have return to the Lord and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them." How often does this happen? God strikes, God brings pain, inflicts pain, so finally people cry out, "God, please heal us." And, he does. And, ultimately he wants to heal us for eternity and that's through Jesus Christ. Point four is the final greeting and this is verses 11-14. Paul finishes the letter with a final charge consisting of five imperatives into promise. Beginning with verse 11, "Finally, brothers, rejoice, aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace and the God of love and peace will be with you." What a text. And then he says, "Greet one another with a holy kiss." All the saints greet you with a holy kiss. Now we got to do something with this because we live in a place where nobody wants to shake hands, holy handshake, no. The holy fist bump, can you do that, a holy elbow tap, a holy something? What's he talking about? What's going on here? Well, what's going on in the Greco-Roman world, you were not allowed to call anyone a brother or sister unless they were legally your brother and sister. So, Christians in public could not be like, "Hey, brother," because then they'd get arrested and killed. So, what they did was they created this language of like, "We're going to show affection in public with a holy kiss that we're brother and sister, we're siblings." That's the history behind that. The thought behind this is that we as Christians, we are brothers and sisters. We are brothers and sisters. So, when people try to treat church as just some corporate gathering where you you come in, you hear a lecture and nobody talk to me please, and then you bounce, and just to do it again a month later, if that's the extent of your Christian life, then you don't understand one of the most beautiful things about Christianity, is the family aspect. And when you really love another Christian and you haven't seen them in a long time, there's something inside where you want to show affection physically and they back then, they did a holy kiss. Am I saying to bring it back? I'm saying they did it. What I'm saying is they did it. What I'm also saying is it was holy. So, anyone that's a pervert and is like, "Ooh, bringing back a kiss." It was a holy kiss. I submit to you, let's start with deepening the relationship first, and then we'll get to showing the affection, okay? A lot of people are like... No, we just met. You haven't gone through the membership process yet. We just met, dude. So, we're working through that. 2 Corinthians 13:14, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." If you have this, you have everything. Jesus Christ, our Lord procured the grace, God, the father, in love sends his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit is the one that gives us the fellowship. He is the council of the comforter. He is the helper. He is the one that binds our souls together. We together have fellowship when we are bound by the Holy Spirit on the same mission and we are on the same ship, so to speak. In our membership meeting, we talk about the fact that church is a battleship, it's not a cruise ship. When you're on a battleship serving brothers and sisters, you experience the deepest level of fellowship that you will ever experience, thanks to the Holy Spirit. We started with Sheldon Vanauken's book, A Severe Mercy. I'll just finish with a quote from there, "Though I wouldn't have admitted it, even to myself, I didn't want God aboard." This is when his wife became a fervent believer and he was wrestling with his own faith. He said, "I didn't want God aboard. He was too heavy. I wanted him approving from a considerable distance. I didn't want to be thinking of him. I wanted to be free like a gypsy. I wanted life itself, the color and fire and loveliness of life. And Christ now and then, like a loved poem I could read when I wanted to, I didn't want us to be swallowed up in God. I wanted holidays from the school of Christ." I wonder, are you ever tempted to treat God like this? Whenever you are, I just want you to remember that it's a good thing that God did not treat us like this, that God didn't just give us just a little bit, just to have a little bit of relation. God, went all in because that's what it took to save us from our sin. There's an infinite chasm between us and God. Every sin, every transgression leads to eternal separation from God, and there's only one way for that separation to be bridged, for us to be reconciled with God, and that's through the severe decree of God the father. God the father gives a severe decree to his son Jesus Christ. Jesus, my son, my beloved son, whom I'm well pleased. I'm sending you on a mission to live that perfect life that not one of these people could have lived, and then to die a death atoning for the sins of all the elect. I'm calling you to be crucified, and that's not even the worst part. The most severe part is as Jesus is being crucified, physical anguish, he's experiencing the wrath of God being poured out on him. Severity, that's God's harshness. It's also his mercy. That's the only way for us to be saved from our sin. Jesus on the cross submits to God the father. He dies, he's buried, he's resurrected, and now for you to become a Christian, for me to become a Christian, for us to have our sins forgiven, come to the Lord, submit to him, submit your life to him, submit to Jesus for your whole life. Not just a little bit, submit your whole life to Jesus Christ. If you're a Christian, submit your whole life to Jesus Christ. If the not, I am warning you, he will send severe mercy. I'm trying to prevent you from that. Why? Because that's how much he loves you. With that said, would you please pray with me? Heavenly father, we thank you for this time and the holy word. We thank you for this rich text. Holy God, we repent of all sin. We turn from all sin, from folly, from pride, from self-righteousness, from self-sufficiency. We are nothing apart from you and we pray Holy Spirit, continue to empower us, each one of us. Continue to cleanse this church from any sin, continue to cleanse our membership from any sin, so that we can be a church that it is holy, zealous, on fire for you. And I pray through us, Holy Spirit, do mighty works here in this church and amongst this community, in this city, in this state, and beyond. And, we thank you for all of this in advance. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.

Christlike Authority

January 23, 2022 • Shane Sikkema • 2 Corinthians 12:11–21

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning and welcome again to Mosaic. If you're new, my name is Shane, one of the pastors here, and we're so glad to have you with us today. We would love to connect with you. As we mentioned earlier, if you'd like to connect with us, a great place to start is to fill out that little connection card in your worship guide. And if you turn that in at the Welcome Center out there, we've got a gift that we'd love to give to you to thank you for being with us today. One quick announcement before we begin, there is a membership class happening today right after this service. So, if you are interested in membership, we would love to have you join us for that. Lunch will be provided that's going to be happening downstairs. So, we're getting really close to the end of our sermon series, Prodigal Church. We've been going through Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. And for much of this letter, what we've seen is that Paul has been trying to win the heart, the soul of this prodigal church. That it seems in his absence that some false teachers have crept into the church and they were leading people astray. These were not just wolves in sheep's clothing. These were shepherds... wolves in shepherd's clothing that they were presenting themselves as teachers, as authorities. In the church, Paul sarcastically refers to them as super-apostles, because in reality, they were satanic apostles that the enemy had sent in to divide and to conquer the flock. And here near at the end of his letter, for the last couple of weeks, we've seen Paul is resorting to do something that he's been reluctant to do which is he begins to boast. He begins to defend his apostolic authority and present his case for why it is not only authentic but far superior to that of these false teachers, and his desire is not so much to defend himself as it is to defend this church that he loves. That these false apostles, they've won over some of the people in this church by boasting in their strengths. They've been boasting in their wins, in their gifting. And so, Paul begins to boast as well, but instead he boasts in his losses. He boasts in his sufferings. He boasts in his sacrificial love, and he wants the church to learn. He needs us to learn that you cannot judge spiritual authority by outward appearances. And these super-apostles, they were very eloquent. They were well-spoken, well-dressed. They were successful. They were influential. They were connected, highly educated. They had fans. They had money. They had charisma, but you can have all of those things and not even be a Christian. And so, don't be deceived that there are going to be plenty of people in this world, motivational speakers, spiritual gurus, leaders of false religions, who know how to draw big crowds to themselves, but this doesn't validate them as somebody truly worthy of being fouled. And so, instead of boasting in his strengths, Paul chooses to boast in the things that, from the world's perspective appear to be weaknesses, but these weaknesses are windows. They're like curtains that are being drawn back in order to show that the true power and authority of this man was not coming from himself. That Paul's power and authority, it was the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit in his life and in his ministry and this is what validated him as an apostle. And so, what we've seen is, in many ways, to the world Paul appears to be almost pitiful, foolish. And yet to those who are being saved, Paul looks like a man who loves the church, who's willing to lay down his life, sacrifice everything for this church he loves. It shows us that he's a lot like Jesus Christ. And so, we're going to be talking about authority today. Before we begin, we need to address something and that is this, how do you feel when you are told to submit? If I were to tell you, "Submit to my authority," most of us say, "Yeah, that doesn't make me feel very good." Why is that? Why is that our gut reaction is just bristle or to push back against that sentiment? Is authority inherently bad? Is submission inherently bad, or are these things inherently good? There's a scene in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where the children are in Narnia. And if you remember, Narnia is this place that's under the watch of this evil witch and she's caused it to be a place that's described as being always winter but never Christmas. Rumors have begun to spread that Aslan who's the Christ figure of the book was on the move, and one of the signs of this is that in some places, the snow of winter is beginning to melt. And at one point in their journey, the children are actually found by Father Christmas, and he gives them presents. To Peter, he gives a sword. To Susan, he gives a bow. He gives them these gifts, but this is what he tells them. He says, "These are your presents. And they are tools, not toys. The time to use them is perhaps near at hand. Bear them well." What's the difference between a tool and a toy? Toys are for pleasure, but tools are for a greater purpose. Toys are for our own amusement, but tools they're meant to build, to fix, to repair, to design, to create order out of chaos. So, what does this have to do with authority? Well, first of all, authority is a gift, and none of us have any legitimate authority in and of ourselves. Do you remember when Jesus was standing before Pontius Pilate, and Pilate says to him, "Don't you know that I have the power to release you or the power to crucify you, the authority to crucify you?" And Jesus answered him in John 19:11, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above." Authority is a gift from God, but it's not a toy. He doesn't give us authority to be used for our own pleasure, selfish ambition, or amusement. It's a tool. And as with any tool, even the very best of tools, it can be used improperly to cause harm, to cause destruction, but its intended purpose is to bring life and beauty, to create utility and value. And think of it like this, authority is like a hammer. And yeah, you can beat people over the head with it but that's not what it's made for. It isn't designed to beat people up. It's designed to build... to beat people down. It's designed to build people up. It's designed to help create a world in which things are as they ought to be where humanity is flourishing under the good authority of God, the Father. And so, Paul, throughout these letters, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, he's hammering this over and over that he wants the church to see and to acknowledge and to submit to his authority. He's hammering this not to beat them down. He's hammering it to build them up. I saw this a couple of weeks ago in 2 Corinthians 10:8, he says, "Even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed." In our passage today in Chapter 12:19, he says, "Do you think we've been all along have been defending ourselves to you? It's in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved." Today, we're going to be looking at 2 Corinthians 12. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open up, we'll be looking at verses 11-21. And we're going to be talking about authority, we're going to try to glean some principles of what Christ-like authority looks like. Because we all need to learn to submit to authority, but we all need to learn how to wield authority as well. Paul's primary focus in this text has to do with authority in the church, but all of us are going to be given opportunities to wield authority in one way or another throughout our lives. And so, therefore, we all need to be prepared to do that in a Christ-like manner and so as we talk about these things today. This applies to pastors, to leaders in the church, but this also applies to husbands and wives, parents over their children, employers over their employees, managers over their teams, teachers over their students, officials over their citizens. I'd say this even applies to our own personal stewardship of the resources that God has entrusted under us, under our authority, our time, our talents, our treasures, the self-control, the discipline, that we exercise even over ourselves in order to put our own lives in order under the authority of Jesus Christ. And so, it doesn't matter how big or small, I want you to try to think and identify, "Where has God given me authority? What are those spheres of influence and authority that God has given to me and how can I be faithful in those areas? How can I be more like Christ with those responsibilities?" Because Jesus said, "If you're faithful over little, I will put you over much." So, three points for our sermon today is number one, a Christ-like authority is evidenced by the Spirit. And second Chris-like authority is expressed like a parent and third, Christ-like authority is foolish yet effective. So, if you have your Bibles, you can follow along. I'm going to pray for our sermon, and then we're going to just work through this passage one section at a time. So, if you would, let's spend some time in prayer. God, you are a good father and we thank you for your good authority over our lives. Jesus, all authority in heaven and on earth is yours, and you have shown us the power and goodness that true authority has not by domineering us but by dying for us. God, give us the faith to joyfully submit to you, to the authorities that you have placed over us, and to ourselves wield whatever authority we have been given in a godly, in a Christ-like manner. And we thank you for your word. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would speak to us today through your word, and that by it we as your church would be strengthened, built up, and useful for you and for your kingdom and glory. We pray this all in Christ's name. Amen. Point number one, Christ-like authority is evidenced by the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 12, looking at the first couple of verses 11 and 12, Paul says this that, "I have been a fool. You forced me to it, for I ought to have been commended by you. For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with the utmost patient, with signs and wonders and mighty works." And here in the first couple of verses, we see two signs that validate Paul's authority over this church. And the first is something that is specific to Paul and to his apostolic ministry, and the second is more general and it applies to all of us as well. And so, first of all, Paul's apostolic authority was evidenced by signs of the Spirit. And this is why Paul, he really shouldn't have had to defend himself before this church. He says, actually, in verse 11 that, "I ought to have been commended by you because you've seen the evidence of the Spirit in my ministry firsthand." Back in 1 Corinthians 9, he says, "Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? And are you not my workmanship in the Lord? If to others I'm not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. And this is my defense to those who would examine me." Now, the Corinthians had witnessed the power of the Holy Spirit in Paul's ministry firsthand and they owed their very existence as a church to it. When Paul first arrived in the city of Corinth, we see this in Acts 18. We're told in verse nine that many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, "Don't be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent for, I am with you, and no one will attack you or harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people." And he stayed there for a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. After this, Paul goes a little bit further on to the city of Ephesus, and we're told that he continued there in Acts 19:10 that he continued there for two years, so that all the residents of Asia's entire region heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul says, "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not in ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." They had seen the Holy Spirit validate Paul in his ministry that he truly was a capital A apostle. And we need to understand this is something that was unique to the early church that there are no capital A apostles. Today, if you meet someone who claims to be one, they probably belong in that category of the super-apostles that Paul was refuting. What this means is that leadership in the church today, it doesn't need to be validated by miraculous signs and wonders like the apostles, but Christ-like authority in the church today is evidenced by how authority submits and obeys the apostles, their example, their teaching, and the writings of the New Testament. That when the apostles in the early church were writing the New Testament, they weren't just recording their opinions. This was the Holy Spirit-inspired word of God. And so, how does this apply to us? Well, first, for those in authority like myself as a pastor, any spiritual authority that I have over the church is thrown out the window the minute that I stand in defiance of Jesus Christ or stand in a place of judgment over God's word. Second, if you go to a church where the pastor is claiming to be an apostle like Paul, claiming to speak new revelation that is equal in authority to Scripture, or where the pastor is rejecting the authority of God's word, you need to call that pastor to repentance and or you need to leave that church. That legitimate authority over the church needs to be under the authority of Jesus Christ, the living word, and under the authority of Holy Scripture, the written word. So, Paul's apostolic authority was evidenced by signs, by wonders, by miracles of the Holy Spirit, and He had seen the risen Christ with his own eyes and was called by him to be an apostle. Second, Paul's Christ-like authority was evidenced by humble and confident submission to Christ. That true Christ-like authority is marked by submission to Christ's authority, and that this submission, it's a humility that leads to obedience that results in bold confidence. It's a humility that isn't harrowing. It's a confidence that isn't conceited. And that might seem paradoxical but this is why Paul can say what he says in verse 11. He says, 2 Corinthians 12:11, the second half of the verse that, "I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles," that's a very bold and confident thing to say, "even though," he continues, "even though I am nothing." He's extremely humble as well. He goes on to say that, "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you and they were done so with the utmost patience." He's confident. He was humble. In 1 Corinthians 15:9, he says, "I'm the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of the God that was with me." It's confident humility. It's humble confidence, and it's hard to describe but you know it when you see it. You see it in Jesus Christ. You see it in the apostle Paul. You see it in godly leaders who are walking in the Spirit. And the thing is, when you see it, it's usually not quite what you would expect. I'll just give you a quick example from my own life. Before we moved to Boston, my wife and I, this was actually almost 20 years ago, early on in our marriage, we volunteered at the youth group, the youth ministry of our former church. We were the young hip 20-somethings who led the worship team for this ministry of seven-year 80 high school students. One day, this guy shows up and he wants to volunteer in the youth group. And right now, we realized we have a problem, because this guy was not young and cool. He was very old and very gray. We were in the Midwest. And if you know the Midwest, everybody has a super thick news anchor accent. This guy had a very thick Southern accent which really made him a stick out. And then, on top of that, he was very overweight. He's a big guy and picture like a mixture between Santa Claus and Colonel Sanders. That's who we're dealing with. And he we found out he was actually a colonel, a retired colonel from the military. And the point is on the outside, he did not look like the kind of person that you would be looking for in a youth group volunteer. He wasn't hip, he wasn't cool, but he didn't care. So, he just starts showing up, he starts serving, starts hanging out, and he just starts engaging everybody. He loved to eat. And so, he and his wife, they just started taking people out for lunch after church, teens, the leaders, didn't matter. Pretty much anybody that they came in contact with, he'd just say, "Hey, we're going to eat. I'm buying, and you are coming with me." And my wife and I, we were on the receiving end of this a couple of times. So, you sit down to lunch with this guy. You order your food. And all of a sudden, 45 minutes go by and you feel like you just got mauled by Jesus. You feel like you just sparred with a lion, and he was so... it's hard to describe. He was tough, but he was super tender. He wasn't bringing up the teeth and the claws. He wasn't trying to be mean or intimidating, but he lets you feel his spiritual weight and strength. And so, on the one hand, he was very humble. He just exudes this deep genuine love and concern and care for every person that he talked to. And when you're with him, his presence was very comforting. It was very encouraging, and you would drop your guard and then without even asking, he would just start digging into all the details of your life. "How's your devotion time? How's your prayer time? How's your marriage? Well, let's talk about those super-secret sins that you need to repent of." And just with this incredible boldness and confidence, just starts asking all the awkward, hard questions. He was so bold, and he was so gentle at the same time. He just loves Jesus. He loved life. He loved people, and he's probably the most confident and at the same time the most humble man that I've ever met. His name was Jim. Eventually, Jim moved down to Texas. And a few years after that, unfortunately, he passed away. And you would not believe just the outpouring of people not just from our own church but from all over the country like he was in the military, he moved around a lot. You would not believe how many lives had been impacted by the confident humility of this man. Here's the thing. He was never given an official position of authority or leadership in the church but that didn't stop that Christ-like authority from just flowing out of it. It was commanding. It was powerful, and it was inspiring. On the other hand, it wasn't anything what you would expect to find if you were looking at outward appearances alone. It was clearly the power of the Holy Spirit in a man whose life was fully submitted to Christ. These false apostles, they had been boasting and winning people over with their gifting, with their eloquence, with their outward appearances of worldly success and charisma, and none of those things are bad. They're just not, any of themselves, good evidence of the Holy Spirit's power. You can have all of those things, and you can even appear to be quite godly on the outside and still be way off the mark. Paul put it like this in his first letter to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 13:1, he says, "Listen, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind, does not envy or boast. It's not arrogant or rude. It doesn't insist in its own way. It's not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." If you remember the story of King Saul in the Old Testament, he was described as a man who stood head and shoulders above everyone else. He was big. He was strong. He was handsome. He looks like a king. David, on the other hand, was the least of his brothers, the youngest, the smallest, the runt, the one that was easiest to overlook. And yet, Saul was a fool, but David is described as a man after God's own heart. Soul's strength eventually failed the nation, but David's faith toppled giants. And if you remember the Prophet Samuel in 1 Samuel, 16:7, he says this, he says, "Listen, the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." When you read the New Testament, you get the impression that Paul probably wasn't much to look at. If you saw him walk into the room, you might not think, "Oh, there's the guy that's going to change the world." You might not notice him much at all. Historians have actually... an early Christian document that gives one of the only physical descriptions of Paul. This is not in the Bible, so don't take this as scriptural gospel truth, but it was probably handed down through some oral tradition. In the Acts of Paul and Thecla, Onesiphorus describes Paul like this, he says, "He was a man of small stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness. For now, he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel." On the outside, he's just a man. On the inside, he was a man after God's own heart, who loved this church, whose heart was in beat, in rhythm with the heart of the Father and He cared for this prodigal son, this prodigal church as if it were his own child. And that brings us to point number two that Christ-like authority is expressed like a parent. 2 Corinthians 12, continuing in verse 13, Paul writes, "For in what were you less favored than the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not burden you? Forgive me this wrong. Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? But granting that I myself did not burden you, I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by deceit. Did I take advantage of you through any of those whom I sent to you? I urged Titus to go, and I sent the brother with him. Did Titus take advantage of you? Did we not act in the same spirit? Did we not take the same steps?" Paul's authority over the church was parental. It was like that of a father over a son. And when you compare this to the false teachers, it shows us that Paul did something really important. That Paul avoided some of the biggest temptations that authority brings and that these false apostles had fallen for. Satan hates God's authority. And so, it should be no surprise that he would aim to twist and distort and tempt people to misuse their authority and does this in a couple of ways. Satan tempts us to misuse our authority by exploiting people through flattery. Secondly, by abandoning people through abdication and thirdly, by domineering people through coercion, and Paul avoided all of these things. First of all, Paul, he refused to exploit them through flattery. 2 Peter 2 warns that false prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep." Earlier in his letter, Paul described the super-apostles as peddlers of the gospel. They were driven by greed, and they were twisting the truth in order to exploit the church. Paul, on the other hand, did not come to take. He had come to give. He says, he's not after their money, he was after their hearts and after their souls. 2 Corinthians 12:14 says, "I'll not be a burden for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents but parents for their children, and I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?" And Paul's playing some 4D chess here. On the one hand, he's rebuking them, but he's rebuking them by reminding them of how much he loves them, of how much he is willing to sacrifice for them that he loved them with this parental fatherly love. What this meant was he was very patient. He was gentle. He was meek, and he was generous toward them. But it also meant that he refused to flatter them with false words. He wasn't just going to tell them what they wanted to hear. He loved them enough to speak the truth, to correct them, and when necessary even to rebuke and to discipline them. What's interesting is we see Paul express this same fatherly sentiment to another church, in another letter to another church. This time it's to a church that was in pretty good standing however. They were walking in obedience and faithfulness to Paul and to his gospel. And this is 1 Thessalonians 2:5-12, and look at the similarities here. He says, "For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed. God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. For you remember, brothers, our labors and toil. We worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we were proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory." Because we nurtured you with the gentleness of a mother, and with the strength of a father, we pleaded with you. We exhorted you. We encouraged you. We charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God. It's the same heart for both of these churches, it's just these different circumstances. I think Paul would have much rather written to the Corinthians the same encouraging words that he wrote to the Thessalonians, but unfortunately the Corinthian church was in need of a lot more correction. And this brings us to the second and third temptation of authority which is how do you respond when people aren't responding to your authority? And typically, what happens is two things. First, we're tempted to abandon them through abdication and third, to domineer them through coercion. And I'm not going to say too much about point number two, but there is this temptation that when people are resistant, when things get hard, that we just write them off, just walk away and abdicate our authority and responsibility, and Paul doesn't do that. But the other temptation is to just flex the strong arm and to dominate your people into submission. It's like fight or flight kicks in. And the question is, how does Christ-like authority respond when people are insubordinate? When they need correction, or if they are rejecting your proper God-given authority? And what we see is that Paul doesn't run away from the problem, but he doesn't come to them as a tyrant. He doesn't come to them as judge, jury and executioner. He comes to them first as a father, father whose heart is broken and aching for a wayward child. And again, this is in contrast to the false teachers, because we know that the false teachers were exploiting the church. We also know they were domineering the church, and we saw this just a few weeks ago in Chapter 11. In 2 Corinthians 11:19, Paul says that, "You gladly bear with fools being wise yourselves. For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you," he's talking about these false teachers, "you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or even strikes you in the face. To my shame, I must say we were too weak for that." They'd been domineering the church. And Paul knew that there was sin in the church and he knows that it needs to be confronted, but he's not going to confront it by just rolling into town and smacking people around as tempting as that is to do sometimes. Paul understood that Christ doesn't call us to domineer people through threats, through violence, through coercion. 1 Peter 5:1-4 says, "I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." On the one hand, Paul doesn't want to domineer the church. On the other hand, he can't just remain passive and indifferent, that the sin that is at the root of all of this, it's tearing the church apart, and so something needs to be done. And so, he's preparing to visit them, to come to them again. But as he does, he's coming as a good father, as a father who loves them, but also as a father who's ready to discipline them if that's what they need, ready to exercise proper church discipline toward those who refuse to repent. And we really see his heart in this matter in the last few verses of our passage today. Continuing on in Chapter 12:19-21 says, "Have you been thinking all along that we've been defending ourselves to you? It's in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved. For I fear that perhaps when I come I may not find you as I wish, and that you may not find me as you wish. That perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder. I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of their impurity, sexual immorality, sensuality, and the sensuality that they have practiced. Paul's coming, and he's coming with a heart that's breaking. Because no father enjoys disciplining their children, and yet no loving father can neglect the discipline of their children either. He needs to be tough, but he desires to be tender. He needs to be gentle, but he also needs to be truthful. And we see this over and over again. 2 Corinthians 2, he wrote and said, "I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you." He instructed the Galatians in Chapter 6:1, "If anyone is caught in any transgression, that you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness." He taught his disciple, Timothy, 2 Timothy 2:24, that the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. And God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escaped from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will." That true love and discipline, they go together. That parental authority it is patient and it is gentle, but it's not apathetic or passive or indifferent. That it confronts sin precisely because it cares. Most people are familiar with the parable of the lost sheep, right? The shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep in order to go and to search and to save the one? Fewer people are familiar with Matthew 18, where Jesus gives the instructions for how to handle matters of church discipline. Very few people are familiar with the fact that those are actually the same passage but talking about the same thing. This is in Matthew 18:12-21. "What do you think," Jesus says. "If a man has 100 sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray. So, it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." And then, immediately after that, he begins going into the instructions for church discipline. "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. And if he listens to you, you have gained your brother." He says, "If not, then you take two or three witnesses. If they still won't listen, you bring it before the whole church." But you get the idea that before giving the instructions for how to do church discipline, Jesus gives us the heart of why to do church discipline. It's a shepherd's heart. Luke's gospel actually includes two more parables. He talks about the parable of the lost sheep, but then he tells the parable of the lost coin. And he concludes with the parable of the lost son, the prodigal son that this series is named for. Paul is preparing to come as a father, and he's preparing to exercise church discipline if he needs to. He's doing that precisely because he loves this church so much. He understands that these people that are walking in unrepentant sin are in danger, that they need to be brought home. A lot of people have a hard time with this. I'm talking about church discipline, talking about correcting, rebuking, things like this. It's hard because it doesn't feel good, but a good parent is never content to merely see their child feel good. A loving parent longs more than anything for their child to be good and to do good. And deep down, I think we all long for this kind of leadership. We all look for this kind of authority to be exercised over us as well. I grew up in a church that was very good at the gentle, loving part. It was not so good at the speaking the truth in love part, the calling people to repentance and challenging them to grow apart. And so, on Wednesday nights, I would go to youth group as a teenager and from very well-meaning people, I would hear this message of, "You're special. You're great. God has a wonderful plan for your life," and I would walk away just confused. I'd feel self-righteous. I'd feel unchanged, unchallenged, and uninspired, which is boring as I didn't get it. If I'm so great, then why do I need to go to church? If I'm so great, why do I need a savior? And almost every other night of the week, my best friend and I would go to taekwondo. And the instructor, just picture like a shorter, much louder version of Jean-Claude Van Damme. He was amazing, but he would lose his voice almost every night just shouting instructions at us, running us through these drills, and he wasn't afraid to really push us to the very limits and the challenges. On our very first night there, he made me spar with him. And he kicked me in the face, and I'm not proud of this. This was the late '90s. At the time, I had just a few weeks before just gotten my eyebrow pierced. He kicked me right in the face, rips at half, and there's blood everywhere. He apologized. But then he's like, "Okay. Go clean yourself up, and get back out here because we're not done." And he worked us hard. But very early on, he made it clear that he cared about us as well. He worked us hard because he saw potential in us even if we didn't see it in ourselves, and he expected us to live up to that potential. Not just at the gym, at home, in our school. He was always asking us about our grades. "Are things going well at school? Are you staying out of trouble? Are you respecting your mom and dad?" And if he found out that we were slacking at school or we were getting in trouble at home, he would discipline us. We would be doing lunges and push-ups all night long, and he came to be this authority figure in my life that I really looked up to. He was firm. He taught me respect and discipline, but he wasn't domineering or coercive. I always knew that he genuinely cared about me as a person, and he was trying to get the best out of me as his student and it inspired me. It made me want to rise up to whatever challenge that he put before us, and it helped us to accomplish a lot more than we thought that we could. Now I shouldn't have had to go outside the church to find a good example of good authority to learn humility and confidence, respect, self-discipline, things like this. But by God's common grace, I found that and it did do some good in my life. Still, it would have been so much greater if his good authority had actually been a godly authority, not just one that taught me to follow him but one that taught me to follow Christ, to submit my life to the one who is truly worth following. That's really the chief end of what our authority is all about, to lead others to follow Jesus. Christ-like authority, on the surface, it might seem backwards. But when you see it in action, even if it's imperfect, you begin to realize that it's inspiring. It's actually surprisingly powerful and effective. And this brings us to point number three that Christ-like authority is foolish, but it's also effective. I had a friend who pretty early on in their career wound up with two bosses. It was like the movie Office Space, right, the TPS reports, all of that. And they had these two bosses and the two bosses were very different as people and in their leadership style. I'm going to call the first boss, give-a-second Boss Take. Take was all about getting stuff done, very impersonal. "Here's your work. Get it done. Is it done? Okay, here's some work. Tell me when it's done." And you pretty much only heard from them if they needed something or if something was going wrong. And when things went well, they would take all the credit for themselves. If things were going poorly, they would pass all the blame on to others. The other boss was Give, and Give was always investing in them, giving them advice, helping them plot out a career path, helping them build on their strengths, and pointing out their weaknesses so that they could work on those as well. And when things went well, they would share the credit with their team. If things went poorly, they would take responsibility themselves and then use that as opportunities to help their team develop and grow. Now, which of these two bosses do you suppose produce the best results? I mean, you don't have to think about it very long. It should be pretty obvious that the best results actually came from the leader who served, from the one who gave, who sacrificed what seemed like hours of their precious time investing into the people under their authority. When you have a boss that takes, you're only going to give. You're only going to put forth enough effort to keep them off your back or to make sure that you don't get fired. But when you have a boss that gives, you get excited to give yourself. You want to give your best. You want to work hard. You want to go the extra mile. And it's authority. It might seem backwards, but it's surprisingly effective. It's powerful. This is the leadership that was modeled by Jesus Christ, and so it was imparted to his disciples. And it's really it sparked a movement that completely transformed the world. The Empire, Rome, took the world by the power of the sword through coercion, and Jesus gave his life. He took the sword for the world, the Christianity won over the world through the power of the cross. On the one hand, 2,000 years later, one of those empires fell long ago and one is still standing and will never fall. Coercion can change people's actions, but only the love of Christ can change people's hearts. Cohesion can overpower an enemy, but the gospel can make an enemy into an ally, into a brother, into a friend. So, Paul was not afraid to exercise this self-sacrificing Christ-like authority because he knew that it was powerful. He knew that this had the power to transform this prodigal church. He knew that it had the power to transform the world, and he knew this because he'd already seen it transform something far more stubborn and rebellious. It had transformed his own prodigal heart. He talks about this in his letter to his disciples, Timothy. 1 Timothy 1, beginning of verse 12. He says this, "I thank Him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service. He's called me under his authority even though formally, I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus." He says, "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of all ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. As we think about these things, my prayer for us today is that we would all come to have the humility of Paul, to know just how patient and merciful and gracious Jesus Christ has been toward us so that we live our lives in just gratitude and obedience to Him. My prayer is also that we would come to have the confidence of Paul, to know that we have been called and we have been appointed into the service of the only God, of the king of all ages. That all authority in heaven on earth belongs to Jesus Christ, and he has sent us out in his name with his authority to preach the gospel and to make disciples of all the nations. And my prayer for us today is that the power of God would be made perfect in our weaknesses so that we, individually and together, as a church would have more and more reason to boast not in ourselves but to boast in the Lord, but to boast in his power and all that he has done in and through us as a church. I'm going to close today by reading the words that Paul wrote at the very beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 1, beginning in verse 18, Paul writes this, "For the world of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us we're being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the debater of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand sign and Greek seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, 'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.'" Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your good authority over our lives. We pray that you would humble our hearts to teach us to fully submit to you and to walk in the confidence of knowing that we've been sent in the name of the one to whom all authority and the heaven and earth belongs. God, we thank you for saving us, for appointing us into your service, for bringing us under your authority. And we pray, Lord that you would keep us from the temptation that authority brings, that the authority we have would be used for your glory. Be faithful to you that in our faithfulness, it would produce a fruitfulness that we see your power at work. So that in our weakness, the power of Christ will be on full display. So, now to you, the king of all ages, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

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