Holy War

Mosaic Boston Church App

Holy War

2 Corinthians 6:1-11

October 17, 2021 • 2 Corinthians 6:1–11

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 mosaicboston.com.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a good god. You created everything and you've said it's good, it's very good. Yet Satan rebelled against you, a third of the angels rebelled against you, and we, in tow, rebelled against you. We declared war and instead of vanquishing us as you could in a second, you sent your son Jesus Christ. Jesus, we thank you that you are truth. Everything you ever spoke was true, and you've stood up against the lies and the accusations and the perversions of the evil one and the evil one's manifestation in this world. You've stood up to Caesar. You've stood up to Herod. You stood for the truth, and you were killed for it.

So how can we expect the faith to be safe? When the author and perfecter, the champion of our faith was killed for it? I pray today, Jesus Christ, that you send us a steely backbone, a backbone of ... Infuse us with courage. To know what's true and to stand up for it no matter the cost. Just like many who have come before us. We pray that you continue to expand your kingdom and King Jesus, our swords are yours. As we open up the sword of the spirit, the word of God, I pray today, do a powerful work in each one of our hearts, we pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen.

The title of the sermon is Holy War. If you want to live a life of safety, do not become a Christian. God is a good god, but he is not safe. The biggest competing god of our day and age, god competing for our affections and our allegiance is not the god of money or the god of sex or the god of leisure. It's the god of safety, and the most power-hungry amongst us know this, so they promise us safety if we give them our power. What is our power? It is our freedom to do that which God has called us to do. So as we give them our power, we are rendered powerless, which is the most dangerous place to be, and they conquer us by planting fear in our hearts. And then they promise to relieve our fear. If we would just put our faith in them, they plant fear and demand faith. They make us sick and then they promise to keep us safe, but they only make us sicker, yet we keep believing for safety's sake. They promise us safety, then they lead us to the slaughter.

God isn't safe, he's petrifying, he's wild, he's anything but tame, and that's why he's the safest place to be, because he's good. C.S. Lewis in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe has this one quote, "Aslan is the lion, the lion, the great lion. "Oh," said Susan, "I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion." "Safe," said Mr. Beaver, "Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe, but he's good. He's the king I tell you.""

A lot of people get nervous when you talk about politics at church. Get really nervous. Is he really going there? Oh yeah he is. He's been going there for a while now. I take my points from church history. We all love C.S. Lewis. Even pagans love C.S. Lewis until they understand what he's talking about. C.S. Lewis thought a lot about tyranny. He's got a lot of great work about freedom and standing up for freedom. One of the quotes that has been circulating around posted by Joe Rogan on his Instagram. Joe Rogan, the one who took the horse dewormer, that Joe Rogan. Well he posted this, a quote from C.S. Lewis, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some times be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Well that's all Joe Rogan posted, and I wish he had kept reading. Because that would have made for even a better quote. C.S. Lewis goes onto say, "They may be more likely to go to heaven, yet at the same time, likelier to make a hell of Earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which may not regard as disease is to be put on the level of those who have not yet reached the age of reasons or those who never will to be classed with infants, imbeciles and domestic animals." God in the Dock. Why does C.S. Lewis go there? He went there because he as a minister of the gospel, us as believers in the truth, stand up for the truth, and when lies begin to encroach upon reality, we must push back. God, save us from this tyranny of safety. God doesn't offer us safety, he offers us salvation. Then he sends us to war. He frees us for war, so what does the enemy want to do? The enemy wants to take away our freedom to fight.

I will fight for my freedom to fight. Will you? I'm not talking about guns. The biggest battles aren't won with guns. They're won with words, and that's why it should shock every single one of us, believer or not, that we have entered a time when you can't fight with words anymore. You can't fight with ideas anymore because some ideas are forbidden. They've taken away our freedom to fight ideas with ideas, and just to ask the question now, you're banned. Instead of debate, they deplatform, and now you're banished to the hell of silence for asking the question, for thinking the thought. For the idea itself. Here is your muzzle. Put it on all the way. You can't fight for truth anymore. We went from there is no truth to you can't question the truth real quick. Hey, what happened to live and let live? What happened to live your truth? What happened to that? How fast can you go from postmodernism to communism? 18 months.

18 months ago, I was talking about radical individualism. It's not about you, it's not about you, you got to care about the church, you got to join the church, you got to care about other people. Radical individual, and now I'm like there is no more radical individualism. It's all collectivism. It's what best for the herd, what's best for everybody, even at the expense of the individual. You don't follow the orders? You're fired. No matter how much you've poured into your career, you don't follow the orders, no education for you. You can apply for religious exemption, it's against my religion. No, your faith doesn't matter. Heretic. No jab, no job, no school, no what else? What's next? No travel anywhere? No grocery stories? No hospitals? Can I go to the morgue? Or is that only for those who follow the orders? Suffering is coming if you stand up for the truth. So brace yourself. For what? For war. A holy war, and that's what we're talking about today from 2 Corinthians 6:1-11, would you look at the text with me?

"Working together with him, then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says in the favorable time I listen to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold now is the fabled time, behold now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry. But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit. Genuine love. By truthful speech and the power of God with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left. Through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise, we are treated as imposters and yet are true. As unknown and yet well-known, as dying and behold we live as punished and yet not killed. As sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything. We have spoken freely to you Corinthians in our heart. Corinthians, our heart is wide open, you are not restricted by us but you are restricted in your own affections. In return, I speak as the children widen your hearts also."

2 Corinthians 6:1-13, this is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word, may you write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points, you are at war. To win, suffer loss. And fight with a smile. First you are at war. If you didn't know this, it's probably the reason why your life is so boring. If you aren't fighting, you live a domesticated life. Only because someone else is fighting for you. It's passive and ultimately pathetic, leading lives of quiet desperation someone said. If you don't know we're at war, then you're losing, and if you're losing, then the enemy isn't going to waste time actually attacking you, and probably, that's why God isn't using you because you haven't pledged your sword to him. You haven't offered to work together with him, the king. You are too busy building your own little kingdom to worry about his. That's why Saint Paul in Verse 1, he says, "Working together with him. I'm working together with God, I'm working together with the king of kings, who's expanding his kingdom. Working together with him, then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain."

The context is that this is one of the truly beautiful passages in all of scripture, in all of Paul's letters in the original Greek, it's particularly impressive, bears some resemblance to famous specimens of Greco-Roman rhetoric. Socrates, the fourth century B.C. Greek orator, he said that, "The most powerful way to be persuasive is to argue from one's own life and experience, to share from your own battles because you have had your own battles." That's what Paul is doing here. What does he give us here? He gives us his own life, he shows us how he has faithfully endured suffering and hardship for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of the salvation of others. He's an ambassador. He said, "I've been commissioned by the king to go and to set the captives free. We're in enemy territory and that's our job, and we're warning everyone that the king is coming, and unless you're reconciled with the king, he is coming to devour. He is coming to bring the sword."

So see, we see Paul's devotion, his sincerity, his focus, commitment to what? To the holy war of God. He says, "We appeal to you. We're working together with God," so it's actually God who's making that appeal through us. It's the words of God.

2 Corinthians 5:20, the text before this one, "Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us, we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. God stands behind the gospel, behind this message, God who is speaking," and as Paul spoke, as the minister of the gospel spoke, the power of God unto salvation came through, coursed through their veins, and now they got saved. They've been given grace and Saint Paul says, "Make sure that the grace was not in vain." What is he talking about? It's in the same breath as he says we're working with God, we're working with God. Don't let the grace of God be in vain. Meaning he's saying, "Are you working with God?" How is it even possible to receive grace and do nothing with it? It's like God has commissioned you, he's given you a sword at the commissioning, and you go home and you say, "That's awesome," and instead of unsheathing the sword, you put it over the mantle and you say, "That's a tremendous decorative sword." And it starts to accumulate dust upon it. That's taking the grace in vain.

In 1 Corinthians 15:19-10, the words of Paul, "For I'm the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. 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 God that is in me." Saint Paul always viewed the grace of God as power, as fuel, as energy. Not just a get out of hell free card. It's energy to do the work of God. Once you receive it, follow God with every fiber of your being.

Just to give you a little perspective. You know how special it is to have received the grace of God? You did not force God's hand in giving you grace. Your name was written in the book of life if you're a Christian. Before the foundation of the world. God says, "I picked that guy for my army before that guy's even born. And I know you're going to sin, and I'm going to regenerate your heart and you are going to be commissioned. It's special," and as you're commissioned, God says, "I give you grace which is strength, and you never know how strong you are until the strength is tested."

Well God says, "I'm going to send you a test. It's a blessing. I'm going to send you suffering so that you yourself see how much strength I've put in you. You must understand what you've been chosen for. You've been chosen for war. War against sin, the temptations of ... " Every time you say no to a temptation, it hurts. Every time. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Kind of, but you just got used to the pain. You've got pain tolerance. Every time you say no to temptation, the flesh, the world, Satan, that's war. War against personal complacency, war against lesser loves, grace isn't cheap so stop treating it as if it is. Don't be a waste of grace.

2 Corinthians 6:2, he continues, for he says, "In the favorable time I listen to you and in a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold now is the favorable time. Behold now is the day of salvation." God has visited with these people with salvation and the mission and he did it through Paul's ministry. Through Paul's battle, through Paul's warfare, and Paul's authority here is demonstrated by the work of God among them and he says, "Now is it favorable to now, now." God is summoning us, if you're not a Christian, to receive the salvation, to be reconciled, to stop being an enemy of God. Because you're not going to win. Your arms are too short to box with God, and if you are a believer, will you continue to bring the message of salvation. As Isaiah said, "Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon his name while he is near."

We are at war, and point two is to win, you got to suffer loss. You can't win anything worth winning without suffering. 2 Corinthians 6:3, "We put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God, as slaves of God, we commend ourselves in every way." We commend ourselves in every way and Paul denies the charges the false teachers have made, we've talked about that, and asserts the faithfulness of his ministry and how does he assert the faithfulness of his ministry? He gives us later on a whole list of his suffering and he continues that same thought in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12, and here he just outlines how much he has suffered on behalf of the ministry, and also he suffered in not putting any obstacles in anyone's way. He suffered to live a life that is unimpeachable. When ministers of the gospel act shamefully, there's always great damage. There's always fallout in the wake and a damage to the credibility of the gospel and the reputation of Christianity, so Paul says, "I scrupulously, carefully avoid giving any offense so I suffer." It takes suffering to be obedient. Hebrews talks about Jesus Christ. Learn obedience through suffering. It takes suffering to be obedient.

1 Corinthians 9:26-27, Saint Paul says, "So I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified." That's self-discipline, to be ready to be used by God it takes work, it takes suffering, and there's also an enemy within us, it's the flesh, the sinful nature. There's an enemy out there, Satan, there's the enemy in the world, that's all of the systems built up against God and there's the enemy inside, the flesh, the sinful desire.

1 Peter 2:9-12, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy beloved I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation."

Fight the good fight and that fight begins in your soul. A lot of people want to fight out there. A lot of people want to change everybody. I want everyone to change. You want to start with yourself. Men of God, women of God, we start with ourselves and to live a life that exhibits the power of the gospel, that your life is an exhibit, is a testimony, is a sign to the power of God, it's a life lived in the thick of battle.

You look around at the world today and you're like, "What is going on? I can't make sense of anything." Because you don't understand that we're at war, and once you understand that there's a spiritual war raging, everything makes so much more sense. So let me just speak to you directly. Let me speak to men, and I want to speak with men directly. King David had 30 men of war. Any time, he sends one text in that group chart. "We're going to war." You got the Tom Brady emojis, you got the Arnold emojis from Rambo. No, that's Sylvester Stallone. You know, you have any group chats like that? Going to war. You share your battles and you share victories over Satan's sin in the world.

Too many men are wasting too much time playing fake war. We love war. I love movies about war. I love it. If I wasn't married, I'd be fighting somewhere, something. My wife said, "You're going to put on your green shirt today?" I was like, "Yeah." Was like "Ahh no. I'm not going to that sermon." Stop wasting time, that's what I want to say to men. There's a real war waging, and you're losing if you spend all your time playing fake war. You're losing. That's why in the culture you're known as a loser unless you're monetizing off of it and then that's a gray issue, but are you tithing that money?

The real battle is waging. There's a real war and it's not enough to just study a war or play a war. You got to fight for your soul, for the freedom of your soul. For you to do what God has called you to do, you got to fight the sin inside. You got to fight the evil desires with good desires, you've got to fight for freedom, freedom from what? To begin with, freedom from sin. Through spending all day, connected to a screen, consuming content that someone has curated for you. You get enslaved to it and you lose because you become passive. You got to fight for the truth by knowing the truth, by studying the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, by speaking the truth.

And men, yeah we should be on the front lines. "Pastor Jan, how do you stand on the issue of women getting drafted into the military?" I've got four daughters... Women getting drafted in the military? I will be on the front lines. I'm on the front lines. They can be there with me, but I will protect them to the death. That's how I stand.

Ladies, the real war isn't against men. That's not the real war. So stop trying to fight us. That's what I'm trying to say. Stop trying to be the, "I'm a watchdog for all the men." That's not your job. We're fighting together. So let's fight the enemy together. Marriage, husbands and wives. Next time you're in a fight, you say, "Baby, baby, baby, I'm not the enemy." That's a tremendous trick. "It's not me. I didn't do that. That was Satan." No, but seriously. Let's fight Satan together, that what I'm saying. You're not too young to fight, you're not too old to fight. The war continues. If you're alive, you're in the battle. That's what Saint Paul is saying here.

He later goes in Verse 4 and 5, people, the false teachers came in and they accused him, "Where is your letters of recommendation? Where's your credentials, St. Paul? And also your suffering, what kind of servant of God suffers?" Bro, we look at you and we're like, "God's favor is definitely not upon that guy. He's got a unibrow." Those are the accusations. But he says in Verse 4 and 5, "As servants of God, we command ourselves in every way by great endurance and afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger." The list of hardships here has been called the apostolic identification card. Did the Apostle Paul idolize safety? No, he didn't. Did any of the disciples idolize safety? Yeah, one guy, it didn't work out for him. Saint Paul knew, he knew that God isn't calling me to safety. He's calling me to a life of courage. Which is courageous. We don't see movies about heroes and legends, making all the right moves to keep themselves as safe as possible. That's not a movie that's captivating. Heroes and legends aren't forged by sacrificing everything for safety. They're forged by sacrificing safety for God and for people, and if you can't point to scars that you've obtained to living selflessly, then have you been in the war?

Something's very wrong if we follow a guy who got murdered and he said, "Follow me and take up your cross daily," and if you can't point to scars and wounds. If any of this sounds strange to you, if you're like, "I've been in the church my whole life and I'm just church shopping and I walked in today and I wasn't ready for this." If you have never experienced spiritual combat, if you have never experienced the struggle, the exertions in the face of difficulties, then you've got to do some hard self-assessment, which side am I on? Am I even a Christian? Am I living a life of virtue and not one of the virtues are self-protective. Therefore safety is not a virtue. Every single one of the virtues are self-sacrificing.

Saint Paul says, "With great endurance." Paul knew what it meant to keep going when you feel the pain. Will you keep going when things get tough? This must be settled in your mind and your soul now before it does get tough. Saint Paul here gives us three triplets of his endurance. Things he had to go through to build up endurance. Afflictions, hardship, calamities, just general terms to difficulties. Second triplet is beatings, imprisonments, riots, more specific instances of trouble. You see the clear accounts in the Book of Acts, and the third triplet is labors, sleepless nights and hunger. It sounds like he's having a baby. Like he's giving life, it's difficulties that are voluntary in nature. He labored, he preached all day, he goes home, he writes the sermon for tomorrow, and then he works with his hands to provide for himself and to have enough to share with others. Sleepless nights, that's why, and hunger, he's talking about hunger, yeah, he didn't eat in order to work during the day. He's also talking about fasting. Prayer and fasting, discipline himself to strengthen his prayers before God.

This whole passage is intended to challenge every single of us to re-examine our commitment to God. To the Lord Jesus Christ, to the king of kings. Am I following him like this? It's to get us to a point where we renew, rededicate every power, every talent, every moment of our lives to the single-minded pursuit of the will, the purpose, the pleasure of God through spiritual war. We must be aware that this kind of level of commitment is going to bring suffering. The scriptures are clear that anyone that wants to live a holy, righteous, godly life will suffer in this day and age. It's the way. Because Jesus is in the business of expanding his kingdom. He uses that language all the time and how do you expand a kingdom? Do you go to your enemy and say, "Hi, I'd like my real estate back, please." No, you don't do that. You sneak in. Covertly into the enemy's territory. You say, "Yeah, I'm just like you. Yeah, I live amongst you. Yeah, I look like you, I talk like you. My kids go to the same school as you," and then I send my kids in there like little spies. Learn their little worldview tricks, and here's how you counter them.

When your teacher stops calling on you because you have mic dropped her so many times, then in the next class, you got to do it even more covertly. You don't tell anyone you're a Christian. You just ask questions. That's how. With words and ideas. It's that kind of war, but it's war. How do you expand the kingdom? Through war. How do you take what belongs to another? Through war, and is this is a just war? Yes of course it is because everything belongs to Jesus Christ. He's just reclaiming it and he's calling us to do it, and to reclaim what belongs to the king, you have to go to war.

Being a Christian, following Jesus, that's easy. Isn't it? No. Becoming a Christian is easy. You repent of your sin, you turn to Jesus Christ and you trust in him, and then he gives you a sword and you're like, "What?" Other churches aren't honest. Other churches are like, "Come to Jesus. He's going to make everything better," and then everything gets worse, and you come to Mosaic and we'll just tell you the truth. There will be days where you will question whether it's worth it. Where is Jesus? Jesus is fighting on the front lines, he says, "Follow me," that's where he is. What kind of war is this? It's not a war of flesh and blood, it's a spiritual war in the spiritual realm. But how is that spiritual war manifested in the physical realm, and this you need to know. It's manifested with words and ideas and thoughts and ideologies and narratives and stories and these things are invisible basically, but we know their power, we see their power. It's a war of ideas, it's a war of information, it's a battle for hearts and mind.

I come at this with a very particular perspective. I'm from the Soviet Union, I've been studying communism for 30 years. I know the tactics of the enemy and on top of that I worked for the government, and you know what the project was that we were working on? How do we capture hearts and minds. Hearts and minds. That's spiritual warfare conversations, and the way you ... You can't do it with force. You can't force people to believe an ideology. You can try, but even after a while, people are going to start asking questions. Which now is happening. It's not with force, you do it with either fear or faith, and that's where they fear, fear, fear, fear from one thing to another. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. Because when you live in fear, you're paralyzed of critical thinking. You lose sight of what these words are, what are they saying? You lose sight, you get this amnesia of, "Wait, what did they say a year ago? What did they promise a year ago and what's happening now? And what are they promising now and we believe it?"
The battle can't be won with force. It can only be won with fear or faith and the enemy wages war with fear, and we wage war with faith because we believe in God. Jesus Christ is our Lord and savior. We kneel before God. That's why we can stand before tyrants. We fear God and we fear not. Like Jesus Christ, and you're like, "Is any of this Christian? This isn't even in the Bible." Yeah it is. Let me give you a couple texts. John 18:33-38, "So Pilate, representative of the Roman Empire, entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you say this of your own accord or did others say it to you about me?" Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom.""

Jesus, what are you doing? We don't want you to die. You feed people, you turn water into wine, come on. That's why we followed you. Let's not talk about your kingdom. Not here, not now. Let's ... Just tell them what he wants to hear and live to fight another day. ""My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I may not be delivered over to the Jews but my kingdom is not from the world." Then Pilate said to him, "So you are king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am king. For this purpose I was born, for this purpose I have come into the world. To bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?""

You see what's going on? Jesus is like, "I'm the king of truth," and Pilate says, "Are you? Are you? What is truth? Truth is whatever I say it is because I have all the force." What does that kind of talk do to a person? It gets you crucified. John 19, "Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him, and the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him saying, "Hail King of the Jews," and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to him, "See I am bringing him out to you, but you may know that I find no guilt in him.""

So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe and Pilate said to him, "Behold the man." When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, "Crucify him. Crucify him." Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify, for I find no guilt in him." The Jews answered, "We have a law and according to that law, he ought to die because he has made himself the son of God."

When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, "Where are you from?" But Jesus gave him no answer, so Pilate said to him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you," and Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin." From then on Pilate sought to release him but the Jews cried out, "If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend." Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar, so when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic, Gabbatha. That was the day of preparation of the Passover, it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, "Behold your king." They cried out, "Away with him. Away with him. Crucify him." Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your king?" The chief priest answered, "We have no king but Caesar." So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

Pilate knew who stood before him. He also knew the cost of following the truth, and he did the math and decided it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth following the true king. His wife had a dream the night before and she said, "Don't do anything to him. I know who this man is." But he had too much to lose, too much to sacrifice. So Jesus was crucified. The most godly always become the most dangerous to whom to those who love evil. That's why tyrants hate the king of kings, and the greatest Christians are deemed the greatest heretics in the church of Satan, and scripture is clear that if you're going to follow Jesus, you will suffer and we must be prepared, don't get caught off guard." The most dangerous shots in every fight are the ones you don't see coming, the spiritual battle rages, and the battlefield is strewn with the wounded and dead.

I've seen this happen where someone's like, "I want to follow Jesus." And then difficulty comes, struggle comes, war comes. Like, "I didn't sign up for this," and they walk away and they get mad at God for the war. Well if you're mad at God for the pain, for the suffering, then how can you receive his pain and suffering? That's what it took. There's no such thing as battle scars without wounds and our Lord and savior fought, bled, died on the battlefield. He told us we're going to have the same battles. John 15:18, "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. They persecuted me, they will persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things, they will due to you on account of my name because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin but now they have seen and hated both me and my father. But the word that is written in their law must be fulfilled. They hated me without cause. But when the helper comes, who I will send to you from the Father, the spirit of truth, who proceeds from the father. He will bear witness about me and you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning."

You are at war, and to win, you have to suffer loss. But fight with a smile. You know why? Because no one wants to fight the guy who's happy about it. No one wants to fight the guy who's like, "Come on. Thanks for giving me the excuse." You look at that guy and you're like, "You're a nut. You're absolutely crazy, you're enjoying this? You're not afraid of death?" "No."

I think about Jack Nicholson, you know when he's like that? That's kind of what I'm talking about, it's like, "Yes, come at me." That's what he's saying. You know why? Because fear is actually a sin. You know the commandment that's repeated more than any other commandment in all of the scripture? Just over and over and over and over, do not fear. That's a commandment, that's in the imperative voice. The only fear that's not a sin is fear of God. So yes, if God said, "Go into battle," and you say, "Yes, sir, where's my sword? I don't have one. Where's my shield? I don't have one. Where's my armor? I don't have one. Take a stone, okay, let's go." But we do, we have the armor of Ephesians 6, you should read that.

A happy fighter is a dangerous fighter. Matthew 5:11-12, "Blessed are you when others reviled you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account." Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You see this with the disciples, the disciples get up, they preach the gospel, and then the people in charge at the temple, they're like, "Yeah, that's not going to happen. You shouldn't do that anymore. Yep, canceled, you're banned." They come back the next day and they're preaching the gospel, and they're like, "All right." They arrest them and then they beat them. What do the apostles do? They come out of there and they're like, "God gave us the honor. God loves me so much that he allowed me to get beaten for him."

What a perspective. If you feel like you're going through hell, rejoice, because we know someone who saves people from hell. By the way, this is why the greatest Christians have the best risk tolerance. Because God already saved me from the greatest hell, and you'd been through so much hell, you can take more. That's pain tolerance and this is why the strongest Christians are also the boldest Christians because they're like, "I can't lose. If I stand up and I do what God tells me to do, if I say what God tells me to say, and then they kill me for it. I'll go to heaven. What am I doing here? If I say what I need to say, people get saved and others get mad but I go to sleep but honoring the Lord, reward's in heaven. Then if they kill me I go and get to enjoy the rewards. It's a win-win, you can't lose." That's why.

2 Corinthians 6:6, he says, "By purity, I went through all that stuff. By purity, knowledge, patience, kindness and the Holy Spirit in genuine love." He turns from sufferings he endured for the gospel's sake to the virtues of the Christian life, which take suffering. The false teachers pointed to his hardship and said, "God's not with you," and Saint Paul says, "No, I go through the hardship because God is with me." In Verse 7 "by truthful speech and the power of the God with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left." The truthful speech, he's talking about in the word of truth. It's not just a reference to the way Paul speaks, but what he proclaims, which is the gospel. He preached the gospel with the power of God. Because he always knew it's a truth war. The Holy War, if you boil it down, it's a truth war. With weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left. He said "I proclaim the truth and that I live the truth." Verse 8, "Through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise, we are treated as imposters and yet are true."

This is the first of seven antitheses, opposite things, in which the perception, he's like, "This is what people see. They see dishonor." He's like, "But it's actually honor. They see slander but we see praise. They see imposters but we are true," and he just keeps going. This is what people see with worldly judgment, this is actually what's going on in the spiritual realm. Verse 9, "As unknown and yet well-known, as dying and behold we live, as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing. As poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything."

If you study church history, the more faithful a Christian is, the more difficulties they accumulate, the more burdens they carry. Becoming a Christian is easy, living the Christian life is not. From Abraham to the patriarchs, from Moses to the judges, from David to the prophets, the story is same. Beaten not killed, sorrowful yet always rejoicing, poor yet making many rich, having nothing yet possessing everything, great endurance, troubles, hardships and distresses.

The most amazing thing as you read this is there's not even a whimper of complaint, and if you've been through difficulty for Christ's name's sake, you know this. You know how hard it was, but you're thankful for it. Both battles imposed by others on us and those we impose on ourselves. We wear that with a badge of honor. It's what following Jesus means. It's how we live lives of loyalty to him. It's in the battles that we see him most clearly. We feel his presence most near." Everyone that's been through a battle with Jesus Christ knows this. "That was hard. Jesus, we almost died, yeah." Imagine sitting with Jesus at the campfire? "Jesus, we almost died today, yeah. But we didn't." Delicious meal by the campfire. Jesus is in the battle with us. He will honor those who do battle. "He who honors me," he said, "I will honor."

Do you want more of God's presence in your life? Do you want more of God in your life? Do you want to feel him more near? So many of you experience so little of God because you won't fight. Joseph Conrad, the American novelist, wrote The Mirror of the Sea and he quotes a letter of Sir Robert Stopford who was one of Horatio Nelson's captains, Horatio Nelson is a world-renowned commandeer of ships, and Nelson chased the West Indies and enemy fleet, et cetera, et cetera. But this is what Stopford said about serving with Nelson, he said, "We're half-starved and otherwise inconvenienced by being so long out of port. But our reward is we are with Nelson." Our reward is that we are with Jesus in the thick of battle, he gives us more of himself. Living life behind the lines where it's comfortable, where it's safe, where you remain unwounded, yeah, okay. It's not the fullness of life. Ask any soldier that comes back from battle. They live their life of safety, okay. "Yeah, I got to mow my lawn. I got to paint my white picket fence. Do a little barbecue." And never risk another thing in your life? Who wants to live like that?

If you live for safety, you're actually always going to live in fear, I got to protect this, I got to protect this, I got to protect this. So many of us have been so focused on how we're going to die, how, how, how, that we lost sight of the fact that we're going to die. We're all going to die. We're all going to die. Every single one of us. I'd rather die fighting. I'd rather die swinging. This is the Christian life. Soldiers fight for the king, fighting a bloody spiritual battle, displaying strength, courage, honor, no matter the heat of the battle, no matter the strength of the foe, no matter how exhausted you are. Keep going and sometimes the battles are public. Most of the time, they're private, they're in your soul. Some of you will get up on stage and you will have to stand up for what you believe in. Some of you have to stand up at your job. Some of you have to stand up to a colleague, to a neighbor and say, "You know what? That's not true. What you're saying right now isn't true. This is all a charade. Let me speak truth, no matter the cost."

2 Corinthians 6:11-13, "We have spoken freely to you Corinthians, our heart is wide open. You're not restricted by us but you are restricted in your own affections. In return I speak as the children, widen your hearts, also." What's going on with this text? We were just talking about war and spiritual war and saying all kinds of stuff that's making everyone feel uncomfortable. What's going on here? Then he's talking about love, then he's talking about widening your hearts. Yeah. Saint Paul is demonstrating his fatherly affection. I love you, that's why I'm speaking the way I am. Because he knows what he's fighting for. What's he fighting for? He's fighting for love, he wants to love God and be faithful to him. God said do this, and what's God telling him? God is saying, "Love God, go tell people love God. Stop loving passion, stop loving sin, stop loving temptations. Love God." He's motivated by love, so if he's fighting for love, then how is he fighting? What are his weapons? You can't fight for love unless you're fighting with love. You can't fight for love unless you're fighting with love. "Be more tolerant. You're not tolerant enough. Be kinder. Do good. Stop being so judgmental. Be more empathetic or else."

That's how they wage war. They try to force you into submission. I'm going to make you a better person. Then Jesus Christ comes and he's like, "All right. These people? For Pilate? For Herod? All right. For Jan? For you? Give me the cross." He carries the cross, gets on that cross. He fought with love. For love. To get you to love God, to get you to love neighbor. Because the more you love, actually the better of a soldier you are. You have more to fight for, the more you love, the better soldier you become. The more you love, the more you're willing to sacrifice like Jesus Christ, for God so loved the world that he gave, Galatians 2:20, "I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith and the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." So a Christian, how can you live a life of fear if you love God? Because the scriptures say that perfect love, what does it do, what does it do? It casts out fear. It casts out fear. What are you afraid of? Let the love of God cast that demon out. Cast out fear.

I'll close with this. Do you have any war stories? You can't say that you lived a life of spiritual warfare if you don't have war stories. What war stories do you want to tell your grandkids? How do you want them to remember you? Do you have scars to show them? Well if you want scar, if you have scars, then that means you have wounds. Those are our war trophies. You have them if you fought, and how can you say you followed Jesus Christ if you don't have wounds and scars?

I'll close with this. Amy Carmichael wrote the following. "Hast thou no scar, no hidden scar on foot or side or hand, I hear thee song as mighty in the land. I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star. Hast thou no scar? Hast thou no wound? Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent, lean me against the tree to die and rent by ravening beasts that compassed me I swooned. Hast thou no wound? No wound, no scar, yet as the master, shall the servant be. And pierced are the feet that follow me. But thine are whole? Can he have followed far who has no wound or scar?"

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you are truth, and they killed you for being true, and you allowed it because you love them, us. Jesus, we thank you that you didn't allow Satan's sin and death to conquer you. You rose from the dead and that you are right now the king of kings, the Lord of Lords. We thank you Lord for saving us, selecting us, commissioning us into your army, and we thank you for this call to speak truth. To fight for truth, to stand for truth. To wage the good fight as we stand in your presence.

Lord, we thank you that you are good and that you're great, and we thank you that you are not safe. I pray that you make us a people who would do absolutely everything to be in the center of your will, the safest place to be. We pray this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Please stand and let's sing.

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.

Mosaic Boston Church App

Holy War

2 Corinthians 6:1-11

Severe Mercy

January 30, 2022 • Jan Vezikov • 2 Corinthians 13

Christlike Authority

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

Christ's Power Manifested in Weakness

January 16, 2022 • Andy Hoot • 2 Corinthians 12:1–10