On February 24, 1948, one of the most unusual operations in medical history took place at the Ohio State University Department of Surgery Research. A 30-year-old named Harry Besharra was arrested for armed robbery and during his intake it was observed that something was wrong with him physically. After a series of tests, it was discovered that a stony sheath had developed inside his chest and around his heart. As it turned out, when Harry was a boy, he had accidentally been shot in the chest by a friend with a .22 caliber rifle and the doctors had determined at the time that it was too dangerous to remove the bullet…and so it had remained lodged in the outer lining of his heart for over twenty years.
The good news? That bullet didn’t kill him when he was a young boy. The bad news? A lime deposit started to slowly form over his heart and was now strangling the life out this vital organ. It was finally determined that drastic medical intervention was Harry’s only chance of getting well. In surgery, the doctor began the procedure by separating Harry’s ribs and moving his left lung to the side. Next he peeled off the stony coating around the heart just like you would peel an orange.
What happened next was truly amazing! Immediately the pressure on the heart was reduced and it started to expand and pump as normal. When Harry woke up from surgery, he was asked how he felt and his response was this: “I feel one thousand percent better already!”
There’s a parable of the Christian life here. We’ve been called to be ambassadors for Christ, and yet often our hearts develop a hard protective coating because of the accidents and incidents in life. They are coated by the deposits of a thousand deceits and rebuffs. They are hardened by the pressure of circumstance. And sometimes, as we attempt to share the hope of the gospel with those who are perishing, we struggle because our calloused hearts blind us to people’s need for Jesus.
As we continue in our series this morning through Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, take your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Corinthians 6. And today we’re going to see that if there was ever a messenger for Christ who could have been excused for having a calloused heart, it would have been the Apostle Paul. But today, he’s going to model for us what it looks like to NOT let our hearts become hardened by the pressure of circumstance as we meet resistance to the message we carry on behalf of King Jesus.
2 Corinthians 6:2b-13
Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 3 We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7 by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. 11 We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. 12 You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. 13 In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.
Last week we closed out our message by focusing on the five attributes of an EFFECTIVE messenger (or someone who has been entrusted to take the message of reconciliation to a lost and dying world). This week, we’re going to frame things a little differently as we look at two ways to be an INEFFECTIVE messenger.
How to be an Ineffective Messenger:
1. MESS WITH THE MESSAGE – vs 2b-3
2b Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 3 We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry…
In a previous career, I was part of an industry where I was VERY involved in contract law. And for a guy like me whose mind works very well in the details of life, I enjoyed the process of contractually dotting every “I” and crossing every “T.” But there was this phrase that used to drive me crazy that we inserted in all of our contracts. “Time is of the essence.” In a contract where everything is so specific and where every single scenario is often spelled out explicitly, “time is of the essence” is a big blanket statement that through time and precedent has come to mean that timely performance is an essential obligation under a contract, and thus failure to perform in a timely manner amounts to a material breach of contract.
That’s exactly the word picture that I imagine Paul was trying paint when he said, “TODAY is the day of salvation. There’s no time to lose. And because time is of the essence, don’t mess with the King’s message by placing ANY obstacles in the way of those that need to be reconciled to God.”
In the original language of verse 3, “We put no obstacle in anyone’s way…” literally reads like this: “We put no one in not anything’s way.” In the English language, this would be a double negative, which would be poor grammar. But in the Greek language, you can repeat negatives for emphasis – something like, “Not ever, never.” So a faithful English translation might sound something like this: “Because time is of the essence, we ruthlessly avoid putting a stumbling block in anyone’s way.”
Contextually, the Super Apostles (those who were opposing Paul and creating trouble in the Corinth Church) were requiring MORE THAN CHRIST through their adherence to the Law (or the Old Covenant) which Jesus has already fulfilled.
Now, I don’t see many people going around requiring people to obey the DO’s & DON’Ts of the of Old Testament…at least not here at our church. But let me contextualize one of the ways that I think WE sometimes add to the gospel. It’s when we expect people to clean up (get their life right) BEFORE coming to Jesus. I have a childhood friend whose stepdad was unsaved and finally came to church one Easter Sunday. One of the deacons came up to greet him and then proceeded to give him the name of a barber that could cut his pony tail off so that he could be welcomed back to church the following week. Forty years later, and he has never darkened the doors of a church again.
That’s why we love what’s happening at our Middletown Mission Campus where EVERYONE is welcome. And I’m here to tell you, that many of you would be uncomfortable with some of the people who walk through the door. And yes, we want to help meet physical and emotional needs…because that DOES lead to opportunities to share the hope of Jesus. But their biggest need is not to get sober. It’s not to stop smoking crack. It’s not to find shelter. It’s not to get a job. It’s not to take a shower or get a haircut. Their biggest need is the same as YOUR biggest need before YOU met Christ…to be reconciled to God.
There are so many other things that we could say here, but as our pastors talked through this passage this week, we think a lot of the obstacles that we (as Christians in THIS current culture) place in the way of salvation, fall under the category of the sin of hypocrisy. A pastor friend of mine told me a story this week of how he witnessed for years and years to the husband of a church member, whose heart was CLEARLY hardened to the message of the gospel. And after years of witnessing, my friend pressed in on why he didn’t want to give his life to Jesus. Listen to the man’s answer: “If Christians are anything like my wife, then I want nothing to do with Jesus.” And he never overcame that obstacle and eventually died in his sins.
Church, critical attitudes are obstacles to the gospel. Sharp speech and condescending words are obstacles to the gospel. Words of anger, regardless of how justified they are, are obstacles to the gospel. Telling people you love Jesus and then destroying public/political figures are obstacles to the gospel. Using vulgar language and course joking are obstacles to the gospel. Treating wait staff poorly and constantly complaining about your bad service are obstacles to the gospel.
When children grow up and leave the church, one of the reasons they list for leaving is because they have been turned off by the hypocrisy they’ve witnessed over the years in their home, with parents who publically profess Christ, but privately are no different than the world. There’s a quote that’s widely attributed to Gandhi…and while it’s unlikely that he actually uttered these words, the tragic truth they express is undeniable. “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians because your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Listen, Paul wasn’t afraid to offend people if it was with the actual gospel…because the gospel of Jesus Christ, in and of itself, IS offensive. It’s an offensive message to say that all your good works amount to nothing more than filthy rags. That your way to heaven isn’t going to get you there at all. That you are going to spend eternity in hell. And sometimes, we actually try to make the gospel LESS offensive, and we try to water down the call of the gospel which is a call to dying to one’s self. And Paul says, don’t do that either. You’re an ambassador sharing the KING’s message. It’s not YOUR message to mess with.
We could go on and on and on here, but for the sake of time, let’s look at the second key in being an ineffective messenger, which is to…
2. GIVE UP WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH – vs 4-13
At some point in every believer’s life, they will feel like giving up. “My children or grandchildren have left the faith. I’m discouraged. I’m lonely. I feel like I’m all alone in the Christian life. Heaven seems so far away and God feels so distant. Is the Christian life even worth it?” And sadly, probably every person in this room can picture a face of someone that has just walked away from their faith…and quit.
So Paul makes a really long list that is so specific that it should cause us to pause and take inventory of our own lives. And in this list, Paul gives three distinct challenges that we’ll spend the rest of our time exploring:
How do we keep from giving up when the going gets tough? We endure difficult circumstances (vs 4-5), with the right attitude (vs 6-7), regardless of the outcome (vs 8-10).
• ENDURE DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES – vs 4-5
Paul starts out verse 4 by saying: but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way. This literally means that there’s a method in which we, as ambassadors, are to introduce ourselves, or to prove ourselves. And Paul says that the first way that we prove ourselves worthy of being an ambassador is by exhibiting great endurance. The word for endurance in the original language is one of the most magnificent of New Testament virtues. No single English word can fully express its meaning, which encompasses bearing up under hard labor, surviving the shock of battle, and remaining steadfast in the face of death. I think of my own grandfather who physically experienced all of these things when he landed on the shores of Normandy in World War II.
And so WHAT are we to endure? Paul is rather generic at first: “in afflictions, hardships, and calamities.” Notice the progression – he starts with afflictions which are universal things that we’ll ALL experience as we die to self. But then he moves even more deeply to hardships, and then worst of all, calamities.
But even unsaved people go through these experiences, so Paul begins to identify things he ONLY experienced because he was an ambassador for Christ. He starts with the difficulties that he’s experienced EXTERNALLY at the hands of other people: “beatings, imprisonments, riots, and labors.” And then he lists the ways he has suffered INTERNALLY in the course of the demands of his ministry as Christ’s ambassador: “labors, sleepless nights, and hunger.”
And maybe right about now you’re thinking, “That’s great. But I’m no Apostle Paul. How and I supposed to endure these types of things?” The answer is that I’m able to endure these things when I grasp the truth that Paul taught back in chapter 4 – that these light and momentary afflictions are preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond ALL comparison (2 Cor. 4:17).
Paul’s list now moves from the bad to the good. We endure difficult circumstances,
• WITH THE RIGHT ATTITUDE – vs 6-7
Verse 6 is compressed version of what Paul wrote to the church at Galatia a few years earlier when he listed out the fruits of the Spirit: “[We commend or prove ourselves] 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love…” Once again, you can see the theme that we’ve talked about over and over in this series of living out of the Spirit-filled life.
Last week, as we looked at the person who has been reconciled, we saw in chapter 5:17 where it says “you are a new creation…the new has come.” And we learned that this is a continuous state of renewal, it’s not just something that happens once. If we were to go back and cross-reference that famous passage in Galatians 5 where Paul gives an even more specific listing of the fruits of the Spirit, the entire passage starts with the words “walk by the Spirit” (vs 16). And once again, the word walk indicates continuous action…it’s ongoing. These aren’t things that we achieve once and cross off our list…the language that Paul uses is that they become a part of our lifestyle as messengers of reconciliation.
Our ministry staff has just started reading a book together called Atomic Habits by James Clear. And in the very first chapter, it talks about the difference between goals and habits. I like to set a goal when running…usually it involves signing up for a big race. And it motivates me to get out of bed every single morning when I otherwise might not. But when my goal is the specific race, and NOT MAKING getting up every day to exercise as part of my habitual lifestyle, I run the risk of falling off the wagon immediately after the race ends. This is exactly what Paul is teaching…that these six characteristics, these spirit-empowered attitudes and actions, they’re not just goals that we check off, they need to become holy habits.
Paul continues with verse 7: “by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left.” The weapon in Paul’s right hand would have been weapons of OFFENSE and in his left hand would have been weapons of DEFENSE so that he was well equipped for battle against the force of darkness.
Now admittedly, when we hear the word weapon, we tend to think of a sword like Peter used in the Garden of Gethsemane to cut off the ear of someone who was trying to arrest Jesus. We think about crushing people, both in body and spirit, in the name of Jesus. But that’s not the word picture here. Paul’s saying that he’s armed to the teeth, not with weapons of war, but with the weapons of kindness and love. And the reason we delight in serving others is born out of our OWN awareness of God’s undeserving mercies to us.
We endure difficult circumstances, with a servant’s attitude…
• REGARDLESS OF THE OUTCOME – vs 8-10
We’ve seen several times in this letter that Paul enjoyed speaking paradoxically, and over the next three verses he gives nine different pairs of paradoxes from his own ministry. Look at verses 8-9: “through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed.” What Paul is saying is that regardless of the outcome, he “endured” difficult circumstances: bearing up under hard labor, surviving the shock of battle, and remaining steadfast even in the face of death.
I think in many ways, we are drawn to stories that have a good ending…that seem to resolve things in a feel-good kind of way. We like the movies where the bad guy loses, where the girl falls in love with the guy, where good triumphs over evil. We like telling the stories of Noah’s Ark that ends in a rainbow, and where Joseph goes from slave to prince, and where the hungry lions don’t eat Daniel. But that’s not how EVERY narrative is resolved in the Bible. John the Baptist, the messenger that introduced Jesus to the world, got his head chopped off. Every single disciple except for one died as a martyr. The Apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, would only live for about another decade before being beheaded. But regardless of the outcome, these men lived in such a way that in every situation, good and bad, positive and negative, they responded like Jesus would have responded. They didn’t do anything that made it more difficult for others to get closer to God. They didn’t do anything to discredit themselves, or anything to discredit the God they served.
That brings us to the final three paradoxes found in verse 10: “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.” Let me go back and show you verse 10 in the form of a chart:
COLUMN 1:
HOW THE WORLD SEES
BEING IN CHRIST
• Sorrowful
• Poor
• Having Nothing
COLUMN 2:
HOW WE SEE
BEING IN CHRIST
• Always Rejoicing
• Making Many Rich
• Possessing Everything
The first column is from the perspective of someone whose eyes are still veiled to the gospel versus those for whom the veil has been lifted. The first column is true of our “outer man” that is perishing while the second column represents the “inner man” that is being made new. The first column represents what is temporal while the second column represents the eternal. In fact, we could sum up this entire list with the words ETERNAL OPTIMISM: “Having nothing, yet possessing everything.”
And this eternal optimism leads Paul to make the following statement in verse 11: “We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. [And then skip down to verse 13.] In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.”
This is the final paradox – Paul says: “In spite of the afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, despite being treated as an imposter, despite being punished, despite being seen as sorrowful, poor, and having nothing, my heart is wide open to you.” Friends, this is not natural. The natural thing is for us to do is to shut down our hearts when people hurt us, where it’s easier to sneer than to pray, and to even fire back in anger when people deserve to be destroyed. And when he SHOULD have closed his heart in self-preservation, Paul instead said, “My heart is wide open to you.” And do you know why Paul was able to still open up his heart? Because he had an eternal optimism that allowed him to look beyond what is seen, into what is not yet seen…and with heaven in mind, to be able to say, “It will be worth it all, when we see Jesus.”
And church, do you know who else’s heart is opened wide? It’s Jesus...and it’s still his message today. In spite of the afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, despite being treated as an imposter, despite being punished, despite being seen as sorrowful, poor, and having nothing, Jesus opened up his heart to you on the cross. When every single one of us would have called down ten thousand angels to avenge our innocence, Jesus instead spread his arms open wide, and allowed his Father to heap your sins on his back. Friends, THAT’s the message we carry for the King. And it’s my hope that if you don’t know him, you’ll trust him today.
