Mothers’ Day, 3rd March 05
‘Since we lack nothing in Christ, how shall we live?’
Intro: I’m sure many of you will know the story of Victor Hugo’s epic tale LES MISERABLES. Well let me remind you this morning of the opening picture. Jean Valjean, our hero, is released on parole from 19 years of hard labour on a chain gang? His crime, he was caught trying to steal a loaf of bread. And he finds that the yellow ticket of leave which he must by law display condemns Him to be an outcast. No-one will help him, give him a job, or somewhere to stay…. Until the kind old bishop of Digne, takes him in and feeds him, treating him as one of his own.
Valjean, hardened and embittered by years of forced labour repays the bishop by stealing some of his silver and taking off in the night. Pretty soon Valjean is caught by the police and brought back to find that the bishop feigns astonishment. He insists that the silver was Valjeans all along and that in his hurry to leave he’d forgotten thsomething… the bishop then hands over his silver candlesticks as a parting gift. The case for the prosecution falls apart, and the police leave empty handed. While Valjean escapes the death penalty, which would have surely followed. The bishop tells Valjean, ‘I’ve bought your soul from the devil and I’ve given it to God’. This one act of kindness changes Valjean forever. It is one of the greatest pictures of redemption in European literature. And it will help us understand what Paul is saying to us here, as well as the church of Corinth in the first century.
Now there’s a lot we can take from that story, we can return to it again and again. But this morning I want us to remember one thing: The bishop did not withhold anything. He did not withhold forgiveness, he did not withhold friendship, he did not withhold his wealth. It’s a picture NOT ONLY of God’s love to us, but also of HOW he calls us to love others, holding nothing back for a rainy day!!
Over the last few weeks we’ve been reminded of our completeness in Christ, our position in the heavenly realm, where we stand spiritually…. Colossians 2:9 ‘For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority’.
We’ve been learning that ‘since we have been raised with Christ, we must set our hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God’. And we are beginning to walk in this truth afresh, to flex spiritual muscle and sinew, in this fullness, this completeness in Christ that Paul is talking about.
Since we know this truth, since we lack nothing, how shall we live? What will our lives look like?
This is what Paul is addressing here in 2Corinthians 6. Now what’s happened here is that while Paul was away he left certain trusted leaders in charge. And in his absence some slick false teachers have come in among them and tried to undermine his work. They accuse him of being weak and insincere. They say he’s not really a true apostle, because he’s not one of the twelve. They use his past history of unbelief against him. They’ve begun to get a foothold in the hearts of some and start turning the church against not just him, but the gospel he has taught them.
NOW Paul is appealing to the church in Corinth, he’s not being defensive, not at all, he’s appealing to the church to open up their hearts, to stop withholding their affection from him (verse 12).
‘As God’s fellow-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says,
‘In the time of my favour I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’
I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation. TODAY IS THE DAY OF SALVATION! Not tomorrow, TODAY! Look he’ saying, God hasn’t held out on you…not for a moment. Stop dillydallying and jump right in, full immersion!
Why does Paul say this? What’s he getting at? Well the Corinthians had been HEDGING THEIR BETS… They had been waiting to see if there was another gospel, because of these false teachers. ‘Maybe this isn’t the complete Gospel, maybe we don’t have everything we need… perhaps we should look elsewhere for our security. Perhaps we shouldn’t completely commit ourselves to Jesus. Maybe we just need to hold ourselves back..?’ SOUND FAMILIAR?
They’d begun to withdraw from the battle, and begun to withhold their affection. This was a sure sign of the compromise that had begun to creep in and establish footholds in their camp. Self-pity?
Self-pity is like a cat that snuggles up to you, bringing false comfort when things aren’t going your way.
SO Paul reminds them of God’s extraordinary grace and favour. He quotes Isaiah 49, where the prophet speaks of the Messiah,
‘In the time of my favour I hear you, and in the day of salvation I helped you’.
God hasn’t held back anything from you!! Absolutely nothing. Paul is saying don’t miss out, don’t receive this extraordinary grace and do nothing with it. We have everything we need, TODAY! God heard you when you asked for his help. He showed you His favour and forgave you, let’s not forget. This is the real Gospel, we’re not waiting for some more favour, more grace… HE’S given us everything we need today.
Let me tell you another story: One morning many centuries ago, two builders, went off to work. The first walked through the twisting streets of the old town, until he came to the little plot of land where he was labouring steadily day by day. He was building a small but beautiful house just big enough for himself and his family to live in. The outside wasn’t anything special to look at. In that part of the world the general public didn’t bother decorating the bits that the general public would see. But inside everything was magnificent. Around a tiny courtyard, the walls glistened with marble. The windows and shutters were friendly and inviting. And the rooms and their fittings were glorious. Only he and his family would ever see it, but for them it would be a palace. The rest of the world could ignore him for all he cared.
The second man walked down to the public square, where he took his place with dozens of others working together on a new building that would fill one whole side of the square, transforming it with a sense of space and grandeur. The foreman spoke easily to them as he allotted them with their tasks for the day – one hauling pillars into position, that one for dressing stones for the upper storey, another to sorting tiny coloured stones for the mosaics, yet another to supervise the making of the great carved doors. Who cared what sort of a home they lived in? They were building a cathedral: a house of beauty, awe and above all prayer and worship to last a thousand years, a sign of God’s love and power, an invitation to everyone to come gladly and humbly into his presence.
The contrast is between the person who builds up their private life, even their private spirituality withholding for themselves the best of who they are, the best of what they are. And the person who knows that today is the day of salvation, and so gives everything to the building up of the whole community, not holding back because he knows that what he has, already belongs to God.
Just a little before Paul says ‘For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again’ 5:14
Since we have this treasure in side us, he’s saying, we need to allow it change the way we give ourselves away to eachother, and the way we live for Christ. God calls us His ambassadors ‘We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us’. This is a master stroke of Paul to remind us of who we are.
The Collins English Dictionary tells us that Ambassadors: ‘is actually short for ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary: a diplomatic minister of the highest rank sent on a special mission/ a diplomatic minister of the first rank with treaty-signing powers – an authorized representation or messenger.
SAY WITH ME: ‘We are Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us’. When ambassadors are appointed from the United Kingdom to other countries, who decides where they should be sent? The Government, our Foreign Office. Likewise it is the LORD who appoints us, and decides where we should be sent.
Paul says, verse 3 ‘We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path…’ We have withheld nothing of ourselves from you, and then he lists the suffering he has undergone for the sake of the Gospel. Does he resent it? Not at all – ‘sorrowful… yet always rejoicing’, he is sorrowful over sin, and its power and pollution, yet he’s rejoicing because He’s met God’s answer;… ‘having nothing and yet possessing everything’.
DO YOU KNOW THAT THE ONLY TIME that the people of our community and nation will really begin to pay attention to us, and what we have to say about Jesus, is when we stop withholding from them and one another, when we give up our rights, our rights to time, to comforts, to recognition, to being selective about whom I like serving and whom I don’t.
In a moment we’re going to pray together, we’re going to ask God to shine a light on areas of our lives that we’ve been holding back from Him, and eachother. Last night…. Story about my car… the Lord spoke to me very clearly.
How about you? Are you feeling hard pressed? It’s like a Marathon, around the 18mile mark, you begin to tire if like me you’ve not done much training. There’s a temptation to slow down, to stop, to give up. But it’s only by pressing on do you draw on the energy that is already there in reserve. If you stopped, you’d never find that extra energy.
So in this area of withholding from God, and from one another, we will only really discover how much the LORD has for us, if we lay down our rights, and our creeping idols (those things that creep in and begin to drain our affection away from the LORD… AMEN.
