Following the Follower III: The Foundation of Our Confidence

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm John Snider, and with me again is Chuck Baggett, and we're looking at Paul's writings to the

Corinthians in his second letter, particularly toward the end of chapter two through the middle of chapter six, and we'll talk again about why that's such a significant section.

We're entitling these podcasts, Following the Follower, because I think that for all believers,

Paul's life and his statements in the New Testament clearly remove the lie that the enemy lays in front of us, and one of those lies being that if we lived during the time of Christ, if I had seen

Christ, if I had seen the miracles, if I had stayed up late at night hearing him talk, if I watched him pray, if I watched him respond to enemies as well as to stumbling friends, then

I would know how to be a disciple or how to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but I didn't, and that's so far removed from 2023, that lifestyle, that part of the world, their language, everything.

It just seems like another planet. And the enemy takes that and says, well, because you didn't have that, then you can't really follow

Christ in that fullest sense of the word that he calls us to do. Paul answers that lie in his own life because he did not get to have what the other apostles had.

He didn't follow Christ and hear Christ and watch Christ. So everything that Paul knows of Christ, he's hearing from eyewitnesses, which we have in the scripture, and he has his

Old Testament, which he studies, and the work of the Spirit in enabling him to understand all that Christ is and did and why.

So we have the same things. We have the eyewitness testimonies in scripture. We have the explanations in the

New Testament throughout the epistles. In some ways, we have more of that than Paul did.

Of course, we're not talking about having the same task as Paul, being an apostle, but we're talking about that general command, the duty of every

Christian to follow Christ. Now, with that in mind, I think it's good to just stop before we look at what

Paul says in 2 Corinthians. Today we're going to be looking at chapter 3. Before we look at what

Paul says, so that we can follow Paul's example, I want us to stop and just think again about how significant that is.

I think we could say that the Western church in particular, the evangelical church, is in kind of a period of pretty significant confusion.

Not just confusion on external, secondary areas where we might disagree on doctrines that are not directly linked with Impan's rescue of his soul, salvation.

We call those secondary doctrines. That's not a perfect term. But we find churches confused in some pretty significant areas, primary areas.

Who is God? What is man? What is the nature of our relationship? What is a church? And I wonder if some of that hasn't come from us neglecting a pretty clear

New Testament command and pattern, and that is that Christianity is not primarily passed from one person to the next or one generation to the next by handing people a stack of good books.

And I mean, we give good books to people all the time at the church. We give them J .C.

Ryle books. We give them Martyn Lloyd -Jones books. We give them, we might give them Puritan books or Spurgeon sermons.

We give them books that we feel would be helpful. But Christianity, if we can borrow the phrase from Augustine's life,

Christianity is not primarily passed along, transferred by the phrase tolelege, take up and read.

We don't hand them a library and say, read this and you'll know how to follow Christ.

It is primarily passed on by the phrase, follow me. Follow me as I follow

Christ. Or if you want to understand what this looks like in the Christian life, you know, you think of talking to a young believer and we say some things to them and they say, well, what does that, how does that look?

Come and see. Follow me. We see that in Paul. I was looking this morning at first Corinthians back in the first letter, chapter four.

He talks about this contrast and really it's a rebuke where he says to them, we are fools for Christ's sake.

We apostles, but you are prudent in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are distinguished, but we are without honor to the present hour.

We are both hungry and thirsty and are poorly clothed and are roughly treated and are homeless and we toil working with our own hands.

When we are reviled, we bless. When we are persecuted, we endure. When we are slandered, we try to conciliate.

We have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.

And then he says this, I don't write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers for in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel.

Therefore I exhort you be imitators of me. So that is still the pattern of the church.

We don't see any passage in scripture that says this is the pattern to pass on the words of Christ and the pattern of Christ, the words of Christianity, the doctrines and the lifestyle of Christianity.

Each Christian is duty bound in some measure to pass that to others as we witness, as we help them grow.

But there isn't a passage in the Bible that says that will be the pattern until the death of the apostles, or that's the pattern until the canon of scripture is formed.

And then that's no longer, that's set aside, which would be something that I think

I've always kind of held in the back of my mind, like, well, now we have the Bible. So I hand them a Bible and say, God bless you.

And if you have real troubles, you can come back. But the idea that people can be looking at other

Christians for an illustration of what the Bible is talking about, and as much as listening to Christians as an explanation of the doctrines of Christianity.

If we think about, you know, what Paul says here about the pattern and the words of Christ and how that affected the way he served, if you apply that to a parent, we would never be okay to talk to one of our children who's going through a difficult time and say, well, let me give you some advice this time from the writings of Buddha.

You know, we would never think that that was an okay thing to do. We would never say, well, it's not best, but hey, it's still good.

Let me tell you what Confucius said. Let me read to you from the Quran this time. So I would never be okay with passing on to my children or to a younger

Christian that we're talking to, that I'm talking to, doctrines from another religion.

But I think I am not so quick to be alarmed or haunted or bothered by giving

Christian doctrine and then giving a pattern by the way

I live that is not the pattern of Christ. You know, so in a sense you're saying, well,

I know my kids know I'm imperfect. Well, yes, they know we're imperfect and that will always be the case.

But by the grace of God, am I clear in my mind that he has provided both doctrine and power for living what we're telling the people so that they both go together.

By the way, it's not just Paul in the very next verse of that passage. In verse 17 of first Corinthians four, after Paul says, be imitators of me.

He says this, for this reason, I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the

Lord. And he will remind you of my ways, which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church.

And I think that verse just robs us of any excuse saying, well, I'm not

Paul. Well, Timothy wasn't Paul, but Timothy was the one that Paul sent.

Timothy saw the lifestyle of the Christian in Paul. He saw Christ's pattern and he heard

Christ's truths. So he could go even though he's no apostle Paul. And through the life of Timothy, Christ's words and Christ's pattern were reflected.

So I asked myself, I'm not the apostle Paul. Can I be trusted to be a

Timothy? Can I love the people and love the Lord enough to bring truth and the right pattern?

And for that second Corinthians two through six, where Paul gives this large autobiographical section is just, you know, it's really priceless.

So that is a very long introduction. And now I'm going to throw it to Chuck and Chuck, why don't you kind of bring us up to speed where, where we are as we enter chapter three.

So we ended chapter two with a description of Paul's confidence, and it's kind of a shocking confidence.

And perhaps the reason that we look for other patterns besides Paul is because his pattern isn't comfortable.

It's a pattern of suffering and weakness, and he doesn't try to hide his weakness from the

Corinthians or anyone else. And he doesn't try to, you know, paint, put lipstick on it. He tells it for what it is.

And so you can understand why if there's another way, we'd be tempted to move toward it.

Reading those verses, verses 15 through 17, he says, we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

To the one, an aroma from death to death, to the other, an aroma from life to life.

And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.

Though things have gotten difficult for Paul, not just externally, but internally with the church, as well as internally,

I suppose, his own suffering. He has not abandoned the gospel or adjusted the gospel.

He hasn't adjusted his message. He hasn't adjusted his approach to ministry because he sees

God working through all the things he's enduring for the good of the believers.

So he says that God is at work as he follows him obediently, and he himself has become a fragrance of Christ to God.

So there's that vertical dimension. God smells this sweet smelling aroma, not that there's anything atoning in it, but he's pleased with it.

But there's also the vertical, because as that is happening, it's also an aroma that wafts out before others, and to some, it is life, and to others, a smell and it's death.

But in both, God is at work, and because he is confident that God is doing that as he walks with the

Lord through difficult times, he does not adjust the gospel. He says, we haven't become peddlers of the gospel, watering it down like some peddlers were tempted to do to try to make a better profit.

But rather, from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ, in the sight of God, there being the primary audience that he has.

People are hearing, but God hears, and so there's no adjustment being made. So his confidence is that God's at work, and because God's at work, we can't do anything other than speak as we've been speaking and living as we've been living.

In chapter three, that brings us to verse one, and we're going to just cover verse one through five quickly, and we'll save verse six and following for next week.

So we're going to look at the confidence that Paul has as a servant on behalf of God.

In spite of these amazingly big things, where do you get your adequacy, Paul? And he gives us the source.

But then next week when we come back, we'll look from verse six and following in the chapter three at Paul's, the specific things he says about why he is so particularly confident as a servant of God, and it has to do with the new covenant.

I'll read the first five verses here. He writes, Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?

Or do we need as some letters of commendation to you or from you?

You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men, being manifested that you are a letter of Christ cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living

God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.

Such confidence we have through Christ toward God, not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.

And we'll stop there for today. So a lot of kind of big and helpful statements about where a

Christian, whether you're a pastor or Sunday school teacher, deacon, elder, you know, who has a full -time job, but he, as a lay elder, he's also working with the church, or whether you're a parent or a witness at work or school, where do we find adequacy, competency?

Where is our confidence? So Chuck, when you think about this passage, what jumps out?

A bunch of things. The first thing is the question about whether or not he needs to commend himself to others.

It's kind of a funny statement. The idea is, here are people that know me well,

I'm your father in the faith, do I need to bring letters of recommendation to introduce me to you and say, yeah, you can trust this guy?

And why would you when you know me? But it's not just that you know me, but you yourselves and the work of God in you has become a letter that recommends me to you.

Yeah, I think that is just one of the most wonderful statements in these early chapters, is the issue that the dynamic between what

God is doing, but the relationship between a servant and the people of God, in whatever way we're seeing this, applying it.

But particularly as a person is sharing the gospel with people, and God is working in their hearts, the validation that you are a servant of the

Lord in many ways is found in the people themselves. They have become a living letter.

And it's not a letter, he says, that we write. I mean, he gives a lot of statements there. It's a letter that the

Spirit of God writes. And he writes it in hearts, soft hearts, not on tablets of stone.

And that's foreshadowing this whole contrast that's coming, Old Covenant, New Covenant. It's not that you are outwardly, ethnically a

Jew, and therefore everyone knows you are one of God's people. It's that inwardly,

God has written on your heart in the work of the new birth, regeneration. We think of the prophecies in Jeremiah.

I will give you a new heart, soft heart, responsive heart. We see the law is written on the heart.

It's no longer an exterior code only that you can read. But now there is something within the new nature.

The new heart loves to obey the king. It's not that we're perfect, but within us there is the desire to obey.

And when you see those changes in people, then you realize that God has been using me, even in my very inadequate efforts.

Paul can look at the Corinthians and say, if you want to see my credentials, like you said,

Corinthians, well, you're the credential. Look at what God has been doing. And it is by the grace of God that I've been allowed to be a part of that.

I think of credentials today, because of our way of the ease of communication and the internet, et cetera.

We don't carry a letter to a church and then ask if we can preach there. But if a person came to Christ Church next

Sunday and said, I'm an ordained minister, and I would like to say just a few words to the people, we would just say, no.

Yeah, like, well, we don't know you. And so who are you?

And we want some credibility. That's carefulness. So I was thinking about the way we tend to think of it.

Do you know where your diplomas are from seminary? No. Yeah, I don't either.

I don't know where any of my academic diplomas are. I have no idea. I hope I still have them, because somebody may ask for them one day.

But I can't imagine why. But I don't know where they are. Misty probably knows. Do you know where your ordination certificate is?

No. Elizabeth does. She's told me she does. But no, I don't have any idea. I don't know where that is either. So we have no, like, if you walk into Chuck's office, you won't see.

And I don't think this is wrong. My pastor growing up had this. And I'm not criticizing this.

But you won't see in either of our offices at the church the ordination certificates and the diplomas from the schools.

But one reason is because we believe that there is a much greater ordination certificate and diploma.

And that is when you've been allowed to serve a people for a while, they then, the great changes that God is working in them, they become your certificate.

How do we know that Chuck Baggett has been called to the gospel ministry in that unique way?

And it's because we see how God is using Chuck Baggett in people. But another thing he mentions here is not just the changes in the people, but the writing on the heart of the servant, of the preacher.

You know, to be so, to give yourself, like he says to the

Thessalonians, I didn't just give you the gospel. I gave you me. You know, I held nothing back.

My life was handed to you as well. I poured myself into you. So when people meet you or me or the other elders or teachers or, you know, godly parents or a witness at work, a

Christian, they ought to be able in a sense to read on your heart that you love a certain people and they are

Christ's letter. You didn't write it. He wrote it in their hearts, but you care for it.

And, you know, if I was a mailman sitting here like this, there's no evidence

I'm the mailman. I don't have my mailman suit on, you know. I don't have the little car with the, you know, where we are with rural mail routes.

I don't have a car with US mail sticker on the side. But you know that I'm a mailman in the kingdom of God if when you listen to what

I talk about, when I talk about the people, there's love, you know.

And that bothers me when I think of the times I would complain. You know,

Paul is brokenhearted over the sin of the Corinthians, but you do not find Paul running the

Corinthians down in the other letters to the other people. Anybody that meets Paul in Ephesus in the midst of a really bad day and talks to him about, hey,

I was just in Corinth. I met some people that were Christians there. You don't find Paul just running down the

Corinthian church. There is, like he says, every time I remember you, remembering God's work in you, I am grateful, you know.

So are the people that God has entrusted us with, are they written on our hearts? Let me ask you,

Chuck, in Paul's situation, what in particular calls for him to commend himself to the

Corinthians? Why does he suggest that he might need a letter?

Yeah. Paul feels the need to ask the question or to suggest that they might feel like he needs to bring a letter of commendation because of false teachers that have come in and planted suspicion in the minds of the people.

So they're hinting that Paul is less than he's presented himself to be.

Um, later he refers to them as kind of super apostles, you know, and you have to wonder if they referred to themselves as that.

Um, but they've suggested that a person who suffers as much as Paul suffers, how could that be what

God has for a person? How could that be an apostle? Yeah, so the outward appearance of Paul doesn't match what the false teachers are saying

Christ should bring. If Christ is king, sitting at the right hand of the father right now, and his people, you know, are the heirs of, of this eternal creation that's coming.

And well, why do they look like this? Look at Paul. He's, he's the off scourings, which he admits in first Corinthians.

So I think that the application for us today would be that anytime we speak to people in a, in a church, or if we're, if we're witnessing to someone at work, or if you're talking to your children, we do need to be aware that after we stop telling them truths from God, you know, applying the scripture to their situation.

When we walk away, as soon as we walk away, maybe while we're talking, there will be an enemy who either through, you know, doubts in their minds, their own sinful questioning, or through other people who come up later, there will be, in a sense, false teachers who will contradict what we said.

So we think about our children, especially as they become adult sons and daughters. So we talk to them about the seriousness of choices, you know, as they enter their teen years, and then they, they enter it like, you know, they're leaving home, they're going to college.

And you, you, you talk with them, you pour your heart out to them. You give them truths as clearly as you know how, but you do know that an enemy will walk right behind you and say,

I, is that really the only option? I have a lot of better options.

One way that Paul, in a sense, took the teeth out of the false teachers efforts, or kind of closed the door on their lies, or maybe reduced their opportunities, even though the liar will attempt it.

One way he did that was that his life matched his words. So he can say, look at how

I lived, like he did to the Thessalonians. And he does this in Corinthians. In fact, he does it throughout a lot of his letters.

We find this issue of commending. You know that I am what I say

I am, and what I say can be trusted. I have commended or manifested is a word that he uses a lot.

I've made it obvious. I'm not just asking you to trust me. I have given an external display of my trustworthiness in different ways.

I wrote down a few of them. Second Corinthians 1 verse 12. I remember when you were preaching through this, this struck me because I guess

I had read it and not paid attention before. He says this, for our proud confidence is this.

So what's the confidence of Paul? The testimony of our conscience that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world and especially toward you.

So Paul can say to the people, my conscience is at the heart of my confidence here.

I lived in a way that honored God in this world, and especially in the way

I treated you. And he was there for a long time. And Paul can say that without fear that any

Corinthian in the church would say, oh, no, no, no, Paul. No, he says he did, but he didn't.

They can't pull up anything in Paul's life and say, well, obviously you didn't live like Christ there.

Chapter 4 verse 2, same idea. Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God.

Well, then what do you have, Paul? But by the manifestation of truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

Chapter 6, he says, we're coworkers with God. Then in verse 3 and 4, he says this, giving no offense, no cause for offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited, but in everything, commending ourselves as servants.

So over and over, Paul says, you can remember the way we lived when we were with you.

It's not just what we said. It's how we lived. It was manifest. It was open for everyone to read.

There is clear evidence that we are who we say we are, and that really takes the rug out from underneath the feet of the false teachers.

Yeah, it's hard to condemn a person who has lived so openly before you and so consistently before you.

I mean, if you kind of hide or if there is an inconsistency, then there's room for those kind of doubts, but not with Paul.

Also, I was thinking earlier when you were talking about talking to you, sharing the gospel with people and knowing there's an enemy that's coming.

It's true with the whispers in the ear of the unbeliever, but also the believer, if you're having conversations where you're trying to point them to the

Lord to continue. Paul is writing to a people that he feels are converted, and he's having to remind them of the truth and knows that there's an enemy whispering in their ear also.

I remember when you were preaching through it, one thing that you emphasized, and you walked us through the history of the

Corinthian letters, which can be a little tricky because as we mentioned in the earlier episodes, this is not the second letter he wrote.

And the first Corinthians is not necessarily the first letter he wrote. So there were other letters and they're mentioned and a good commentary will kind of lay that out for you.

So you were giving us the background and things. And do you remember the accusation that was kind of continually brought against Paul was that he was a bit wishy -washy.

He said he was coming back. He was gonna swing back by and he was gonna spend some time with us. And then he didn't.

And so what kind of Christian is that? Is he really a representative of God? I mean, look, he says one thing and does another.

And so a man says he intends to do something and then he decides not to.

And that's the worst thing that you can find in his life. Paul, you said you're gonna stop by and visit, but then you weren't able to, or for some reason you didn't.

And they're saying you're not a real representative of God. Now, I thought they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

Paul does not just visit Corinth for a couple of weeks. It's one of the places he stays the longest.

So he's there month after month after month over a year. He's there and they can't find anything to point out and say, actually, he wasn't very good right here, except that when he said he wanted to come back again, he wasn't able to.

And so Paul takes that actually, in my opinion, quite shockingly serious.

Why doesn't Paul brush it off and say, come on, is that all you've got against me?

Does anybody think that's a joke? I think that's a joke. Paul takes it seriously because he knows it reflects on Christ.

Christ is not yes now and then no later and wishy -washy. And I was not wishy -washy.

There was a very definite right reason that I didn't return when I had hoped to.

And he takes time to explain that because he knows that even that small, apparent question mark about his choice, it did reflect on Christ.

And I was thinking, so Paul sees himself as keeping his word and showing up when he said he would show up.

He sees that as intimately, unbreakably connected with the reputation of Christ. If Christ isn't that way, then

Paul should not be that way. And I just, again, when I look at my life, would people have to go that deep?

Would they have to search that deep to find, well, John said he was planning on coming by this week, but then he didn't.

And would that even bother me? So quite, really quite a high standard when we think of how

Paul lived, what his enemies had to say about him and how he felt about that. So Paul is willing to go further than the

Corinthians perhaps expect him to, or even then many of us would expect him to, but why and where does he get, where does that come from?

And how is he so confident in the Lord's work that he looks to the

Corinthians and says, you are the letter that commends us to you? And he answers the question for us in verses four and five, such confidence we have through Christ toward God, not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.

God is the source of that confidence. It's not self -confidence, his confidence really is, you could almost say it's a confidence in self -despair as the song says, it's confidence that God is the one who provides this and manifest this letter.

Yeah, I think practical applications for us, whether we're dealing with our kids or like you said, helping a younger believer grow who's struggling, teaching a

Sunday school class, being a witness at work, I think one application is that if we are clear that we are inadequate for this in ourselves and yet we have the obligation, we're not allowed to say, well,

I'm inadequate so let somebody else do it who's an older Christian, who's a better Christian, who knows how to talk better than I do kind of a thing.

God has put me here, it's my task, I'm inadequate. That can produce a paralyzing kind of fear and you abdicate, you step back from your task and that's a sin.

It looks noble and humble, oh, I'm not that kind of a person or I don't feel that I'm adequate for that,

I'm not worthy of it, but the king gave you the task, you're not allowed to go around and tell everyone you're not worthy as if the king is a fool and gives the wrong task to you.

So he gives you a task and you're inadequate, true. You're not allowed to dodge the task.

So the only other option is that we go to him and we lay our complaints of ourselves before him.

I need wisdom that I don't have, I need courage, I need a love and a patience with these people.

You will have to provide moment by moment what I need to serve you here.

So that paralyzing inactivity has to be put away when we see what Paul says in verse four and five and apply it to ourselves.

But also I think the presumptuous kind of self -confidence, like, oh, what's the question?

Well, they were asking, what does God think about? And you think, oh, I read a book on that last week, I know the answer to this one,

I can handle it. And can we handle it? Well, we could quote a great author, but that doesn't mean that our words can do lasting good no matter how great the author we're quoting.

So we're going to need to be aware of our neediness and in an active but dependent humility, we depend upon Christ, we do what he says.

Pride really is in both of those. Oh, I'm too weak,

I'm too nothing, I'm too whatever. And then the other one is, oh, I got this, and both of them are wrong.

And Paul's words here give us the right path through the midst of those two extremes. I remember when studying this or for this, some of the commentators suggested that this was reminiscent of Moses when he complained of inadequacy and God's telling him to go and speak to Pharaoh, stumbling speech, et cetera.

And finally, God says to him, who made your mouth? And he provided everything he needed once Moses did go.

So feeling of inadequacy, but God took care of him. But then on the other side, you get to a point where Moses says,

I know how to handle thirsty Israelites. You strike rocks, so there's a presumption on that side.

And both of them proud. Yeah, it is very easy with the passage of time, particularly in a position of responsibility, like a parent.

The child, mom and the baby, they come home after the birth. And I remember when our first child came home and he was colicky, he cried a lot.

We held him, he quit crying. We set him down, he screamed. We didn't realize what it was.

So we didn't get the right medication quickly. So there was a lot of screaming nights. And I thought, man, we don't know what we're doing.

Who hands babies to kids like us? Is this God's plan? Isn't there some other way for children to be raised by people who are competent?

And then 12 years in, if I'm having trouble with a disobedient son who was colicky 12 years ago, now he's entering the teenage aspects and I'm having to deal with them.

I feel really confident. I know exactly what to say. And I will crush this rebellion, and I'll handle it,

Misty. And, but both of those, we have to guard against both.

Well, next week, we're gonna look at what Paul says in particular about the new covenant and how that brings this happy, bold, confident, joyful ministry in the midst of all the ups and downs that he went through.

It was the awareness of belonging to a new covenant that made his ministry one that he could rejoice in.