Edification - Part I: What to Do

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: 2 Corinthians 13:7-10

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Well, this morning we're taking a brief little detour from Genesis both this week and next week as we finish the
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Abrahamic cycle this past Sunday and make preparations to move into the
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Isaac and Jacob cycle, which will take us through the second to last narrative cycle within the book of Genesis, looking at the patriarchal narrative.
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What we want to do is take a brief detour, and what the Lord has kind of laid on my heart perhaps is connected to the time that I look forward to spending beginning tomorrow night and Saturday morning, where we launch a book study among the men here,
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C .R. Wiley, The Household and the War for the Cosmos, and I think in light of the things that we've been talking about, meeting about, praying about, things that even my brother
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Mike prayed for us shortly ago, there's a very important need for us to pursue the things that make for edification, and I think if that is our heart, if that is our desire heading into the fall season as men, if that's our desire as a church as we close out the year and look to begin afresh in the spring, if our desire is to pursue those things by which we and each other are edified, that we will find the
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Lord's work in all sorts of profound ways, that we will go from strength to strength, and that we will grow in His grace, which is sufficient for us.
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So I wanted to consider this topic of edification from 2 Corinthians 13. In nearly every letter that Paul writes to the scattered churches of his ministry, he always calls the churches to be edified, to understand his ministry as a ministry of edification, and to seek to build up or edify one another.
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Really this sermon could have come from any of Paul's letters because this is such a major theme and important issue for him.
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The goal I want to put before us is really what I've mentioned from Romans 14, 19, let us pursue the things which make for peace, the things which may edify one another.
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But the reason I'm settling at 2 Corinthians 13 is because it, to me, so helpfully distills
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Paul's own example of seeking to edify a troubled church in a very troubled time.
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And so as I hope we'll see today, really today laying out some of the basics, next week I think perhaps fleshing those out even more,
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I hope we'll see a blueprint of sorts for how we as a church, as individual members of the church, can pursue the things by which we may edify one another.
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So 2 Corinthians 13, beginning in verse 7. Now I pray to God that you do no evil.
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Not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified.
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For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong.
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And this also we pray, that you may be made complete. Therefore I write these things, being absent, lest being present
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I should use sharpness, according to the authority which the Lord has given me, for edification, not for destruction.
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Dropping in, parachuting in to 2 Corinthians 13, if you haven't read 2 Corinthians 13, you're thinking, this isn't our
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Bible, what's going on here? Why is Paul speaking in this way? He seems offended, he seems offensive.
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Well the larger context of the letter shows why Paul is speaking this way. The Corinthians have strayed from the truth, or at least they're about to stray from the truth.
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False apostles have come in, false teachers have come in, they've begun to present a gospel different than that of Paul.
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And they've begun to throw such shade on Paul that the Corinthians are going, we really don't know who to believe now. In fact,
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Paul, can you compare yourself to these teachers? You need to recommend yourself to us.
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Go over the things that authenticate your ministry, that show us that you indeed are a spokesman for the
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Lord Jesus. These men have an incredible CV. I mean, look at their strength, look at the aura, look at how they carry themselves, look at their polished oratory, look at their brilliance of insight into matters of the law.
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Paul, can you compare yourself? Let us judge who is the more fitting teacher for us to follow.
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So they consider Paul weak, they say as much, compared to these new teachers that Paul has called super apostles.
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He's going along with it, oh yeah, you guys got the super apostles. Oh, if only I could be like these men.
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Going back to 2 Corinthians 10, we can find some of the complaint that's been registered against Paul.
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His letters, they say, are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak.
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His speech is contemptible, he doesn't speak like the great speakers of our day at the
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Corinthian agora, inviting a topic so that they can do this eloquent discourse on it.
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Paul doesn't preach that way, his speech is weak, it's contemptible, his bodily presence is sickly and mild.
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He's not strong, he's not weighty like we are. And so in verse 11, Paul seems to lay out a threat.
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Shows you how, I don't think personally offended he is, but how zealous he is for the church to understand that they're being led astray.
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He says, let such a person consider this, in other words, those who are claiming such things, that what we are in word by letters, when we are absent, we will be in body when we are present.
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You think I'm powerful in a letter, but I'm weak in body now that I'm away? Wait till I come, then you'll see how powerful
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I am. Paul considers this self -exaltation and boasting of the false teachers, and he goes on in chapters 11 to actually, tongue -in -cheek, do what the
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Corinthians want him to do. Oh, you want my CV? You want me to present my ministry to you so you can judge it compared to the super apostles?
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Sure, I'll lay out my CV for you, and instead of doing what was expected, listing all the honorable things that he's done that show his power, his wisdom, his ability to maneuver through a situation, to always be at the very head, all of the things that we take for granted.
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We have this American way of thinking that we're always rooting for the underdog.
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There's I think in the West, because of Christianity, a certain disdain cast upon boasting.
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No one likes a brag. No one likes a know -it -all, right? And we just assume this is human nature.
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It's always been this way. It has not always been that way. For the Roman mindset, humility was not a virtue.
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Humility was something shameful. You have to be humble, shame on you. If you can boast, great.
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You should boast. Look at all the great things you've accomplished. And so it was common, it was typical in the ancient world to list your honors and to create public honors for yourself.
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Do you have money? Build public monuments and pay to have those monuments with little plaques or inscriptions that say how honorable you are.
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Out of my own expense, I paid for this. So mighty and noble a man am I. And so this is the world that the
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Corinthians are accustomed to. And Paul says, you want me to boast of my nobility, of my power, of my wisdom?
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Sure I'll boast. And then he goes on to list all the things that are shameful. His trials, his losses, his failures, his setbacks.
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Do you want to know how successful I am? I've been lashed. I've been shipwrecked. I've been stoned. I get chased out of cities.
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When the heat really got hot, I'm so mighty and powerful, I was put in a basket and let down the wall.
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And I ran away in the middle of the night for my life. That's how strong and mighty I am, Paul is boasting.
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He's turning their value system upside down. So we read in 2
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Corinthians 12, beginning in verse 11, I've become a fool in boasting. You wanted me to boast, now
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I'm boasting. You've compelled me. I ought to have been commended by you. For in nothing was
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I behind the most eminent apostles, though I am nothing. Truly, the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds.
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For what is it which you were inferior to other churches, except that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong.
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Paul says, don't you remember that when I ministered among you, I took nothing from you? The only thing that made you any different from the other churches that understand who
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I am, that I am an apostle of Jesus Christ the Lord, that had the same demonstration of signs and wonders and mighty deeds, the only difference is that I required them to support me.
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But for you, lest it would be something held against me, I did not ask that you support me.
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They supported me while I ministered freely among you. So the church at Corinth, we put together this picture.
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And by the way, if you actually take the time to read through 2 Corinthians, you'll notice that really chapters 1 through 9 seem like a typical
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Pauline letter. You're going to have a lot of praise, a lot of admonition and encouragement, a lot of doctrinal teaching, and some places for admonition and rebuke.
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But then you get to chapters 10 through 13 and the whole tone shifts. And the question is, was
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Paul just saving this up for now? Or as, there's really no way to adjudicate this, but some would argue that actually we have the so -called letter of tears in 2
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Corinthians 10 through 13. That the way these letters were collected and passed down, that letter of tears was appended to Paul's letter that we have in 2
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Corinthians 1 through 9. And so we have the letter of tears along with Paul's later response to the
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Corinthians. That could be. There's really no way to weigh these things out. But either way, what we have is a picture of a troubled church that for Paul as an apostle is like a wayward, rebellious child.
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We mean that quite literally because Paul really thought of this church as his child. In the first letter he wrote to them, 1
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Corinthians 4, we read, I do not write these things to shame you, my beloved children,
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I warn you, that you might have 10 ,000 instructors in Christ, you don't have many fathers, for I bore you through the gospel.
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He says, you're my child. And as with every wayward, rebellious child, there needs to be consequences.
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And Paul says as father -like apostle, if he comes in person and things remain this way, there's going to be discipline.
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For I fear, lest when I come, he says, 2 Corinthians 12, 20, I shall not find you as I wish, and that I shall be found by you in a way you don't wish, lest there be contentions and jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, backbiting, whispering, conceits and tumults.
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And that all brings us to chapter 13. And at the very beginning of chapter 13,
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Paul is repeating this threat that he'll come and he'll visit.
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And if things don't change, though he hopes otherwise, he won't spare anyone.
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And so he's laying down with more urgency than we could otherwise understand why the church must seek to edify each other and pursue the things that make for peace.
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We begin in verse 5, examine yourselves as to whether you're in the faith. Test yourselves.
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Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you're disqualified, but I trust you will know that we are not disqualified.
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So the first thing that Paul calls the church to, and this is just kind of the intro into verses 7 through 10, the first thing he calls these
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Christians to do is to examine themselves, to see whether they're in the faith. He says it twice, using two different verbs.
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Examine yourselves, test yourselves. Examine yourselves, test yourselves. And there even seems to be this sarcastic bite.
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It's one of the difficulties of reading Paul's letters. It's like the same difficulty reading a text message.
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You're bound to take it the wrong way. You take something that was meant sarcastically to be sincere, something that was meant to be sincere, sarcastic.
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I thought you were joking. No, I wasn't joking. Why did you think that? It was a text message. We tend to misread sarcasm and sincerity, and I think we have a tendency to do that in 2
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Corinthians especially. So much of the tone of chapters 10 through 13 is Paul using very exaggerated and expressive language, and that seems to be the case here.
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Test yourselves. Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you? In other words, can you not even tell the difference between a false teacher and a true apostle of Christ?
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If you don't know the presence of Christ in them, do you even know the presence of Christ in you? Examine yourself.
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Test yourself. If you've lost discernment there between me and these super apostles, how are you discerning yourself whether you're in the faith?
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The verb for know here is not just something you can rattle off the top of your mind.
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It's like something you recognize in a deep way and you act accordingly. Do you know
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Christ's presence, Paul says? If you know Christ's presence, you'll know that we're not disqualified.
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If you truly know the presence of Christ, you'll know the super apostles are actually false teachers, and you'll know those that they denounce as weak are actually the true ministers of Jesus.
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Paul is saying we are the real McCoy, and you Corinthians have sunk to an alarming lack of discernment.
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The fact that the Corinthian church is demanding Paul prove his apostleship tells us that they've lost a grasp on the marks of the
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Spirit of God at work in their community. To use language from Ephesians, they're being tossed to and fro by every wind and wave.
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So Paul says examine yourselves, see whether you're in the faith, test yourselves.
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True examination ought to bring true profession. True profession ought to bring a life that's characterized by love, joy, peace, patience.
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True profession ought to show a heartfelt dependence upon Christ. True profession ought to show a grace -wrought life resulting in obedience to God.
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True profession ought to show a growth in sanctification, a growth in loving neighbors, a growth in loving the brethren in a heightened sense.
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True profession ought to show a steady adherence to the Word. And Paul's not seeing the true profession in these ways in the church at Corinth.
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Examine yourselves as to whether you're in the faith. Test yourselves. And then having established that, when you have that as the banner, when you have that as the basis for all that follows, we can then answer the questions that will occupy the rest of our time this morning.
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Having tested yourselves, what must you do in order to edify?
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So the assumption is you've tested yourself. You've examined yourself. Am I in the faith?
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Am I able to discern the marks of the presence of Christ? Am I able to discern what the
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Spirit of God is doing? Have I examined my life? Have I hung it in the balance?
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After you've done so, what must you do in order to edify?
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First, beginning in verse 7, there's four marks we get in these verses. Four. The first mark.
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To edify, you must do no evil, but do what is honorable.
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To edify, you must do no evil, but do what is honorable. Verse 7, now
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I pray to God that you do no evil. Not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified.
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There is often collateral damage when fellow believers begin to walk in disorder, right?
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Disorder leads to disorder. Carelessness and worldliness are as contagious as any stomach bug that might go through our church.
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You might pick something up from a crockpot of chili one week, you also might pick up a dose of worldliness that you carry with you into the next season, and it's easy to vindicate or justify that new bout of worldliness because of the brethren, because of the influences around you.
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Slander and backbiting are by nature never self -contained. Takes two to tango if you're going to gossip, right?
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And Paul has been on the receiving end of injury and insult, and what is his response?
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What would your response be? If you were in Paul's shoes, just go and start unleashing that power.
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I told you I didn't want it, you made me do it, you made me do it. What is Paul's response?
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Well, whatever his written response has been up until now, when we get to verse 7, a little window opens.
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Now we don't just have carefully designed words meant to pierce the heart of the Corinthian community, but we actually have a window into what
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Paul is doing and what Paul has been doing in light of this chaos. I pray,
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Paul said, I pray to God you do no evil. That's a present tense verb, we don't translate that in English because it's awkward, but it's a constant action,
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I'm praying for you, I'm still praying, this is my always prayer for you, that you do no evil.
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Some are rejecting his authority, some are mocking his authenticity, some are spreading rumors and tearing asunder his apostolic credentials, and what does he do?
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He prays. He writes a letter to admonish them and win them back. If they're calling him a fool, he makes himself in their eyes more of a fool, that he might win them back, and then he says,
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I pray, I pray you do no evil, I pray you do no evil. It could be said, as he said, the less he was loved, the more he did love.
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The more that rebellious child of a church sought to push him away, the more he was zealous to win them back and restore them.
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If you love those who love you, Jesus says, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love the same. If you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you?
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Even sinners do that. And so what does Jesus say, Luke 6, 36, be merciful, like your
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Father in heaven is merciful. Be full of mercy, and that's what Paul is, he's full of mercy.
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What credit would it be to Paul to only pray for those who have wished him well, who have stood in his corner, that would be no credit to him.
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Even sinners would do that. But Paul prays for those who almost seem to be his opponents, his enemy.
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We cannot say whether Paul prayed with gritted teeth, we can just say that Paul prayed. Sometimes you pray with gritted teeth.
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Lord, bless my brother, I love him, gritted teeth.
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And what does he pray for them specifically in verse 7? They would do no evil, but rather that they would do what is honorable.
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That word honorable certainly works. It's in Greek the word kalos, which is normally translated in English as good, but even then that wouldn't be the first thing that would come to a
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Greek hearer's mind. There's other adjectives that normally take the place of honor or good.
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The first really sense would be beautiful, kalos, beautiful.
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If you saw some ornate vista or some display of something you would say that's kalos, it's beautiful.
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And Paul says, don't do something evil and corrosive and destructive, do something beautiful.
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Do something commendable. Do something that draws us upward, something that's enjoyable, something that's delightful.
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Don't do the things that are evil, do the things that are well -pleasing to God's sight. And one thing that stands out to me from verse 7 is how this prayer is not a prayer that I've prayed very often.
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We tend to pray for crises. We tend to pray for those who have already done something wrong and we begin to pray that they'll stop making the wrong choice, they'll stop doing the thing that's bad, and that if they ever get back to the status quo they kind of get off our radar screen and then we kind of stop praying for them.
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But notice that Paul doesn't just pray for them to stop doing something, he prays something positive.
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He sort of says, it's not just that I want you to stop being this way, I want you to only do,
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I'm praying that you do good. It's not I'm just praying for you to stop this, I'm praying for you positively to do something.
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I don't know that I've ever prayed for a brother or a sister to do something good. Have you ever prayed,
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Lord, I pray, I think of my brother, Lord, may he do something good today? Have you ever prayed that? That's essentially what
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Paul is praying, that they do no evil but rather do something good, do good works. And so Paul is constantly, we see this in Philippians, we see this everywhere,
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Paul says, I pray for you that. He's essentially praying that they grow and they abound in the fruitfulness of righteousness,
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Philippians 1. He's always after the goodness, the blamelessness, the godliness, the holiness of his converts.
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And so Paul essentially prays for what he commands, that they would be virtuous, that they would overcome evil by doing good.
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So it's not enough that they just stop, they must overcome it, they must do good. And so he's praying that they would have the discernment to do what is good and to actually be energized by the
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Spirit of God to do it. Lord, let them be restrained from doing evil, let them do what is righteous, what is beautiful, what is pleasing.
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David F. Wells wrote a, I think now there was a fifth volume, originally it was only meant to be a four -volume series, and another thinker that very prescient, very far ahead of the curve on where issues were in the larger evangelical church, very insightful.
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And he connects this missing piece of doing good, of virtue, to consumerism in the church, to a sort of self -absorbed, what can
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I receive, what can I squeeze, how can I be passive as a Christian in this life, rather than proactively seeking the good that is to be done.
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And this is what he says, this is from his book Losing Our Virtue, which he wrote, you know, 15 years before Os Guinness and all these other people recently have started writing about virtue.
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It is one thing to understand what Christ's deliverance means, it's quite another to see this worked out in life with depth and reality, to see its moral splendor, what a phrase,
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The moral splendor of a transformed life, what is beautiful, what is callous, moral splendor to do what is good.
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This is what makes the gospel so attractive, I don't live that way, I've never met someone who lives that way, why do you live that way, how do you live that way?
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The evangelical church today, Wells says, with some exceptions, is not very inspiring in this regard, much of it is replete with tricks, gadgets, gimmicks and marketing ploys as it shamelessly adapts itself to our emptied out, blinded postmodern world.
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It is supporting a massive commercial enterprise of Christian products, it is filling the airways and stuffing postal boxes and it is always begging for money to fuel one entrepreneurial scheme after another, but it is not morally resplendent, it's not callous, it is mostly empty of real moral vision and without a recovery of that vision, its faith soon disintegrates.
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There's too little about it that speaks to the holiness of God and without the vision for and reality of this holiness, the gospel becomes trivialized, life loses its depth,
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God becomes transformed into a product to be sold, faith becomes a recreational activity to be done and the church becomes a social club for the like -minded.
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I think he's dead on, I think he's dead on, that one of the fundamental issues facing the church's impact in our culture today is that we've lost what is good, we've lost our virtue, we're content to do things slightly less than those outside, but we're just as consumeristic as them, we're just as much peddling after products, we're not actually seeking to do what is good, striving after the good and Paul says, it's not just that I pray you do no evil,
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I pray that you do what is good, even before Wells and far more prescient in my mind,
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I mentioned him a few weeks ago, Jack Alol, just an amazing thinker, he connects consumerism and this is back in the late 60s, early 70s, so you think that post
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World War II boom really where consumerism in American culture comes to its apex and Alol in France is seeing the effects of that and he's warning about the impact of that and he writes in his book
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Prayer in Modern Man and notice Paul is praying and he connects this to prayer, he notices how western
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Christians have bought into consumerism as a way of life and the
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Corinthians are nothing if they're not consumeristic, you know, prove to us, entertain us, you know, commend yourselves to us, you know, and then we'll keep switching the remote and watching the next commercial and choosing which product we want to receive.
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Finally, Alol writes, prayer can display a quality of acquisition which is always related to consumption, you know, it's just,
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Lord, this is what I need, this is what I'm going through, this is what I'm facing, this is where I'm at, so the consumer mentality bleeds into prayer, yeah, keep me from evil and now be at my side and beckon for all the things
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I want to do. We talk of having faith, this is what
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Alol is noticing, we talk of having faith, of having the Holy Spirit more than living in faith, living by faith, receiving the
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Spirit, being sent by the Spirit, do you see how subtle that little consumeristic language is, do we have, do we have, do we have, do we have versus are we living it out, are we being led by, are we being prompted by, are we pursuing?
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We're automatically oriented by our society in this direction of receiving. Against this, when
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Alol brings up the Lord's prayer, we can say, he writes, the model furnished by Jesus is the anti -consumer prayer par excellence.
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It is centered on God's desire, not our own. Paul, in thinking of the
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Corinthian church, is not praying with himself in view, with his hurt feelings in view, with his disappointments and discouragements in view, he's praying with God's will for the church in view, and so because he's removed himself out of the equation, his prayer is very simply, what would
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God desire for this church? And everything that he lays out, everything that we'll cover is part of God's desire for the church, and he says,
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I pray you do no evil and you do what is good. He's not even in the equation. I think my prayer would be something like,
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God vindicate me, I'm trying to do the right thing here, give me patience, give me meekness, you know, it still would be so much about me, and then
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I'd be like, that was great. Paul's just like, I'm not even in the equation. What's God's desire for the church?
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That's where I fit, that's why I write, that's why I labor. Now Paul even says,
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I know that I may seem disqualified to you. You've presented me as weak, you no longer are able to weigh the claims of my gospel, you've forgotten your own origin story, that I'm the one who bore you through the gospel, and I didn't visit, it didn't work out in the way, and that was disappointing to you.
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There was a genuine letdown on the side of the Corinthians that Paul has to address. But his chief concern is for them, not for himself to be vindicated.
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Not that we should appear approved, he said. I'm praying not that we'll be vindicated, but that you will correspond to what is right.
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And so he says, I have no desire to attend that I might punish, that I might not have to spare any.
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At the beginning he says, right, I write to those who have sinned before and to all of the rest, if I come again
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I will not spare, since you're seeking a proof of Christ speaking in me. And he says,
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I'd rather be weak than be strong in that way. You're saying, come show us in power and prove you're an apostle.
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If I were to do that, I wouldn't spare any of you. And I'd much rather be weak and have you be ashamed and have my authenticity unvindicated, if that makes you strong, if that preserves you.
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Paul's authority, you Second Amendment brethren will understand this,
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Paul uses his apostolic authority like an LTC, like an inside the waistband gun.
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You don't pull it out unless you intend to use it. He says, I'm content to keep it tucked. I have the authority and I'm content with that.
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I'm not going to show you unless I plan to use it. The Corinthians want wisdom, power, signs, wonders.
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They want Paul to impress them, to compete for them, and Paul isn't going along with any of that.
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The super apostles are setting that tone, raising that bar, and Paul has one desire.
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What would the Lord desire for the church at Corinth? The gain of Christ.
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That's been the one thing that's been on Paul's heart ever since the church was conceived at Corinth.
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And so as far as Paul is concerned, the legitimization of his apostleship doesn't rest in these displays of power or prowess.
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It actually rests on the changed behavior, the changed attitude, the changed life of the
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Corinthian Christians. That's the badge of his apostleship. You'll know that I'm an apostle when you follow what
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I'm teaching and your life is transformed as a result of it. Then you will know that the Spirit of God is at work through me.
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Go the way of the super apostles and see how fractured, how backbiting, envious, and jealous, how prone to outbursts of wrath you've become.
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Is the Spirit of God at work in that? And so Paul says earlier in the letter, 2
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Corinthians 3, do we begin again to commend ourselves? Do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, letters of commendation from you?
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You are our epistle. You are our letter of recommendation. You want my
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CV? You're my CV. Where were you when I entered Corinth and began to preach the gospel of Jesus?
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What was your life then? How were you transformed by the power of God? You're my ministry resume, he says to the church at Corinth.
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And so the first point, if you're to edify, you must do no evil. You do what is beautiful, what is good, what is honorable, what is well -pleasing.
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A vindictive spirit, a vengeful spirit, a spirit that's always seeking to be put right and to have every claim rightly acknowledged and recognized and never pressed against is someone who will be utterly unable to edify or be edified.
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Do no evil. That's the prayer. Do what is honorable. Second point, that was the longest point.
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Second point, to edify, you must do nothing against the truth. 2
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Corinthians 13, verse 8, for we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. This could be a maxim or a proverb that would have been familiar to the
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Corinthian church. If not, Paul seems to be using truth as shorthand for the gospel, as he does elsewhere in his letters.
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We can do nothing against the gospel, everything we do is for the gospel. And he's simply stating that as an apostle, one way or another, his whole way of life, everything he's ever been with and toward the church at Corinth has been for the sake of the gospel.
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And the whole letter shows that he's not in it for self -enlargement. He's not in it for material gain.
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That was not his manner when he stayed among them. One way or another, everything he's done in their midst has been for the sake of the gospel.
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And so it's impossible for him to go against it. He can't work against the truth. Everything he does is working for the truth.
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Why else would he write the letter? Why else would he plan another visit? Why else would he suffer the harm done to his reputation, the stress brought on to his life?
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Why else did he ever evangelize and disciple and plant a church in the city? If it all wasn't for the sake of the truth of the gospel, everything he had done had been in line with this truth and not against it.
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And so if you were to ask Paul what he means by saying we can do nothing against the truth but for the truth,
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I think he would give this as a larger answer. This is what he wrote in chapter 5. If we're beside ourselves, it is for God.
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If we're of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus, that if one died for all, then all died, and he died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again.
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Verse 18, now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and he's given us the ministry of reconciliation.
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That is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and he's committed to us the word of reconciliation.
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And so we're ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us, we implore you, be reconciled to God.
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Paul's essentially saying, I can't do anything against the truth, I can't go against the gospel, because my whole ministry is compelled by the gospel.
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That's what he's saying in chapter 5. The love of Christ compels us. This is how we've received the ministry of reconciliation.
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We ourselves have been the recipients of it, and now we have this word to proclaim. We've become ambassadors for the gospel.
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Everything we do is in light of that. It's as though God were pleading through us. I can't work against the gospel,
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Paul says, and here we see why to edify you must do nothing against the truth of the gospel.
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When Paul encounters Peter at Antioch, as we read in Galatians 2, and it hears this dearly beloved disciple of the
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Lord, not as Paul would say of himself, one born out of time, chief of sinners, less than the very least.
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Here's Peter, the one who Jesus often regarded as a spokesman for the twelve.
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One who was privileged enough to, and there's only three, to behold the glory of the
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Son of God. The one who Jesus said, your name is rock, and on this rock
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I will build my home. But when Paul comes to Antioch, and he sees that Peter's been okay with the division of Jew and Gentiles at table fellowship,
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Paul says, I confronted him to his face when I saw that he was not acting in line with the truth of the gospel.
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In other words, Paul says, I won't do anything against the truth of the gospel so far as it depends upon me.
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He's not claiming to be perfect in this, who could, but he's made a willful decision that the giants of the faith, the people that he would learn from, that he would admire, if they themselves step out of line, he will do nothing to follow that lead.
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Super apostle or genuine apostle, the apostle Peter himself, if you're out of line with the truth of the gospel,
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Paul's not gonna follow. And you cannot edify a church if you don't have that conviction, that you're not willing to cover over the truths of the gospel, the core doctrines that are at the heart of the faith.
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We live in an age rife with ecumenicism, you know, how can we find the lowest common denominators of unity, and because of that all sorts of error floods into the church.
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We have to know, we have to have God -given wisdom to know ways that we become like a
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Jew to the Jews and a Greek to the Greeks, without ever stepping outside the line of the truth, to actually get to a place where we're working against the truth, which is what
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Peter ended up doing in Antioch. Who edified the church at Antioch?
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Was it Peter when Jews and Gentiles were being separated at table fellowship, though they were one in Christ, or was it
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Paul who, when he saw that misalignment, confronted it? That's building up the church, that's uniting the church in the
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Spirit. A church that has any motive beyond or beside the truth is a church that will not be edified, it will not be built up, it will not go from strength to strength, it will not be firmly established in the doctrine that's been passed down, it will become inevitably brittle and prone to fracture.
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Another point I want to make on this is beware of ministries that only have one ax to grind.
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You can be pretty sure that a ministry with a one -trick pony is not going to be in line with the truths of the gospel.
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It may not be that that one particular ax is necessarily wrong, but part of maintaining the truth of the gospel is not just highlighting one aspect, but actually comprehensively proclaiming and celebrating and standing in the truths of the gospel.
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So a ministry that's only ever pursuing one topic, one theme, one aspect of the Christian life, in the long run becomes a very dangerous ministry.
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It's not actually seeking to build on the whole counsel of God's Word, and I think we as Reformed Christians can be very prone to that kind of failure.
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They often appear to have strength because of this fixation, right? This focus, and because they're focused and fixated on one thing, there's a solidity to their conviction, whether wrong or right.
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But Paul seems weak for a reason. He's not fixated, he doesn't have the ax to grind like these strong and mighty super apostles, so he seems relatively weak.
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But Paul and his weakness is standing in the truth, and these false apostles, with all of their supposed strength of conviction, are actually the ones who are working against the truth.
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So take it as an axiom on many different levels. 1 Corinthians 1 29, God chose the weak to put to shame the mighty.
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To edify, second point, you must do nothing against the truth. Third, to edify you must pray to be made complete.
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Pray to be made complete. 2 Corinthians 13 verse 9, we're glad when we are weak and you are strong, and this we pray, that you may be made complete.
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Paul first says he's glad to be weak, if it means the church will be strong, and here
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I think there's another bite of sarcasm. The Corinthians would certainly think of themselves as strong already.
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Paul says in the first letter they've been enriched in all speech and knowledge, they don't lack any spiritual gift, they're already kings.
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Paul says, oh I wish we could reign with you. 1 Corinthians 4, we're fools for Christ's sake, you're wise in Christ, we're weak but you're strong, you're distinguished, we're dishonored.
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To the present hour we hunger and thirst and we're poorly clothed, beaten and homeless, we labor, working with our hands, being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure, being defamed we entreat.
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You see, again the value system has to get turned upside down. But of course here
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Paul means something more than just spiritual strength in the abstract. When he says
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I'm glad to be weak, if that makes you strong, the strength he's talking about is firmness in the faith.
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He already said that in verse 5, firmly established in the faith. To be of one mind and heart, we're going to see that next week in verse 11.
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If this kind of strength in the church is achieved by Paul being a fool, being weak, being marginal, he's content to be that.
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Paul desires the church to be strong even at the expense of his strength, his reputation, his honor.
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And he says here in this prayer, another way of being a strong church for Paul is a complete church.
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Right, look at the logic of verse 9. We're glad when we are weak and you are strong and we pray this way that you be made complete.
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In other words, the prayer is defining what he means by strong. And this we pray, we're happy when you're strong, this we pray that you may be made complete.
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So the church is to be made complete. This is how the church edifies one another. This is not a call for individuals to be complete, this is not some quest for self -fulfillment, this is not an invitation to take a week off at the spa and reconnect with yourself and then come back and say,
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I've been made complete, I'm ready to edify in the church now. No, these are plural pronouns. He's saying you, plural, as the church, be made complete.
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This is Paul's prayer. First prayer, verse 7, do no evil, rather do what is good, what is pleasing and beautiful.
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The second prayer, verse 9, be complete, be made complete.
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He prays that God would make them complete. The normal word that we often have translated as complete or sometimes perfect is not here.
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It's rather a very rare word, it only appears in one other place in a different form in the
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New Testament. Paul doesn't use this word that often, he uses the other word for completion or perfection very often, maturity, and here
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I think it's by design, I think it's significant. Complete is a great translation, a good gloss would be to be made ready, to be fully equipped, to be put back into order.
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I think now we're getting closer to why Paul's using this particular word. In other literature of the time, the word is used to set a broken bone, or if you were, you know, thankfully our sister doesn't have a cast yet, but if she had a cast, we would use this particular
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Greek word to talk about setting her ankle right, putting it back in order, getting it equipped and ready for use, and that strikes me.
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If the church body is to be put back in order, if the church body is to be made complete in this restorative way, and I like to think of that as we're striving for the
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Lord to bring healing, and so he puts a supernatural cast around us to put back in order that which is disjointed, and what happens if you've ever broken a bone over a summer, you know what
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I'm going to say, what happens when you're in a cast for three months, if anyone ever broke an arm or a leg?
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The summer heat comes, and it's sweaty, and there's dead skin under there, and it begins to get really uncomfortable, and then you try to find some milkshake straw or pen that's long enough to try to scratch inside.
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It's just, it's awful, but you have to remember this is a spiritual good in terms of the church.
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To be made complete is not always a fun, thrilling process.
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It's actually can be rather itchy and uncomfortable and rather awkward, and there's, you know,
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I just wish I could rip this thing off right now. Wouldn't that be better? I'll just be really careful. The cast has to stay on until the work's been done, until it's been made complete, until the bone's been put right, and that's how it is when we pursue edification.
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It gets hard. We begin to irritate one another.
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We begin to itch. We begin to smell, and it's frustrating, and it's discouraging, but it's part of how the church is made right, and so Paul prays for the church to be made complete, and it's not going to be some overnight change where they put aside all manner of evil, malice, slander, envy, and they're just, oh, glad that was over.
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Yeah, we, you know, that was last week, all done now. It's going to take some time for that bone to set.
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It's why you need imperatives like pursue those things that make for peace. Pursue those things by which you may build up your brother or your sister.
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It's not going to stray by you. You're going to have to go chase after it. You're not going to wake up one day and find it sitting in front of you.
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You need to be actively pursuing edification, peacemaking, reconciliation.
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He longs to see this church in harmony, not just with himself, but with each other. That, to me, is so striking.
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Again, it's another picture that Paul's not counting himself in the equation. Whether he comes or goes, he has other churches, other callings.
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He needs to get to Spain. He wants to bring the gospel to the ends of the Roman earth. He wants the fullness to come.
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And so he's speaking to them beyond himself. He wants them to be integrated as one in maturity and completion, walking in fruitful righteousness, making an impact in Corinth, living not according to the world, but according to the gospel, according to the wisdom of God.
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And so to edify, we also must pray to be made complete. And part of praying to be made complete is,
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Lord, give me the grace and the patience to bear with how irritating and discouraging that can be at times.
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It's not discouraging or irritating when you just show up on a Sunday and you leave.
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That's not discouraging or irritating. You're just a consumer, right? That's all you are. You might as well stream a service.
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You might as well live your entire life in your living room and only ever tune into church.
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How irritating is that going to be, practicing the one another's? Not at all. But if you're actually seeking to be made complete with the church body, you're going to have to put aside backbiting and envy, gossip and slander.
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You're going to have to be willing to be injured and disappointed and irritated. You're going to have to put a covering of love over all sorts of relationships and situations.
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But you're never going to encounter the spirit of the living God and the power that he manifests through a local body if you're not willing to be put in that cast and made complete, be put to right.
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Fourth and last, to edify, you must use what God gives you for edification.
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To edify, you must use what God gives you for edification.
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So we've said we cannot edify if we're not doing evil.
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Sorry to use a double negative there. We edify by not doing evil, doing what is good.
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We edify secondly, where is my second point?
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By doing nothing against the truth. We edify thirdly by praying to be made complete, preparing to be made complete.
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And then fourth, to edify, we use what God gives us for edification. Verse 10,
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I write these things being absent. Lest being present, I use sharpness according to the authority which the
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Lord has given me for edification and not for destruction. The great
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British commentator of a few generations ago, F .F. Bruce, he wrote a paraphrase of verse 10 and I think it's really insightful.
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This is why I write like this while I'm away from you. I don't want to be severe when
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I'm with you and if I seem severe, I'm exercising the authority which the
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Lord has given me, but he gave it to me to build you up, not to pull you down.
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Now really, verse 10 is just what Paul's doing in the whole letter. He certainly has some sarcastic bites, he certainly has some threats, but in the whole letter we actually see
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Paul attempting to build up this church, this wayward troubled church, and not to pull them down.
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I remember when I read that word pull down, one thing came to my mind, one horrid repeated memory of all my summer days at my grandmother's pool in Lemonster.
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I have a cousin, Wiles, who's about a foot taller than me or at least he seems to be so when
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I was a boy and, you know, much older than me and I used to go swimming as a boy and I'd doggy paddle, you know, me and my sister and I'd be kind of doggy paddling around and then
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Wiles would come bounding out and jump in the pool and with this malicious grin on his face he'd, you know, take these long strokes right up to me and he'd pull me under the water, which to him is hilarious, ha ha ha, while I'm gasping for air and trying quickly to doggy paddle away from him and then
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I feel his fingers on my ankle, pull under, pull under, and so I ended up always dreading the days that my cousin was at that pool.
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It's an awful thing when you're pulled under. It's awful. Spiritually speaking, it's far worse to be pulled down spiritually instead of built up, to be stripped bare, to be exposed and made vulnerable, to feel ashamed, to lose the joy of the
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Lord's calling, to lose the gladness of the fellowship of the saints. Oh, it's an awful thing to be torn down.
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I can't imagine the judgment that awaits those who spiritually abuse other
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Christians, spiritual abuse. I know we have to be careful using terms like this. It's easy to bandy that out and hide behind that as an excuse for stubbornness or willful disobedience to the
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Lord's calling. I'm aware of that, but let's not forsake the concept entirely. Paul doesn't.
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He's aware of the possibility to either use his authority in a way that will build up the church at Corinth or just to tear it down.
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He's aware that he has the power to do both. Are you aware as a
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Christian that you have the power? You may not be an apostle, but you have some level of responsibility and authority in whatever state you are.
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Even if you're just a few years older than the youngest sibling in the family, you have some level of authority and responsibility.
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Are you aware that if you're a Christian, you have that same power at every turn to either build up a believer in the things of the
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Lord or to pull them under the water? Paul understands that edification is the goal of his calling.
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It's the reason that God gifted him. It's the reason that he has become an apostle. It's the reason that he has this position and authority.
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2 Corinthians 12 19. Again, do you think that we excuse ourselves to you?
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We speak before God and Christ, but we do all things, beloved, for your edification.
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I'm not trying to commend myself to you and play this little game. Everything I do is to edify you, church, is what
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Paul is saying. So he recognized that edification is the motive of God's gifts to the church.
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If you're a Christian, God has given you gifts and graces. He's put you in a role. He's given you a position with relational authority and responsibility.
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In whatever state you are, you are to be a steward of that for the building up of the body of Christ, for the building up of his kingdom and his desire for the world.
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1 Corinthians 14 12. We see this played out literally with gifts. Even so, since you're zealous for spiritual gifts, let it be for edification of the church that you seek to excel.
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Verse 26, let all things be done for edification. Paul's looking at a church that's clamoring after gifts, and all that clamoring is only fracturing and disunifying them.
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They're splitting apart. The opening letter is, I'm of Paul, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Apollos. He's saying,
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I thank God I didn't baptize any of you. I don't use the gifts and the calling on my life to be dissentious and divisive and self -exalting.
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I use it to edify you. If you want to seek gifts, that's a good desire to have. Make sure you're seeking it for the right reason, the reason
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God gave it. God gave it that the church might be edified. God's gifts are not for self -aggrandizement.
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They're for other -oriented edification, and this means that every believer has a part to play.
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Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 11. He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, some teachers, right?
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So God is giving offices, giving positions, giving authorities to the church.
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For what? For the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the
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Son of God to a perfect, a complete man. To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
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Verse 15, speaking the truth in love that you may grow up in all things into him who is the head
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Christ from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies.
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What knits together a body? According to Ephesians 4. I just asked you that without having read it.
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What knits together a body? We would have really good biblical answers. Well, the truth of the gospel.
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Amen. Well, the Spirit of God. Amen. What in Ephesians 4 unifies a church body?
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What allows the church body to be built up, to be edified? From whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies.
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It is what you supply to the body that joins the body together, and having been joined together, we're able to have this effective working, notice what he says, by which every part does its share.
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Paul really has no place just to say, sit back, put it in crew's control.
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The Spirit of God will create some sort of unity, and as long as you're on the membership roll, you have it on paper that you actually are, you know, how is a church body edified?
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It's by what every joint supplies. It's by every part doing its share.
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This, he says, causes growth of the body. But why does
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God give positions and roles and gifts to the body? Is it just so that the body can be joined together?
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Is it just so that the body has some sort of effective work? No, he says, it causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
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It's amazing to me that Paul is speaking of the church in almost a completely horizontal way here.
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Notice that we have a reflexive pronoun. It causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself.
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The body is edifying itself in love. As each joint is knitting the body together in unity, as every gift and grace and position of authority is yielding that deference, that desire to edify, the whole body is reflexively, season by season, building itself up in love.
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There's no place for consumerism passivity here. Every individual member effectively working in their position according to their role by the grace and the gifts that God has given them.
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When you do your share, the body is built up, it's edified in love, and you're edified along with it.
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Do you want to be built up in the things of the Lord? Do you want to be edified?
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Do you want to be an edifying presence to the brethren? We have to desire that every single one of us grows in holiness and commit to pray and to supply what the body needs from us.
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To supply what the body needs that it might grow. I supply my little bit with my little grace, my little position, my little gift.
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And a brother or sister over here, they supply with their little grace, their gift, their position, their experience, their wisdom of life.
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And as every believer does this in the body of Christ, it's being edified, it's being built up, and there's an effective working of the
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Spirit of God. But the key is whatever you have, whatever
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God has given you, it's to be used to build up and not to tear down. That's a last resort.
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Paul says, I don't want to come in sharpness. Please take this letter to heart. Please turn around Church at Corinth.
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I don't want to come in sharpness. I don't want to demonstrate who I am in power. For even if I should boast, he says in 2
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Corinthians 10 .8, somewhat more about our authority which the
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Lord has given us for edification and not for your destruction, I would not be ashamed.
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Everywhere Paul connects his authority to the call to edify. Paul's had hard words in this letter.
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He's rebuked them. He's reproved them. He sort of sardonically mocked them. He's even threatened church discipline, perhaps worse.
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But even there, his ultimate motive is edification. He may have been a hammer at times, but it was never a sledgehammer.
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It was always one of those little nylon finishing hammers. You just gently tap and it never mars, never a sledgehammer.
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Any capacity, any ability, any spiritual gift, any role toward any relationship of any people,
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God has given you that, that they might be built up in the things of the Lord, not pulled under, not set back.
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And almost everyone here in this room has some degree of responsibility toward someone's spouse, toward parents, siblings in the workplace, in the community, in this church.
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And the reason you've been given what you've been given is that you might use it to edify. This is what brings glory and honor to Christ.
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This is what advances his kingdom, when a church body is pursuing these things, when we redeem the time that we share together.
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You know, men, as we gather and we start looking through the things of this book, have a mind to what might edify the brethren sitting around you, what might build up their families and where they're at in their calling, where they're at in their walk.
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How can you be a blessing? How can your insight, your questions, your concerns, your experiences, how can that build them up?
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Do you want to edify this church body? We close. Do you want to be edified by this church body? Do no evil, do what is honorable, do nothing against the truth.
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Pray that God would make you complete and use whatever God has given you for edification. And let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which we may edify one another.
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Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you.
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We do pray, Lord, that we would do no evil. We pray,
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Lord, that we would have a right understanding of the call to do good, not to be consumers,
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Lord, but to be virtuous, Lord, to daily seek out those good works that you've prepared for us to walk in.
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We think of our brother Dan this morning doing a good work, seeking to win someone over to Christ and plant them in a solid fellowship.
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We think of the good work that our brother and sister did last night just in a cell phone store.
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Lord, there's good work you've prepared for us to do. May we seek it. Lord, I pray we would do nothing as a church against the truth, and I pray,
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Lord, that you would help us to walk in these things that you've given us that we might be edified, that we might seek to edify and bless.
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Help us discern, Lord, our role, our responsibility, the gifts and graces that you've surrounded us with,
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Lord, even just the grace of having walked with you for a length of time is something that gives us material to edify with,
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Lord. May we just always have this Paul -like desire to build up, no matter what it costs us, might we remove ourselves from the equation,
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Lord. Forgive us for the ways that self impedes this desire, this spirit -wrought will.
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Lord, I pray as a church that heading into this fall season and the new year ahead that we would be built up, that we would be edified in love, that every joint here would supply what the body needs, there would be an effective working of your spirit in our midst.