The Ministers' Duties | Sermon 01/19/2025

Well, praise God.

John Speed, brother. If you have your Bibles, we will be in 2 Corinthians 4. 2 Corinthians 4, looking at verses 1 -6. 2 Corinthians 4, verses 1 -6. And as you are turning there, I just want to say what a joy it is to be with you all.

I've met some of you out on the streets of Provo, Utah, where your sister church, the First Baptist Church of Provo, is located. And I bring you greetings from that church. I brought a couple members with me from the First Baptist Church of Provo.

And I brought a friend as well. And we are so glad to be here in the fellowship with you all. We regularly pray for you all. And I know that you all pray for us as well. And it is such a joy to be here to proclaim the Word to you all this morning.

So, if you haven't found it already, 2 Corinthians 4, verses 1 -6. And if you're the type of person that likes a sermon title, my sermon title for this morning is called, The Minister's Duties. The Minister's Duties.

And as you're writing that out, make sure that you look at the bulletin because the apostrophe is after the S, not before the S. And that's theologically very important for a couple reasons. First off, you have two pastors, two elders.

And these duties about which I'm going to speak on are pertinent to both of them. Not just the one that preaches the most, but this is what all ministers are called to do. And if you're thinking, well, I'm not a pastor.

I'm never going to be a pastor. I can just sleep through this sermon. Don't do that. This also applies to you as well. And we'll get into that more thoroughly. Many of us are familiar with well-known false teachers.

Aren't we?

We're familiar with the likes of charlatans and hucksters like Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland. Kenneth Copeland made quite the famous or infamous debut during the COVID -19 pandemic when he claimed to blow and he blew with his mouth literally on camera.

And he said, COVID -19 be gone. And he looked like a fool, didn't he? And obviously COVID -19 was not gone during that time.

It actually got worse.

And many times, we as God's people can see through charlatans like that. But I want to remind you, dear Apology of Church, that ministers and really all of us, but especially God's ministers, God's preachers have a certain duty.

And this is what I want to speak to you upon this morning. So, I'm going to read the text. Then we'll pray and then we'll get into the preaching proper. Once more, if you haven't found it, this is from 2 Corinthians 4, verses 1 -6.

God's Word says to us and for us through the Apostle Paul, therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's Word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

Verse 3, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, it is veiled to those, in their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel,.

The glory of Christ,.

Who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord. With ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. Verse 6,. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

This is the Word of the Lord. Let us pray together. Father, we love you. Jesus, we love you. Holy Spirit, we love you. For those of us in this room who are your people, we ask that you would be pleased with our continued worship as the Word of God is proclaimed.

Help me to preach. Help the congregation to listen well. Would you be pleased to edify the saints? Would you be pleased to convict sinners? We know that in this very moment spiritual warfare is happening.

When a man opens his mouth to preach God's Word, you are at work by your spirit. May that spirit do its work in us all. And may you be pleased by this offering of worship. We pray all these things in the name of your Son, and by whose name I ask for help.

Amen.

Honest Preaching of the Gospel by Mercy

So, if you are a note taker, I want you to see in the first two verses that God's ministers are to be honest about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God's ministers are to be honest about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And then in verses 3 -5, I want us to see that God's ministers are to preach the person of Jesus Christ. God's ministers are to preach the person of Jesus Christ. And then in verse 6, I want us to see that God's ministers are to have confidence in the Word of Jesus Christ.

God's ministers are to have confidence in the Word of Jesus Christ. And if you're looking for one simple sentence to sum all this up, it would simply be this. God's great commission is our mission. God's great commission is our mission.

And you'll see how all three of those points from this text fulfill that. So, if you're not familiar with 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians is actually the third letter given to the church at Corinth from the Apostle Paul.

We have the first letter. It's known as 1 Corinthians. The second letter was actually lost to time. It was a shorter letter full of tears and rebuke. By the time we get to the third letter known as 2 Corinthians, some things had changed.

There was apparently repentance that had happened. True godly repentance. And most of the letter is filled with joy because of this. Paul is thankful and joyful over the Corinthian church for the repentance that had been reported to him.

But also it seems from a reading of the full letter that there had been other problems that had arisen within the church. More specifically, there were these folks known as super apostles. If you go back and read the letter in its entirety from start to finish, you'll see that these super apostles were the ones calling into question the apostolic ministry and authority of the apostle Paul and his ministry helpers.

And in this text, Paul is full of joy because he basically says to them, I'm the real deal and you know it. Don't listen to those who would say otherwise, is the tenor of the letter. And the whole letter has this thrust about it that God uses the weakest of us all to do great things for his kingdom.

The super apostles were saying such things as you read the letters, Paul is weak in person, but his letters are strong. And Paul says this, Yes, I may be weak, but the power is not in me. The power, as we shall see in today's text, is all in the Word.

And in our text this morning, Paul is laying out what it means to be a true gospel minister. And in the preceding chapters, Paul had made this argument that there are those in the church who are troubling you.

And by the time we get to chapter 3 right before this, we see such things as you think you need a letter of recommendation from us. You think we need to prove ourselves again,.

But we don't.

You know the ministry that we've had among you. And Paul goes on to basically show the difference between the old covenant under the law and the new covenant we have in Christ. And then he says that we have a hope.

Look at what he says in chapter 3. I'm setting everything up for the main preaching event. Look at chapter 3, verse 12. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end.

But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they, speaking about the Jews, read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted. Because only through Christ, the Messiah, is it taken away. Yes, to this day, whenever Moses has read, a veil lies over their hearts.

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Now, in our text today, he goes on to say, therefore, having this ministry, by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. What is this ministry, dear Apology of Church?

This ministry is the very act, I believe, of preaching the gospel of God, and saying by the power of the Spirit, the veil of unbelief taken away from hardened sinners. And Paul says that they have this ministry by God's mercy.

Don't overlook that. We talk a lot about mercy and grace when we talk about salvation. And rightly we ought to. For those of us who have been born again in this room, for those of you sitting here who can say, I believed in Jesus.

I'm trusting in Him alone for my salvation, for the good of my eternal, never dying soul. Do you know why you can say that? Because the mercy and grace of the triune God has been shed abroad.

In your heart.

And we preach that as evangelicals, don't we? We preach that if you are a Christian, you are a Christian not because you only in and of yourself made a choice to decide to follow Jesus. You are a Christian because Christ has saved your soul.

Christ has made what you once hated now what you love. Christ has made what you once abhorred and wouldn't want anything to do with. You start to begin, you realize you love it. And as the Spirit works on you,.

You begin to want to.

Be around the people of God.

And before you know it,.

That veil of unbelief is taken away. That's many of our testimonies,.

Isn't it?

That's all of our testimonies. We were once God haters. But now through the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, we've been given new life. And we rightly say it's all of grace. It's all of mercy.

But it's also because of the mercy of God that Apologia Church and the First Baptist Church of Provo and every Bible-believing church.

Around the globe.

And throughout history has ever had pastors. And because this ministry of preaching and teaching is by the mercy of God, it's not by their own strength that God called you to have pastors. They do not lose heart.

Paul's going to go on to say that because of the reality of salvation, he says later on in v. 16 of the same chapter, so we do not lose heart. Though our outward self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

That's sanctification. That's growing in Christlikeness. That's growing in holiness. That's becoming more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. So that's why ministers do not lose heart. It is by the mercy of God and through what we're going to talk about this morning, the preaching of the Word of God and seeing the saints of God's people grow in Christlikeness, grow in love, grow in holiness, grow in the multifaceted fruit of the Spirit, God's ministers do not lose heart even in such a place as Utah, where as we all know, evangelical Christianity has never taken a strong foothold here.

What's going to keep Pastor Wade, what's going to keep Pastor Andrew, solid? It's going to be the mercy and grace of God as they persevere preaching and teaching God's truth. So with that out of the way, he goes on to say in verse 2, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.

We refuse to practice cunning, to tamper with God's Word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. Paul is reminding the Corinthians that the only reason the Corinthian church even exists is because God in His mercy through the true preaching of God's Word decided to build a church.

And even though the Corinthian church was a messed up church, we see that in 1st and 2nd Corinthians. I've always found it so fascinating that they were truly a church. Whenever you go through hardships, dear apology of church, remember the Corinthian church.

They're not as bad off as they were. Yet Paul could have joy over them. Paul could remind them of the ministry by which he had in them and through them. And we see this very fact. Paul is saying you exist, and you remember that I preach the truth to you.

This is the first point. God's ministers are honest about God's Word. Some of you perhaps know about the predominating religion here. They have this phrase, doubt your doubts. Don't ask questions. Don't ask the hard stuff.

Just believe it because we say so. Where in true historic Christianity, you're allowed to express your doubts. You're allowed to express where you're wrestling with God's Word. And a good shepherd, like I know Andrew and Wade are, they are going to say, come to us with your questions.

We will shepherd your heart through them. We're going to tell you what God's Word says honestly.

In other words,.

They're not going to pull the wool over your eyes. They're not going to try to dupe you. They're not going to try to be pragmatic and win you over with how warm and fuzzy they are. I've gotten to know your pastors.

They're not that warm and fuzzy. But I tell you what, they love God's Word. You shouldn't come to this church because it's the Andrew Sontran. You shouldn't come to this church because it's the Wade Orsini.

You should come to this church, and I commend people to this church when I'm out doing evangelism, because the Word of God in its fullness is preached. Paul says here, look at the text again, but we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways.

We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's Word. So in other words, you will never, ever, ever, ever see this church preached from the New World Translation of the Jehovah's Witnesses. You will never see this church preached from the Joseph Smith Translation.

Those are two good examples in a terrible way of what happens when the Word of God is tampered with. This church is a church built upon the bedrock of God's Word. And I want to remind you all to keep doing that.

Don't ever swerve from this truth. And I will tell you on the authority of God's Word, if a preacher ever gets up here and does a TED Talk and never opens God's holy book, you have every right to damn that preacher for not doing the job that God has told him to do, which is preach the Word.

Paul tells that to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4. Preach the Word. Paul could say that because he lived that example. Paul goes on to talk about the specificity of what we are to preach from God's Word. And that is the Lord Jesus Christ in v. 3 -5.

So Paul says that we do not mess with God's Word. We leave it as it is. We preach it. And you know that we preach it. We commend our consciences to you. You know this to be true about us. Our ministry is pure.

And then he goes on to say in v. 3 -5 that we are to preach Jesus. We are to preach Jesus. And if you are a Christian, your response might be, yeah, duh. We're to preach Jesus? Look at what he says in v. 3.

And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

We all have neighbors. We all have friends, family perhaps, that we've preached to and preached to and preached to. And they have yet to come to faith. Maybe you have loved ones that have passed on and you don't know that they ever made a profession of faith.

Today, I'm living that out today. Two years ago, my dear mother passed away. And I have no confidence, no assurance she was a Christian. She passed away this morning.

Two years ago.

And as I thought about my own mother,.

I thought about the seriousness of the spiritual warfare of what we are doing. Because I want to tell you on the authority of God's Word, it is more than likely.

That my mother,.

Whom I love dearly, is burning under the wrath.

Of Almighty God.

And I want to tell you on the authority of Scripture, it is good and right.

For her to be there.

Because she left this world, as far as I could tell, outside of the preciousness of Jesus Christ. How could I say such a thing? Maybe you're visiting and you think that that's horrendous. That I would say such a thing.

Well, dear friend, you need to understand just how heinous sin is. You need to understand just how much the fall affects us. And Satan is a part of that fall as well. Satan is used by the fall and ultimately by God's providence to blind those that are not to be His so that they will not come to Christ.

We see that in Isaiah 6, don't we? That God is the one that ultimately hardens hearts. And He even uses the devil as a means to do that. And in this text, we see that the devil is the main operative. He's the sinner that's causing these people to be blinded.

The devil delights in blinding precious human beings created in the image of Almighty God. And ministers who are true to God's holy Word, they will preach such hard truths to you that there really is a very real accuser of the brethren that makes his business to go around and blind the hearts of men.

But thanks be to God, He is not as powerful as the one who opens up hearts and minds. Look at what the text says. Those who are perishing, they're being blinded by the devil to keep them from seeing the light of the glory of Christ.

This very One who is the image of God. In other words, Christ is God in the flesh. And when God opens up a heart, when God opens up a mind, to see the glory of Jesus Christ, we see Him in all His beauty and all His fullness.

Dear friends, you may think that your unbelievers' friends, your unbelieving friends, are beyond hope. If they are still breathing, there's still hope. If they are still breathing, there's opportunity for mercy to be shown to them.

That same mercy of which I spoke in the beginning, that can be given to them. Keep praying. Keep proclaiming. Keep evangelizing. Invite them to church. Let them sit under the means of grace of the preached Word.

And if you do that, you leave the results up to God. Next, we see this kind of a sub-point. True gospel ministers don't make much of themselves as they preach the glories of Christ. Look at what the text says in v. 5.

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord. Remember we saw before, He is the image of God. With ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. True gospel ministers will not get up in front of God's people and talk about what they've done for the entire sermon.

They will not get up before God's people and make much of themselves and make you think, I'm so wonderful. I'm so needed in God's kingdom. I'm so precious. I'm so invaluable. They would never say this.

They functionally think God needs me. I'm indispensable.

No.

True gospel ministers make much of the Lord Jesus Christ. True gospel ministers want to, as Peter says, to proclaim His excellencies. To make His name great. To make His name resound through all the earth.

We see that Paul says, we didn't make much of ourselves. He could have. He was the Apostle Paul. But he didn't. He preaches Jesus Christ as the Lord. The One who is according to our gospel, coming back again one day and making all wrong things right.

The God of this world, the Prince of the power of the air, He will one day be under the judgment of Almighty God. Now, when you see Christ as Lord, that ought to make you think back to the Old Testament, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.

Many times when that's used in the New Testament, it's not merely master, but it's a reference to Him being the triune God Yahweh. And we see evidence for this in that Jesus Christ is called the image of God.

He is God in the flesh. And to proclaim Christ as Lord over all is to proclaim Him as King of kings and God of gods, and yes, Lord of lords. You see, a true gospel minister will not make much of himself, will not come up here and yap about himself, but will instead bring glory to Jesus because Jesus is the Lord of lords.

He is the one of whom if we do not make much of, there is no Christianity. That's why for those of you that are here, you may be thinking about Christianity. I don't know everybody's hearts. If you were to come here each and every week, you would hear essentially the same message.

And that message is Jesus Christ crucified for sinners. And you may say, well, won't that get old? No, because throughout the pages of Scripture we have so many different ways in which we can proclaim the glories of our Savior.

And notice that in proclaiming Jesus, the ministers of God's gospel are seen as servants. Have you ever thought of Pastor Wayne and Pastor Andrew as that way? That they're your servants, as they humbly counsel you, as they humbly preach the Word of God to you, not making much of themselves, but making much of Christ.

They're serving the church every time they get up here and preach the Word. And how can they do this? How can they preach the Word honestly? How can they preach the person and work of Jesus Christ? Because they can have and ought to have the very confidence of God Himself.

You could think about this as the power of God almost. Look at verse 6. For God who said, Let the light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Paul knew his Old Testament really well. And he went back to the creation account where God in His triune glory said, Let there be light. By the mere power of the spoken Word, there is light. And Paul is saying that that same powerful Word that created the world out of nothing is the same exact power of the Gospel.

When the Word of God is spoken to you, and you hear the Word of God for the first time, God in His sovereignty removes the veil. God in His graciousness causes your old stony heart to become new and to become life.

God causes you, dear sinner, to become a saint. And look at what the text says. For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness. That same light has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Whenever God converts a person by the power of His Word, that person with a new heart,.

With a new mind,.

With new affections and desires, they now live a life that gives glory to God. Not because of how special they are, but because they are now by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ and of God a new creature.

A lot of times, dear saints, when we talk about spiritual warfare, you know what comes across a lot of people's minds? I'm going to date myself. I played a game in the 90's called Diablo. And there's four of them now.

They're all very good. And if you judge me for that, that's alright. A lot of people think about spiritual warfare as this fantastical game where everything's overly supernatural. And you know there's a demon behind every rock.

That there's a demon behind every injustice in the world. And can I say, thinking like that's not thinking rightly about the demonic. That the demonic is chiefly keeping people from believing in the Gospel.

Keeping people from believing the real thing. The genuine thing. And your pastors, every time they get up here to preach, are engaged in genuine, demonic, spiritual warfare as they battle with the truth of God for souls.

But, the power of the devil, the word of the devil, though he may have the power to veil hearts and minds, he is just an instrument in God's hands towards the reprobate. Towards those who are deigned not to believe.

Not one of God's people, dear friend, will be overpowered by Satan. You're here this morning and you're thinking, I don't yet believe. Am I under the power of the devil? Yes, you are. If that concerns you, lean into that concern.

Come and talk to Pastor Wade. Come and talk to Pastor Andrew. Talk to the person beside of you. Anybody in this church ought to be able to tell you how you can receive the good news of Jesus Christ and have the veil taken away.

And it would be their joy to do that. So I've talked to you a lot about the ministers, or the duties of God's ministers. Now, how does this apply to those who will probably never be a pastor? Maybe you're a lady and per complementarian convictions, you will never pastor.

Maybe you're a man that will never pastor. Maybe you just work in the workforce all your life. Why should you have stayed awake for this sermon? Well, you ought to pray for your pastors. There are so many pastors that start out well, but they don't finish well.

Often times, it's because of life immorality. But even sometimes, it can be because they swerve away from the truth of biblical, Protestant Christianity. And they go off into other things. Pray that your pastors would not do that.

Pray that they would be honest preachers of the Word.

Pray that they would.

Preach Jesus Christ.

With all of their heart.

And pray that they would do so confidently because of the power of God in His Word. Pray that they would not feel pressure to perform in their own strength, but they would remember that it would be by the mercy of God that they've been given mastery.

And pray that they would have strength for the battle set before them. As they engage in spiritual warfare, most of the time, you have no clue what's going on inside the heart and minds of your pastors as they wrestle over God's Word.

So that's my first application. Pray for your pastors in those ways. Secondly, to some degree, whether you're a man or a woman, you're called to preach, but not in a pastoral way. You're called to preach in an evangelistic way.

To your children,.

To your family, to your friends.

And you need to rely.

Upon these same things, honestly expositing the Word, honestly making your evangelism and your life witness about Christ, and honestly relying upon the confidence of Almighty God that He will convert souls.

You see, Christian ministers are really nothing special in and of themselves. They are men that God has set apart to preach and teach in a pastoral way and shepherd the hearts of God. That's why it's so dumb for them to get up and make much of themselves.

We're all called to do this to some extent. And so I pray that this church would continually be one that's known by its honesty and Word proclamation. I pray that it would be known as one that continues to make much of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I pray that it would be a church that rests in the confidence of the Gospel.

We win.

The Bible declares that. So we can have confidence. The very Word of God that was spoken to bring this world into existence is the same Word of God that will defeat the demonic. And it's the same Word of God that has saved your never-dying soul and will save all those whom God has elected.

You're here this morning. You know you're not a Christian. I would call you to believe upon Christ. It is simple. Trust in Him. This ministry is all based upon preaching this Christ, this Messiah. The One who lived the perfect life, who never sinned.

The One who died the death that we deserve to die. The One who rose again from the grave and ascended into heaven three days later. And then the One who is coming back again. This very God of very God.

We just got done celebrating Christmas. This Jesus is the One God the Son who assumed human flesh. That's why the text says He's the image of God. He's worthy of your worship. He's worthy of your praise.

Do you feel your need as a sinner of Him? If you do, come to Him. The great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon used to say such things as Try my Jesus. Try my Jesus. You will not be disappointed. So I say the same thing to you.

The biblical Gospel has been preached to you. You can believe upon Him. And once you try Him and taste and see that the Lord is good, you will never ever turn your back on such a sweet Savior. But, if you do not believe in Him, I have no comfort to speak to you.

If you leave this life without bowing the knee to Christ as Savior and Lord, on that great day, you will stand with those who did tamper with the Word of God. You will stand with those who are dishonest.

You will stand with those who did disgrace the Word of God. You will be put into the same camp as all the false teachers of all the world. And you will say, I went to Apologia Church. I sat under the preaching.

I remembered when the guest preacher came and I didn't believe. And oh my God, it's too late for my soul. And the only thing left for you.

Will be wrath.

The only thing left for you will be eternal anger.

And you will know,.

As a whore of whores, the cosmos' greatest nightmare, that you deserve it all. But while you're still breathing, oh dear friend, come to Him today. Trust in Christ today. It is because of mercy that you're here.

Pray that the sovereign God of the universe would open your eyes to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul goes on to say in the text that we do this all in the face of Jesus Christ. One day, dear friend, we're going to see Him as He is and behold His face and bow down before Him and worship Him.

And your ministers are going to get the joy of having under-shepherded your souls to that moment. So pray for your pastors. Pray for your elders. Pray for your shepherds. They love you. Would you bow with me for a word of prayer?

We thank You that You are merciful, O God. We thank You that we will not lose heart because Your very Word gives us confidence. Help us all to be men and women who are honest with Your Word. Help us all to preach Your Son's excellences.

And help us all, O God, to rest in confidence that we will see the face of Your Son. Help those who have not believed to realize their need of You. And would You, by Your great grace and mercy, bless us this day as we go throughout our week.

We pray all these things in the name of Your Son.

Amen.

Thank you, Brother Ed. Praise God for His Word.

The truth, the truth.