A Life Worth Imitating

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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If you would, turn within your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, beginning at verse 1.

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As I mentioned today, we're looking at all 21 verses in this chapter as we wrap up our study in the first major section of 1

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Corinthians. If you've been with us over the last six weeks or so, you'll know that together we have been looking at one of the primary issues that was plaguing the church in 1st century

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Corinth. It was an issue related to unity. If you had to summarize, if someone were to ask you on the street, give you a pop quiz and say, what is the theme of the first four chapters of 1

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Corinthians in one word? It would be a weird pop quiz to find that on the street, but you could say, the theme is division.

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It is about division within the church. The Corinthian church had many problems, as we're going to hear about in the continuing weeks to come, but they were first and foremost a church divided.

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I can think about a number of topics that we could look at as a new church plant, and division would certainly be up at the top of our list.

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There's so much in the world to divide over. In Corinth, somewhere along the way, the saints in this city had lost sight of the supremacy of Jesus Christ and the centrality of his gospel in all of life, and they were dividing over things like who had baptized them, or whose speech was more eloquent, or matters of human judgment.

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Really, these irrelevant little details, and it was tearing the church apart, and in the process, what we saw from what

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Steve mentioned last week, the church in Corinth was destroying the temple of the living

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God. Now, this doesn't mean that they were marching to Jerusalem with their siege towers to dismantle the temple, but what it means is that they were tearing apart, by their infighting, by their carnal thinking, by their bad behavior, they were tearing down the spiritual temple of God that had been constructed in Corinth.

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That is the precious, the blood -bought church of the Lord Jesus Christ in that city.

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And what a fearful thing to be involved in, if you can imagine that. If you were to go to the first temple, after it was just built, to go there and say, it's great that you have consecrated the temple, now

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I'm going to tear it down. It would be a ghastly thing, it would be an evil thing to do.

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And this is exactly what the Corinthian church was doing to themselves. As you might expect,

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God didn't look favorably upon this. You'll remember that Steve said last week in chapter 3 and verse 17, he read these words, if anyone destroys

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God's temple, God will destroy him.

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What words. He says, for God's temple is holy. And he says, and you, that's a plural you, so he means all of you.

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If you're in the southern United States, it's all y 'all, all of you are that temple.

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I have to keep you on your toes. And what a wonderful new covenant reality this is.

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And what a sobering warning. But nevertheless, the church in Corinth, the saints in Corinth, were doing exactly this.

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They were demolishing the temple of God. So for the last three chapters, Paul has been urging the church, he's been pleading with the church in this letter to stop their self -destructive behavior.

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And then last week at the end of chapter 3, we heard this soaring doxology that Paul gave to the

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Corinthians when he said, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or death or life or the present or the future, all are yours and you are

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Christ's and Christ is God's. Beautiful words, wonderful words, words that lift up Jesus, that lift up God.

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And I don't know about you, but if I was writing that letter, I would probably, I would have saved that for last.

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It was just such a good word that I would have left that for the end. But Paul has another thing in mind.

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Paul has one more thing to say here in chapter 4 before he switches topics and goes on to other matters.

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And it begs the question, what could that be? What else does Paul have to say after this climactic doxology that he ends with in chapter 3?

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As we turn our attention to chapter 4, where we're going to be today, this is what we find. As you would expect from a godly shepherd, from a good leader,

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Paul not only exhorts the church, he's exhorting this church in chapters 1, 2, and 3.

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Not only does he exhort the church to do what is right, but now in chapter 4 he's going to provide the church with an example that they can follow.

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He's going to give them an example, and that example is his own life and ministry.

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Now, if you are a purist when it comes to biblical exegesis and interpretation, you might say, where does it say that,

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Shane? Where does it say that Paul is going to compel us to follow his example?

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Really, the crux of this text that I want to take us to today, that's going to hold up the rest of the text, is beginning in chapter 4, verse 14.

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Paul says, I do not write these things to make you ashamed. Paul is writing these things.

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He's going to write things that, frankly, should make any person blush. But he says,

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I don't write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

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Paul loves the Corinthians, just as every shepherd should love the flock that has been entrusted to them by God.

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He loves them. He says, for though you have countless guides in Christ, this is in verse 15, you do not have many fathers, because I, for, excuse me,

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I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. And this is the text that we're going to look at here.

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In verse 16, he says, I urge you then, be imitators of me.

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So you could say that chapter 4, in many respects, what Paul is doing is he shows the

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Corinthian church how they are to view him. He uses the word in verse 1, how they are to regard him.

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He shows them a life worth imitating. And then at the end of chapter 4, he urges them to follow his example, to imitate him, to follow him as he follows

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Christ. And this was a theme that Paul had with the Corinthians.

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If you just flip quickly to 1 Corinthians 11, in verse 1, he says almost the exact same thing.

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In 1 Corinthians 11, he says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ.

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And so that's what we're going to do today. We're going to look at some of the features of Paul's apostolic ministry.

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I'll warn you ahead of time, you are not going to find this exhaustive, but what you will find is that there are a number of things that we can glean from chapter 4 about the

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Apostle Paul and apply this to our own lives. And as we normally do, we'll break this up into little bite -sized pieces.

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And so if you have a church bulletin, my apologies if you didn't get one. Ask me next week, and I'll make sure you get one.

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But it breaks it down into points. And so we could break it down into more finite points.

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We're going to break it into bigger points today just to get through the text. So the very first thing that I want us to see in 1

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Corinthians 4 is this. Like Paul, we must live as servants and as stewards of Christ with an eternal perspective.

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And the texts that we're going to look at there are verses 1 to 5, and then we're going to bunny hop over to verses 8 to 13.

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So Paul begins this chapter with these words. He says, I am stewards of the mysteries of God.

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Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court.

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In fact, I do not even judge myself, for I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.

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It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the

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Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.

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Then each one will receive his commendation from God. So as we've already heard,

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I don't want to repeat myself too many times, so I'm going to breeze through it a bit. But as we've already heard, the Corinthians up to this point have gotten the ministry of Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, that's another name for Peter, completely backwards.

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And so to remedy the situation, Paul shows these men and women in Corinth how they are to view his ministry.

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And Paul reiterates that they are not great orators, they're not leaders of competing factions that people are to get behind, but they are, first and foremost, he uses these three words to start, servants of Christ.

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We looked at that, we had a smaller group that day, and we were looking at chapter 3 and verse 5, but Paul asked the question there, he said, what then is

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Apollos? What is Paul? Servants. And if you're a

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Greek nerd like me, he uses the Greek word diakonos. It's the word that we get our word deacon from, and it means a table servant.

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And he says, how should you regard us as table servants of the

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Lord? Or, sorry, through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. And then now in chapter 4 and verse 1,

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Paul uses a different word, a more humble word even than table servants, to describe himself.

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Paul says that he is an uparetos, which means an under rower of Jesus Christ.

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Now what does an under rower mean? I'm going to look at the kids here for a second. Can you imagine this?

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Before there were boats in the ocean with big engines and propellers that could take a boat across the ocean in the course of maybe five days or ten days, in the time of Paul, they had big ships, ships that weighed tens of thousands of pounds.

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And an under rower was a slave that would be not on the top deck, but in the very bottom of the boat.

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And it was their job when there wasn't wind or when extra navigation was needed to row that boat.

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And so they lived and worked in filthy conditions over long hours.

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When Paul uses this word uparetos, he chooses a word that was reserved for the lowest, the most menial and the despised of galley slaves.

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And this was Paul's view of his own ministry. A galley slave in the bottom of the boat.

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It's interesting that Paul didn't see himself as the captain of the ship. I know about you, if I was hanging around with Paul, I'd probably look at him at least as the first mate maybe, maybe a journeyman on the deck.

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But Paul says no, he is at the bottom of the boat with the lowest of slaves.

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And why is that? Why does Paul regard himself as amongst the least?

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If we know Paul's letters, if you've ever read Paul's letter, for instance, to Timothy, in 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 15,

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Paul referred to himself as the foremost of sinners. In some translations it calls him the chief of sinners.

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And yet, although he was the foremost of sinners, he had a great savior.

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Paul was keenly aware that this was all by the grace of God, that he had been saved, that he had been sanctified, that he had been made an apostle.

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And in response to Christ saving him, in response to Christ putting him into his service, it was

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Paul's view on life. It was his life's calling to offer all of himself, all of his dignity, all of his energy, all of his life in service to Christ.

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It was Paul who had the motto that he shares in Philippians chapter 1 and verse 21 where he says, to live is for Christ and to die is gain.

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Paul also says in the second part that he is not just a servant, but he says that he is, with his fellow ministers, stewards of, a steward of the mysteries of God.

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And a steward, usually in that time, was also a slave. And it was a slave that was given or specifically assigned the task of managing their master's household.

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They were a household manager. And Paul says that one of the most important qualifications or qualities of a steward was that they be found faithful, that they be found faithful.

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And here Paul says that he has been tasked with stewarding the mysteries of God.

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That sounds intriguing, the mysteries of God. We see that word that we saw earlier in 1

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Corinthians, mysterion, and here as he stewards the mysteries of God, what he's saying,

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I think he summarizes nicely in Colossians 1, verse 25. He says there that,

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I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known.

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And so Paul saw himself as a servant steward to proclaim the gospel of God and the word of God to Gentiles.

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And Paul says that it's of little to no concern how he's judged and he names three different parties, three potential judging parties in his letter.

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He says it's of no concern to him if his performance is assessed by the

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Corinthians, by any human court, or even by himself.

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He says he doesn't even trust his own assessment of himself and the reason being is because ultimately all of these assessments in this first paragraph, all these people that could be judging him, himself included, are ultimately irrelevant because none of these parties are his master.

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Daryl, I want to ask you a quick question. If someone has a servant, who gets to assess or who gets to maybe look at their performance and determine if they're doing a good job?

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The master of the servant, that's exactly right. And that's what Paul says here. Ultimately, he doesn't concern himself with the

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Corinthians' view or any man's view or even his own view because the only opinion, the only qualified opinion that matters is the opinion of his master.

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He says in verse 4, it is the Lord. That comes from the word kurios.

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It's translated often in our New Testaments as masters. It is the Lord who judges me.

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It's not the Corinthians, it's not the world, it's not anyone else. And when Christ does judge

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Paul, and just so you know this applies to you, when Christ judges you, he doesn't judge us based on our outward appearance.

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He doesn't just judge us based on our public ministry, but he judges us based on our private lives, even on the thoughts and the intentions and the motives of our hearts.

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No one else in this room can judge me in that way. I cannot even judge myself in that way, but Christ can judge me perfectly in that way.

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In Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, he says in chapter 5 and verse 9, he says,

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So whether you are at home, sorry, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him, to please

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God, to please Christ. And you might ask, why is that? Why are they making it their aim to please

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Christ? He says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

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Paul knew that one day all of our lives, he knows that one day all of our lives will be laid out before God.

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Every thought, every action, every intention will be exposed before the just judge of all the earth.

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And so Paul didn't live his life for the praise of men. How often are you tempted to please men with your lives, with your actions, with your words?

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Every time I confess, every time I get up behind the pulpit, I am tempted to say things that might please people.

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And I think that if we honestly evaluate our own motives, our own hearts, we're often driven by a desire to please people, to impress people.

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Paul says, It doesn't matter. It's not for the praise of man.

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It's not for his own comfort or pleasure. But it's for the commendation. It's for the reward that would come from God alone.

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Like those who fall into the air of the prosperity gospel movement. We were talking a couple weeks ago, brother, about the prosperity gospel movement and this idea of having your best life now.

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We see that the Corinthians, one of their great problems was that they had an over -realized eschatology.

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They believed that the judgment did not so much concern them and that they were already living the good life.

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And so if we look in verse 8, Paul writes this. He says, Already you have all you want.

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Already you have become rich. We heard Jason read it, so I won't read it all. He says, Without us, you have become kings.

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The Corinthians thought that they had already come to a place of heaven on earth. But here

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Paul cautions them that there is still a judgment to come. The Corinthians didn't recognize this already and not yet eschatology, this aspect of God's kingdom.

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And so Paul recounts in verses 8 through 13 some of the suffering, some of the trials that he went through as a servant and as a steward of Christ.

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He says in verse 10, We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong.

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You are held in honor, but we in disrepute to the present hour. We hunger and thirst.

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We are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands.

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When reviled, we bless. When persecuted, we endure. When slandered, we entreat. We have become and are still.

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Imagine being described this way, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things, the garbage of all things.

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And it begs the question, why would Paul live like this? Why would

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Paul live as a servant? Why would Paul live as a steward? Why would Paul endure hardship while the

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Corinthians, with their over -realized eschatology, are already celebrating as kings?

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I think the answer is twofold. First, Paul had a high view of Christ.

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Paul realized the worth of Christ. You know, in Romans 6, it says that everybody in all the world, think about this for a second, every single one of you in this room and every single person out of this room, we're told in Romans 6, are slaves, and you're slaves to one of two masters.

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You're either a slave to sin and the devil, or you're a slave to righteousness and to God.

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I want to ask you, who are you serving? Who is your master? If you ask yourself honestly,

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Paul knew that there were only two people, two persons that he could serve.

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One was the devil, or one was Christ. And consider what Christ had done for him.

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Even while he was still a sinner, Christ died for the ungodly

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Paul. Christ came in human form. He became a man.

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He lived a righteous life. He died the death that we deserve. As Steve pointed out, he was the propitiation for our sins.

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He was the substitutionary sacrifice for Paul's sins. And I think the other reason why

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Paul was willing to endure hardship, the reason why Paul was willing to work and to live as a servant, is because he had an eternal perspective.

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Unlike the Corinthians, who believed that the best things in life were in this life,

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Paul had a future hope that went beyond this life into the future, where Christ says in verse, or where Paul says, excuse me, at the end of verse 5, then each one will receive his commendation.

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That means reward or praise. Each one will receive his reward from God. Now, what do we have to do with all of this?

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If Paul says that we should be imitators of him in this respect, what do we do?

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I want to begin by asking you, just so you know, this is an interactive experience.

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So I do want you to respond, at least in your own minds.

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It might be embarrassing if you respond out loud, but respond at least in your own minds to some of these questions.

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When Paul says that he is a servant of Christ, that he is a steward of the mysteries of God, when he says that he has become the refuse of all things, that he's the scum of the world, as he looks forward to his future hope in Christ, eternity in the presence with God and rewards and commendation, does this describe your life?

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Does this describe your mindset? Do you see yourself when you get up in the morning as a servant of Christ and as a steward of the gifts that he has given you?

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I want to ask, do you regard yourself as a willing and joyful servant, as an under rower of Christ?

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To drill in a bit deeper, would you say, does Christ have lordship?

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It's a big word for maybe some of our kids, but does Christ have lordship of your life?

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Meaning, does Christ's sovereign rule and reign factor into your every decision, where you work, where you live, what you buy, how you treat your kids, how you treat your spouse, what you look at online, how you spend your time?

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Does all of this, do all of these decisions, are they made under the lordship of Christ?

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Or are they made by you in your own world, in your own corner, pilfering and squandering and getting what you can get?

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I'm not sure that I've done the best job of it. Brothers and sisters, it is our greatest privilege in life to joyfully serve.

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Do you believe this? It is the greatest privilege in life. You want to be happy. The world tells you, if you want to be happy, you need a new car, you need a new house, you need new jewelry, you need new clothes, you need to listen to this music, you need to watch this

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TV show, you need to do all of these things under the sun. But if you really want to be happy, those things are not going to make you happy.

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They're going to make you thirsty for more of those things. If you really want to be happy in this life, and it's hard to convince someone that doesn't know this firsthand, the happiest that you will ever be in this life is when your life is most given in service to Christ.

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When you say, my life is not my own. My time is not my own. My money is not my own.

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This job is not for me. It's not even for this paycheck. It's not even for my satisfaction.

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It is for Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, I want us to be a church that is given in service to Christ.

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That is, to use the word, sold out for Jesus. I want to ask, are you sold out for Jesus?

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I want to ask as well, are you living as a faithful steward, using the gifts and the resources that God has given you to advance

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His kingdom? God has given each one of us gifts. And He's given us these gifts.

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Some of us the ability to teach, to administrate, to counsel, to pray, to give, to serve, to evangelize.

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And are you faithfully... Notice in verse 2, Paul doesn't even say successfully.

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He doesn't say, it is required of stewards that they be found successful. But he says, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

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Are you faithfully using the gifts that God has given you to magnify

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Him as Lord and as Savior? Peter said in chapter 4, verse 10 of his first letter, he says, each has received a gift.

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Everyone in this room, if you are in Christ, if you are a believer, if the Holy Spirit is in you, God has given you gifts to serve

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Him. And he says, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.

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Are you stewarding the gifts that God has given you? If God has given you the ability to administrate,

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I know faithful brothers that the best way that they serve God, and I can't make sense of it, but is counting checks and punching numbers into spreadsheets.

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But if that's the gift that God has given you, are you using it to serve Him? If God has given you the gift of faith or of service or of counseling other people and giving a good word in the right season, are you using that gift?

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Or are you spending it on the internet, on Facebook, on TV, on exercise, on whatever else it might be?

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And as I've said, the remedy to this is to have a high view of Christ and to have an eternal perspective, to look to the reward.

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It says in Hebrews chapter 12 that Christ looked to the reward when he went to the cross.

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And so it's like Christ, and it's like Paul even, to consider the reward.

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I fear that many people in the church, they are justified. We are all justified through Christ, but our work will be burnt up in the judgment because we did not live for God.

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We did not live for Christ, but we lived for the world. I want us to be like Jonathan Edwards.

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If anyone knows Jonathan Edwards, some call him the last Puritan in North America. And he said this,

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Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs. With everything that I do, with everything that I see, might it be for eternity, for God and for Christ in eternity?

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I was looking up stories in church history this week, as I do every week, that I might illustrate some of these points, and I found a beautiful story of a young woman.

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So often I reference men, but a young woman that had this same mindset that Paul had, that imitated

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Paul in this way. In the 1800s, in 1853, a wealthy

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Victorian family had a baby girl, and they named her Lillias Trotter.

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Lillias Trotter. And she, as a child, she developed a love for art and taught herself how to paint.

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I was thinking about your children's art last week. It was excellent. And she had taught herself how to paint, and her mother was so impressed by her work, as she became a young woman, that she took some of her paintings to this famous art critic in London named

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John Ruskin. And John Ruskin saw Lillias Trotter's art, and immediately he recognized that she had a very unique talent as a painter and as an artist.

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And he took her immediately as one of his informal students, and after observing her for a time, listen to these words,

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Ruskin told Lillias Trotter, he said, if you devote yourself to art, if you commit all of your energy to this art that you're doing, he says, consider these words, very flattering words, he said, you will be the greatest living painter, and you will do things that will be immortal.

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Meaning that had she devoted herself to her art, we would go to an art gallery today, and we would see

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Claude Monet, and Picasso, and Da Vinci, and oh, and Lillias Trotter's art.

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But many of us do not know the name of Lillias Trotter, do we? Because when she was 25, she felt that she was being put in a position where she had to serve two masters.

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And we know what happens, we love one and we hate the other. And she felt that she had to choose between devoting herself to art, or devoting herself to God and his glory.

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And so, much to the dismay of John Ruskin, she put aside her artwork, and she gave herself to ministering to the prostitutes in downtown

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London. And after a number of years of seeking the Lord, she felt that the Lord was calling her to Algeria.

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She went to Algeria, and there in Algeria, she went to minister to the

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Muslims. Think about our ministry sometimes to the Muslims, how difficult it was.

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And it turns out, almost 200 years ago, it was just as difficult as sometimes we find it today.

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She writes this about her experience, she said, that Islam is as dry as a sand dune, and as hard as gravel.

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And when they arrived in Algeria, North Africa, she said, the early years were like knocking our heads against stone walls.

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But nevertheless, Lillias Trotter took her artistic talents, her giftings, and she applied them by designing these cards that would show

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Old Testament pictures, and she would distribute them to the Muslims. She designed them, but because of the intricate detail and some of the,

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I think it was the Arab lettering, she had to get someone else to actually do the artwork, or to do the lettering on these cards.

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And through this ministry, Lillias Trotter saw a number of these hard -hearted

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Muslim people come to faith in Christ. And still then, it wasn't a walk in the park, she said that often many of them, many of the new converts were poisoned, some of them were killed, but she said she took comfort, even as they were dying, to know that she would see them again in glory.

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One biographer wrote of her, he said, Despite a weak heart, she labored for 40 years in filth, disease, ignorance, bigotry, and violence of the

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Algerian coast towns. She was recognized as a woman of literary gifts, rare artistic ability, undaunted courage, unlimited common sense, and faith like an apostle's.

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And even though many have never heard the name of Lillias Trotter, think about this, there are many brothers and sisters in Christ in heaven right now, and for all of eternity, who will remember the name of Lillias Trotter.

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And thank God every day that she laid down her art career, that she might make much of Christ among this unreached people group.

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When she left Britain for Africa, John Ruskin, we'll go back to him for a second, he said this to a friend, he said,

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I have lost the one pupil I had of real talent. He was really mourned, he probably could have made a lot of money with Lillias Trotter, I think.

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And he says this, she has decided to throw away her life teaching

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Arabs. If devoting yourself to the service of Christ, if devoting yourself to stewarding

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God's gifts, is throwing your life away, then beloved, I want every one of you to throw your lives away a thousand times every day until you go to Christ or until he comes.

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And I assure you, for those of you who I will enjoy fellowship in glory for all of eternity, you will not be disappointed if you give yourself to serving

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Christ with all of your being. Next thing that we see,

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I said we had a big job ahead of ourselves and I promise I'm not going to talk too long, but like we see, next thing we see is this, like Paul, we must be humbly ruled and restrained by God's word.

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We're going to look at two verses, verses six and seven. He says, I've applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written.

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I want you to keep those words in mind beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another for who sees anything different in you?

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What do you have that you did not receive? And if then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

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Paul has used the analogies of planting. You'll remember in chapter three, the planter and the waterer, the builder.

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He's used now the analogy of the servant steward in chapter four to put before the, or he's put these things before the

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Corinthians to stop their prideful and arrogant divisions. And he asks the question in verse seven, what qualifies you to make these judgments?

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Everything that you have, God has given you and it's the giver of the gifts. It's God that gets the glory, not the recipients.

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And if we hone in on verse six, this is where we're going to focus. He says, He's laid all of these things before them that you may learn by us.

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So by their example, again, we're imitating, by us, not to go beyond what is written.

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This might surprise you, but many scholars believe that this is the most difficult verse in 1

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Corinthians to interpret, is verse number six. And the reason is, everyone argues about what

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Paul means by what is written. What does Paul mean by this? Some people say, well, this was a maxim or a saying that would have been familiar to Paul in some of the other

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Corinthians. And so Paul is saying, don't go beyond the rules. Other people say that Paul is referencing what he's already written in 1

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Corinthians. And then others say that Paul is referencing the Old Testament. And it doesn't really matter all of the different arguments.

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What we do need to know is that most sound theologians, and I think our best interpretation would show that what

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Paul is doing is he is making reference to the Old Testament scriptures. His Bible, the

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Hebrew Bible. He's making reference to the Word of God. And the reason we can think this is because he uses a common expression, this word, what is written, the

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Greek word grapho. He uses this in 1 Corinthians alone. He uses it 12 times other than this passage.

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And 11 of those times he is referencing Old Testament passages. He's quoting directly from the

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Old Testament. And what Paul's getting at is that the Corinthians' proud behavior, their proud hearts, their divisive behavior, is outside the bounds of scripture.

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And he wants these saints, just as I want this of you saints, to submit to the

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Word of God as our final authority. This was

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Paul's manner of life. If you've ever done a character study on Paul or looked at the words of Paul, he was through and through a man of the

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Word of God. Just a quick glance at Paul's letters reveals that he was full of his

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Hebrew Bible. Paul could barely make an argument without quoting some

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Old Testament passage. He was ruled and restrained by God and His Word.

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How many people here know about the Bereans in Acts chapter 17? If you're familiar with the

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Bereans in Acts chapter 17, it says that the Bereans were noble because they examined the scriptures daily after Paul had taught them.

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And we should talk about the Bereans. We should learn from their example. But the Bereans don't hold a candle to the

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Apostle Paul when it comes to going back to the Word, going back to the scriptures, going back to the

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Old Covenant Bible. If you look up the word scripture in a

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Bible concordance, I did this this week as I was studying, what you're going to find is so often that word scripture is used by the

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Apostle Paul when he says, scripture says, but in the Word it says, but in scripture it says,

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I refer to the scriptures. Paul was always quoting on it, he was leaning on it, he was looking at it, he was submitting to God's Word as his final authority for every doctrine and every decision.

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By my quick count, in the 13 letters that Paul wrote in the New Testament, he quotes or references the

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Old Testament more than 135 times. And in the book of Romans, he quotes the

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Old Testament over 50 times alone, just in that book. Paul held the scriptures in such high esteem that many of us, when we go to look at the

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Bible to see what the Bible has to say about the Bible, we find ourselves reading the

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Apostle Paul's words. So when we look at 2 Timothy 3, verse 16, most of us know this, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be completely equipped for every good work.

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That was the Apostle Paul. When Timothy was urged to preach the

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Word, to be ready in season and out of season, that was the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4.

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When Titus was exhorted that an elder must hold firm to the trustworthy

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Word as taught, that was the Apostle Paul writing to Titus. Paul loved

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God's Word. He had an uncompromising commitment to both know the scriptures for himself, to know the

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Bible for himself, and to obey what was written in them. And then to apply this to you as imitators of Paul, as Paul imitates

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Christ. If I were to ask you, if you examine your own heart, is it obvious that you love, do you love and esteem the

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Bible above all other competing interests in your life?

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Do you find it hard to get through an argument or a discussion without quoting the Bible, or at least without a scripture popping into your mind on that topic?

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Does the living and active Word of God get the airtime it deserves in your day, or is it just an afterthought?

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Oh, I need to read that now before my day is over. I think that we need to have the attitude of Job.

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If you remember Job, he said in chapter 23, verse 12 of the book of Job, he says,

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I have not departed from the commandments of God's lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.

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The Word of God was more important to Job than breakfast, lunch, and supper. And do you count it as important?

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I remember that was one of the statements that the Lord used to convict me. One brother preached, he said,

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Are you more inclined, this is before smartphones, to read a magazine or a newspaper or something before you pick up the

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Word of God? I remember as a new believer thinking, I am an imposter.

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I have no relationship with the Word of God. I've been baptized for three years. I play guitar in the praise band and I don't even own a

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Bible. And if I did own it, I wouldn't read it. Is that your attitude towards the

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Word of God? Do you love the Bible? Do you treasure it? I remember hearing a story about a

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Puritan man. Sorry, it's all about Puritans today apparently. But if you don't know who the

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Puritans are, ask me after. I'd love to talk you off about the Puritans. I remember hearing a story about a Puritan man who went to, essentially it was a

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Bible conference in the 1600s in the New World.

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So it was probably somewhere in New England. And they used to have these Bible conferences where they'd come together and there'd be probably the most amazing preaching,

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Puritan preaching, and they would take the Lord's Supper together. And people would come from all around, from all over the countryside.

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And so just as we might expect when there's a conference in town, the hotels fill up. Well, in this situation it wasn't the hotels that filled up.

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It was the outbuildings on the farms. It was the sheds and the barns and everything else that these people would come together and sleep in.

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And this Puritan man went to this conference and then in the night went to one of these outbuildings to sleep and they packed it full of men.

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And because, kids, this was before we had LED lights or anything else that we would illuminate our homes with.

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As they closed the door in the outbuilding, the outbuilding became dark. And there, just like many of us do that still have energy or a busy mind before we go to bed, everyone laid there quietly, ready to fall asleep.

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And in the pitch blackness of this outbuilding, an unknown voice spoke up and said,

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Let us hear from the Word of God. That sounds so Puritan to me. And this unknown voice went on to recite multiple chapters of the

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Scriptures. And it was recited with such confidence and power that it was as if someone was there with a

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Bible, open Bible in front of them and they were reading it out loud. And the man took note of this. He found it very peculiar, very powerful that someone had applied so much of the

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Word of God to their hearts. So in the morning he inquired who it was that had been reciting the

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Bible. And he was shocked and dumbfounded to learn that the man who had recited the

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Bible for them the night before was actually completely blind. And he loved the

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Word of God. He treasured this book so much that he knew that if he was going to enjoy it for himself, enjoy it, not just check off your list for the day, but if he was going to enjoy this book for himself without the assistance of others, he was going to have to apply it.

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He was going to have to write it on the tablet of his heart. Brethren, might we be like this man, like Paul, like the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Might we be people of God's Word, people of the

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Word, servants of Christ and people of His Word. And lastly, and this is a very quick point for the sake of time, like Paul, we need to be a people marked by God's power.

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We're not going to look at the whole text, but in verse 18, Paul says this. He speaks about his ministry.

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I put in the bulletin actually a little bit of a commentary on some verses ahead of that because I knew

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I couldn't speak on it. So you can read that at your own time. But verse 18, he says, Some are arrogant as though I were not coming to you, but I will come to you soon if the

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Lord wills. And I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people, not the talk of these arrogant people, but their power.

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For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power.

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But in power. He says, What do you wish?

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Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness? We'll get to some church discipline stuff next week, so we'll leave that.

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But here Paul points out that talk is cheap and what matters is power, the power of your life.

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Never mind your speech, never mind your eloquence, what about your power?

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Paul says that the substance of a man or woman is not measured by their outward appearance. We see this in the life of David and the first king

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Saul. It says about Saul, and I take comfort in this for obvious reasons, that Saul was head and shoulders above the rest and yet it was

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David, the runt, that was the godly king of Israel. It's not the outward appearance, it's not the charisma, it's not the physical strength, but it is the power of God in a person's life.

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This might seem like a strange thing, but is the power of God present in your life?

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A good way to assess this is this, if God were to take the Holy Spirit from you at this very moment, would you even notice?

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If God were to strip the spirit of you, would you notice in me? Would it be clear in my preaching?

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Would it be clear in my living? Would it be clear in my praying? Would it be clear in all of your lives? Paul was not, by outward appearance, he was not an impressive man.

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It says that the Corinthians criticized him in this way, they said, his letters are weighty and strong.

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He's got very good writing. But his bodily presence is weak and his speech is of no account.

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Paul mentions this power in his second letter to the Corinthians. He says, but we have this treasure in jars of clay that show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

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Paul was a man that depended on the power of God. And this is to be one of the defining characteristics of God's kingdom citizens.

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He says, for the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. I've asked, is this the case in your life?

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I'll finish with this illustration. Charles Spurgeon was once asked, someone came to him and said, what is the secret of your power in the pulpit?

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Charles Spurgeon was known as the prince of preachers. It's hard to study a text and not quote

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Charles Spurgeon at some point. And Charles Spurgeon said, if you want to know the secret to the power in our pulpit, follow me.

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And he took this man into the bowels of the building. And there in the bowels of probably the metropolitan tabernacle, he showed them the room that he called the boiler room, the engine room.

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That's how they generated their power was with boilers. That's how they generated their heat. And it was at this room in the bowels of the church that the saints met together, including with Charles Spurgeon, to plead with God for help before he would preach.

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And when Charles Spurgeon would step up into the pulpit at the metropolitan tabernacle, those saints, there would be people in the boiler room interceding on his behalf, saying,

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God, speak through him. Use him. Save people through him. And if I were to ask you, if we were to look at the boiler room of your heart, is it burning white hot?

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Or is it cold and filled with cobwebs? I pray that we would be a people that are given to Christ in his service, that we'd be a people that are given to him in his word, and that we'd be a people that are filled with his power.

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Not our power, but his power. And if you don't know how to get there, the first place is this, that we must believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. The power of God is only available to those who have a transformed life by faith alone, in Christ alone.

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And brothers and sisters, if you're a believer, I praise God for that. And my exhortation to you would be to abide in God, just as a tree limb abides in the tree, a branch abides in the tree where it gets its life's blood,