2 Corinthians 6:1-10 (The Minister's Life, Jeff Kliewer)

by guarding according to Your Word. Open our eyes, Lord, that we may behold wondrous things from Your law.

Our souls melt away for sorrow. Strengthen us according to Your Word. Incline our hearts to Your testimonies and not to selfish gain.

Lord, we pray that Your Word would be a light to our path, a lamp to our feet.

Lord, just be the God who speaks to us this morning. We turn our eyes and our attention to You, and we pray that You would break through that hard shell that can surround our hearts,

Lord. Break through it. Give us a heart of flesh. Let light flood our soul this morning.

Encourage us and inspire us. Also, rebuke us with good wounds, Lord, that we would adorn

Your gospel, that we would commend the gospel to others, that we would put no obstacle or stumbling block in the way of another.

Help us this morning through Your text, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. My younger brother sat down on an airplane flying for a business trip and trying to share the gospel struck up a conversation with the guy that was sitting next to him.

And this young man began to open up about having a really difficult struggle with the church because his dad was a pastor.

And that pastor had fallen into sexual sin and the entire ministry that he had built, which was a significant ministry, came crumbling down all around him.

So this young man, sadly, had become an agnostic. He didn't know if there even was a God or if Jesus was the

Son of God. My younger brother tried to share with him, and the more they talked, they discovered that they were both coming from the same church.

We grew up at Palm Harbor United Methodist Church, and we saw that fall of that minister.

And now my younger brother was ministering to the Son. Sadly, the pastor, who preached the truth in many ways, put a stumbling block, an obstacle in the way of his own son.

It made me reflect a little bit upon my own father. In all the years that I grew up under his roof, and I'll tell you a little bit more about his roof in a minute, he never put a stumbling block or any obstacle to my faith.

In fact, he commended the gospel with his life. It wasn't just something that he taught us, it was something that he lived.

And I think back upon his life, how growing up as an immigrant from Germany, his family had very little, so he was one of those immigrants out in the field picking berries at times to help the family income.

And then to get through college, he was on a ship off the coast of Alaska, fishing for salmon and pulling in giant nets in the waters off of Alaska.

He's a hard worker. And one of the things that I learned from my dad watching him in the apartment business where he had gained apartment surgery, there came a time when there were more vacancies than covered the bills and the mortgage for the building.

But in all those years, he never faltered, he never changed, he was the same. And I watched how he worked, and he worked and he worked, and when that vacancy problem happened, what did he do?

He took a home equity loan, and he bought paint, and in the Florida sun, he got out there himself with rollers and paintbrushes and painted the entire apartment until people started coming again.

I saw his endurance. He endured hardship and calamity and difficulty and struggle, and I noticed it.

I also saw his love. He cared about his three boys. My favorite thing on earth was playing pogs.

A pog was a playoff game where me and my two brothers and my dad went into the driveway to battle on the basketball court.

This was the highlight of the day. He got in there with us and shared life with us, and it was always in love.

Now, he did discipline, but he always disciplined in love. He showed us what it was to live a life of love.

This is my father, and he's still living that example to this day. He also overcame, because there came a point in time at that church before the fall of the pastor where the pastor began to preach that there may not be a hell, that this might just be the doctrine of man.

And then he departed doctrinally saying that all religions possibly lead to the same place, that we will have

Muslims next to us in heaven who came through Allah and the Quran not knowing that Jesus died for their sins, but this was an inclusivistic kind of theology.

Well, at that time, my parents called them, called the pastor over and said, look, we gotta talk to you about this theology you're teaching.

And he affirmed that that's what he believed, and so as hard as it was, my parents left that United Methodist Church.

And they were the ones considered to be bigoted and fundamentalist, and they had to endure that regarded as imposters and yet true, ridiculed and reviled, and yet authentic, standing on the truth.

This morning we go to 2 Corinthians chapter 6, and we are talking about the minister's life. My dad was not a pastor, and is not a pastor, but he was a minister to his family.

And everybody here in the 2 Corinthians 6 sense is a minister, not just the guy who stands up front.

The life of the minister either commends the gospel that we preach, or else becomes an obstacle and a stumbling block to faith.

How we live our lives truly matters. It's not just the message that we preach, it's the message that we share through our lives.

People are watching, and there will be 3 areas today that we'll discuss. Each one of them has 9 points, which means

I'm going to preach a 27 -point sermon. You think I'm kidding? But we'll be very brief on each one, we won't be able to linger over each point.

They occur in 3 categories, endurance, virtue, and overcoming. There's a paradox in that last section, you will be regarded one way, but actually be another way.

So let's get into these, we'll read the text, 2 Corinthians 6, 1 -10. Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

For he says, in a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.

Behold, now is the favorable time, behold, now is the day of salvation.

We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry.

But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way. By great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger.

There's that first section of things that we have to endure. Now, the second section, things that we need to fight for, virtues of the

Christian life. Verse 6, by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the

Holy Spirit, genuine love, by truthful speech and the power of God, with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left.

And now, finally, the paradoxes of this ministry, the last couple of verses. Through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise, we are treated as imposters and yet are true.

As unknown and yet well -known, as dying and behold we live, as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything.

This passage here paints for us the picture of a minister's life, and not just the

Sunday morning preacher, where it's my job like an under -shepherd to the great shepherd,

Christ Jesus. I'm an under -shepherd guiding you in the Scripture. It's my role to teach the

Word of God. But if my life doesn't comport to what I'm saying, I throw an obstacle or a stumbling block in your way.

In the same way, your life either commends what you say or it trips people up because they see inconsistency in your life versus the teaching that you bring.

Impressionable souls are watching, first of all, our endurance. Our endurance.

But before we get to that, in verse 4, notice the privilege of the minister.

And I count the privilege that I have to be able to stand here on a Sunday morning and work together with him, it says, verse 1.

Working together with him. I count this a privilege beyond speech, beyond reckoning.

And in the same way, your privilege of ministering to others. In the context here of 2

Corinthians 5, verses 17 to 21, you have been called a minister of reconciliation.

You have a message of reconciliation. You are an ambassador of the King. That's why we were singing about the

King of Kings today. Because in this passage, you are his ambassador, sent to speak for him.

What a high calling, what a high privilege. Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

This is a favorable time, verse 2, for he says, in a favorable time, I listen to you. And in the day of salvation,

I have helped you. At this moment in time, during this dispensation, during this age, we live in a period of time where people are free to come to have their sins forgiven.

And we implore everyone to do that. In the church of Corinth, Paul, writing a letter to them, recognizes that not all of them have received that grace.

He doesn't assume that they're all saved. We talked about this last week a little bit. But the offer is made, and now an urgency is enforced.

In a favorable time, he's quoting from Isaiah 49 at this point in time, that there is a time of grace where God is reaching out, extending a free offer.

Don't wait on this because you never know when the widow maker can happen.

You never know when that car accident, or that just brain aneurysm, or something happens.

Never expect it and life is changed or you're gone. Now however, in the days you have in the body, in this tent, now is the favorable time.

And so what do we do? Verse 3, we put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry.

But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way. We need to approach the

Christian life with the understanding that people are watching us. We are the little

Christ's, the Christians, the little ones, who are representing the one we speak about.

They look to you to see what Christ is all about, and that's a heavy cross to bear.

Because woe to me if I cause one of these little ones to stumble. It would be better for me if a millstone were tied around my neck and I were thrown in the sea, than to stumble a little one.

But conversely, think about the privilege that we have, that God would condescend to us, first of all, taking on the form of a man, dying the death that we deserve, rising from the dead, ascending to the

Father, but now using us to bring his message to the world.

He could have used angels, couldn't he? As that one angel flies in the book of Revelation, proclaiming the eternal gospel, he could have used nothing but angels to preach his gospel.

Instead, he uses fallen people like us. Think of that privilege, working together with him.

Amazing! We are working together with God. What purpose there is in that?

What privilege there is in that? The world likes to talk a lot about rights and privileges, and will remind you that me,

I have so many privileges, because of the melanin counting my skin, and the gender, and the nationality of being born in America, and economic privilege that comes from having parents that raise me with some means, not rich, not poor.

But there's privilege in all of those things. If that's true, and I don't feel like fighting about that point, if that's true, take all of that privilege and fill a bucket with that water, representing the privilege that I have based on those things.

That bucket of water is compared to an ocean of privilege that comes from being a child of God.

I am privileged to be called a child of the living God, and to be given the work of proclaiming him to the world is a greater privilege than I can fathom.

Am I privileged? Oh yes, I'm privileged, just not in the way that the world thinks. They pity me for believing this book.

They pity you, like, adult, and uneducated, unsophisticated, moron.

No nuance, just a blind faith in an old, dusty book.

It's very sad. That's how we're regarded, and we'll learn about this in just a bit.

Oh, I told you, I said I would tell you the story of the roof in a minute, and I forgot to say that, so I might as well throw it in here.

When I was in middle school, my brothers and I climbed up into the attic every day when my parents were at work, during summer vacation, and we built a fort in the attic.

So elaborate was this fort that we cut down the A -frame beams to expand the space we had available.

Totally forgot about it by the time we got to high school, or at least we didn't really go up there. My parents didn't discover it until after college, when they went to sell the house and the home inspector found it.

But I was going to tell this point in the introduction, because the way my father reacted, he just laughed. He didn't crush me for it.

I think it was a statue of limitations. Too many years have gone by. But again,

I saw the grace of God, commending the gospel. So my father, again, serving as that example.

So now we get into the three areas. The privilege that we have, the responsibility that we have, now specifically, there's three areas.

The first is under the category of endurance, because it says in verse four, by great endurance, which is a positive thing, to endure something, to not quit, to hold up under a trial, then the following nine words are all examples of things that we must endure, afflictions.

That would refer, the Philipsis in the Greek, refers to any kind of illness, any kind of hardship, or any kind of difficulty that comes in life, that presses on you and surrounds you.

It's an affliction, you're afflicted with a disease, hardship. The hardships that come in life,

I think of the financial hardships that I saw my parents endure. The financial hardships that many of you are probably enduring at this time, thinking, how can

I pay the bills? That's a difficulty, that's a struggle, requires endurance.

Calamities, these we spoke of, a flood, or a fire, or something that comes unexpected, and maybe the death of a loved one, and your world is changed in a day.

Calamities. And then we see six examples of things that come to us uniquely as Christians, to the degree that we're on a mission for God.

Meaning, the more aggressive we are, like Paul, when he goes to Lystra, to a pagan city, and proclaims

Christ and him alone, and denounces Zeus, and Hermes, and the false gods of that city, the result is a riot.

The result is a beating, the result is imprisonment. In fact, in that case, stoned and left for dead. Or if he goes to Ephesus and does the same, and the crafters of the idols are losing their money, the next thing you know, he has a riot on his hands.

So notice, these are categories of mission. He's aggressive with the gospel, and so he's taking a beating, imprisonment, riots.

And then finally, the last three represent really self -inflicted wounds, good wounds, that come from being committed.

He calls them labors, sleepless nights, and hunger. Working so hard because he cares so much, sleepless nights.

He didn't have to stay up all night praying for the church at Corinth, but he was compelled to because he loved that church.

And hunger, there's plenty of food back home. But on the boat, shipwrecked, on a deserted island, it's hard to find food.

He's on mission, and he endures all of these things. Now notice, all of those things are bad. They're not good things.

And yet, they're part of the plan. We talked a lot about this in previous weeks, but all of the things that God allows to come into your life have a redeeming purpose.

We already talked about how they're achieving for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all.

So there's something, as we keep the eternal perspective, God is going to accomplish something in our eternal future in heaven that is related to what we're suffering here and now.

So it's bad in and of itself, but it has an eternal perspective, an eternal purpose to it.

We also learn in the first chapter that the afflictions that we go through are what God uses for us to be able to comfort others.

You may have suffered something in your life. You think, why did this happen to me? Part of it is so that you can minister comfort to someone else who's going through the very thing you went through.

And now we learn a third reason for afflictions is that other people will see you endure those things, and your faith is stronger than that.

Our Christianity, when it upholds under trials, is commended to the people who watch us.

The first year of your faith, the first couple years, your family will assume that you're on a spiritual high, but let them watch it for two decades, and three, and four.

And trust me, they're taking notice that this gospel of yours has lasting power.

This gospel endures. You're the same today as you were 20 years ago, only more on fire for the

Lord. This is not a phase that you pass through, and people notice your endurance.

Our gospel has endured for 2 ,000 years, and in every generation, the prognosticators have said it would die before another generation passes.

And generation comes, and generation goes, and the grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of the

Lord stands forever. And it is continuing to increase in the world, in parts of the world that never had the gospel before a couple of generations ago.

Now there's a high percentage of believers. God is still bringing his gospel to the end of the earth.

This endurance is the first point. Secondly, out of three, the positive virtues.

Brothers and sisters, fight for these things in your life. Fight for purity, purity, knowledge.

Somehow knowledge has become a dirty word in our culture. We're not to know anything. Feelings and emotions are exalted, and knowledge is derided, but the scripture speaks alternately to that.

The scripture says it's good to know. It's good to study and show yourself approved and be able to rightly divide the scripture.

Knowledge is something worth fighting for. It's a positive virtue. Patience is a virtue.

Kindness is a virtue. The Holy Spirit. I love that right in the middle of the list of virtue comes the

Holy Spirit, because apart from his filling your life and his fruit in your life, there are no other virtues, but the fruit of the

Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self -control. It comes from the

Spirit. You have to be filled with the Spirit in order to have virtue in your life. Genuine love.

I think of my time as a missionary. There was a young man in his mid -teens, opened up to me that he had been sexually abused by his own family and mistreated horribly in so many ways, but he latched on to a verse in Romans 12 that said, love must be sincere.

The genuineness of love touched his heart and changed him from the inside out. Love must be sincere.

That's a virtue. To love somebody, not as a show, but from the heart.

To truly care about someone else, to care about another. This is a virtue. Truthful speech.

To speak the truth, as hard as it is, but speak in love. The power of God is important for unbelievers and those watching our lives as we're commending the

Gospel with our lives. It's important for them to see the power of God on you. If you're leading a life that doesn't demonstrate any power, there's been a question, well, what is it that's inside of you?

2 Corinthians 4, we're jars of clay. They can see the jar of clay part, right? Yeah, I can see that you're just flushing blood.

You bleed like we do. I went and played basketball the other day. For a week after playing,

I was locked up in a back spasm. I'm a jar of clay. But I'll tell you what, in the spring,

I intend to go to the prison and play upstate New York in six prisons in four days.

And if one day of half -court, two -on -two basketball locked me up for a week, because I'm 41 years old,

I'm relying on the power of God to show up when I make it into that prison. And I believe it will.

I believe my back will be great for those four days. I want to step out in places of faith that require

God to show up. That's why I love the evangelistic festivals we did in the city, because it was intense.

And God would show up and people would see the power of God. Guys, we need to be walking in the spirit so people can see the power that's inside that jar of clay.

2 Corinthians 4, 5 and following. This all -surpassing power that comes from God and not from us.

Commend the gospel by walking in the spirit, in the power of God. I'll let you know how that goes,

Mark, if he showed up or not. And then finally, we're told with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left.

The weapons of righteousness. Ephesians has that language of weaponry. How do you wield the sword?

They need to see how you talk to unbelievers. With kindness, but dexterity in the scriptures.

How do you wield this weapon? To be adept in the scriptures.

Study apologetics. Learn how to interact with others.

Learn not just a language, but a heart language so that you're adept in working an issue to the heart.

These things commend the gospel. Finally, here are the paradoxes.

And I love paradoxes. They're fun. So finally, we have through honor and dishonor, slander and praise.

I think it's interesting that he starts there in verse 8, because both honor and dishonor, honor present temptations.

The temptation when you're honored, when someone praises you, is pride.

It can spur you on to love and good deeds. It can encourage your heart, but the devil can very easily step in and turn that to pride.

And dishonor, when you're slandered, that can be a sharpening thing in your life as well.

But the devil can turn it to despair. Through honor and dishonor, slander and praise, we are treated.

Now, mark that we are treated, because as each phrase unfolds from treated as imposters, or as unknown, the implication of each one is we are treated.

So we are treated as imposters. And yet are true.

There's the paradox. As you live this Christian life, you are in the truth. Christ is true.

But most people will think that you are an imposter. And the greatest stumbling block to anyone going to church is they look at the church and they say, that's a bunch of hypocrites.

They're imposters. They're fakes. They're self -righteous. They put on a show of religion.

They regard us as imposters, just like Paul. Expect that.

But you're true. That's the good news. You really are walking in the truth.

Christ himself is the truth. Next, another paradox.

As dying, I'm sorry, as unknown and yet well -known.

My dad's not famous. No, hardly anybody knows his name.

Compared to the number of people in the world. But I have a feeling he's famous in heaven. I have a feeling angels know his name.

Every one of us is unknown, relatively speaking. Even if we make a big splash during our short years on earth, compared to the billions that have been alive while we were, and the billions who went before us, and the however many will come after us, we are unknown and yet known.

It's not just to know God, but to be known by him. He knows you, and he sees your every move.

And we talked about, you will go before him face to face at the bimah, the judgment seat of Christ.

Everything is seen and known, while we seem so small and insignificant.

We're ministers working together with God, known in heaven. And every time you lead one person to Christ, the angels of heaven celebrate.

Can you imagine that all of heaven, millions of powerful beings that we would just faint if we saw them.

They're seeing you. They know you. And the demons know you too.

The demons hate you. They want to destroy you. They are trying to shut you up. They hate when

I stand here and tell you that Jesus Christ is the king, and he's the conqueror, and their heads are crushed.

That the head of the serpent, their leader, has been crushed by our savior. That our king has triumphed, and he is king of kings and lord of lords.

As I preach those things, demons hated their skin crawls. And they would love to destroy my family.

And they would love to destroy yours. We are known. We're in a battle.

Yet regarded as unknown, treated as dying.

Behold, we live as punished and yet not killed. How many times should Paul be dead by now in this test?

How many times stoned and left for dead, beaten, beyond recognition, and yet he's still going?

As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. As poor, yet making many rich.

Christians are regarded by poor as being poor. And for whatever reason, we're told that among the peoples of the earth, not many are wealthy.

Among those who are called. Probably because so many wealthy people trust in their riches and the comfort of their life.

But relative to the wealth of heaven, all of us are poor. All of us are poor, and yet so rich.

Remember that eternal perspective. You may have nothing on this earth but bills that you can't pay.

But you're rich. Because you have a mansion that Christ said he went to prepare for you.

That where he goes, you would be with him also. You are rich. You're regarded as having nothing, but you have everything.

Everything. The world clamors for love and attention, acceptance, significance, power.

But you have everything. You have Christ, an eternal life, forgiveness of sin, a family, a church to belong to.

You have love for one another that goes on sincerely and genuinely forever.

We have it all, but the world thinks we have nothing. But a dusty old book.

They have no idea. These are the paradoxes of ministry. And so in closing, this text stirs us up and encourages us to live in such a way.

That we remember that we are commending the gospel to others, or we are stumbling other people.

They are watching, and every one of you is a minister. For those of you who have been born again, you are a minister.

People are watching. So adorn the gospel with your life. Let's pray.

And worship team, come on up. Father, we thank you so much for your word to us this morning.

We thank you for 2 Corinthians 6. It's so rich, so inspiring. It's convicting too.

Lord, I pray that right now you would reveal into the hearts and minds of every person that's in this room. What are the obstacles?

What are the stumbling blocks that we are putting in the way of another? Pray, Lord, that you would tear those idols down and build us up in our most holy faith.

That our lives would commend the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. Conform us into the image of the

Son. Transform us here this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.