Following the Follower X: A Life Worth Commending

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snider and with me again is Chuck Baggett, and we've come to the final episode of our series on following the follower, how

Paul takes the pattern of Christ and applies it in his life, in his ministry. And we've been talking about how that applies not only to pastors and spiritual leaders in the church, but also to a

Christian witness at work. We could think of, you know, an older believer reaching out to younger believers.

How do we understand our role in that? What fuels that? What guides our individual choices day to day?

And also, of course, for Christian parents whose hearts are often weighed down with real concern about the spiritual condition of their children, whether they're young or grown.

And, you know, we want to know, how does following Christ affect the way that I speak to my adult son or daughter?

How do I guide them to Christ? How do I help them to grow in Christ? And Paul gives us so many helpful, clear patterns and lessons in these chapters.

In chapter 6, verse 1 through 10, we do find a couple of key issues that are really helpful.

They're critical issues for us today. One issue is the issue of how do we commend ourselves in a setting, in a culture where there are so many voices coming from the world, and these voices are mistaken.

And then there are even many voices within evangelicalism, and some of those voices are confusing in their statements and well -meant, perhaps, but not quite as clear as it should be.

When we have a chance to bring the truths of God to bear on our work situation or our church or our home, or, you know, you think of the next -door neighbor when they're struggling or maybe at the ballpark when you're sitting beside parents whose kids are playing with your kids, and there's an opening to say something, how do we commend ourselves so that they will know that they can take what we say about Christ seriously, so they can really benefit?

How are our voices distinguished from the voices of the world, which sound maybe very reasonable, maybe very intellectual and well -thought -through, but they're wrong?

Paul gives us a guide here. And a second issue is how, when our lives and our words, we're laboring by God's constant help for those things to be in harmony, and yet we feel that we are so ineffective.

You know, we feel that another talk with a grown son or daughter is just, you know, what's the use, perhaps, we feel?

Is it going to do any better than the other 100 talks we did? Or you know, another statement at work, or even another one -on -one conversation with in the church who's struggling, and you've had that conversation before, and the enemy comes in with this doubt or a despair that God would ever really use what you're saying.

And if we give in to that, I find, personally, I don't know about you, Chuck, but I find it to be fairly paralyzing, probably in the sense, for me, mostly of kind of avoiding.

I just think, why pay the cost of having a difficult talk if it's not going to produce a good result?

And looking at myself in the mirror, I think, well, why would I think it would produce a good result?

I mean, I'm not that clever, or I can't get them to agree. And Paul gives us real help in that area as well.

And that's the area where we're going to start at. We're going to look at this issue of what

Paul says in the opening verse, and how that encourages us and keeps us from losing heart, which he has talked about quite a few times through these chapters.

So, Chuck, why don't you kind of walk us through some of the implications of verse 1? Let me begin by reading verse 1, which says, "...and

working together with him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain."

So, the idea, as you mentioned, kind of picking up with the theme of not losing heart, the idea that we are working together with God.

It's not as if we are lone rangers and hoping that we can get some help, if only

God would notice us and come over to where we are and help. But rather, he's invited us to come and join him in the work that he's already doing.

And that really is on every part of the globe. It's everywhere. And if you are walking with the

Lord, it's every conversation that you're having. So the hope to not despair is that we also are saying what

God is saying. It's not something different, and we hope that he'll put pixie dust on it.

But he's invited us to say, as Paul says in chapter 5, verse 20, we're like ambassadors that God has sent, and he's making his appeal through us.

We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. It's the idea expressed in 1

Corinthians chapter 3, when he speaks of being a co -worker together with God.

Same idea kind of here. We are working alongside of God. He's called us to work together with him.

And so we urge you to respond to the message that he himself is giving.

And that is encouraging when you are having that conversation for the 101st time. What's the hope that someone will respond?

It's not that we're clever or that we get the right words in the right order this time, but it is that God is at work.

And we're not left to our own devices.

And so Paul is very helpful here by laying that pattern. And I was thinking also, that's true of whether you're going into kind of a pioneer setting like Paul so often, or having the conversation again, like he is with the

Corinthians. The hope remains the same. God is at work. Yeah, we were talking a little bit before the podcast started, how this is not the first...

When Paul was conquered by Christ on the road to Damascus, that was not the beginning of his religious life, or even a life of religious teaching or leadership.

I think we would be right to suspect that Paul was already, not only was he one of the rising

Pharisees, but he would have been given opportunities to talk to people.

You can imagine a very, very zealous young Paul, a

Saul, who as a Jew is keeping all the rules better than any of his friends.

And how many people would have come to him and asked him questions, and how many people he would have seen, you know, drifting in Judaism, and he comes and he tries to help them get back on the course.

And Paul would have had to rethink everything about spiritual leadership, or about spiritual mentoring, or discipling, or shepherding, or helping and guiding.

All of that would have had to be rethought in light of the pattern of Christ. And I just wonder how much

Paul had to throw in the garbage can, you know? It's not easy for us to throw out old religious patterns and traditions that we grew up with.

And sometimes, you know, we hear the excuse, well, I grew up, you know, in such and such tradition and that's the way we'd always done it, and I, you know,

I feel like I'm kind of, it's like I'm an old dog and I can't learn new tricks. So that's why I pastor the way I do.

If I was a young guy, and if I'd have grown up in maybe a healthier system, well, I would do better.

But like Paul, all of us have some bad patterns of our own, and some bad patterns we inherited.

But we have the Scripture, and we have the example, or the eyewitnesses of the life of Christ and the

Gospels, and we have Paul, the benefit of Paul explaining, there's no reason for us to not be willing to lay down old ways of helping people, of witnessing to people, and to take on more

Christ -like ways. Yeah, very encouraging to think that, you know, when you walk into a room, whoever's in that room, and you know you've prayed and prepared your heart, that you're coming to say something on behalf of the

Lord. Whether it's just kind of a very serious thing, or maybe it's a very enjoyable topic.

But you know that when you walk into that room, that God is already in that room, and that God is at work spreading

His kingdom. It doesn't mean that every talk will have the outcome that we wish that it would, but it does mean that it's not a waste of time, because we are joining the

King. And when we see the King face -to -face, it will not be a small matter that we labored next to Him.

You know, it will be seen as it is, really, a great privilege. Well it's, that's a wonderful concept, but here's kind of a, let me play devil's advocate and say, well

Chuck, just because a person says to themselves, quietly, you know, a little mantra as they enter the room,

I'm a co -worker with God, I'm a co -worker with God, I also am urging you alongside the voice of God, that doesn't really make them a co -worker with God if there aren't some other things in life, you know, some practical implications of that.

So maybe one way we could help ourselves is to think, what would it look like, just on an earthly level, for a person to be hired on, we'll say, as an apprentice, maybe like to a bricklayer or to an electrician, and so they're being taught by a superior, maybe the owner of a little company, and they're going to be working alongside that owner, they're going to be a co -worker with the boss, doing what the boss does, you know, he's going to teach them how to do it.

If they were in that situation, there are just a few things that come to mind that we would say, well, that would probably entail this.

So can you run us through a list of things that we would expect on the human level, and then

I'll run us back through that same list on the spiritual level. Sure.

If you are beginning a job or an apprenticeship, then the job that you're going to do is the job of the boss, it's not the job, the boss isn't going to turn to you and say, so what do you want to do today?

You know, you have something to do around your house, you're going to work for him and to do the job that he's called you to do.

You're going to adopt, especially as an apprentice or someone who's just beginning, you're going to adopt the methods of the boss.

He's not looking to you as a beginner to be innovative and tell him some really great way to save time.

You're supposed to be learning how to do this, and he knows how to do this. He's not asking you how to do it.

You as a newbie, you work when the boss works. He's not going to have you show up to do a job when he's not there because you don't know what you're doing.

And so you work when he works, you quit when he quits, you take a break when he takes a break, all those kinds of things, you're on his schedule.

You work at his pace and you're going to learn to keep up and you don't get to run ahead and you sure don't get to lag behind.

You are there and you may not have a clue what you're doing and maybe you don't even know what the job's supposed to look like when it's done.

You just know that this is what I'm supposed to do right now, but your confidence that you're doing the right thing and that the job is going to end up completed as it's supposed to be, it's not your ability, it's that the boss knows what he's doing and he's done this before and he's brought this to completion before, and so if you follow the steps he's giving you, you're going to get the end result that you're supposed to get.

The supplies that you need, the tools that you need, the knowledge that you need for this job are all things that are provided by the boss.

You don't have to show up with a random selection of stuff from your garage hoping it's the appropriate stuff for this job.

Because you're new and you're learning this job, you are expected to listen more than to talk.

Again, he's not looking for your ideas, so you're listening and you're being instructed and trying to apply what you're hearing.

So let's go back through that quick list and think of it in a spiritual way. So whether a person's thinking of,

I am joining what God is doing in spreading his kingdom with regard to my children, or loving my wife, or a wife loving the husband, or being a witness at work, being an older believer helping younger believers at church.

We are co -workers with the living God, not with a great businessman, a great bricklayer that everybody wants and he's so busy because everybody knows he's the best bricklayer in the region.

We're working with a God, with the only God, the

God -man. And so the things you mentioned are the same but heightened.

We're not coming to Jesus to say, I have a great idea of how to fix this family or fix this church or fix this nation.

Now I would like for you to come and plug into my plans. It's very tempting to do that, and it may seem really very noble, but it's not a co -worker with God, with a king.

We can't come and say to God, okay, I'm interested in what you're interested in.

You're interested in spreading the kingdom. You're interested in saving souls. You're interested in putting sin to death, destroying the grip of sin.

You're interested in transforming people into the image of Christ. So I've got the right work now, but now

God, actually, I have thought of some really great methods for doing this, and I mean, that is so common.

It's hard to think that that isn't what the Lord would want us to do. I mean, I think both you and I grew up in a time where in the churches that we were in, many times, the pastors, they were very well -meaning, or other leaders in the church or other churches around us, but when you saw the choices they were making, it was as if they were asking

Jesus to come and to fund or make effective their new methods for how to reach the community rather than them going to Christ saying, what are your methods for reaching a community?

What are your methods for reaching a teenager or guiding a seven -year -old?

I didn't see that. Maybe it was happening, and they just didn't tell me what they were doing.

We want to, as you mentioned, we work when He works. You think of Christ's statement,

I work while it's day, night's coming, and there won't be any other opportunity then, so we don't have a right to say to God, well,

Saturdays are my day off, so I don't work for you on Saturdays. Well, but if the boss works on Saturdays, you work on Saturday, and I think as ministers, we know that six days a week of labor and there is a day of rest, but as Christians, you're not really ever off in that sense.

If there is a need that God brings across your path, and it means you have to get back up off the couch, put your shoes back on, get your coat, go out the door again to help a friend, to point someone to Christ who's really struggling, then you do.

And the Lord can be trusted. I think when I think of those things, I think, well, that means I'll never get any sleep ever, but that's not true.

The Lord only brings us across our path as much as we can do by His grace.

We work at His pace, and like you said, the confidence. How do we dare think that anything good is going to come out of a conversation, out of a

Bible study, out of a Sunday school class, out of a sermon, out of a witnessing opportunity when it's us that's talking and the confidence is, but actually

I'm working with the perfect being whose work is effective. And so I trust

Him to supply what we need. One way we can misapply these things is, as you mentioned, is thinking the boss is going to come and work for us and use our tools and do what we say.

And He's kind of the funder and He gives what we need. He gives us the muscle.

He fuels all of our plans. He's like the cosmic servant, and we're the strategist for how to fix this church and how to fix this world.

So that's a very wrong application. But another wrong application would be not us being the center of everything, and He's coming and asking, how can

I help you? What methods should I use? Do you have any advice for me? Do you need any supplies from me?

But not us, but the people could be at the center of everything. So it's what the people want, not what

God wants that guides everything. You know, we do what the people want us to do.

We start work when they want us to start. We stop when they want us to stop. We only go as far as they want us to go.

We work in the areas that they're interested in us working on. And you can see that in a family with our kids, where they say, well, look,

Mom, Dad, you know, I'm not really interested in your version of Jesus, but I kind of like this version of Jesus or this version of Christianity.

And of course, we don't talk that way. But that kind of is what's going on under the surface. And the parent is tempted for the young person, in hopes of reaching the young person, to adjust everything to the young person.

So God becomes kind of the co -worker and we become the co -worker of, you know, dictated by what the kid wants or a church.

Our people want this and these are the methods they want you to use. And these are the, you know, these are the things they want you to work on.

And we try to get God then to become the servant of the people's appetites. Paul, very helpful here in such a simple picture.

We come alongside the king who is laboring, spreading his kingdom down through the generations across this tiny globe.

And that has implications for how we act. One question, simple question we could ask that probably

I've never heard anybody ask. And that is, you know, as a parent or a spouse or a witness or a church teacher or leader, would anybody who watched us for a while say, who you working with?

I mean, because you're not, you're kind of not doing your own thing. So who did you, who are you apprenticed to?

Where'd you get this? You know, do we look like people who are co -laborers with a superior?

Or do we look like people who feel that we are the superior and God then becomes kind of a utilitarian and useful for us?

The other big issue here, and this is the one that chapter really is focusing on, is the issue of Paul commending himself.

It's not enough to say we are ambassadors of Christ. God is pleading through us.

We are co -workers with God. Our voice is being added. We also are urging you in the same way

God is urging you. You know, with his word, we are adding our voices to what he's already saying. We are a tool in the hand of God.

Well, those are wonderful statements, but can we give any evidence of that? And Paul does.

And in doing that, he is following the pattern of Jesus, John chapter 5, John chapter 10.

In both those places, we have the Lord saying how people can know he is who he says he is.

And in both places, the fundamental evidence is you can see in my life that I do the will of my

Father. And if I don't do the will of my Father, John 10 says, then don't listen to me. So Paul says,

I commend myself. And I do this in two different ways.

Before we look at the two ways, Chuck, is this kind of a self -centered, egotistical thing?

Is Paul on a, you know, is Paul expressing pride here in a way that's displeasing to the

Lord? Why is Paul so frequently in chapters 2 through 6? Why is

Paul so often commending himself to the people? He's under attack by false teachers who are undermining his credibility, but not just the credibility of Paul, but really the credibility of the gospel that he's preached.

He is their father in the faith and, you know, he's the apostle of the Lord to them. And so it's an attack on the gospel by attacking him.

And so he's commending himself, not for himself sake and to save face in front of the people.

I mean, he constantly talks about how weak he is, but he's defending himself just to, so they're not open to the lies of the false teachers.

And the gospel is commended by his message in his life. Yeah, I think that is quite a humble activity.

For a man who knows he can be sinful, and you know, Paul is a man that can sin still, we sin, we look in the mirror and maybe on the church level or maybe with your, you know, your family, people basically come and say, well, why should we do what you say?

Or why do you think you know the best route, the best path in this choice?

You know, we have other options, and all these other people are saying other things. I remember early on in the pastorate, a couple was wanting to get a divorce.

They were not in the church, but they were kind of friends of my wife and me.

And you know, when we went to talk with them and pleaded with them not to get a frivolous divorce, it was just, you know, they were tired of each other.

They kind of immediately threw up, well, this pastor and this pastor, and he has a doctorate and he's a, you know, an older man.

Well, they already told us that it's okay, that you're misunderstanding the scripture if you think that divorce is not pleasing to the

Lord, because God wants us to be happy. That overrides every individual text you would show them.

And I just didn't know what to say, except, well, just because they have a PhD doesn't mean that they're right, you know, but they kind of blew us off and did what they wanted.

We want our words to have weight with people. And, and sometimes we have to take a stand and say, you know, the life

I've lived in front of you, here's where I got the teaching from the scripture, but I have tried to live that in front of you.

And it takes a very humble man to risk being called an egotistical man by talking about himself.

Now, if you're an egotistical man, it just comes naturally, you don't even notice it. But Paul says here, you know, in Corinthians, I speak as a madman.

You know, I know I look like a crazy man having to talk about myself again, but if I don't make this clear that I am what

I say I am, therefore, what I told you about Christ can be trusted.

If I don't make that clear, then I'm leaving this wide open door for liars to come in and you will accept what they say and you will be damaged.

So it really is an act of humility. It's risking what people would think of him.

And it's, it's an act of costly love for him to stop and say, look at the way

I lived. I lived in such a way so that I did not detract from what

I preached by the way I lived. Calvin, speaking about Paul, but I'm going to adjust his words in just one place where he talked about pastors or ministers.

I'm going to use the word Christians because I think it applies to all of us. But this is what John Calvin said so many centuries ago,

Satan aims to discredit the gospel by faults in Christians or in ministers, but we'll say

Christians. Satan aims to discredit the gospel by faults in Christians, for if he succeeds in bringing the

Christian into contempt, all hope of progress is gone. And that's still true today where we see the essential necessity, not of a sinless life, but of a genuine walk with the

Lord, whereby the continual supply of grace from Christ, we have labored not to let our lives in these two ways,

Paul says, not to let them, you know, take anything from our preaching or our, our counsel.

He mentions two things in verse three. He mentions a negative, something he refuses to do.

He refuses to give calls for offense. I'll read the verse. He says, giving no calls for offense in anything.

Verse four, he mentions the positive side, but in everything, commending ourselves as servants of God.

So there's two fundamental things he talks about here, two arenas. If we could be kind of modern, two giant billboards that Paul has to distinguish his voice from false teachers.

One is things he refuses to do. And the other is things he chooses to embrace or to do.

So Chuck, how would you, if someone, if you were talking to a young pastor or to even to a young parent who says,

I want to point my child to Christ, how would you explain verse three to them?

What kind of things, you know, how would you apply that to a person who wants to speak on behalf of Christ?

Well, not giving any offense certainly doesn't mean that they're never offended. Your child might often be offended.

And Paul offended lots of people. They stoned him. But he doesn't give offense.

People are offended, but it's not because he has given them legitimate reason other than that they hate the gospel.

But people can't point at Paul's life and demonstrate inconsistencies.

They can't say you have preached to us one way and you've lived another. There's obvious sin and you haven't repented of that.

And so, you know, your gospel is discredited. We're offended by that. And besides the sin that he's avoided, there are also matters of conscience that he is, for conscience sake, there are things he has not done or things that he has done that otherwise he might not have had to do.

But he does, and he will not offend his conscience. Yeah. And I think it's that second area that is, it's the one that sometimes that we get tripped up on without even noticing that we're being tripped up on it.

And maybe we excuse it. We say, well, that wasn't wrong. You know, why are you angry? You know, why won't you listen to me?

Well, because you do this. Well, that's not a sin, is it? Can you prove it's a sin? But that's a totally wrong attitude.

The question is, was I willing to lay down my personal preferences in an area of a matter of conscience that could be right or wrong, but because I know that it would put a stumbling block in that person's life between Christ, between what

I'm saying about Christ and their heart, it's going to throw up a wall. So instead of claiming my rights to do what

I want to do because I'm free in Christ, and this is not a sin, I lay those rights down for the sake of being able to bring the truth directly to a person's heart without adding any barriers.

And that's Paul's pattern over and over. You know, when he deals with Jews, to the Jew, I'm a Jew. To the

Greek, I'm a Greek. All things to all men so that I might by all means win them. Well, he's not saying he adjusts his morality or his message to fit the cultural appetites, but he does not place his personal preferences above the greater task of bringing the gospel to someone without offense, without necessary offense.

Um, so I think Paul is just such a perfect pattern there.

I remember reading, uh, The Life of Hudson Taylor. I think you're, you're going through the two volume with a couple of, with a group of guys in the church right now, aren't you?

That, that is worth its weight in gold. And I remember reading where at the end of the two volume,

I mean, it's a long read, but at the end of the two, second volume, some friends who had worked with him for decades in very close quarters in some of the most difficult periods of the

China inland mission, they wrote and they said, his was a life that bore looking into you.

You could look anywhere and it did not unravel what he taught us.

Um, Amy Carmichael's famous prayer as a missionary to India, uh, where of course a

Christian woman would have been, you know, looked down on by a Hindu man. And she said,

God, make me to be what I appear, make me to stand to my conscience clear.

So it's, it's essential that we guard ourselves like Paul. If our voice is to be heard in the mix of a thousand options, one billboard that we have is that we do not indulge selfishness in a way that, um, would give legitimate calls for offense or legitimate, allow legitimate walls to be put up between what we're saying about Christ and the person that we're talking to, but that's not enough.

So what does in verse four, uh, how would you sum up the second half, the other billboard that Paul has?

So as Paul said, he, he offends in nothing. Now he commends in everything.

And he gives us a list of all these different scenarios, kind of extremes, like from this end of the spectrum to this end in all of these,

I seek to commend myself as a, uh, a preacher of the gospel, you know, in such a way that the life and message again are lining up.

Yeah. I'm going to read those verses and then we can just kind of hit some of those high points in verse four.

He says, but in everything, commending ourselves as servants of God in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, or kind of mob uprisings, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the

Holy Spirit, in genuine love, in the word of truth, in the power of God, by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left by glory and dishonor, by evil reporting, good report regarded as deceivers.

And yet true as unknown, yet well -known as dying yet behold, we live as punished, yet not put to death as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things.

I think one thing that jumps out right at the first of verse four is, but in everything, as you mentioned, the contrast with in nothing,

I don't in anything give legitimate offense, but in everything

I do commend myself. I mean, those are universal, no exceptions. We don't get to say

I was willing to commend myself as a representative, as someone who could be trusted to speak on behalf of Christ, as long as I was treated correctly.

But if they're going to treat me like that, then I wash my hands of them, I quit. You and I have both been in the ministry long enough that we know a lot of men who after a short spell at a church, and they were treated wrongly perhaps, they became bitter.

And they said, well, I just left that church because that's the worst church. That's the meanest little church. And I think as a young Christian, I would have thought something's not right about that choice, at least the way they expressed it.

There may have been more to it. But when you read Paul, you see, oh, and instead of taking a very difficult situation and using it to commend yourself as a servant of God, this is a billboard and it is costly, but it is a billboard by which you will be able to see that I serve the

God of the Bible. And when you see me pass through these hard times in a way that Paul describes, by the grace of God, you can see in my life that there's a validity to what

I'm saying because I'm not, you know, a fair weather Christian.

And so, you know, when you see these realities made clear in the hardest of times, then you'll want to know what

I have to say about Christ. In Philippians chapter one, Paul talks about two gifts that God has given to the

Philippian church. And the Philippian church is one of those rare churches where Paul writes a letter to them, and it's not written because there's some terrible problem.

You know, he's very encouraged with the Philippians. And he says in chapter one, verse 29, for to you, it has been granted for Christ's sake.

So it's a gift. It's a gift given by God. He's not stated here, but that's the implied for to you,

God has granted or gifted you something. And it's got a purpose. It's for the sake of Christ.

And then he mentions two things. Not only he says to believe in him, which we say, well, that's a gift of the

Lord. Ephesians two, eight, you know, not saved by our works, but by grace received through faith.

And even faith is a thing that is a gracious gift of God. And, you know, reformed churches will kind of go, you know, to the battlefield over faith is not something you work up on your own whenever you're ready for it.

But I have not found us as reformed churches be so quick to go to battle over the second gift.

And that is, you have been given to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.

Both of those are gifts. If we can see suffering as a parent, as a part, as a gift from God, so that the realities of Christ can be more clearly seen by our kids.

If we could see sufferings as a spouse, as a gift from God, so that our spouse could see the realities of Christ more clearly.

If we could see hardships at work, not the normal hardships, long hours, you know, maybe a boss that's a bit demanding, pay that's not good enough, but hardships that on top of those, the hardships that you have encountered because you follow

Jesus Christ and they don't understand why you would do that. And so maybe there's some mild persecution there.

Can you see that as a gift from God? Or do we only see it as an expression of a sick and sinful world?

You know, this world is so bad that I'm the only Christian at work and I get mistreated.

Well, it was happening in Paul's day too. Or this is happening because I must be a sinful person in God's manner.

Or I'm not in the will of God because where I'm laboring is so hard that it must not be

God's will. I think I made the wrong decision here. It's just so rare to hear a person in real life follow the pattern of Paul as he was following the pattern of Christ.

And that is to see everything, every hard moment, every costly choice that you encounter in following Christ and in being a witness and a servant in his kingdom, that these really are from the hand of God and they're a gift and they have a very clear purpose for Christ's sake.

He's given us that billboard. It's not enough just to be men that don't fall into some scandalous behavior.

We also want to use every one of these as an opportunity to be a living display that we see ourselves as what we really are.

Not prima donnas, not experts, servants. So he mentions kind of three categories, hardships, spiritual virtues and tools together.

We put those two together. And then these paradoxes. So the hardships, general hardships, afflictions, necessities, distresses, the normal pressures, the things that really kind of press us into a corner.

And we think, I'm not sure what to do here. During those times as we walk with Christ, then the world can see, oh, you serve

God. Specific hardships, stripes, imprisonments, so beatings, imprisonments, and mob uprisings.

Well, we just think of the book of Acts. In fact, there are just so many that you can think how quickly people went from praising

Paul. You remember when they said, oh, it's the voice of a God. And then suddenly it's not a voice of a

God. It's one of those Christians and they want to persecute him. But Paul sees even the mob uprisings as something that God has allowed so that how he acts when so unjustly treated, beaten, imprisoned, and mobs rising up, that would be a picture to commend that I speak on behalf of God so you can believe me, so you can benefit.

Voluntary hardships, labors, working to the point of fatigue, watchings or sleeplessnesses, losing sleep for the sake of reaching out to or serving or helping others.

Fastings, missing a meal. The spiritual virtues.

He talks about purity, knowledge, patience, kindness. All these are essential. How can people believe we speak on behalf of God if there are impure motives?

If they notice, oh, you're not doing this for the sake of Christ and for my soul's sake, you're doing it for an ulterior motive.

Or if our lives are impure and we talk about the purity of God and, oh, we're saved by grace.

But if they followed us home and they looked at the books on our shelves or the movies or the record of our internet, would they look and say, how can you speak for God?

Paul's purity, Paul's knowledge, he's labored not just to be an admirable man, but a man that brings the truths of the gospel.

His patience, it takes a lifetime sometimes. And if you quit or stop short, you know, it's like you lose all the effort.

His kindness, their rebellion does not justify him becoming harsh. You know, the work of the

Spirit in him and him having a Holy Spirit himself.

The word of truth and the power of God and the righteous weapons, all of those, all of those are as they're active in the life of Paul and he refuses worldly methods, we see the reality that he serves

God. And finally, those contrasts. Glory but dishonor, evil report, good report.

You know, whether they're praising me and lifting me up or whether they're beating me and stoning me and mocking me and talking badly about me, whether I'm sorrowful or rejoicing, in every possible condition,

I am conscious that this is an opportunity to commend myself as a man who speaks on behalf of God.

I serve God. Now, when I read those verses, I find them thrilling to read and to comprehend and to talk about.

I do not find them very romantic and adventuresome and thrilling to live.

So, Chuck, where do we start if we're going to follow

Paul in those verses? I mean, those are... I mean, it's just so rare to find a person following Paul's pattern here.

What fuel? Where do we start? You, really, with all the things that he's said in these passages, you get the big picture that he has of the work of God through his covenant in dealing with souls and that he is the one who leads us in triumph, even if it doesn't look very triumphal at the moment, and you hope in him.

And because it is his work, and the results are his, and he keeps you and, you know, ordains these various difficulties that you're enduring and leads you through them, you don't lose heart.

He is displaying the glory of his gospel through being a weak vessel.

Yeah, so backing up, I've received the mercies of the new covenant.

That's amazing. I've been called by the King to serve in some way as a member of the new covenant, the spreading of Christ's kingdom.

That's amazing. And then, like you said, the big pictures, even of the purpose of our weakness, the purpose of our hardships, those...

If we try to start at chapter 6 and say, okay, I'm going to be a coworker with God, and I'm going to meet these costs face to face, and they're not going to knock me off course, you know, then

I think willpower will be a fuel that will, you know, it'll only be good for the sprint.

And then you're tuckered out, and then you're like laying on the side, complaining to everybody that will listen to you how poorly you were treated.

But if you understand the big picture of the work of redemption, and the superior privileges, and the depth, and breadth, and height, and length of the love of God unfolded in the new covenant, then how can you complain?

And if you understand the privilege you have of being a coworker with God, or being a vessel that carries this inestimable treasure, and your weakness is part of the way that God shows everyone that this is

His treasure, not your treasure. You know, this is the work of God. You know, if we could just step back and see those big picture elements, if we understand them, it fuels our ability to daily get up and follow the same path that Paul followed without complaint, you know, even with joy.

So I think one thing, you know, one application as we're drawing our little series to a close is that if you as a listener are a little vague on all the gems in the crown of the new covenant, if words like regeneration, and propitiation, and sanctification, union with Christ, you know, conversion, and perseverance, and glorification, effectual call,

I mean, if these things are words that you think, well, I've heard them before, I'm just not quite sure.

If I had to write a definition, I probably, I might fail that one. It would be such a step forward for you spiritually, and for the fuel to labor with others as a parent or as a church leader, it doesn't matter, if you would give earnest study to what is all of this small print of the new covenant.

Vague ideas of Jesus loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life, and kind of sloganized, cliche

Christianity does not fuel chapter six. I can't imagine anyone following Paul's example here for more than about 20 minutes if all they have is bumper sticker idea, you know, bumper sticker depth of an understanding of all that Christ has done, and the work of the triune

God from eternity past into the eternal future. So study that, but there is something else.

Don't just study it to get it, study it so it gets you, and that's a lifelong pursuit.

It's not as if we arrive, but the more we understand the majesty of the

Redeemer, and the beauty of his work, and the more it grips me, then the more that big picture becomes the dominant fashioning influence in my, in how

I respond. You know, so it's not enough to say, I understand these doctrines and I can explain them.

The doctrines themselves must have this invisible kind of gravitational pull on my heart.

The big picture has to constantly be tugging at me so that whatever happens when

Chuck and I finish the podcast and we get in our separate cars and go our ways, whatever comes next, our hearts are already being pulled by the glory of the

Redeemer and the preciousness of redemption so that it's not just Bible verses and right and wrong and lists of do's and don'ts, it's that there is this invisible influence on my heart through the midst of all these types of circumstances, and I'm not free to just run off and say,

I've had enough. Before we close, there is one other matter in chapter 6 in these verses that we should mention, and it's a good way to close and to, it's a good exhortation for the things we've looked at.

So as Paul is saying that he works together with God, and we also urge you, what's he urging the

Corinthians to do is not to receive the grace of God in vain. And that same exhortation could be given to each of us, whether you consider yourself any kind of spiritual leader or not, believe or don't receive the grace of God in vain.

And so all the things that Paul has been talking about, being a member of the new covenant and the benefits of that and being led by Christ and all of the things he said to encourage they're true of the believer, don't receive that in vain.

To receive something in vain is not to reject it, it's just not to benefit from it.

So one writer spoke of this verse and this idea of not receiving this in vain as letting grace find a fruitful reception in you.

The grace that Paul speaks about in these passages, does that find a fruitful reception in you or does it not bear fruit?

Is it, you know, do you receive it in such a way that fruit is being born or do you receive it in vain?

Yeah, that really is a great and simple test, that picture. You could just start with chapter 2 and verse 12 and work through chapter 6 verse 10 for our study and just lay these verses before the

Lord as an individual and meet with Him and say, have

I received this truth in vain? This gracious truth, have

I received this one in vain? And if we want to know the answer, I think as believers,

He will make that clear. And it will be out of love that He makes that clear and He will show us how to find, you know, a fruitful place for that truth to take root and to be applied in very practical ways in our own lives.

Well, Chuck, thanks for devoting all the time you've had to devote to be with us and to walk through these passages.

And let's just pray that for the sake of Christ's honor, that we, as well as the listeners, will do what