Benjamin Hatch brings a message on 2 Corinthians 4:1-2 as part of our series "God's Power in Our Weakness," a series in the book of 2 Corinthians.
Redeemer Bible Church of Fort Bend
The Plain Statement of the Truth (2 Corinthians 4:1-2)
(soft piano music) - You're listening to a podcast by Redeemer Bible Church. Come visit us Sunday mornings at 10.30 a.m. or visit our website at redeemerfortbend.org for more information. Thanks and enjoy. (soft piano music) If you have a Bible term that may be now to 2 Corinthians chapter four. If you're using one of the seatback Bibles, you'll find today's text on page nine hundred and seven. 2 Corinthians chapter four. This morning we're gonna read verses one and two. Oh my God. 2 Corinthians chapter four, beginning in verse one. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience and the sight of God. This is God's word and all God's people said, "Hey man, let's pray." More this morning we pray that we would consider the glory of the gospel that we would be on guard against error that you would rise up and defend your people. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. The 2016 sermon, mega church pastor, Andy Stanley said the following. Quote, "I hear adults say, well, I don't like a big church. I wanna be able to know everybody. I say, you are so stinking selfish. You care nothing about the next generation. All you care about is you and your five friends. You don't care about your kids or anybody else's kids. If you don't go to a church large enough where you can have enough middle schoolers and high schoolers to separate them so that they can have small groups, you are a selfish adult. Get over it. Find yourself a big old church where your kids can connect with a bunch of people and grow up and love the local church. Instead, you drag your kids to a church they hate and then they grow up and hate the local church." End quote. Now, what Stanley's communicating here is his conviction that there's a right way and a wrong way to do ministry. And what distinguishes good ministry from bad ministry in his view is church size, demographics, and the ability to entertain kids. Now, I might surprise you here. I agree with Andy Stanley in part. There is a right way and a wrong way to do ministry. And there are tremendous consequences to doing ministry well or poorly. But Stanley misses the gravity of these consequences when he frames them as just keeping the next generation in church. Because Christian ministry isn't just about filling seats in the local church. Second Corinthians 5.20 tells us what ministry is all about. We implore you on behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to God. Gospel ministry is about people getting right with God so that we are saved from his coming wrath. And so the consequences of ministry being done poorly or properly are massive. They're literally eternal. So yes, how we do ministry is of the utmost significance. But Stanley's wrong when he frames the difference between good ministry and bad ministry as being about church size or entertainment. Because the Bible says that the distinction between good ministry and bad ministry ultimately turns on whether the gospel is being proclaimed with clarity, honesty, and boldness. And that's what we'll see today as we continue our series in the book of Second Corinthians. Today we're in chapter four versus one and two. And today we'll see two points. First, what gospel ministry must not look like? And second, what gospel ministry must look like? So let's start with our first point. What gospel ministry must not look like? Second Corinthians chapter four verse one. Paul says, therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God. Now the word therefore tells us today's passage is closely connected to what came before it. In fact, today's passage builds on the last several sections of this book in which the apostle is defending his ministry. Now you might remember Paul has written this letter to clear the air with the Corinthian church. Because the Corinthians had for some time fallen into worldliness and sin. And they had resisted, Paul's repeated demands that they should repent. Which led Paul to severely chastise them. And after that, most of the Corinthians did repent, but there were still some questions in the church about the legitimacy of Paul's ministry. Many of these questions were coming from a vocal minority in the church that not only refused to repent, but they were now actually following false teachers. And so Paul here is writing to settle any remaining questions about his legitimacy and to confront these unrepentant folks once more in the hope that they would turn back to the gospel they used to profess. Now so far in this book, Paul's answered three objections. The first came from prosperity theology. It said, well, if Paul really represented God, he'd be living a life of health and wealth. But Paul seems to suffer a lot. Maybe he's not legit. And Paul had to tell them actually, being a Christian doesn't mean you're gonna have an easy life, it means you're gonna share in the sufferings of Christ. Then he answered a second challenge, an attack on his character that responded to some change in Paul's travel plans that he had to make. And that change caused the Corinthians to say, ah, Paul's a liar. He says one thing, but does something else. And Paul had to explain why he changed his travel plans. And he reminded the Corinthians of how they saw his personal integrity when he was there among them in Corinth. They should know he's an honest man. But most recently, Paul has answered a third challenge and attack on his credentials. It seems that the false teachers who came to Corinth came with letters of recommendation, the document, vouching for them issued by another church. Now these false teachers and their followers challenged Paul because they say, well, Paul didn't present the Corinthians with any such letters. But Paul's answer to this is straightforward. He doesn't need letters from another church to get a hearing from the Corinthians. Second Corinthians chapter three, verse one. Do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation written on our hearts to be known and read by all. Corinthians didn't need a letter to know that Paul was a real minister of the gospel. He had planted their church. All the gospel fruit and Corinth was a direct result of Paul's ministry. Their existence and faith proved Paul's legitimacy. So Paul had a right to speak to the Corinthians and to speak boldly to them, which is what he did about the gospel and its demands and about their sin and their need to repent. And last time we saw why Paul spoke with such boldness to the Corinthians. Chapter three, verse five, he says, our sufficiency is from God who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant. Chapter three, verse 12. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold. Paul says the ministry he has been given by God is the ministry of the new covenant, which proclaims God's new way of relating to people through the gospel of the Lord Jesus. And Paul showed us last time that the new covenant is so glorious by its very nature that it demands Paul set it forth before people with immense clarity and boldness. Why? Because the old covenant is so much better than what God had given to humanity before. The old covenant, God made it Mount Sinai. It was a law that produced nothing but death and condemnation. But the new covenant gives us more. In chapter three, verse 10, Paul says, it produces righteousness. It enables our sins to be forgiven and our uncleanness is taken away. In chapter three, verse eight, he says, it imparts the Holy Spirit to us. It enables us to obey and serve God. The Spirit secures our salvation and he makes us ever more like Christ. That's what the new covenant offers through the gospel. And Paul's ministry is all about declaring these glorious truths. And here now in chapter four, verse one, this is the ministry Paul's talking about. And Paul says he doesn't have this ministry because he earned it or he wanted it or he applied for it. No, in fact, back in chapter three, verse five, he said, not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything is coming from us. Paul's ministry was not sourced in him. You know, it came from God's mercy. You know, friends, Paul's pre-conversion life was terrible. Galatians 1, 13, he says, I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. First Timothy one, he said, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. Paul was the worst sinner. So how is that possible? Because Paul knew the scriptures really well. And despite all his knowledge, he chose to hate Jesus and try to murder Christians. If anybody ever deserved God's wrath, it was Paul. But instead, God showed immense mercy to Paul. Paul was given not only forgiveness, not only a pardon, but this glorious gospel ministry. And friends, that ought to encourage us today. No matter how guilty we may be, no matter how terrible our sins are, we are not past God's mercy. The new covenant offers righteousness and transformation in Christ to sinners like us and even a call to service. That's what God gave Paul and believing friends, that's what God does for us too. But now, as Paul considers his ministry, he says this, verse one, we do not lose heart. Now the Greek verb Paul uses here basically means a commitment to responding appropriately to something. So Paul's point here is as he thinks about the glorious ministry gone has given him, he has not abandoned his commitment to respond appropriately. That is to say, he still does ministry the right way and he won't do it the wrong way. And now he shows us his commitment, look at verse two. He says, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or tamper with God's word. Now we're gonna talk about what this means in a minute. But first, let's understand why Paul says this. Remember the Corinthians have charged that Paul's a liar, that he says one thing and does another. Particularly they seem to have claimed that Paul wrote things that were intentionally vague or had multiple meanings or required reading between the lines. And Paul answered this charge back in chapter one, verse 13. He said, we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand. Paul says, I'm not playing word games, I mean what I say. And Paul here is repeating that denial. But while these charges against Paul are false, they are accurate in describing the false teachers who have misled so many of the Corinthians. Later Paul talks about the false teachers in Corinth like this. Second Corinthians 11, verse 13. Such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. There are people who are guilty of duplicity, who say one thing and mean another, who preach righteousness while perpetrating spiritual fraud, who present themselves as godly ministers, but actually their Satan's men. That's not Paul, that's Paul's opponents. And so here Paul is both denying the false charges which have been brought against him, and he is contrasting his authentic ministry with the deception that's been perpetrated by the false teachers who have misled the Corinthians. Now what Paul does here is he gives us an excellent description of false ministry which he says is characterized by three things. First, he says it's characterized by disgraceful, underhanded ways. The Greek words here literally mean the secret things of shame. Friends, false teachers operate in hiddenness. They're not characterized by openness or transparency, but by hidden sins concealed false doctrines and secret agendas. Second, Paul says false teachers practice cunning. The Greek word here doesn't just mean deception, it speaks of a willingness to do all that is necessary to manipulate others. And third, Paul describes the core of false ministry as he talks about tampering with God's word. Friends, this is the substance of false ministry, the adulteration, the corruption of truth. God has revealed his new covenant in Jesus and the gospel of Jesus which provides righteousness, transformation and eternal life. False ministry perverts that truth. So it does not produce righteousness, transformation or eternal life. Rather, as 2 Timothy 3 says, it produces only a form of godliness, lacking true power. So Paul shows us here what false ministry looks like and he says he doesn't practice it. Now, what does this have to do with us here today? I've got six things I wanna tell you here. They're not all just applications. Some of them are things we need to know and some of them are things we need to do. Number one, friends, we need to know that false ministry exists and it is prevalent. Jesus prophesied in Mark 13, see that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name saying I am he and they will lead many astray. False Christ and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders to lead astray if possible the elect. But beyond guard, I have told you all these things beforehand. Here, Jesus is talking about what will characterize the church age and he says there's gonna be lots of false religious workers throughout Christian history. And that warning is not unique in the scriptures. 24 out of the 27 books of the New Testament, talk about false teachers or corrupt leaders in the local church. This is a concern addressed by every individual author of the New Testament. Clearly, this was something God wanted his people to be on guard about. False ministry exists and it is pervasive. Number two, false ministry involves a significant deviation from the truth of the gospel. That's what Paul means when he talks here about tampering with God's word, significant perversions of God's truth. He's talking about what we call heresy, doctrinal deviation that puts someone outside the faith. That's really important to me understand today, not every doctrinal disagreement is due to heresy. Friends, there are lots of areas where faithful Christians can disagree. We may not all have the same understanding of biblical prophecies about the end times or the age of the earth or the head covering passage. That's okay, friends, disagreement about these things is probably a healthy thing for Christians in the local church. In fact, while I strenuously disagree with our Presbyterian friends who baptize infants, I wouldn't call them heretics. I think they're profoundly wrong. I wouldn't join a Presbyterian church, but I don't think they've denied the faith by their error. So not every doctrinal disagreement is heresy. And we would do well to remember that when we disagree even passionately with our brothers and sisters and the Lord. It's okay for us to strenuously disagree so long as we're charitable about it. And yet even as I say that, I want you to know there are certain truths that are not negotiable. There are matters that we must believe and cannot compromise on. I'm talking here about the doctrines that relate directly to the gospel. And friends, any teacher that denies the trinity or the true humanity or the true deity of Christ or who denies that Jesus died on the cross as our substitute to bear our sin or who denies Jesus bodily resurrection or who denies that salvation's available by grace alone through repentant faith alone and Christ alone or who denies the authority and inspiration of the scripture or who teaches us to do what the Bible forbids or who denies the reality of final judgment and heaven and hell. Friends, that person is a heretic. That is to say he is preaching something outside the faith, something that does not lead to eternal life. And that leads to application number three. False ministry's dangerous. It results in condemnation for the false teacher. Second Peter chapter two says, there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep. The final destiny of false teachers is hell, period. But tragically that same outcome is shared by those who follow false teachers. Jesus warns in Matthew 15, if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. That's why Jude tells believers to rescue those who have been deceived by heretics, saying in Jude 23, save others by snatching them out of the fire because those who submit to heresy are engraved eternal peril. You know friends, there are people today that tell us, doctrine doesn't matter. Theology doesn't matter, it's irrelevant. What really matters is how we live. That's not true friends. Yes, it matters how we live, but it also matters what we believe. Because there are plenty of people out there who live lives that seem free from obvious vice who deny the gospel. Think about the Mormons. Many of them have loving and stable homes and they seem to live outwardly righteous lives. And you know what? All of that will prove inconsequential on the last day. Because Mormons believe a false gospel that preaches a false Christ and a false approach to salvation. And that leads to damnation. Friends theology is not irrelevant. What we believe is eternity defining. And that's why Paul says in Galatians one, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you, the gospel contrary to the one preached to you, let him be accursed. Paul calls down God's wrath upon those who preach a false gospel. And friends, it's right that he does. Because heresy is evil. It is the commission of soul murder. Because it leads people down the road of eternal catastrophe. So we need to understand today, false doctrine contrary to the gospel ends in hell for both the teacher and the follower, for both the deceiver and the deceived. Now all of this then explains application number four. False ministry is shrouded in deception and secrecy. Why? Because if a heretic walked in here and said to you, hey guys, Satan sent me here to mislead you so that you would follow me down the path to hell. Who would sign up for that? Nobody, right? The false teacher can't be honest or transparent about who he is or what he's about. He must resort to subterfuge. And that's what Paul's talking about in our passages. He talks about cunning deceptions and the hidden things of shame. False teachers lie to conceal the truths about themselves and their ministry. And let me highlight a few ways that this takes place. Sometimes false teachers have hidden doctrines. Friend of mine in Pennsylvania was hired as a pastor in the church a few years ago. And when he was hired, he learned that the church he was gonna work at had 10 previous pastors over the previous 30 years. That's a lot of pastors. But the elders of the church had a convincing story to explain all of these firings. And so my friend took the position. Then about a year into it, he learned the truth. The church's elders took him aside and introduced him to a doctrine that they all believed, which was hidden from the church. And they wanted him to embrace it. This heresy is called ultra dispensationalism. And what it says is the only part of the Bible that has authority are the letters of Paul. And my friend learned, this is why those other 10 guys had been fired. Because none of them would sign up for this heresy. Now thankfully, my friend was able to lead that church out of this heresy to pose the false elders and lead the church in public repentance. But this is an example of people doing false ministry, holding to false doctrine, but concealing their true beliefs in order to ensnare people under their false ministry. Let me give you another example. One of the most dangerous false teachers I've ever known, presented himself as a very humble, prayerful family man. He was very likable. He was a Sunday school teacher in a small church, and he had a really committed following of maybe about 30 people. But occasionally he would say some really strange things, like I'm an anointed teacher. And nobody ever really knew what he meant by that. And he never explained 'cause he wanted his followers to draw their own conclusions. But sometimes if you listened really carefully, you would pick up some very plain statements of false doctrine from him. To be sure 95% of what he said sounded quite normal and great in Orthodox, but every once in a while he'd let you know that he denied the full humanity of Christ. Or that God lives in a dark and lonely place. And he created us so that we would come for him and his sadness. And if you challenged him, he'd say, well, actually I'm receiving divinely inspired interpretations of the scripture that are beyond human correction. They didn't put all this out there openly. He tried to blend in. He tried to look legitimate. And he built a very devoted following of people around him who thought, man, this guy is from God. So tragically under the veneer of godliness, there was an ugly dark side of heresy. But sometimes what's hidden isn't false doctrine. Sometimes false ministry preaches something that sounds correct, but it's done to pursue a hidden evil motive. Over the years I've known two men here in town, one of them I knew personally, the other one I knew through several friends. And ironically they served at the same church decades apart. And doctrinally they seemed quite orthodox. They could have easily signed our doctrinal statement in this church. And they were both loved in the Houston Christian community for their ministry with young men. In fact, when you saw them, they always seem to be followed around by large groups of handsome, well-dressed young men. And they would say, well, I'm mentoring these young men. Later it turned out that they were both homosexuals, which put the whole thing into a different light, doesn't it? In fact, one of them committed so much sexual abuse that admired a very prominent church here in town in a major lawsuit. Or consider Tullian Shavidian, who was a huge evangelical pastor 10 years ago. He led a big church, he had a lot of influence. Until it turned out he was having multiple affairs with women in his church at the same time. So these are examples of ministry that seemed genuine, but which were really about leveraging spiritual authority for sexual gratification. But sometimes the motive isn't sex, sometimes it's power. So 3rd John speaks of a wicked church leader that liked to put himself first. Often the motive is money, right? Jude 11, they abandoned themselves for the sake of gain. So the hidden things of shame can be hidden motives are hidden sins. Sometimes it's just sins from the past that haven't been dealt with biblically, that have been covered up. And we think of the Catholic sex abuse scandal the last few decades. But friends, let's not be deceived. The Southern Baptist Convention is in the middle of a years-long scandal right now, because a number of its churches that hold to a very sound doctrinal statement concealed abuses that took place years ago and kept the perpetrators on staff. And what happens after a sin like that takes place often and tragically is the hurt people leave and the people that remain decide, they're gonna just act like it never happened, a sort of tacit agreement is formed. Let's not talk about the past. We don't want any new people to come in and learn what happened, which is very callous and indifferent towards those new folks who are gonna be exposed to danger. And when churches choose this path of cover up, they're often unaware that by choosing to paper over sin, they're actually corroding their own souls. They're becoming more tolerant of sin and those things that God hates. Friends, covered up sin, skeletons in the closet are another hidden thing of shame in many ministries today. And I could go on at much more length about all of this, but I think the point's clear. Listen to Jude verse four. Certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for condemnation. Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. That's how false ministry works. It creeps in, it's subtle, it tries to go unnoticed, but ultimately what's it all about? Perverting the grace of Christ, taking the truth, turning it to permit sin. But whatever the falsity is, friends, whether it's heresy or sin or both, which is often the case, we need to know, God sees through the deception and God will give it what it truly deserves, which is condemnation. But while God is never fooled, sometimes we are. And so that leads to application number five, which is we need discernment. We need to be able to clearly distinguish between truth and error, between good and evil. Listen to Hebrews chapter five, verse 14. Solid food is for the mature. For those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Here the author of the Hebrews is criticizing his readers for being immature, when they should have been further along in their lives. And he tells them they're immature because he says you're unskilled in the word of righteousness. They don't know God's word. And that ignorance has caused them to be unable to distinguish between truth and error. They needed to grow up. They needed to be able to consistently and accurately distinguish good from evil. And the author of the Hebrews says that comes from really knowing God's word and training your mind to apply God's word to what you see in the world around you. So that you'll look at something and say, wow, that really sounds true. Or wow, that really sounds false and you wind up being accurate. You are able to accurately apply the scripture to the things that you see. Friends, we desperately need to cultivate our discernment because we live in an age of deception. And that means we need to know our Bibles a whole lot better. We need to not just listen to everything that calls itself Christian. There are lots of books and podcasts and so forth that our Christian, or they tell us they're Christian, and many of them are edifying. And many of them are garbage. How can we tell the difference? By being like the Bereans. Who Acts 17 says examined the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Few weeks ago, Daniel was up here preaching. And I loved what he said. He said, keep your Bibles open during the sermon so you can fact check me as I preach. Friends, we call ourselves a Bible church. And yet, I often see people here who don't crack a Bible through the whole service. Let me say, I appreciate that you trust what we're doing so much, but it's not wise. You're wronging yourself because you owe it to yourself to keep your Bible open and read it and think critically about what you're hearing. Don't just accept what you hear uncritically. Even here, check and recheck everything against God's Word. Because how else are you gonna grow? How else will you be able to sharpen your mind to consistently distinguish good from evil? Unless your Bible's open and your nose is in it. Here and out in the world. But this leads to my last application for the first point, which is that we need to know what to do after we identify Paul's ministry. And the answer is this. Don't associate with it. Separate yourselves from it. Roman 16, 17. I appeal to you, brothers. To watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites. And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. False teachers and false ministers are to be avoided. We're not to pal around with them. We're not to listen to them. We're not to sit under them. We're not to try to reach out to them. We are to avoid them. Period. I know sometimes we're like, oh, this sounds so interesting. I've never heard this before. Friend, that's probably cause it's wrong. And I've heard from people sometimes, I'll say, well, it doesn't sound nice for me to avoid someone that I used to know who's become a false teacher. Shouldn't I try to go win them over? No. The Bible never says to pursue a deceiver. Even to win them over. Someone who is deceived, yes, but a deceiver. No. Avoid them, Paul says, because they're dangerous. They want to divide churches. They want to stumble you out of your faith. And they deceive and seduce many. They're too dangerous to associate with. Listen to second John verse 10. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. And the word greet there in Greek comes from the way Greek people said hello. John says, if you even say howdy to a false teacher, it's like you have become a participant with him in his evil. Don't receive him, don't listen to him. Don't even say hi to him. And John's point is this. Have the same relationship with a false teacher that you would like to have with the Ebola virus. Because false ministry is much more dangerous than Ebola. It doesn't just threaten the body, it kills the soul. And so in this first point we've seen the gospel ministry must not look like. It must not be characterized by false doctrine or deception or subterfuge. And Paul says, my ministry is not characterized by any of these things. Okay, well, what then was Paul's ministry like? Well, that's our second point. What gospel ministry must look like? Paul's made it clear what he's not about. He's not hiding any evil desires or agendas. He's not a deceiver. He doesn't twist God's word. So what does he do? Chapter four verse two. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. The Corinthians had criticized Paul for not presenting letters of recommendation. Paul says, you wanna know what recommends me? It's how I do my ministry. It's my openness. That's his letter of recommendation. Paul's life and his preaching are characterized by sincerity, honesty and transparency. People can look at Paul and they knew who he is. He's not putting on a mask or a facade. He's the same guy when he's preaching or when he's home. Whether people liked Paul or not, whether they believed Paul or not, no one could dispute Paul's sincerity and his commitment to the gospel. Because Paul was always the same guy and he was always characterized by the same consistent, bold, courageous, clear presentation of the truth. So everybody he encountered knew what Paul was about and that he meant what he said. In fact, Paul's so bold here. He says, God is my witness that this is how I live. Friends, that's what good ministry looks like. This is a ministry that is commended in the eyes of God and men. Ministry marked by that kind of openness and integrity. Now as we think about this, let's answer three questions. Question one, what is it that Paul's ministry was about? What was the content of his preaching? But Paul says his ministry is accomplished by his statement of the truth. What is this truth? What's the content of the new covenant? It's the gospel. Paul understands the gospel is the core of ultra ministry. We need to know today, especially today, friends, the Christian proclamation is not simply a cultural proclamation of values. And it is not a philosophical proclamation of ethics. And it is not a political proclamation of candidates. The Christian proclamation is the person and work of Jesus. And that conviction always directed Paul's ministry. That's why when he first came to Corinth, Paul says he made this decision. 1 Corinthians 2 verse one. I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Paul didn't wanna be confused with an entertainer. He didn't try to win people over with flowery speech or gimmickry. He just pointed them to Jesus really plainly. And what he pointed them to in particular was the crucifixion of Jesus. That's the most important truth. Jesus' saving work, 1 Corinthians 15 verse three. I delivered to you as the first importance what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried. That he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared. Friends, the saving truth of Christianity is that Jesus died for our sins. We are all sinners. That's really bad news. We are all rebels and traitors in God's universe. And Romans 6, 23 says the wages of sin is death. Ephesians 2 says we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Our guilt deserve death and hell. That is God's righteous decree about sin. But God has given Jesus who lived the perfect sinless life. You and I have failed to live. And Jesus went to the cross and died a criminal's death even though he was no criminal. We were the criminals. We deserved to die, but Jesus died the death we owed. He died in our place. As Paul says, he died for our sins and he bore the very wrath of God that should have been upon us forever. Galatians 3 says Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Or Paul puts it later in this book in the second Corinthians 5, 21. God made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus took our sin upon himself. Why? So that he could give believers his own perfect righteousness that we might stand in the very righteousness of God. That's how God gives believers righteousness under the new covenant. Because of what Jesus did on the cross. But the wonderful news is Jesus didn't just die and stay dead. On the third day he rose from the dead bodily and he is alive today and he is ruling and reigning triumphant over Satan's sin and death. And his resurrection is the pattern that believers can look forward to. For one day we will all be made like him and rise from death and enjoy eternal life. That's what Paul preaches. That's the content of Paul's gospel proclamation. He points to what Jesus did. But more than that he points to who Jesus is. And we'll talk about this more next week but look at second Corinthians 4 verse 5. He says what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ is Lord. The Paul wasn't in ministry to get a cult of personality around himself. He was there to teach about Jesus to proclaim Jesus as Lord as the earliest Christian confession. Jesus is Lord. What's it mean? It means two things. First the word Lord is the most common way the Old Testament describes God. So to confess that Jesus is Lord is to confess the deity of the Son. That Jesus is God the Son whom the Father has sent into this world to take on humanity. But second to confess Jesus is Lord is to acknowledge him as our rightful ruler. It is to renounce any other primary loyalty in life. It is to admit Jesus has the right to tell us how to live and it is to commit ourselves to following him. And so Paul not only proclaimed what Jesus did for us he tells us who Jesus is which tells us about the demand Jesus makes on our lives. That we must stop living for ourselves. We must turn away from our old lives of sin and turn to give our allegiance to Jesus. Trusting in his finished work and following him. All our days. And so what Paul preaches is the gospel of Jesus which is embraced by repentant faith. That is the one and only way of salvation. That is the content of his preaching. But question two is how does Paul preach? And he says openly friends this is the beautiful thing about proclaiming the truth. We don't have anything to hide. We don't need to utilize deception and trickery because the power of the Christian message is in the gospel itself. It's not in our proclamation of it. First Corinthians 1, 18 says the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The message itself carries innate power. And so Christian ministry is fundamentally about just putting the gospel out front and letting it do its work. That's why Paul defines ministry success here as the open statement of the truth. Which tells us ministry failure means that somehow we've gotten in the gospel's way. We have done something to obscure the gospel's truth. Maybe because we're living lives that contradict our profession. Or maybe because we've done something clumsy to try and make the gospel sound more palatable or less controversial. We water the message down thinking, "Oh, that will win people over." Because we somehow believe that if everyone is exposed to the real true gospel then no one will believe. But friends, that's not true. Yes, many people will reject the true uncensored gospel. Many will, most will. The second Corinthians 2 Paul says, "We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing from what a fragrance from death to death to the other, a fragrance from life to life. Many people will be turned off if we just give them the gospel straight. 'Cause they don't want the truth. The only thing they'd be willing to accept is an adulterated gospel, a gospel that's tampered with God's word, which is no gospel at all. And that's to say, many people will respond favorably only to false ministry. 'Cause as we'll see next week, Satan has blinded them to the truth. And so they remain under judgment. But hear me on this, friends. Our job in evangelism is not just to get people to put up their hand making a commitment to whatever we tell them. If we don't tell them about the truth about the gospel, in some vain attempt to get a commitment from them, but we don't tell them the whole truth, we haven't accomplished anything except perpetrating false ministry. But friends, if instead we just give them the gospel straight, we're promised here some will detect in it the aroma of life, some will respond favorably. And those people will experience the glorious transformation available under the new covenant. And that's what we're after. So true ministry just sets the gospel out with great plainness and transparency. That's what Paul did. In every situation with friendly crowds or hostile crowds, when he was seeing a lot of people pay attention or when he was seeing not many people pay attention, when he was on trial for his life, he just kept preaching the same truth. Because as he says in chapter two, verse 17, we are not peddlers of God's word, but men of sincerity commissioned by God. Paul's sincerity is obvious from his commitment to just keep speaking the truth and to refusing to dilute it. So unlike the false teachers, he doesn't hide anything, he doesn't practice deception. And he understands that evangelism is not acting like a marketing executive. Paul knows he doesn't have to try and dress the gospel up to get people to believe. His job is just to proclaim the glorious gospel of Christ. And knowing that that message has power, he openly puts it out there and he holds nothing back. And that commends Paul, he says, that simplicity and godly sincerity that was evident in his life and speech. That's how people knew Paul spoke the truth. But this brings us to our last question, which is what does this have to do with us? Let me make three applications. Number one, believing friends, we have nothing to hide. We stand on the transformative truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our corporate ministry as a church should reflect that. We don't need to hide things or practice deception here. There's a very troubling trend in many churches today, which has gotten a lot of press in recent years, which involves the usage of non-disclosure agreements to silence former pastors or victimized church members, conditioning payouts on their silence. Think about that, why would a church want to try and legally block someone from speaking? 'Cause they want to hide something, right? Friends, we don't want to be a church that ever has to play that game. We should never be doing anything that needs to be covered up or hidden. From the earliest days of this church, our elders have always said, the first rule of leadership here is that we don't lie to the congregation. That must always remain absolute. The elders in our leadership and ministry can't have one secret rationale. We talk about behind closed doors and a separate, more palatable false rationale, which is more fit for public consumption. In the same way, friends, we don't need to run from our churches past. We can talk about it openly and honestly, the good parts and the painful parts, because the truth is the truth. And God's people must always stand on the truth and not flee from us, not flee from it. Because the truth doesn't hurt us, it makes us stronger. So we must, as a church, reject the hidden things of shame and cunning. Number two, friends, we need greater confidence in the gospel. We don't need to be entertaining to win people to Christ. If we win them with entertainment, we have not won them to the gospel. We have just distracted them and told them they're saved. That's false ministry. True ministry is about the open and bold proclamation of the truth. That's what we need to do corporately. And friends, that's what we've got to do individually. Because as we said last week, new covenant ministry is not just for the church, it's for each individual believer to evangelize. Does evangelism seem scary to you? It can be scary to all of us at times. And I think one of the reasons we get scared is that we may genuinely not know what to say. But friends, the wonderful truth is all you have to do to successfully evangelize somebody is just tell them the gospel. Your success or failure in God's eyes has absolutely nothing to do with whether they accept or reject what you have to say. It entirely depends on whether you have made a plain statement of the truth. And friends, we should have courage to boldly proclaim the gospel because the message has innate power. It's not about our rhetorical skill or our persuasiveness or charm or our apologetics or our ability to answer every question. We've just got to tell people the sinfulness of man, the person and work of Jesus and his demand of repentant faith. But as we do this, we must resist the temptation to soften or sidestep the hardest truths of the gospel. A lot of evangelism today sounds like this, believe and your life will be better. That's not what the Bible says. Jesus says in Matthew 16, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." That's a hard call. That's not a get-out-of-help record and go back to living how you want. You know, the gospel puts us on a hard path of self-denial, of following Jesus, which he says is like carrying our cross to the place of execution. That's tough. And I got to tell you friends, that's the worst advertising campaign in the history of the world. But that's okay because ministry's not marketing. Ministries about the fearless proclamation of the truth. Indeed, Paul tells us in this book, we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings. That's what it is to be a Christian. Second Timothy 3 says all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. We don't do anybody any good when we hide these hard truths from them. Evangelism is not a sales job. We won't win the lost with cunning and trickery and hiding the ball. No friends, we are to set the gospel in front of people in all of its reality and controversy. But lastly, let us, number three, let us be commended by our boldness and openness. Our message should have great clarity and transparency. So should our lives. When Paul's credibility was challenged, what could he point to? They knew him. They knew how he lived. They had seen how he lived. They could see his life was sincere because it was open. He wasn't hiding things. He wasn't all about like, oh I have privacy, stay out of my life. No. My friends, we should be able to say the same thing that Paul says. We shouldn't be living lives characterized by the hidden things of shame. As people know us and examine our lives, what they should find in us is great consistency. That we're the same people on Sunday we are the rest of the week. That we're the same people in public that we are in private. Nothing will discredit us like hypocrisy. And nothing will commend us more in the sight of God and men like consistent integrity and open, honest lives. So to wrap this up. Today, friend, if you have never turned to Christ, if you have never repentantly cast yourself on the mercy of Jesus, on the basis of his deity death and resurrection, you need to know you are under God's judgment, you are on a collision course with the wrath of God, and you need to turn and believe the gospel today, that you might receive mercy and forgiveness and transformation. But today, friends, if you are believers, then let us learn to distinguish between true and false ministry. Let us learn the characteristics of each. Let us immerse ourselves in the scripture so that our discernment will be sharpened. Let us hold fast toward his true and reject everything that is false. And as we approach the Lord's table, let us remember all that the Lord Jesus has done for us by his death and let us recommit ourselves to the new covenant ministry he has entrusted to each of us. And let us be effective servants and evangelists who boldly set the gospel before others and let us repent where there is hypocrisy and duplicity in our lives. Let us confess our sins to God and receive his mercy and strive to live the open, transparent, sincere lives that befit the redeemed ministers of the new covenant that we are.