An Honest Ministry

Intro

Welcome to MMBC - Michael Memorial Baldheaded Church

Last week Pastor Matt explained that our focus should not be on the here and now but on the eternal. Of course we live in the here and now and we can’t escape the present time. However, everything we do in the present is for the future. We long to be with God but we have to live in the tension of now/not yet. At the end of the day 2 Corinthians 5:6-9 gives the appropriate attitude to this tension.

2 Corinthians 5:6-9 “6 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.”

We have good courage to press on and aim to please the Lord.

The idea of aiming is a funny concept. You can aim as best as possible and still miss the mark. Some of you deer hunters know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m sure there are a few of you that haven’t hit what your aiming at and have maybe even adjusted your sights because it’s absurd to think you may have misaimed. Golfers have the same problem. I often joke that my golf balls have this terrible problem of never going where I aim but always go where I hit it! The beauty of aiming is whether you hit the target or not doesn’t change the reality of your aiming. Hunting and golfing both rely on where your aiming ends up. Following Jesus is simply where you are aimed. In a perfect world where you’re aimed is where you’ll end up but let’s be honest, how often to we miss the mark? Praise God that he doesn’t judge based on the landing but judges the aiming.

No one will escape the judgement of this life.

2 Corinthians 5:10 “10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”

Back to our illustration...Part of aiming is shooting and if you never swing the golf club then you aren’t playing. If you don’t take bullets with you, you aren’t hunting. We don’t have the option to be neutral in life because just as Tracy Lawrence says, “Time marches on. The only thing that stays the same is everything changes.”

Every person will live a life. Some shorter, some longer. Some better, some worse. Each and every one of us make decisions all day every day. Even now as we are here we make decisions to listen, daydream, or maybe even sleep. Not one person will live a completely stagnant life.

Verse 10 is clear that no one is an exception to this impending judgment.

The natural and logical response to this reality is to do what is necessary to be found innocent. It doesn’t take much study of the Bible to find out that the Lord’s judgment is no joke. He’s flooded the entire Earth and destroyed nations because of their guilt.

There’s good news and bad news.........

The good news is God is a righteous Judge.

We can trust God as Judge because he is perfect and the standard for justice. God does not meet a criteria of justice but justice meets the criteria of God’s character.

Deuteronomy 32:4 “4 “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.”

Matthew 5:48 “48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Romans 2:2 “2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.”

God makes no mistakes and doesn’t have to send any decisions out to a jury. He reads no laws other than his own which are only a representation of his heart. He is perfectly gracious and wrathful. The perfect balance of knowing when and how to come to the perfect verdict.

The bad news is there is nothing good in us.

Our hearts are bent toward practicing evil. Sin completely takes over our entire being and leaves nothing untouched.

Isaiah 59:7-8 “7 Their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their highways. 8 The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace.”

Jeremiah 17:9 “9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Until we are out of this sin-stained flesh we will be in the midst of a battle.

Romans 7:15-20 “15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”

Left to ourselves with the hand of God’s grace lifted we are much more evil than we could ever imagine.

Romans 1:28-32 “28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”

If these realities are true: No one escapes judgment, God is a righteous Judge, and nothing good is in us; then we have a serious problem.

Notice that all of these evil acts and egregious sins are a result of who we are. Sin is a problem of the heart that is simply shown by outward actions.

God is concerned with who we are.

2 Corinthians 5:11–12 “11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart.”

Bridge “Therefore”

Verbal velcro. Because that is true, this is true.

Because all will face the judgment seat of Christ is true, then we must persuade others.

Our reaction to the judgment of Christ is completely dependent upon our fear of the Lord.

Paul knew that all would be judged therefore, he felt the responsibility to tell the world. One commentator writes, “This is the ‘bottom line’ of Paul’s ministry.”

How we share our faith will tell what we believe about God’s mercy and God’s judgement.

Jonah is a perfect example of inadequate fear of the Lord. The word of the Lord came to Jonah telling him to go to Nineveh and preach repentance. Jonah not only didn’t go, he ran away! He paid his fare, got on a boat to Tarshish, and pretended that the Lord had not commanded him to go. We know the story, he gets thrown overboard, and ended up in the belly of a fish where he claimed to be in Sheol, the depths of hopelessness. Eventually he decided to obey the word of the Lord, preached repentance in Nineveh, and the people repented! We would expect Jonah to be thrilled but not even close. He pouted and got mad at God. Jonah’s “why” was completely wrong. He wasn’t motivated by a love for people or a fear of the Lord but was only concerned with himself..

Jude suggests that having mercy on those who doubt might snatch some from the fire. We have to ask the difficult question, “Do I fear the Lord in such a way that I will do what it takes to tell the world about his judgment?”

Just like giving a gift, it’s the thought that counts. It’s not what we’re doing but why we’re doing it. Paul tells us why he is burdened with persuading others.

What we do will match who we are.

Paul understood that he wasn’t just doing these things for any reason other than it is his very being. His existence is totally founded in his redeemed heart. Paul was confident in his ministry in the face of doubters because his reasons were known to God and hopefully to the church’s conscience.

Paul is still explaining the pure motives in his heart. Remember earlier in chapter 3.

2 Corinthians 3:1-6 “1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. 3 And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

Once again, conscience comes up. In chapter 4 Paul explains that he is open to being tested to the very core of every one’s understanding of right and wrong.

2 Corinthians 4:1-2 “1 Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.”

Paul is purely motivated by the fear of the Lord.

God always sees our hearts and is not fooled by behavior.

Paul’s chief concern is the hearts of the people. He has said repeatedly in this letter that he is not speaking to behaviors but to hearts.

The nation of Israel chose Saul based on his outward appearance and we see how that turned out. When God took over the election process of Israel the outward appearance became the bottom of the priority list. God looked at David’s heart and Israel got a great king.

1 Samuel 16:7 “7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Jesus mentions pure in heart in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount can best be understood as the Kingdom of God Economy. He says in Matthew 5:8 “8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

D. A. Carson writes, “Purity of heart must never be confused with outward conformity to rules. Because it is the heart which must be pure, this beatitude interrogates us with awkward questions like these: What do you think about when your mind slips into neutral? How much sympathy do you have for deception, no matter how skillful? For shady humor, no matter how funny? To what do you pay consistent allegiance? What do you want more than anything else? What and whom do you love? To what extent are your actions and words accurate reflections of what is in your heart? To what extent do your actions and words constitute a cover-up for what is in your heart? Our hearts must be pure, clean, unstained.” - D. A. Carson, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount

Citizens of the Kingdom of God have pure hearts behind our behavior. Our lives may look very similar in some ways to those outside the Kingdom but God knows our hearts. Who are we while doing the works that God has commanded? Ultimately this comes down to identity.

Our only identity is Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:13-15 “13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

To live at all is to live for Christ. We are saved from slaves of sin to servants of King Jesus. The love of Christ is our foundation for life and all that we do is from that basis. Paul writes to a young Timothy, early in his ministry...

1 Timothy 6:13-16 “13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”

Christ died for all people that will face his judgment and offers life to anyone that would accept his death and resurrection as their own.

Romans 6:23 says, “23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

John 3:16-17 says, “16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Titus 3:3-8 “3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.”

So what does all of this mean for us?

We must be found in Christ and be born again.

The only innocence found before the judgment seat of Jesus is the Judge Himself. We’re offered his innocence through his death and resurrection on our behalf.

We must give him our entire life, yes even our heart.

Pure hearts result in pure motives which results in pure ministry. Paul was confident in his ministry because he was confident in the One who made him pure.

We must persevere.

Serving the Lord is a marathon not a sprint. Jesus is worth it. When we feel like slowing our pace or even stopping we have to remember that Jesus will give us the strength to press on. We aren’t just acquaintances of Jesus but his family. Remember, he thinks you’re to die for.

The aim of our lives is to purely serve King Jesus.

In our service to the King, do we have an undying devotion and loyalty to act and behave according to the love of Christ who has saved us into eternal life?