Together: Witness

Intro and scripture

2 Corinthians 2:14–3:6 NIV

14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? 17 Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God. 1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. 3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, 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 confidence we have through Christ before God. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Pray.

Writing to Logan:

Once a month I write a letter to TDCJ inmate #2078189 at the LeBlanc unit in Beaumont, Texas. He is serving a 17 year prison sentence of which he will serve at least half by the time it is over. This young man is my brother Logan. These letters are important. They mean more to me than even our weekly phone calls. In the phone calls we share some conversation about daily things and I try to encourage and make him laugh a little. Or share little jokes about our kids.

But the letters are opportunities for me to enter into the jail cell in a way. To speak words of life. It is hard to get a word in with Logan, he is ADD and all over the place. The letter is a format that he can sit with words of truth and love. The words can be an extension of me, but more importantly an extension of faith, grace, and mercy into a dark place.

These letters represent proof of my love for him, proof of something greater than what he can sometimes grasp in those dark days he undoubtedly has to face.

In our text today, Paul shares what it means to be a letter of life.

Background of 2 Corinthians

This is a letter that Paul is writing to the people of Corinth. He is describing the nature of his mission and journey thus far. Talking of his eagerness to come and visit them as well. Upon this mission Paul writes that he and the other fellow missionaries are “God’s aroma that brings life to people.”

In our section he makes the case for the mission they are on. He makes it clear that all of this is not to boast about himself or the human work they are doing but rather the work God is doing through them. There is some weird back and forth that is happening in the letters to the corinthians. 2 Corinthians is probably the 4th letter going between Paul and Corinth. And he begins to the make the case with them that there is real fruit of the gospel happening.

Recommendation letters...

Jewish travelers would take recommendation letters wherever they go written by superiors or leaders to attest to their travel.

Paul says that we are in no need of recommendation letters because you are our recommendation letter about the work that God is doing. In fact you are the very letter that Christ has written to the world.

Now what is he talking about? How can people be recommendation letters. How can people be a written message of proof or authority?

Well to understand that we need to see some OT references that Paul implies and explicitly states in this passage. He is referring to this OT shift in the covenant. First the covenant is made with Moses with the law on Mt. Sinai, and it is a physical contract of a spiritual reality. The people of Israel becoming the people of God.

Two key places for this understanding is Jeremiah 31:31...Ezekiel 11:19-20

Jeremiah 31:31–34 NIV

31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Ezekiel 11:19–20 NIV

19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20 Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.

Through the Spirit, I will put myself in their minds, and write myself in their hearts. The actual contract, the actual proof, the outward sign of authority from God will be the actual people....and not some tablets. Not religious symbols or buildings or steeples, but people will be the indicator of the covenant.

Or as Paul says here, recommendation letters. Paul does not need some noble to write a letter proving that he is a minister of the gospel of Jesus....he says the people are the proof. They are the letters from Christ.

What is a recommendation letter?

Accounts for the credibility of someone or something

Greater than the claims of the individuals

Not just anyone can write one....need to be qualified

Example: Naval academy appointment.

Now you can’t just get that from anyone

It means more than me saying, “No trust me I am good.”

Adds credibility to the person.

So if we are the recommendation letters of Christ then we are that which attests to his presence in the world.

What are the implications of this?

Story Matters

Live Life with others

Smell like Jesus

What are the implications of this?

It means story matters. An awareness of what Christ has done in your life and the willingness to share it.

Living life with others so that we might be the aroma of life to some. Too often we live life on the go.

Example of garages in Porter Texas.

It means we need to smell like Jesus. To be his aroma. This weekend the men from Marvin went on a 24 hour retreat to Lakeview. (By the way, we missed you guys there). And the focus was to become more like Jesus.

There are a couple of things that make all of this work, for us to be recommendation letters from Christ:

Competence and Authority are found in the surrendered life

Recommendations speaks of competence. As Paul is speaking to the Corinthians…it is not us that brings this level of competence and authority. We are not claiming anything for ourselves, but it is Jesus in us that is competent.

This is important as you go back into the world. Too often we trust in our own gumption.

We are going to keep calling you back to this place.

Recently, I was journalling and I was just feeling rough about things in my own walk. Surrender today means something more than it did 10 years ago

2. The community is the letter of Christ in the world

Individually we are called to be that presence

But as the community we should be that very communication to the world that God is at work.

This is the work of being in community with one another and the bridge to the previous series of Jesus Together.

A challenge to our church: This is not a measure of what the church does for the world. This is about what Jesus does in people. That is a tight line. We must be less concerned with church programming and more concerned with who Jesus is setting free.

A challenge to families: You will not look back 20 years from now and think: “I wish we played more soccer/baseball. Trust me.

You will not look back and think, “I wish I worked harder, or spent more time at work.” I think if you spend any time with Jesus, you will not think “I wish we had more leisure and vacation.”

Challenge to individuals: Showing up to the right things. Giving your life to the right things. Positioning yourself in grace.

So my letter to my brother is the only thing that allows me to crawl into that jail cell...here is the thing, there are jail cells all around us. In our families. In our homes. In our neighborhood.

What if we are the very lined paper that holds words of life for those in prison cells. It requires that we allows ourselves to be written and it requires that we allows ourselves to be sent.