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Introduction
I admit at the outset of this message that the title of this message, On Grind for Glory, doesn’t necessarily sound very inspiring.
The idea of being on grind indicates difficulty.
But it can indicate more than that.
I can indicate movement.
You see, I definitely desire to talk with you about the challenge of ministry life as you graduate and transition into whatever ministry call the Lord has for you.
But I am not talking with you about grinding to a halt.
I’m talking about grinding to glory.
The apostle Paul has an answer in our text.
His answer, however, isn’t one that will fix the problem of evil people.
In fact, he realizes something.
He realizes that he doesn’t have the power to change people from evil to good.
He says to the Corinthians in v. 4 of our text that there are some unbelieving folk whose minds have been blinded by the god of this age.
This blinding prevents them from seeing the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus.
What does he do?
His focus, as a Christian, and his focus for the Corinthians is to stay on grind for the glory of Jesus.
It’s not that he’s unconcerned about evil people.
It’s that he knows the only one who can deal a blow to evil, and it’s Jesus.
This whole chapter, in fact, is bracketed by Paul’s declaration that he’s going to stay on his grind.
Here’s what I mean.
In v. 1 he says, “For this reason…we don’t lose heart.”
Then he repeats himself with the same words down in v. 16. “Therefore, we don’t lose heart.”
What he’s saying, in these two statements that help us understand what he says in the middle is, “We don’t lose our motivation.
We don’t lose our enthusiasm.”
In other words, to put it positively, “we stay on our grind.”
No matter how bleak and bad it is, we stay on our grind.
Why Paul?
Because, these things are light and momentary afflictions, and what they are doing is preparing an eternal weight of glory for us that is far beyond any comparison.
We stay on grind for glory.
He explains what this grind for glory looks like.
I want to encourage you toward three things from this passage as you prepare for where the Lord taking you from this point forward in ministry: Grind by Grace (vv.
1-2), Grind Against the Darkness (vv.
3-4), Grind in Hope (vv.
5-6).
This whole chapter, in fact, is bracketed by Paul’s declaration that he’s going to stay on his grind.
Here’s what I mean.
In v. 1 he says, “For this reason…we don’t lose heart.”
Then he repeats himself with the same words down in v. 16. “Therefore, we don’t lose heart.”
What he’s saying, in these two statements that help us understand what he says in the middle is, “We don’t lose our motivation.
We don’t lose our enthusiasm.”
In other words, to put it positively, “we stay on our grind.”
No matter how bleak and bad it is, we stay on our grind.
Why Paul?
Because, these things are light and momentary afflictions, and what they are doing is preparing an eternal weight of glory for us that is far beyond any comparison.
We stay on grind for glory.
He explains what this grind for glory looks like.
I want to encourage you toward three things from this passage as you prepare for where the Lord taking you from this point forward in ministry: Grind by Grace (vv.
1-2), Grind Against the Darkness (vv.
3-4), Grind in Hope (vv.
5-6).
Grinding by Grace
Paul says in v. 1, “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, we stay on our grind.”
When you see a “therefore” in the Bible you want to ask, “what’s it there for?”
You’re being clued into the fact that a statement of result is about to be made.
Something is true or something is happening because of something else.
Usually, that means we have to look backwards in the text to find out what he’s talking about.
But in this case, the answer is right here in this verse.
Therefore, Paul is saying, we don’t lose heart, we stay on our grind because we have something.
It’s because we possess this ministry as recipients of mercy.
That makes us ask a question.
The question is, “What is this ministry you have Paul?”
Now we look back in the text to find out what this ministry is.
[Let me say this before we do that.
Ministry is a word we use a lot in the church and in Christian circles, but don’t talk about what it is.
Simply put, the word means service.
The Greek word is diakonia, and the English word “deacon” is derived from it.
So, deacons are appointed to serve the physical needs of the church.
Ministry is spiritual work of service.
It’s spiritual because it’s done with the Lord in view and for his fame and glory, not our own.]
What, then, is this ministry Paul says that he has?
He describes it in three ways in ch. 3.
In this letter to the Corinthians, one of the things he’s dealing with are opponents who’ve come into the church and tried to invalidate Paul’s message.
So he says, at the beginning of ch. 3, “Are we beginning to commend ourselves to you again?
Do we need letters of recommendation to you, or from you?” Then he says in vv.
4-6, “The confidence we have through Christ toward God is that even though we’re not sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, our sufficiency is from God.
He has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant.”
The ministry he possesses is new covenant ministry.
He’s not a minister of the old covenant, that he says is written on tablets of stone.
He’s not a minister of the law because a change has come.
Christ has come, and he has brought about the reality of a new covenant that gets written on people’s hearts (on the inside) not on tablets of stone.
He says in 3:7 that the old covenant was a ministry of death.
It condemned people.
Even so, it came with incredible glory because it came from God.
The new covenant ministry, he says in v. 8, is the ministry of the Spirit.
That is, the Holy Spirit is poured out in this ministry.
Therefore, it has even more glory than the old covenant.
Not only that, the ministry he has is the new covenant ministry, which is the ministry of the Spirit, so it’s also the ministry of righteousness.
Look at 3:9, “For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.”
This new covenant ministry is the ministry of the Spirit, who works to make people righteous in God’s sight.
This is the ministry he’s talking about in v. 1 of ch. 4.
This is the ministry he possesses.
The thing that enables him to keep going, the thing that enables him to stay on his grind, is that he’s clear on the fact that he possesses this ministry by grace.
The ministry has come to him by the grace of God, not because he was somehow deserving or sufficient for it.
He says in v. 1, “we have this ministry as recipients of mercy.”
We’re not deserving recipients.
We don’t make the ministry happen, the Spirit does.
We don’t make people righteous, the Spirit does.
That’s why we stay on our grind.
That’s why we don’t lose our motivation.
What we do, instead of losing our motivation, is (in v. 2) we renounce disgraceful and underhanded ways.
What he’s saying there is, we don’t have ulterior motives.
We don’t have some hidden and shameful agenda when we engage people with this ministry.
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