Follow Suit: Patience

Introduction: II Corinthians 6:2b-10

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 3 We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way:

by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;

6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love;

7 by truthful speech, and the power of God;

with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;

8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise.

We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;

9 as unknown, and yet well known;

as dying, and behold, we live;

as punished, and yet not killed;

10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;

as poor, yet making many rich;

as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

Follow Suit: As Representatives

Christ working with us

No Fault Ministry

What’s going on in this passage?

II Corinthians 5

Ministry of Reconciliation

Christ reconciled us to himself but also, through us, reconciling the WORLD! to himself.

Christ has made us new creations: The Old has passed away, the new has come!

So in order to live out this ministry, Paul calls us Ambassadors for Christ, “GOD MAKING HIS APPEAL THROUGH US!”

Ministry= Deacon from: Diaconia—we’re all called!

Paul continues to use this word Diaconia in chapter 6:

The passage I just read falls under the heels of Paul imploring the Corinthian church to live as deacons!

verse 3-4: “We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way”

Ministry=diaconia

Servants= diaconio

Paul then describes in three main sections how he himself has been working in a no-fault ministry. He pleading his case by showing his example.

Not bragging—his not saying ‘look at how awesome I am’, but to model his lead like a Father figure guiding his children

Being a deacon= person of integrity. Paul’s just not sharing random information, he’s showing how Christians must be people of character, NO MATTER WHAT GETS HURDLED THEIR WAY!

‘IN’ Section

‘THROUGH’ Section

‘AS’ Section

The ‘In’ Section (4b-7)

by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7 by truthful speech, and the power of God;

Why “IN” Section?

IN great endurance, in afflictions, IN hardships, IN calamities, 5 IN beatings, IN imprisonments, IN riots, IN labors, IN sleepless nights, IN hunger;

“In” Think of a Box of Pictures

TWO “In” PARTS

4b-5: Experiences of Hardships

2020 T-shirt: “one star, “Do not recommend.”

Paul’s ministry: Do not recommend

With “IN” each of these experiences, we are called to have a NO-FAULT Ministry

To be released can be dangerous business.

But through these hardships, Paul maintained his Christian Character:

Ministry of Reconciliation was INSIDE his BONES!

6-7a: Experiences of Grace

6 IN purity, IN knowledge, IN patience, IN kindness, IN the Holy Spirit, IN genuine love; 7 IN truthful speech, IN the power of God;

withIN the hardships was also God’s presence, his love, his power.

Deacons are those who trust that withIN the hardships so also is God’s amazing grace!

“Take the good you take the bad you put them together and there you have the Facts of Life.”

Two FACTS of Life:

Death and Taxes

Christian:

the bad will come

BUT God’s grace will OVERCOME!

Hardships don’t define you, God’s GRACE within the hardship do.

What’s your hardship?

Depression?

Chronic illness?

Grief?

Paul isn’t bragging, he’s encouraging them to remember:

WITHIN THE HARDSHIPS THAT WILL COME, GOD’S GRACE WILL OVERCOME

The ‘Through’ Section: 7b-8

with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise.

‘Through’ think of Prism

Through God’s grace, we have weapons of righteousness

With Weapons of Righteousness

Trust that God prepares us for hardship with righteousness!

We don’t go through the tough times with neutral character. We go through hardships with the power to wield righteousness.

We take these weapons with us as we go through...

Why should we take the weapons of righteousness into these things?

When we are dishonored and slandered, it’s very easy to want to fight back with other weapons!

Fight back with words.

Fight back with violence

Fight back with backstabbing

We can do this virtually as well.

But we need our weapons of righteousness when we are honored and praised as well!

Praise can puff up

“I’m all that and a box of chocolates”

We need to fight this battle as well!

Whether we are Maltreated vs. Mesmerized, God has given us the tools of righteousness

The ‘As’ Section: vv.8b-10

We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

The ‘As’ section: Think sea-saw: Paul just goes back and forth with issues he’s had to deal with:

Imposter vs. True

Unknown vs. well-known

Dying vs. Living

Punished vs. not killed

Sorrowful vs. Always Rejoicing

Poor vs. Rich

Nothing vs. Possessing everything

This is all about being misunderstood:

It’s about how the world viewed Paul’s situation vs. how Paul viewed his situation

Paul was accused of being an imposter, unknown nomad.

When people left him for dead or imprisoned, when people viewed him as a poor beggar with nothing of substance to say, Paul viewed his calling differently.

All along, Paul was secure in Christ! He wasn’t going to allow the world to define his calling, or to define his situation. All the while, Paul was confident in Christ while his accusers accusers accused.

It didn’t matter what others thought of him. Didn’t matter how others perceived his experiences. He didn’t allow the world define him because he was Jesus’ Ambassador. Called to model the King!

Follow Suit:

Paul is simply mimicking the King.

What do ambassadors do? They represent the authority of their country of origin and they model the values of their country of origin.

This passage is all about how Paul mimicked the King and did so with integrity.

And so for your life, you are not called to model Paul.

You are called to model Christ so that your sense of calling as a Christian is brought into and through each life-situation...

This is hard, by the way.

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

For the Christian this looks like the Holy Spirit giving us the Spiritual fortitude to maintain our Christian character when:

a) We want to fight back

b) when we want to justify our perspective

c) When you feel justified to accuse God of unfairness.

d) When jealousy pops up

e) When people call you weird for your beliefs in Jesus.

When we do consider Christ, we see a man who faced hardships and lies, and yet he faced it with 100% integrity!

He faced every possible form of suffering imaginable, yet maintained his character.

And so let me conclude with an analogy that will serve to challenge us to think about having integrity when the tough times happen:

My mom’s house burnt to the ground when she was 13. They discovered the house was on fire while the family joined their community at the annual Canada Day Fireworks display. They heard someone in the crowd desperately looking for Jon Benjamins, and the Benjamins family eventually drove back their home which was engolfed in flames.

When grandpa arrived, he considered the risk of going in the house to try to rescue something. The fire marshal told him not to go, but he ran towards his house anyway and jumped through a window. Books could be seen being thrown from the house and grandpa escaped in time with all a huge lot of books in his hands.

Those books were photo albums.

When his place of comfort was up in flames, he boldly went into the fire to save what was irreplacable:

One can’t replace those pictures we love!

Again, I want this story to serve as an analogy:

When the times are tough, when you feel like everything around you is burning to the ground, What will you do? What will you run to? What do you seek to save?

Your money? Your nest egg? Your retirement package?

Your reputation? Your ego? Your pride?

I bring this all up because the reason why Jesus went through the cross is because he was on a mission to save the irreplaceable. YOU are irreplaceable.

So are the many out there who need to know the Lord.

The whole reason why Paul is writing what he’s writing is to encourage the hearts of the Corinthians, to pursue them and to show the Jesus’ love.

As Christ’s ambassadors, we are called to follow suit:

- To go through the hardship with God’s grace

- To go through honor and dishonor God’s tools

- To absorb being misunderstood

But all for the mission of joining Jesus: To seek and save the lost.

That’s the purpose of being a missionary folks.

I KNOW WE DON’T SAVE THE LOST....

But God has a ministry for us… and he uses us as his mouth piece… and he calls us his deacons.

Go, be like, mission, and seek the irreplaceable!