A Letter From Christ
Notes
Transcript
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or 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. 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.
Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 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.
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 2:14-3:6
Sermon Title: A Letter from Christ
Brothers and sisters in Christ, when was the last time you received a personal letter that you got really excited about? When I think about personal letter, the first thing that comes to mind is a few families that write a page or two and attach it with the family Christmas card they send out each year. Maybe some of you have pen pals that you have had or currently write to, during the summer some of you might write to friends that are away at a camp or with a school program, or maybe what comes to mind is someone in the military or gone for a lengthy period of time that writes home with updates. Whatever letter comes to mind for you, the format likely falls in line with this: the writer greets, you, the recipient, informs you of what’s going on in their life or their purpose for contact, maybe there’s an encouraging word, and it’s closed with the seal of the writer’s name that says I wrote this. While I think it’s safe to say that the writing of personal letters is becoming a thing of the past for most people, there’s an expectation I believe that there will be a response from the recipient and that future letters will be sent, a relationship is developed or continued in writing personal letters. As access to computers has increased as well as cell phones with reasonable rates, frequency of communication between dedicated parties has increased but the message length has drastically decreased, and the principles of responding are different for everyone. I don’t know how many of you have sat down and spent time writing a letter recently, but I want to propose this morning that we have been the substance of a recent personal letter.
Before we get to the present, let’s look back at the situation Paul is in when he writing to the Corinthians, and what he’s communicating. First of all, it’s important to keep in mind that Paul is not the only missionary or teacher traveling around bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem and then the broader region of Judea and Samaria, before going out and spreading it to all who had ears to hear. We also need to recognize that just as today there is variety in pastors, the messages they bring, and their motives for ministering, back then the same existed. At the end of chapter 2, Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are not peddling the word of God for profit. Paul and those whom he had gone to Corinth with to bring the gospel were not preaching as part of a “get rich quick” business philosophy nor were their services on any sort of dollar per hour or dollar per appearance pay scale. They had come and gone and ministered to wherever they believed God had called them and the gospel was to be heard by all whether they were accepted or turned away in their preaching. He highlights a second group of questionable pastors at the start of chapter 3, those with letters of recommendation. In effort to avoid bringing false teachers into the early church, some missionaries were carrying and some churches were requiring letters of recommendation. The churches wanted proof of who was coming, but Paul says, “I don’t need those. I have you, you who are on display for everyone to know and see.” Paul’s verification comes not on his own merit or that of any other famous preacher, but rather the proof is in the result of the ministry, the faith and practice of the Corinthian church. The confidence shouldn’t be placed in Paul’s preaching or evangelistic abilities though; the author of the letter in the form of Corinthian believers is Christ. It’s not a message that can be solely written down on parchment, which could fade or get torn, but the message translates through the work of the Spirit. It’s a message that goes out not on tablets, which can be broken, tablets representing the law, which some were taking and requiring for the preaching of salvation, but on human hearts, going all the way to changing out they understand life.
What it must have been like to hear this read in the congregation! “You show that you are a letter from Christ.” Paul can write letters of encouragement, of rebuke and discipline, of praise and instruction, but the force behind that statement is filled with Christ and the Holy Spirit. The confidence and the competence, if we go further, of course is not in what these brothers and sisters are doing or claiming, but coming from God. It’s the work of him alone that allows the aroma and the fragrance of accepting faith and living out true belief that produces this scent of life!
Reading these words made me wonder, “What does our letter look like?” Specifically, if we could look back on this week as The Epistle of Kidz Connect 2013, what would be seen, known, and read about us? I think it would tell of the organizers, their months of planning and meeting designate a theme and create support materials. It would show the weeks leading up to when many were involved in gathering supplies, setting up signs, hay bales, sets, fencing and tents around church. It would tell of the volunteers being organized, and so many praying for a great week, for connecting relationships, and for participants to come to faith. And now looking back, it was a whirlwind of activity; it’s hard to believe it’s all done. So many of you were connected by coming to help with registration and administrative tasks, performing science experiments, leading songs, helping with coffee, snacks, water, and cleaning in the kitchen, those who led groups and facilitated activities; if you weren’t here during a day, maybe you stopped by on Friday night or supported the ministry with prayer throughout the week.
Our letter contains what I’m guessing to be over 160 or 170 kids that came through the doors during the week, seeing who could be the loudest and enjoying the daily activities. For some the week was about growing in faith, others being introduced to Jesus for the first time through science, music, and a drama performed over 5 days. Everything highlighting God’s power and the good news of Jesus giving himself up for all of us to join him in and to share. I imagine our letter filled with joy and laughter, but also with a couple warnings against impatience and a few tantrums. It contains the stories that some shared, “Is he [the science professor doing experiments that blew even my mind] God?” “God is in heaven so he must be dead.” A little girl looking up into the sky through a homemade set of binoculars and saying, “I can see Jesus.” A child asking that his age group pray together that Jesus could be with him at the end of the day. Our letter might include all of the laughs, the awws, the pauses that these stories brought about, but it would translate to the way that we were drawn to God to consider how we would respond and maybe it would point to the fruit that was bore this week and in the years to come.
Our letter I think would close with greetings, naming more individuals than any of us could probably think of. Greetings of thanks for the many people it took to pull this together; recommendations not of glory for us, not saying, “Hey look at me and what I did!” but the Spirit recognizing those who used their gifts faithfully. This letter is composed with the people, the hours, the tasks, the stories, but most importantly we recognize Christ, the writer, the one who pulls the thread connecting all of the work together, supporting it and protecting it. Paul writes of the Corinthians, “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but the Spirit of the living God.” We look at ourselves, at what we hope to be the gospel truth preached week to week, the classes and groups that are nurtured by leaders and Scripture, the family conversations, school lessons, and work practices are what feed into the passion that you all have to make this happen. If we were to try and tie the strings up on this week, to label the purpose and meaning of it all, our letter only gets written by Christ and the work of the living God. If you haven’t heard it enough, “Power, power, nothing but the power of God,” that allows things like this happen, that brings us into a glimpse of kingdom work and celebration, to follow God’s lead and be used to spread the knowledge of him everywhere.
We have begun to touch on it, but now we put it before us, who is receiving this letter? Paul talks about the fragrance spreading everywhere, to some it being life and others smelling like death, and again he says it’s known and read by everybody. Our letter goes out like a script for the week to boys and girls that sat in the pews and ran around on the lawn. It goes out to their parents and relatives who dropped them off and picked them up. To their homes, where they retold the stories and played the songs. Our letter gets read and heard by those passing by our church wondering what is happening, extended family wondering where their nephews and nieces, grandsons and daughters learned all these things, and it’s heard by those that hear the kid’s music floating out of a window in Hamilton. God doesn’t allow such a ministry to stay only on the boundaries of our property or only in the registered families of this church, the gospel message of Jesus coming and sacrificing himself to save all of us from being captured spreads far beyond anywhere that we can actively engage. The letter gets placed in the mail, and the entirety of the mailing list is only known by Christ alone. Whoever has an ear, let them hear the word which the Spirit is delivering.
Kidz Connect is wrapped up, the cleaning continues, the grass will hopefully pop back up in a few weeks, and I believe that as God continues to speak, another letter has been written. It’s appropriate to offer our thanks to those who have put in hard hours, and hopefully some of you will get time to rest now if you haven’t been able to yet, but the challenge for us is that letter writing doesn’t end here! I don’t just mean “until the Epistle of Kidz Connect 2014.” One of the traits that I mentioned of a personal letter was the continuing. As a personal letter gives insight to one experience; an understanding exists that subject matter changes, people grow, and we can experience new things. Today a new week dawns on us, hopefully we can experience Sabbath rest; but as we go forward it’s my prayer that we see new letters pick up from where Kidz Connect has left off. Those songs and actions about the power of God will hopefully begin to shape a new vision for our lives at home, at work, at the pool, at the camp site. If we can bear in mind that the results of Christ’s work are not just for one week out of the summer, I believe that changes our ministry. Hopefully we have a renewed energy to breathe in deeply the fragrance of life, confident in Christ’s leading, and allow him to use us to touch the hearts and lives of others. May we remember that our God leads us and our God sends us; may we set our sights on how he leads us to speak and to live as proof of the salvation and grace from Christ. As one letter ends and another begins may our calling rest in God’s power for, “I can do everything by the power of Christ. He gives me strength.”