2 Corinthians 4:1-2

2 Corinthians 4:1-2

I recently read that the first decade of the 21st century is going to be remembered as the decade from hell. That’s true in many ways: there was the 9/11 attacks, two recessions (at least in the US)- one of which has been described as the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression. We’ve seen two wars in the Middle East, the rapid decline of the West and the rise of China (whether for good or for bad), the Tsunami in Asia and hurricane Katrina as well as the outbreak of epidemics like SARS, Evian flu and now H1N1.

But to be honest, my reading of the Bible tells me that those are just birth pangs and that we have yet to see the full extent of the outbreak of hell on earth. In my opinion, I think a better way to describe the first century would be the decade of self-entitlement. You see it everywhere, in magazines that try to sell you a life style that few of us can afford, television, best selling books like the Secret that claims to teach you how to create your own success just by thinking it. If the 0’s were the decade from hell then it is because they were the decade of self worship.

And the church has been a willing partner in influencing this situation. With the popularity of the prosperity gospel and books like the Purpose Driven Life, it’s no wonder that one of the perennial best selling Christian books of the decade has been “Your Best Life Now” by Joel Olstein. Now, I don’t want to get into slander and gossip by saying things about Joel that I have not confirmed. It’s wrong to hear quotes without their context and make all sorts of false assumptions about them.

But when it comes to Olstein’s book, the Cover alone is enough to turn me off. It has a picture of his smiling, Botoxed, tanned face that is about 2/3’s bleached teeth. And I know that when he describes the Christian life as your best life now he does not have in mind the life that Paul described as the life of the ministry of the Spirit. It’s catering to our culture of have it all now entitlement.

It’s hard not to want to like Olstein though, he’s a charismatic man with and interesting life. He preached his first sermon at 35. His Father was a pastor, but when he suffered from a severe heart attack Joel filled in; it was the first and the last time his father ever heard him preach. The following Sunday, Olstein’s father was dead and He was at the helm of a church that he did not necessarily intend to pastor. Today he fills the Rockets Compaq Centre in Huston with 40 000 people every Sunday. Even Bill Clinton visits his church. Barbara Walters calls Olstein “One of the ten most fascinating people of 2006.” As a pastor it’s hard not to compare your own ministry to that kind of success and not feel a little jealous.

I read some of the main points of his philosophy in Success magazine and there was a lot that I liked. For instance, Olstein sounds a bit like a modern day Paul when he says,
It’s not about what you have, it’s not about finances, how much money you have. It’s really about your joy, your peace, all that you have on the inside. You can go through tough times, but you can still have a smile on your face. You can still believe your future is bright.

Some other ‘strategies for success’ that deserve a hearty amen from Olstein include: “Be kind to people, even when they aren’t kind to you”; “Wake up in gratitude”; and “Encourage others”. But the problem I find with Olstein is that his advice is so man centred and peppered with a sense of entitlement.

He mixes those simple truths (that most of us learned in Kindergarten) with his gospel of entitlement saying things like: “Trust things will change in your favour” (tell that to Stephen just before they stoned him); or, “Believe in Yourself” (no mention of the God who made him); or “Change your self-image” and “Remember you Value.”

What’s the difference between that and the Dali Lama’s teachings? And to add insult to injury I came across an article this week that blamed the financial crisis on pastors because of their preaching the gospel of entitlement.

This ministry
2nd Corinthians presents something a little different to the gospel of entitlement. Here in chapter 4, Paul is continuing a thought that he began in verse 2:6 regarding what he calls the ministry of the New Covenant (too bad for us he did not call it the ministry of success). The ministry of the new covenant is a ministry of life and a ministry of Pentecost power in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. It is a new covenant because it replaces the old one, which Paul calls the ministry of death (as he explains in Romans and Galatians); the Law can only condemn us because it is powerless to save us. And that is not because there is a problem with the Law- the problem is with the sinful nature of man because, when the commandment comes, sin “taking occasion by the commandment, deceive[s us], and by it kill[s us].” (Rom 7.11).

But here’s the great news: Christians have died to the Law and been made alive to the Spirit. The Spirit has transferred upon us Christ’s fulfillment of the Law. Jesus fulfilled the Law perfectly but died as a lawbreaker so that we who break the Law live eternally as law-fulfillers. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Paul offers a couple of important applications to this ministry of the New Covenant. The first one is given in 3:12: “Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech.” In other words, knowing what we have been saved from and that our salvation is by grace, our gratitude necessarily results in the bold proclamation of the gospel (not “how to get your best life now” but “how to your best life forever”).

And Paul offers a second application in 4:1: “Therefore, since we have this ministry [that is the ministry of the life producing Spirit of the New Covenant which we proclaim boldly], as we have received mercy… we do not lose heart.”

Losing Heart
Do you ever feel like losing heart? You’re not alone. Paul struggled with it- there were times when he even despaired unto death. The Christian life is the greatest physical, spiritual and emotional test of endurance known to man. If despair in the Christian life were not possible for believers, Paul wouldn’t have spent so much time on it and gone to so much trouble to encourage us.

But his was not an encouraging message of self-entitlement; if anything, it was an encouraging message of self-denial and endurance of hardship. Consider all of times Jesus, Paul… the New Testament encourages us not to lose hope in the face of hard times and adversity. Remember that repetition is for emphasis!

In verse 8, Paul gives some details on some of the things that war against our endurance and put our hope to the test:
8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 10always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

Remember- the theme of 2 Corinthians is comfort in the midst of suffering. God is “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation.” (1.3).

Paul gives us a summary of his lists of sufferings here but he’ll expand on the list in chapter 11 only to drive us the glorious revelation that he received from God in response to his thorn in the flesh in Chapter 12: that his hardship was given to him (not to give him his best life now) but in order to make Paul weak… so that the power of God in him will be made complete.

Times of hardship and affliction are not times of being apart from the blessings of God, they are times when we experience His blessings the most!
And all of this is to encourage us so that when we experience affliction and persecution and opposition in the Christian life we won’t lose heart. In fact, the Christian life (though being full of great and many joys and blessings) is a life of even greater hardships and affliction in order that it can be a life full of the comfort and the power of God – truly that is your best life now.
Paul says is again in verse 16:
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.

In all outward appearances- our wealth, our possessions our physical bodies- are perishing; we Christians only appear to age and eventually die. What is unseen though is the reality that we are inwardly growing younger –our best life now is yet to come! It’s our best life then! Our best life forever!

So we don’t lose hope. Paul does not just mean that we do not become depressed and hopeless; he means that since we have this ministry of life and power in order to preach the gospel we do not become slack or behave badly. The message interprets it this way:
Since God has so generously let us in on what he is doing, we’re not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into occasional hard times.

It’s the same thing that Paul said to the Thessalonians who were suffering persecution, “But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary [don’t get slack] in doing good” (2 Thess 3:13). Why? Because we have received mercy!

I think a lot of us have grown slack in the bold proclamation of the gospel because we have lost heart! Or worse, we grow slack and it causes us to adulterate the gospel, which was what was happening in Corinth.
We Have Received Mercy:
We have the ministry of the Spirit which gives us hope that endures the worst afflictions because of God’s mercy. Indeed, it is the very afflictions themselves that are the mercy of God and not just the thing for which we hope.

Were you born deaf, lame or blind? Can I be so bold as to say, In this life it is affliction, but in the life to come it is a reward and a treasure stored where thief cannot steal nor can moth destroy?! Now you suffer without losing heart so that then you will thank God for the blindness because it allowed God to be strong in your weakness!

That’s why Paul can so says, “If I boast, I would rather boast in my infirmity.” Contrast that to those boast in their luxury and earthly comforts promised by “Your Best Life Now”. In fact, contrary to the preaching of the prosperity gospel, which I think is just a more unashamed variation of the gospel of entitlement that permeates Evangelicalism- nor is the true mark of conversion is not just suffering affliction (that’s another distortion of the gospel); I believe that the true mark of conversion and salvation is endurance and the swelling up of hope despite affliction. So that whether in Chemotherapy, or in grief, or even on our death beds- we can praise God and delight ourselves in his infinite mercies.

And when things go well for us, we do not take credit for it, or assume that it is because of our godliness and spirituality or our ability to fulfill all the spiritual rules and think the right thoughts or claim the right promises that keeps us free from affliction. Indeed, when things go too well for us, we look at our brethren who suffer with some degree of envy for the powerful work grace that is being done in their life for which we are missing out. We envy the persecuted Church in the Sudan and Gaza and China because this world has nothing for them and they refuse to be deceived by the promises of your best life now because they know that the best is yet to come.

The Adulterated Gospel
So let me conclude this with Paul’s warning in verse 2. I have seen too many people who professed faith in Jesus Christ. They came on strong and had all the right rules and did all the right things… so long as it served their worldly comfort. But they were like the houses built on sinking sand. When the wind and the rains came they were washed away. They were like the seed that received the word for the joy thereof, but when the cares and concerns of this life and the persecutions of the world came, they quickly withered.

I believe that the churches of North America are swelling with those kids of false converts. Even though the churches in the West appear to have all the outward trappings of success, I think of Churches like the ones in Sudan, or Gaza or China or India where there is no social advantage to being a Christian where the church is truly rich and truly endued with power.

I do believe that the church in North America is full of well-meaning but unconverted adherents. These are people who are in bondage to the Law of the letter and they are still trying to earn their way to their best life now and clinging to an eternal insurance policy. The gospel is a get-out-of-hell-free pass to them. But for the most part you can’t blame them. Its all they’ve ever been taught because the pulpits of full of preachers who are like the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day preaching peace and prosperity when all around them is doom and destruction.

You can fill the pews in this day and age by preaching what tickling ears want to hear. It might even get you on Barbara Walters and Larry King. But when you stand before God, do you think their endorsement will mean anything? We have a responsibility and a Holy obligation not to tamper with God’s message in order to make it more acceptable to a generation whose whole thinking shaped by entitlement. Instead our preaching should lead people out of entitlement not conform to it because entitlement damns souls. It’s the reason Eve took from the tree; it’s the reason Israel wanted to return to Egypt; it’s the reason David sinned with Bathsheba; it’s the reason Judas betrayed Christ; it’s the reason the church in the West is powerless and in decline. The only hope is an unadulterated gospel.