The One Foundation of the Church

Good morning everybody. It's glad to be with you. I'm sorry we're not there thanks to COVID but this is the best we can do at this point and thanks everybody for praying for me so that at least I've recovered enough to do this. So this morning we're going to talk about Paul and his ministry and continue on in the line of suffering. And I didn't have time, or actually I probably didn't have the wherewithal to put together a handout, so you're going to have to sort of keep your eye on me.

So, you know, Paul sort of has operated his ministry in such a way that there would never be an occasion to blame the ministry itself. Because there's those in Corinth and in every place he went, who would be really happy to say that he'd worked for his own selfish ends and that the ministry itself was a big problem. So he shows how it's all personal loss and suffering for him, though some had said he was to blame.

We see, I think very clearly, I'm sorry, very early, that Satan was making the church and not the world the scene of his activities. He does it in all his under a religious guise. I find it interesting that in listening to Chester McCauley over the years, he makes this point a lot that Satan comes down the street and on this corner, the southeast corner, there's the first Christian church. and on the northeast corner is a vacant lot which he could purchase and build his own edifice. But he doesn't do that. He invades the church and that's really where he works.

So he comes into the church and he tries to implant into that church false prophets, deceitful workers, who transform themselves into the apostles of Christ and you know, not that I recommend you spend a lot of time doing this, but you do see within the world of Christendom these false prophets, these deceitful workers, those who claim themselves to be apostles of Christ.

So it's not amazing because Satan himself can transform himself into a into an angel of light, he can look really, really good. And it's no big deal, therefore, if his ministers also can transform themselves as ministers of righteousness. One of the things that really struck me in our time in Rome was how much this principle has been carried out in Catholicism. What got me in the churches and every place you went, there's some sort of a cathedral or a church or something where it's the center of that town and the people around that town. And when you look closely in there, everything in there is designed to take your focus off of Christ and put it on somebody else, to put it on a surrogate, to put it on a man or a woman who they claim is a holy person. So this transformation into angels of light goes on all the time. And they have the use of scripture and they use it. The problem is that underneath all that there are selfish motives that behind those wrong actions these motives are active. So, Paul was careful.

He wouldn't take any financial support from the Corinthians because they weren't in a very good spiritual condition. Even though he could receive money from those that would like to support him from outside Corinth, but he didn't want to be obligated to the Corinthians under the guise that maybe they weren't settled or had matured like they should have been. He picked up a certain worldly element that was in this church which he actually founded and as we watch now the Church of Corinth evolve, I think he's been perfectly right in doing that because it shows that he worked for them He worked to improve them, to build them up, but he didn't put himself in a position where he was obligated to them. He followed up by making tents, he earned his own income, and he was avoiding working for them, or maybe put it another way, He was avoiding putting himself in a position where they had to support him. He was independent, and he would not in any way give up his independence, though he was glad to receive from any that just simply, like the Philippians, wanted to help him. He would let the Philippians help him, but I don't think he'd let the Corinthians do it. I think as we go along, we'll probably see why.

It was a great criticism of the Corinthians that they had not discovered the character of evil workers. I'm going to repeat that because I want you to think about that. It's a criticism of the Corinthian church that they did not discover the character of evil workers amongst their midst.

We're studying Revelation on Tuesday listening to some of Macaulay's tapes. And in chapter 2, the Lord Jesus begins to write these letters to the seven churches. And he's very careful to point out some things to them. First of all, he points out that he knows them, he knows what they're all about, there's no hidden items at all and he finds that I'll read Revelation 2 and 3 he says I know your deeds and your toil and your perseverance and that you cannot tolerate evil men and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles and they are not and you found them to be false and you have perseverance and have endured for my namesake and have not grown weary. This is a huge compliment to the church at Ephesus for what they were able to distinguish within their body of believers. these people working in them and nobody really notices or do they really care? And they're not complimented for that.

But here we are in Revelation when the Lord Jesus is writing a letter to one of the churches. He compliments them as a great asset that they can figure out by observation that there are people within that church that are not ministering the interests of Christ. So what is Paul's big fear? What is the thing that really has him on edge?

What's interesting about the worldliness, this last feature of the fear of worldliness that is on the mind of the Apostle and on the mind of the Holy Spirit about the saints and churches and shaping apostolic ministry which has opened in connection with 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians has been all about this kind of thing. Paul's fear of the church's worldliness. This is a direct, this is a distinct character of this fear. It's not an apprehension that that the religiousness or unfaithfulness or immorality corrupting the churches, it is formally distinct from each of these. The Greek lifestyle may have exposed the Corinthians especially to simple worldly attractions, to the pretensions of a man of refinement, a man of status and independence, who had a lot in the flesh, that is, from nature, from circumstances, he was attractive and showy, that's the worldliness that he's concerned about. The fear about Corinth was not concerning religious or Judaizing influence and neither was it a fear, at least in the second epistle, from non-believers' mind or from the activity of an unclean or lustful nature, but he influencing the church with worldliness that Paul feared the most.

William Kelly made an interesting point about this. He said a certain man, he talks about, he thinks that primarily the leader of worldliness in a Corinthian church was maybe just one man. He says a certain man appears to have gained attention. who had many more assets both from nature and from circumstances than Paul had. And the saints of Corinth were distracted by this. He was, I believe, as modern language speaks, a gentleman. He had a fine person and an independent fortune. He had many advantages of that kind and the Corinthians were under that evil worldly influence to some extent they had been beguiled.

They were looking on things after the outward appearances. What did they look like from the outside? They were enduring a man vaunting himself and lording it over them and taking occasion by some low and worldly advantages he possessed from nature and from circumstances to be somebody special. Macaulay calls them super apostles.

So this is a really difficult condition that Paul's got to contend with. Affection and confidence towards him had been withdrawn in a measure because he had no such advantage to brag about. Paul was fully determined not to involve himself in such things like this man did or compare himself to this man. And Paul was fully determined not to be involved in these things and though he had certain things of which he might boast in the flesh he would glory rather in his infirmities.

He would be weak in Christ in fellowship with him who was crucified in weakness that all his strength might be spiritual. The natural advantages that this man had he would use taking to himself the importance and the value which attached to such things in the world and some saints were corrupted by.

Paul had protested against these associations way back in chapter 6 by talking about don't be unequally yoked with the world. And the matter of this man he exposes more fully setting his own way forth in chapters 10, 11, and 12 that we're in the middle of now. In doing this Paul offered himself as a practical witness of a way that was different from this man of the world. We have to notice these particulars. One, Paul refuses to know himself or to be known by the saints except according to his extent in the spirit and not as he was by nature or in the flesh.

And two, he glories only in either his infirmities or in such dignities has separated him from all worldly estimation as his rapture to paradise for the world would not understand this kind of honor for us as believers to understand that either one day that one day we are going to be able to like winning just go home and be face-to-face with the Lord Jesus.

That's something to glory in. Or, if we're still here when the Lord comes, that we will be resurrected and be face-to-face with Him there. Now that's something to glory in. There's nothing in the worldly Christian world that's worldly to glory in at all. So, Paul is going to present himself in contradiction of the man who gloried in the flesh.

We may not know how hard it is to follow him in such a path and a willingness to be weak, that we may be strong in his decision to know Christ in weakness of the cross. Is there anything more difficult for us to understand, to get our arms around the fact that weakness is really valuable for a believer. Weakness in the flesh. Weakness in anything that has to do with Adam. Weakness is a good thing, it's not a bad thing.

The constable says all the trials that had Paul listed were external, but what follows is in this heart as always, apart from such external things, there is the daily pressures on me of concern for all the churches. Now what I want to do here, I'm going to contrast a couple of things. If you look back in verse 23, Paul lists the external pressures that he had on him being the elder of the church at Ephesus or the pastor.

And I got them listed down to 23 different things in these verses that were going on. And as I went through them, I was thinking to myself, how many of these could I add my name to or anybody's name to in 2022? And there aren't many. He says in 23, are they servants of Christ?

I speak as if I'm out of my mind much more. Am I his servant? serving him more thoroughly than they by my labors and more thoroughly also by, and then he starts to list, my imprisonments, my excessively cruel floggings with the risk of life many a time. From the Jews, I five times have received 40 lashes minus one. Three times I've been beaten with Roman rods.

And he goes on and on and on. slide dangers from Gentiles dangers in the city maybe I could sign on to that dangers in the desert dangers by sea dangers from spies in our midst with labor and toil with many a sleepless night and hunger and thirst and frequent fastings and cold and without sufficient clothing just it's amazing that these external things were something that was constant in Paul's life and apart from such things he says here's the other issue is the daily pressure on me concerning all of the churches so Again, I refer back to our trip to Italy. In the 2,000 year history of the Vatican and all of their saints, which I figured there's probably about 8,000 souls that they think are saints. None of them can talk like Paul talks here in terms of they were after him all the time, yet at the same time His biggest concern was the top of all the external difficulties that he endured, specifically concerning for the weak and the moral failures of the converts.

That's what he was concerned about. And the external pressures, and they were real, they just weren't a list on a piece of paper. They were real. And they were daily. Every single day he's concerned about them. It was not only the endurance of this incredible cruel external treatment from time to time from open enemies that test the heart of a servant.

We talk a lot now as we perceive things are getting more difficult for believers in the world and that this kind of a thing is coming. Well, it wasn't coming for Paul. It was there and that's how we live. But Paul said the internal pressure is demonstrated yet more by the tireless and constant activity regarding one's ministry. No matter what the work and the danger, no matter where you went from country to country among strangers, whom the Jews could cause when they themselves received the tax, regards the gospel added to the manifold trials of the way. That's the way Paul functioned every day.

Some false apostles would describe eternal resistance as a proof of their ministry's credibility. Not necessarily so. The Lord Jesus endured wrath of the Jews, wrath of the Gentiles, the wrath from his people, to the point of the death of the cross. I invite you to read John chapter 9.

Paul's anxiety for all the churches is the added explanation of that care day by day which pressed on Paul, the care of all the churches. And notice here that the care of all the churches is not the taking care of them, it is the care for them as now he is for Corinth.

I think before Roger and I was given this opportunity four years ago, I didn't really understand how that principle plays in. But now that we're in it, we talk about it occasionally and how there is a care and there is a concern about the spiritual health of everybody who's within our body of believers, and I think it's just one of those things that comes with the job, or comes with the ministry. You do care, and you may not be qualified to care until you get in the position, I don't know, but it's a new thing to just care about your family, and your family's bigger than it was before. But you do care about them, you do care about their spiritual health, you care about everything that goes on in their life as carefully as you can be, not to be nosing in on their lives.

In verse 29, he says, who's weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern? So we've got an example here of how this works. Who's weak that I'm not weak? He tells the Corinthians back in chapter 8 of 1st Corinthians to take care that the liberty that they have, the freedom they have in Christ doesn't somehow become a stumbling block to the weak among you. Who is stumbled or who is sinned or who falls into sin without My intense concern, that's what Paul is saying.

Every one time one of my sheep fall into sin, that's a big concern to me. You wouldn't think that, or maybe you would if you were thinking about this, but I think in the world today, in the world of the clergy, you don't find many people that are concerned about something like this. And so it should be with every faithful pastor I think in Christ's flock. He should lovingly identify himself with those who have been committed to his care, showing himself deeply anxious for their spiritual well-being, compassionate with them in their frailties and temptations, and resisting and resenting anyone who seeks to entice them away from the purity of their devotion to Christ.

Where does this come from? It doesn't come from man. It's the divine compassion of Christ himself burning in the heart of his servant and blazing forth in love according to Constable to reach and to bind to the one bridegroom the hearts of those to whom he ministers. The misguided minority in the church are hereby made to see in its elements and applications what is the ministry from which they would turn away, and to what depth it can descend, and to what heights it can reach.

Look at Paul, who isn't a smidgen behind the greatest of Christ's apostles, laying down together all the symbols of his office, knowable to sense his labors, his stripes, etc. comparison of those who should rather have commended him though for their sake he thereby takes away all ground of attack and all occasion of boasting from others. William Kelly says nor was it by any means an exhaustive account.

Back in chapter 8 of 1st Corinthians he said therefore If food causes my brother to stumble I'll never eat meat again. So that I will not cause my brother to stumble. He would change his whole behavior to keep a brother from stumbling. If they were deeply troubled with doubts he could and did enter into their difficulties. If anyone had stumbled by the unworthy bearing of others He would restore them.

The most wearing suffering of all were those that He speaks of last, the care of all the churches. To bear with the feebleness of the weak, to listen again and again to the complaints of the offended, to correct the foolishness of the saints, to contend with the truth against false brethren, All this must have been the most testing thing in Paul's life, yet he did it. So he says, if I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness. Rather than boasting about his strength, as his critics did, Paul boasted in his weaknesses, his humiliations, his sufferings.

These would not initially impress others with his qualifications as an apostle, but these afflictions had come upon him as he had served others and as Christ had faithfully done. They were evidence that God had supernaturally sustained his servant through the countless discouraging circumstances. They were therefore the greatest possible proof and vindication that Paul in fact was an apostle. In verse 31 he says that God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he who is blessed forever knows that I am not lying. Paul's boast was that he resembled the suffering servant, the Lord Jesus, who was his life, was like that of Christ, his life was like that of Christ.

Paul called God as his witness That's his claims which probably seemed incredible to those who did not know him well were true. Was this self-praise? Is that what he's doing? If it is needful to boast, I will boast of the matters of my infirmity. At Damascus, at the end of this chapter he's going to talk about what happened at Damascus.

No doubt it was a remarkable escape. at the beginning of his ministry. But it was just the last thing one who might sought his own glory would have repeated and recorded forever. One of these super apostles would not tell a story like this because it probably never happened to him. No angelic visitors opened the bars and bolts of the massive doors. nor blinded the eyes of the garrison. The apostle was let down in the basket through a window in the city wall. Truly he gloried not in the great deeds or sayings of his ministry, but in the weakness of the Lord's grace by John Darvig. So we've got a wonderful picture here of Paul's life. telling what it really was. Paul does not boast of being Hebrew, but no one had any advantage over him in that respect.

And it's wonderful to see that the power of Paul the Apostle, the way in which he could take up all the highest doctrines and yet go into detail about all those other things. We're observing a flexibility of power that's astonishing. A generalizing a generalizing power, an individualizing power that has never tired, that he is never tired of using. In us the tendency is to get weary when we see one or two gatherings going wrong. But not Paul.

He gloried in what he had gone through. He required power to go through all these things. It was not his own power he went. through them, it wasn't his own power that sustained it. And he knew how this equation worked. So nothing could break him down. He wasn't cowed a bit after having his feet in the stocks. How naturally he writes after a kind of conversation in verse 31, he comes out with something he had quite forgotten, but he couldn't, but that he now occurred to him. It made little of himself to have escaped in such a way, but he didn't mind it. It was what he was glorying in. I was thinking about this. This is the Apostle Paul. These 13 men, these apostles, were incredibly powerful in terms of spiritual things.

Yet here he is, sneaking out a window. basket and he isn't like Peter where an angel came in and got him and opened up the doors and took him out. No, he was running for his life and he's going out the back door. So what makes it so important to him that weakness would be the prime boast of his life? How does it become the thing that really he hangs his hat on. I think it's because it displays God's power and not Paul's.

We see in 1 Corinthians 8, I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians 1.8, where we don't want you to be unaware brethren of our patience which come to us in Asia that we were burdened excessively.

Down to verse 10, who At the end of verse 9 it says, But in God who raised the dead, who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, he on whom we have set our hope, he will yet deliver us. In chapter 3 verse 5 he says, And not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything that is coming from ourselves, Chapter 4, 7. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power is of God and not from ourselves.

In 4, 10. Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake. So the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our moral quest. And in the next couple of weeks we'll cover 5, well 5 through 10. We'll talk about boasting and death.

So he articulates this incident in Damascus. under Aretas the king was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me and I was let down in the basket through a window in the wall and so escaped his hand. You know this is right after he was saved.

I mean he's going out and evangelizing in the streets of Damascus and it doesn't take long for the local authorities and the king to to be riled up against him. But this is the first taste of the suffering for Christ and he would never forget it because this is the way it went from then on. It happened at the outset of his ministry and it underscored his weakness and this was to be the new experience of Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus up to this point was leader of the band of I'm coming for you. You wouldn't find any of the super apostles both thinking about these kinds of things.

You want to look at this further, look at Acts 9.23. And when many days had elapsed, the Jews plotted together to do away with him. But their plot became known to Saul. And they were watching the gates day and night so that they might put in the death. But his disciples took him by night, letting down through an opening in the wall and lowering him in a large basket.

What a humiliation that is! Powerless in contact with power as in the hands of men, he celebrates his deliverance at Damascus. There is in every place the blood of God in triumph in Christ. One step further, and we have in all its volume and in at the source of the varied manifestations we have witnessed. These tithes of which we're talking about. So this incident closes up the chapter and is symbolic of the whole drift of his life of service.

He was let down and that in a very undignified way. If secular history is to be trusted, the letting down never ceased until he knelt at the headman's block outside the imperial city of Rome. But it was just these letting down and sufferings that involved, that he was involved in, which put him, which put him the brands of the Lord Jesus and marked him out as a servant of Christ in the surpassing measure. So he didn't have the power to deliver himself, and he didn't have the power to escape.

You and I don't have the power to deliver ourselves from the world, to escape our sin natures, and we don't have the power to live the Christian life in ourselves. But we do have it in the cross of Christ, and we do have it in the person of the Lord Jesus. If we walk with him, abide in him, I would say study him, behold his glory. This power will be of him and not of us, but we will be delivered.

Let's close. My dear father, how we thank you. We thank you for the apostle Paul. We thank you for the life that you led him through and carried him through. For us to take a look at and see. your surpassing power in all the circumstances that life may bring. We thank you for that, Father. We pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.