Application of Principles of True Ministry

We're going to conclude our study in chapter 12 today. And it's been the most interesting chapter to go through because there's so many really sort of cool things. Like we talked about in verse 7, the greatness, the surpassing greatness of the Revelation when he was snatched up into the third heaven. I thought one time, how cool it would be walking down the street and the Spirit of God snatches you up, takes you face-to-face with the Lord Jesus.

And then you had to come back. And when you come back, you get a thorn in the flesh. You sign up for that? There's a sign-up sheet out. And then, he got that and he understood why he had it. It was to keep him from exalting himself. And he learned that it was under God's grace that he got it.

He went to God in mercy and said, look, I've got this thorn in the flesh. Can we remove it? And God said, well, I'm not going to respond to your request in mercy. I am going to respond in grace. And responding in grace meant that he would be able to endure the thorn in the flesh and not have it removed, even though he went to the Lord three times about it. So then he says, the Lord said to him, my grace is sufficient for you. That we would all say that.

For power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I would rather boast about my weakness so that the power of Christ may dwell in me." So, how do, you know, we talked last week, how do you receive God's grace from time to time? Is weakness in oneself a good thing? Doesn't our country bang on the thing that we must be strong?

Well, we found out that our greatest liability as a believer is self-confidence. And our greatest asset is Christ's confidence. So he says in verse 10, Therefore I am well content with weakness, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. So is our response in our circumstances in our life Similar to Paul's, as we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, I would say yes. We would say most gladly, therefore, I'd glory in my infirmities, my weaknesses. Why? So that the power of Christ may rest upon me. That's the purpose.

One of Paul's reasons for writing is to demonstrate the difference between a true apostle and a false apostle. Now, it's interesting in my study this week, we've been talking all along when Paul refers to those eminent apostles, we sort of nicknamed them the super apostles, that they were guys that had come into Corinth and well-dressed, a lot of money, teleprompter, the whole deal, right? And they were really influential in the Corinthian church. And they belittled Paul every chance they got.

Now there's that group and then there's the other group that are the real apostles, the twelve. And some of the commenters I read think that these verses talk about the real apostles rather than what we've tagged the super apostles. I personally think he's talking about the super apostles. I really do.

So Paul had a genuine and deep feeling for one whose heart burned with a divinely given sense of what and who Christ is, and for the love of the saints. So in verse 11, he says, I have become foolish, you yourselves compelled me. I should have been commended by you, For in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody." So Paul says, listen, I'm forced to speak here by those who should have been quick to vindicate me and your service and love.

Here's Paul serving the Corinthians And whenever there was someone who made an accusation against him, he says, look, you guys should stand up and say, wait a minute, that's not right. That's not who he is. So it's painful for him to have to deal with this issue because he's not really dealing with a sin issue here. Sin in man is met by the righteousness of God in Christ. But he's showing the utter weakness in a Christian is to be displaced by the strength of Christ.

The saints in Corinth were on the same ground like the world. They were very worldly believers. They were just like the heathens that lived in the town of Corinth. They gloried in intellect. They gloried in learning eloquence. They glorified the natural man. That was what they were all about. And these believers had never applied the cross of Christ to judge their old man. In other words, they knew identification truths, but they never applied them. So in the first epistle of Corinthians, Grace began to work And we all need the grace of God and the glory on high of the Lord Jesus.

And the second epistle shows that Paul was honing down and dealing with pretensions and really the life of the believer worked out in shoe leather. The weakness which some detractors laid to reproach Paul was so far from denying it that he himself, instead of saying, well, no, I'm strong, he said, no, they're right, I am weak. And it's a good thing I am, because the power of Christ rests in me, works through me when I'm weak. So we could say he was probably pretty ignorant of the Corinthians, to contrast him with the surpassing attributes of the super-apostles. It was true that in nothing was he behind in them, though he says he was nothing and he was content to be so. You see, the principle at work here, when I'm weak, then I'm strong.

When my old man, who's really strong, is put out of the way or regulated to the cross by the Holy Spirit, what's the result? The new resurrected life of Christ in me can come forward. And that's what he gloried in. I would say he yearned for Christ's glory to be manifested through him. He yearned for Christ's strength and not his own.

It's a really important principle. He writes to the Philippians later, in Philippians 3, his desire is to be found in Christ, not having his own righteousness and that which is of the law. He says, but that which is through faith in Jesus Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. So here, he would not be strong in himself if he could be, but weak, that he might be strong through Christ. He would glory as a man in Christ, but in himself nothing but his infirmities.

He says in Philippians 3.7, But whatever things were gained to me, those I have counted as loss for Christ's sake. More than that, I count all things but loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, So this principle that he's laying out to the Corinthians is one that we should listen to.

Natural power indeed is an offense in the service of Christ, as is one's own righteousness and justification. You and I didn't become justified because of our own righteousness. We had to give all that up for the righteousness of Christ. My natural strength and power has to be given up if I'm going to serve the Lord. Self-righteousness denies Christ to us. Natural power denies Christ in us.

Rather, His power resting on us in our own felt weakness, indeed, our own felt nothingness. Weakness can be more opposed to the feeling and the reasoning of flesh and blood. Your natural mind, your natural man, and your body doesn't want to be weak. It's going to fight against that. Human nature dislikes what is humiliating and painful.

It loves the ease of being honored. To go on in difficulties dependent on nothing but the Lord is most trying. Not delivered but enduring is difficult. That Christ may be glorified and we may prove the sufficiency of His grace. It's interesting how our minds work. We think, well, I can be strong. I'm a strong Christian. But I also want His grace to be manifested. And the sufficiency, well, if you're strong, you don't need His grace. The Lord has to make us weak so that we will recognize and realize the value of God's grace. That's the pathway to power.

And Paul walked in it like no one else before him other than the Lord Jesus or since. How difficult was his experience who took up pleasure in all that made him for Christ's sake, despised before others and crushed in himself, where he almost bragging says, when I'm weak, then I'm strong. Yet he'd rather not have said a word of himself, even when speaking only of his sufferings, And the trying path that he was in, absolutely silent as to himself, his achievements and everything that he was doing, it was the Corinthians who compelled him to speak for himself. Because they wouldn't. To speak out for their own profit even though it took the shape of reprimand. And you know what?

Paul wasn't behind in any of these super apostles. however exalted any of them might be, and because he was nothing, nor were the Corinthians inferior to any other churches. And Paul didn't bring a burden on them at all. So, Paul lists eight proofs, and I got this from Hal Malloy, of a true apostle.

In 12.1-6 is the direct revelation from Christ snatched away to the third heaven. In 7-10 is Paul's thorn in the flesh. Oh, I didn't realize being an apostle required a thorn in the flesh, but it looks like it does. Paul's equality with the most eminent apostles, verse 11, Paul manifested the signs of an apostle from God, and we'll talk about that in a minute.

He's not going to seek what they have, but he's going to seek them. Paul loves them and is concerned about their spiritual lives. Paul never defends the life and ministry of Christ through him. And Paul mourns over and is ready to correct those walking in the flesh.

So as we move on here, he says, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles." So, there's three things talked about here. Signs, which are distinguishing characteristics of Christ. A true apostle could do those signs and were manifested through Paul by the Holy Spirit. And it's interesting that he puts the word patience in here. It was done in all patience. It was done as though it was Christ's patience. He manifested the power of the Spirit of God.

One of the references is Romans 15, 18, For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and round about, I never can pronounce this word. I have preached the gospel of Christ.

Why are signs an important issue, especially with the Jews? They demanded a sign. In the Old Testament, without a sign, you couldn't verify your ministry. So, signs and wonders, supernatural events, Acts 15. Luke says, all the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. And then the miracles, which are power events that are worked by the apostles.

Acts 19.11, God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul. So in his experience as an apostle, he's doing these things among all the other things he's doing. Donna said to me, we were talking about miracles some weeks ago, and she said, you know, these apostles were really powerful people. When you read in Acts that if you could tear a piece of cloth off of Paul's clothes and take it to a sick person, it would heal him.

Wow, but then that power diminished over time. Then he says, for in what respect were you treated as inferior to the rest of the churches except that I myself did not become a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong. So it's interesting. Paul is asking them for forgiveness because he didn't treat them, the Corinthians, Like he treated all the other churches. You know how he treated all the other churches? He took up a collection.

He told them, you've got to support me. But he wouldn't do it with the Corinthians. They were a wealthy city. They were wealthy people. But he knew that the gospel of all places had to be free there. And so he did not take any money from anybody in Corinth. You talk about irony. He says, forgive me for doing that. I took it from all the rest of these churches, but I didn't take it from you. I guess I need a little irony there.

So Paul and his companions never put a financial burden on the Corinthians. Never. In irony again, Paul appealed to his readers for forgiveness because he had not treated them as he had a right to treat them as an apostle. It was only in refraining from demanding his rights of support as an apostle that Paul had not treated the Corinthians as an apostle would normally treat them.

He'd given them special privileges. So what does it do? It leads to criticism. And we'll see a little of that in a minute. The constable says that Paul is calm and dignified, loving, but overwhelming in his exposure and reprimand for their fleshly conceit, as well as for their readiness to take up insinuations against him, whom they ought rather to have defended when impugned.

So he says in 14, for here this third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you this time either. For I do not seek what is yours, but you. For children, and the word for children is technon, are not responsible to save up for their parents, but the parents for their children. So Paul's going to go back to Corinth for the third time. He's not going to be a financial burden to him. He's not going to make him meet his needs. He's not going to seek any possessions of theirs at all. But he is going to seek them.

So, Paul the servant still cherished the serving of the Lord Jesus. give rather than receive through those entitled to live by the Gospel, and be cared for by the Corinthian church, he would forego this title in the middle of those who might misuse or misunderstand Christ's dishonor. He would be like a parent in unselfish affection to his children. He would proceed as the Lord Jesus, whose love was the more even as others hated. However pained to find the saints so like the world, how exceptionally close Paul was to manifest in Christ. So he says, look, I don't want your money. I want you. What's he talking about? You're my children. I'm your spiritual Father. And so because of that, back in chapter 7, He says to them, make room for us in your hearts. We wronged no one. We corrupted no one. We took advantage of no one. I do not speak to condemn you, for I have said before that you are in our hearts to die together and live together. So what's he after? I think he's after the Corinthians to have unceasing devotion for the Lord Jesus Christ. That's really what he's after. He's after them.

And speaking of younger children in a general principle, he's talking about the fact that children don't save up for their parents. He's not saving up for, they're not saving up for him. It's his responsibility to save up for them and to take care of them. It's an analogy.

I'm your spiritual father, and I'm coming to you to provide you with what you don't have. So he says, I would most gladly spend, which means to be totally spent out, and be expended for your souls, for I love you more Am I to be loved less? What's Paul spending? He's spending God's love to them. Less love on your part will not lessen my love for you. This shows a dependence totally on God Himself. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? Very interesting question because Paul says, I'm going to spend all that I have and all that I am for you. And it's because I love you in the Lord. Do you love me less? I must say that those of you who walk beside other believers know this from experience. You wonder sometimes. I do this because I love the Lord, and I walk with Him, and I love them, and they could care less. It's like teenagers.

They could care less. But be that as it may, I didn't burden you of myself. Nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by deceit." So, he didn't take any money. when he was there, but they called him a crafty fella, and that's where he gets this.

I have a personal experience with this. Years and years ago, when I first met Miles Stanford, I thought, well, Doyle, it's about time you start helping somebody financially. You know, when you live in the world all the time, you don't give your money away to anybody. But you start to think as a believer, well, I ought to send some money. So I thought, ah, Miles is the perfect guy.

So I sent him some money. I have no idea how much it was. You know what he did? He sent it back to me. So I called him up on the phone, and being the crafty guy that I am, I said, Miles, that's a pretty snaky deal you just pulled on me. He said, what are you talking about? Don't you have a material motive by sending the money back to me? Did I not give you enough? What's going on here?" He said, nope.

You can support me when the Lord leads you to do it. Paul's the same way. He understands his audience. He understands the people that he cares for. And so he recognizes that in a crafty way, He took them by deceit because he wanted them and not their possessions. Guile like that is far from his person, though his accusers seem by no means above it. They suspected him for what will not malice in the heart dare to think of and speak. I had malice in my heart when I called up Miles. I said that this is a game. you're trying to get more money out of me by sending me back the original donation. So, two bucks isn't enough? I send you four, will you keep the four?"

And that's what Paul was accused of. So, Paul is alluding to a charge that he availed himself of the collection for the poor, you know, when they were taking up the collection to go to Jerusalem, that he was dipping in the pot. And he was telling them, This money isn't for me, it's for them. But he somehow was siphoning some out the back when nobody was watching. So he uses, I think what he does here is he uses his adversary's words by saying, crafty as I am, I caught you with guile. Because that's what they accused him of.

So he says, certainly I have not taken advantage of you through any of those whom I have sent to you, have I? I urged Titus to go, and I sent the brother with him. Titus did not take advantage of you, did he? Did we not conduct ourselves in the same spirit and walk in the same steps? So what is he doing? He's trying to avoid the cunning, mischievous insinuations of any who might charge him with reaping any advantage, either himself, directly or indirectly, through the people he sent to Corinth. He says, did I take advantage of you by any of them whom I sent to you?

Answer, no. He didn't. You didn't. Did Titus take advantage of you? Didn't they walk just like I walk? Don't they function just like I function?" So they well knew that Titus and his companions walked among them totally with self-renunciation. They wanted nothing from them but them.

So Paul, who is a tireless witness for Christ's glory, And there's a sickening compulsion which drew forth such words, he wrote, that he could profit at all by what they were doing. Nothing can be more untrue than the impression that the Corinthians had received of the one to whom they were so deeply indebted, and this from the rivalry of men who bragged a lot, and as usual with little or nothing really to brag about, the super apostles. Positive and substantial and even notorious facts were opposed to the misrepresentation of his adversaries. None should have known better than the Corinthians how unfounded was all of these distractions. I would think it would be incomprehensible if one did not know the natural weakness of the church to fall under high-sounding words. We live in an age of high-sounding words today.

And the subtle activity of the enemies to take advantage of the flesh in order to ruin the church and make it an instrument of the Lord's shame instead of a witness of His grace and His glory. So Paul stooped to refute this stuff that was going on, this trash. But he was jealous in case this too should be misinterpreted. And the next, proceeds to guard even this brief notice of his slanders. So he says, all this time, you have been thinking that we are defending ourselves to you. that all of this bragging I'm doing for two whole chapters here, that what I'm really doing is I'm defending myself.

He says, actually, it is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ and all for an up-building beloved. If others sought self-judgment, Paul didn't, whatever their assumptions, for those who are not occupied with Christ readily conceive in others what fills their own minds. He whom they misjudge turns to the presence of God and in his sight he speaks in Christ. His speech was not only in the consciousness of divine presence but characterized by Christ and not by the natural man. He stood consciously over against the highest tribunal spoke in Christ accordingly, not in the flesh, as he thus disposed of any self-complacency on their part in judging him. He rejects carefully all thought of self-interest, all thought of fear, but he says all things, beloved, are for building you up. Love never fails. It builds up. For this he spoke, and he worked, and he suffered."

So, are they thinking all this time that we, the Apostle Paul, are trying to defend ourselves? He says, look, my final court of judgment, and he said this before, earlier, regards my behavior, the court I work in is God's court, not yours. He's the one that judges me. What are we being judged about? Oh, he says, yeah, we're being judged about building you up in the new man in Christ, in the inner man. That's what we're being judged about.

And the more because he could not but have the gravest apprehensions of not a few in Corinth. He was really worried about these souls in Corinth. He comforts them and he loves them, but he's instructing them. And then he says, for I'm afraid that perhaps when I come, I may find you to be not what I wish and you and may be found by you not to be what you wished. First half of that verse. So what did he fear? Well, He feared that the condition that he found, might find when he went to Corinth, and for themselves and his own heart, were not what he was hoping for.

I mean, this is the third time. This is the second letter, and plus we know of at least one other letter that he sent them. And then he sent Titus and the brother down there. So he's got a lot invested in the Corinthians. fearful that in the order of the process of edifying these believers, which is his ministry, that the order would not be interrupted. In other words, he gets the information from the Holy Spirit. He's the edifier to the person to be edified, the church.

So he says, when I come down there, I may find you not to be what I'm hoping you're going to be. And he's fearful that the condition would be unacceptable to him, that he might find them not what he wanted. What's the problem here? Well, he's going to go to Corinth to edify them, to build them up. But if he shows up and they're sinning like we'll see in that last verse, then he's going to have to correct them. And he didn't want to have to do that. He does not want to go down there with the rod. He wants to go down there in love.

So the other half of the verse, that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angers, tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, and disturbances. What's interesting about these, there are eight issues here, and if you divide them into four groups of two, they fit together. On the one side, strife and quarrels. On the other side, jealousy and fierceness. They all go together like that. Angry tempers and wrath. Disputes and factions. Slanders, evil speaking. Gossip, whispering. Those go together. Arrogance, inflated egos. Leads to disturbance and disorder. The evil he hints at is still at work and are those which he had so unsparingly admonished in 1 Corinthians. He was after these things way back when.

It has been preeminently remarked at this very chapter with truth that it contains the most striking contrasts among those who bear the name of the Lord. Imagine if we had this printed on the door of our church. Come in here and here's what you can expect.

There is, on the one hand, the man in Christ viewed in an extraordinary measure of enjoying the privileges as a believer. And then on the other hand, there's the most distressing exhibition of the worst possible condition of the saints, practically in both violence and corruption. And then there's the middle. And in between these extremes, the way of the saints in being made nothing, that the power of Christ might rest upon them.

So he says, I'm afraid that if I come again, My God will humiliate me before you. I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented, or had a change of mind, of impurity, immorality, sensibility, which you have practiced. I'm afraid I'm going to be embarrassed before God by your sinfulness."

The metaphor that came in my mind today, yesterday, If, and I didn't watch the game today, but if I go to the Denver Broncos and I say, boy, you guys are a mess, who am I going to talk to? The players or the head coach? And which one of those two groups is going to be embarrassed? The coaches, because he's responsible.

Paul says, when I come again to you, my God may humiliate me before you. Why? Because I have a job to do. And you are demonstrating that I didn't do it. I'm going to be humiliated by God. So to find the saints in sin was God humiliating Him in their presence, not them in His. as it looked at in fact, but he felt that as he spoke in Christ. It was God humbling him at the evil condition of his saints, and what it rendered necessary. And what does he say as he thinks of the grossest form of it? It was not that his hand would fail to wield the rod, because he said in 1 Corinthians, But it is surely with a wounded heart which bled because of the shameless evil among those who called on the name of the Lord." But what a tale is told of feeble faith. For faith is that that overcomes all of this. And they were overcome with evil, not overcoming it with good.

I got this from Ron Merriman. I listened to this tape a couple of times this week. It was really interesting. 1974, right? How many years ago is that? 50 years? And he had a few little things in there about, well, do you see what's going on in Israel?

And you see the president and Yasser Arafat and these guys, half of them are all dead now. All these fears. But then he goes into this really interesting thing. He said, what's really going on in these verses is an application of the principles of true ministry. So I wrote them down. I thought I'd share them with you. And it's in your handout.

It's proper for believers to uphold the ministry of a proven man. If you have a shepherd, it's proper for you to defend him. 13 and 14, true ministers do not seek or pursue what a believer has. Rather, he pursues the believer. We could hang this on a lot of places today.

15, verse 15, the ministers spend themselves for the benefit of believers. Mark, and go to Mark 10, 45, it talks about the Lord Jesus and being spent. 17 and 18, true ministers do not defraud their ministry, and they're careful that those who serve do not defraud also.

19. True ministers always edify with a view to growth. They always do that, not for the defense of themselves, but will what they do be for the edification of believers. And lastly, verse 20 and 21, true ministers encourage other positive ministries, all kinds of ministries, recognizing that ministry is hampered by sin. So a true minister encourages confession and repentance, a change of mind, a focus on the faith of the Word of God.

So let's close. Our dear Father, how we thank You today for Your Word, for Your Son, and the Apostle Paul. How practical a man he was in the circumstances that he went through, how informative it is for us as we live and walk with the Lord Jesus now. And we pray in our Son's precious name, Amen.