Christs life & ministry is Supernatural
2 Corinthians 6:1-10 · Randy Peterman · Jul 16, 2017
2 Corinthians (2017), No. 27
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492662513274

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

The cool thing about shifting from one or two verses to a larger chunk of verses actually is that as a teacher it changes how you're looking at things and as a student it kind of changes. Observationally, in complement to what Roger said, one of the benefits is that When we take a look at the letter as a larger, faster set of verses, if you put yourself in the shoes of the churches that were receiving these letters, it's probably not too uncommon for Paul sends a letter, it shows up, and everybody gathers together, and then somebody's job This is kind of fun to think about. Somebody's job is to read the whole thing to the church, all in one sitting. So we still get to break it down into less than whole letter teachings, although that might be an interesting idea, but maybe not for a Sunday school class. But the idea that you would read a whole letter all in one sitting was not foreign, and maybe we do that in our own personal study time. So we're going to take a look at 2 Corinthians 6, 1-10. That's a lot of verses, but as it turns out, Paul, in his writing style, likes lists. So we get a big chunk of list stuff here. So I don't think it'll be too much to take on.

So I'll read this out loud, and you can follow along. And working together with him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, at the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. cause for offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumult, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, in the word of truth, in the power of God, by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report, regarded as deceivers and yet true, as unknown yet well known, as dying yet behold we live. as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things."

That is a whole lot, right? But it's Paul's classic run-on-sentence style, so at least you really can tell that Pauline authorship is involved here, right? So after the mountain peak verses of 5.20 and 5.21, amazingly powerful verses, and just because I think it's worth doing, let's step back and I'll read those real quick too.

So Paul wrote, Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God were making an appeal through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So Paul in 20 basically says, hey, be reconciled with God. They're saved. He's not doubting their salvation, but they're kind of stinking it up on their Christian walk as a church body.

And 6.1 starts off with a similar kind of idea, and working together with him, so Paul and his cohort working with the Father, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

So he starts off with repeating, as he seems to be doing a lot in this letter, he's repeating this idea because he wants the readers to pick up on what he's trying to share with them. I think the Corinthians may have been a bit slow. Based on how much repetition we have here, it seems like Paul's very concerned that they're not going to understand. So he's repeated himself, and he's going to go over the trials, which he also already has emphasized, as he did in chapters 4 and 5. and even one. So all of these things, there's repetition here, and so we're going to see some of these themes are familiar, but he's going to tie these things together as a corrective action for the church. He's trying to correct the Corinthians. And the other thing I want to point out, I was talking with my wife about church things this morning and principles that I was looking at here, and it's not in the handout, but I think it's worth emphasizing.

Who is the Church of Corinth? Which church was it? Was it the First Baptist Church of Corinth? It was the church in Corinth. It was for all the believers in Corinth. And I think it's worth calling that out just because I think sometimes we think of church and we tend to think about our body and we think about denominations and we think about church buildings. And he's writing to a group of people across a city that are being influenced by the culture of Corinth, which I want to remind you was pretty terrible because it was a crossroads both by land and by sea. So they had the rough, salty mouths of the sailors They had a really intense slavery trade, and they had a very self-righteous and self-promoting group of socialites. So that's all of the secular influence that's coming into this church of believers, and so Paul is writing to them and he's saying, I urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain. Now what does it mean that something's in vain? It's of no use. It's empty or it's void of content. Now that doesn't mean that they're not saved. He hasn't said you're not saved. He's just saying it.

It's much like my sister-in-law, while we were in Nevada, received a second package from Amazon because the first package came empty. And it came empty because whatever the contents were had fallen out, but the post office still delivered it. Which I think they have to do for policy reasons. But it's funny because she got the package and she opened it up and it was empty.

And I think of that as kind of the same idea where Paul's like, hey, I've got this church. I planted it there. I came. I brought the gospel. You responded. You believed. And then the culture got a hold of you. And you were so distracted by all the carnal things that you didn't carry the truth beyond yourself. you believed it and then you stayed babes in Christ. So Paul is urging them to receive the grace of God not in vain. He doesn't want them to have no result that is beyond themselves.

I think it's worth noting though that at the beginning there he says, in working together with him. He's not saying this just as Paul. He's saying this as Paul as a servant of God, the Father, that he would urge them this direction. If we read this letter and look at our own lives, do we sometimes find that we can be fleshly and stubborn like the Corinthians? Right? That's a possibility.

But I think that's not what Paul's expecting to be normative for us as believers. We can be stuck at the babe stage of our spiritual growth, or we can grow past it. And so even in our own lives, even though we're not at the Church of Corinth, we're in the Church of Denver, we want to make sure that we understand where we're growing and where the Lord has for us. It's intended for us to grow and for us to be abiding as normative. So Paul's writing to them, I don't want you to be like an empty cup. I don't want you to have all this form, but then it just stays there. You don't grow past it.

So what we see here is that Paul quotes Isaiah 49.8. And I would encourage you to turn with me to Isaiah 49. This is a larger prophecy about Christ and what's going to happen with the gospel. But if we look at 49.8, Paul quotes just a piece of it.

Now why does Paul quote just a piece of verse? that has larger context. Why do we do that sometimes? There's multiple reasons we might do that. We might just want to cite a specific purpose. The other thing is that Paul knows that the Jewish readers that are in the denomination or the congregation, I mean not the denomination, Those are different ideas. The Jewish readers are going to know the greater context.

So if we go to Isaiah 49.8, we read, Thus says the Lord, in a favorable time I have answered you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you, and I will keep you and give you for a covenant of the people to restore the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages. saying to those who are bound go forth to those who are in darkness show yourselves along the roads they will feed and their pasture will be on all bare heights and in the earlier verses before that he's talking about you my servant Isaiah 49 6 he says it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel So there's things in the next verse or passage, I will also make you a light of the nations so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. So he's talking about Christ and he's talking about the new covenant and he's talking about the church age, but we can understand those things after the fact. But Paul is quoting the part that's relevant to the church in Corinth. So we want to call out that when Paul's quoting that, he's not necessarily saying, hey, the new covenant is in play, which other parts of this passage might show. He's saying God has had a time that he set aside for this, a right time. And he says an acceptable time. So what made the time acceptable or right that the gospel came, that Christ came when he did? Any guesses or thoughts?

What is it about the Greek language that's useful for us? It's exact. And it turns out the Koine Greek is less precise than the Greek that came before it, but the Koine Greek, as Patty pointed out, was more widely understood. And it had simplified some things that were complicated in classical Greek from before Koine Greek.

We have Alexander the Great to thank for that. But at the time we had more roads and transportation than ever before that was connected. We had the Roman control over much of the known world. And so when the gospel came, It was like God knew that the time was right.

There were all these mystery religions, for example, in the Roman culture. And with a mystery religion, you believed what you believed in your own private space with your group. But what Paul did is he says, hey, I have some mysteries to share with you. And he shared them with everybody. And so everybody was curious about it.

So culturally, the culture was ready. The Jews were dispersed. The Jews were ready. they were dispersed all over the Roman Empire and so when Paul came with the gospel they knew the Messiah was coming and they're spread out all throughout the road so he's got this I mean it's almost like God knew what he was doing you know and the timing was right the language was right the culture was right the roads were right okay so Paul says hey this all happened because it was the right time It was the appropriate time. And this salvation, it's the day of salvation. It's come. It's here.

And so when we look at what made the time acceptable, it's because God had orchestrated world events with the sovereignty that only God has to put things into place so that when Jesus Christ came down, born in Bethlehem, and then being raised in Nazareth, does anything good come from Nazareth? And then from there, going out and sharing within around the Galilee area, sharing the gospel. I'm sorry, not sharing the gospel, sharing God's original intent and teaching with authority. And then dying and being crucified and being resurrected.

All of those things were ready. The time was perfect. The gospel was ready. And the church in Corinth, as Paul has been emphasizing, that's why I'm out here preaching. to you. You're part of this benefit and this blessing. That's the point. But they still didn't seem to get it, right? Up until this point, he's repeating himself now for the fourth or fifth time in this letter. That's why I'm doing this.

So he continues on and he doesn't want his own works to be discredited. And when I say his works, I mean by the power of the Holy Spirit works, not his own works of the flesh, right? So in verse three, giving no cause for offense in anything so that the ministry will not be discredited. Now Paul had not intentionally offended the church in Corinth by not coming a second time, but that's what a major theme of this letter is, is I'm sorry I offended you. This is why you're upset. but I'm giving no cause for offense, and then more broadly, wherever he's ministering, he's not trying to cause offense, right? Because he doesn't want for their or his ministry to be void as well, right? He doesn't want for the people to describe his ministry as vain, so that the ministry will not be discredited.

And if we remember from 1st Corinthians, you remember in 1st Corinthians 3, specifically in verse 4, he says, some of you say I'm of Paul and some of you I'm of Apollos. There's already division in the church about which apostle or which bringer of the gospel was better.

And Paul is saying, I don't want to be discredited. I don't want anyone who would have arrogantly and foolishly and carnally said, I'm of Paul, to have actually been talking about a guy who was a numbskull. He doesn't use the word numbskull, that's not in the Greek, right? But he doesn't want to be discredited.

He doesn't want his ministry to go in vain because he's the one out sent by God preaching the gospel, bringing the salvation at the right time. And so then Paul, to defend that and to re-emphasize the fact that he is serving, in verse 4 we see, "...in everything commending ourselves as servants of God." Now when we say commending, that could be translated boasting in some places, but we're commending ourselves, we're talking about ourselves only as servants of God. He's not talking about himself as the super-apostle. He's not talking about himself as the special prophet. He's talking about himself as servants of God, he and his cohort.

And when you're serving God, is there pride in the service? There might be in some people's situation, but Paul's talking about it from a position of humility. And then to emphasize the humility and what would be, for the Corinthians, a socially humiliating scenario, he's going to start listing off some things here which are probably not unfamiliar to us at this point in time. So they're servants of God in much endurance.

Now why does Paul talk about endurance? Why is it worth mentioning endurance? He's been through so much. He had to endure an awful lot of things. We think about endurance and frankly in our culture, when do you use the word endurance? Usually in sports. An endurance athlete is somebody who, oh look, this person ran a hundred mile race.

And I just hear that and I think that person has their priorities in the wrong place. Do you know that there's air conditioning and good food and sitting and having fellowship? You can't run for a hundred miles and not start thinking about all the other things you could be doing with your time, right?

But endurance for Paul, he was going out, if you look at his missionary journeys, What happens when you're on the road? What are the threats? Robbers, no food, no sleep. Basically, if you're tired and you're not at a town, you're really at risk, so you're probably going to keep walking. And if you get robbed, well, what if Paul was collecting money on his missionary journey to help the church in Jerusalem, right? Well, okay, so robbers, there's risk there.

There's all these things. So endurance is not a small thing. When you got on a ship, well, Paul got shipwrecked. Pretty much endurance is the whole... When you go on a missionary journey and you're out for years, that's endurance. So Paul, he's serving God in endurance. He's serving God in affliction.

Obviously we know that he was afflicted. That's outside people doing things to you that you don't like as well as The hardships of travel, the clothing, wearing out, the blisters you get on your feet. I roller skated in Carson City for three hours and my feet were blistered and I thought, you're really a wimp. Paul went through way worse than that. My hardship was a few days of sore feet, distresses, beatings, imprisonments, tumult, labors, sleeplessness and hunger.

Paul was a tent maker, right? Professionally, he was a tent maker. And we have in his other accounts where he would make tents during the day to make sure he covered his living expenses and then he would teach in the wee hours of the night. Then he'd have to get up and do it again the next day.

Except for on the Sabbath, of course, right? He didn't want to offend anybody, so he would preach the gospel more clearly. The American culture tends towards a greater level of empathy and sympathy. So when we read this, we hear this and we automatically go, wow, if I put myself in his shoes, that would be pretty tremendous. But I want to emphasize again that we're sympathetic and we're empathetic in our culture, but the Corinthians were pretty self-centered.

So they would hear that. That's partially why he's repeating himself. He's like, do you guys get this? Because they were all in it for themselves. So we read this and we think, man, you guys are a bunch of hard-hearted jerks. That was culturally the norm. It turns out that a lot of other cultures recognize this about the US, and they try to take advantage of that. But we have to remember, as students of God's word, that our culture was not necessarily always the way that they thought in their cultures.

Alright, servants in abiding. So Paul then goes on to his next list and you'll notice that we're eluding here, okay? So there's things that we're not going to go into great depth in and I hope that you'll take some time to think about these things and look for cross references and whatever. So, servants in abiding. So Paul's next section here, he moves from in circumstances to in character or abiding scenarios.

He says, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, in the word of truth, in the power of God, by weapons of righteousness in the right and left hands. So despite his circumstances, Paul is not responding calmly. He's trying to remind these self-centered people, he's trying to remind them of why he's doing it.

The Holy Spirit is guiding me to these places and he didn't guide me back to Corinth. impurity and knowledge and patience and kindness in the Holy Spirit, that reminds us of the fruit of the Spirit, right? So there's similarity. Why do you think he didn't list the fruit of the Spirit in the same way as he did in Galatians 5? Any thoughts on that? Maybe he didn't have Galatians memorized.

Every good Christian knows the Ten Commandments and they know the fruit of the Spirit. Those are the ones in the Lord's Prayer. Those are the three things you have to memorize. I'm joking, by the way. Although those are all good things to have memorized.

What I think is worth noting is we actually get a lot of our doctrine about the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians. because Paul is correcting the Corinthians about how the Holy Spirit works in their lives during the church service. That's predominantly where he's focused on the gifts of the Spirit being manifested in chapter 14. But here he's talking about the Holy Spirit in the very day-to-day living of these believers.

I'm sorry, in his own life. And I think this would have shamed the believers a little bit had they recognized that Paul was talking about being in the Spirit every day, day in and day out. And they were really distracted. They didn't understand that. Paul didn't go into having the gifts of the Spirit. He just talked about in his own life, because he's an apostle, he talked about the fruit of the Spirit.

And then he says, in genuine love, or authentic, real agape love. In the King James, how does the King James translate what we have as love here? Love unfeigned. But often the King James translates the word agape as charity. And I actually favor that translation for the word agape as often as I see it because We think of love, and unfortunately in our culture we kind of redefine love in a very relativistic way. I love ice cream. Well, I hope that God's love is not like my love for ice cream. That would be highly deficient. Right now I can't even eat ice cream, which is really sad.

In genuine love, or in authentic love, love gets its definition in God. Remember 1 John 4a, for God is love? Love, or agape there, gets its definition in God. And so when Paul shows up, and he shows up in any of these towns where the Lord brings him on his ministry opportunities, on his missionary journeys, he shows up with genuine love.

Now if you've grown up in a secular, Gentile culture, what is love? There's erotic love, but there's often the idea of merit that comes in. We're going to earn each other's love. Remember in the Roman culture, a father could kill his children all the way up into adulthood if they got out of hand. That's why adoption was such a tremendous doctrine when Paul talks about adoption to the Ephesians. So the idea of love, this agape love, this charitable, giving, benevolent love, Paul shows up that way, and that's going to shock the secular people.

But it's also going to shock the Hebrew people, because they understand that God is love, sort of, but they also know that God brought the law, and instead of focusing on When they ask Christ, how would you sum up the law, what does he say? Love your neighbor, right? But if you ask the Jew, what's the most important thing you can do, they're going to pick some part of the law, right? They might have the easy, correct answer of, well, you love your neighbor, but they're distracted by the law, not the love.

So Paul showing up like this, this is part of his ministry, is standing out in a different way with this. And continuing as we move our way through this here, it's worth pointing out, where's the love chapter? When I say the love chapter in the New Testament, where do you think of? 1 Corinthians 13. He already wrote to him, right? And was 1 Corinthians chapter 13, what's the tone of that chapter? Is it coming alongside reminding them gently of something they're already doing? He writes to the Thessalonians, he goes, you guys are already encouraging each other with the rapture, but keep doing it.

Isn't he correcting them because of the gifts? He's correcting them, exactly. He says, if I do all of these gifts without love, I'm a clanging gong. So the Corinthians don't get this genuine love thing, at least historically, prior to this letter very well. So he's already written to them about love.

But Paul, when he shows up, he's doing it in genuine love. And they have no excuse. They have a good written definition from Paul about what genuine love looks like. So genuine love. Paul wrote about that. And it appears they still didn't understand his message.

And then he says, in the word of truth, and I love that. The Chester McCauley website is wordoftruth.net, right? And so what's funny is that I've heard there's a kind of a name it and claim it group that is a word of truth something. And it's funny because I think, man, there's nothing more opposite than what Paul meant by word of truth and what Chester McCauley's website, Word of Truth, was about and what these people are doing. It's a word of faith kind of a thing, but they've twisted it around.

But anyway, so Paul comes in. We'll ignore my modern cross-reference there. Paul comes in and he is a preacher. He's teaching the word of truth. And when we think about truth, what did the Greeks love? They loved philosophical truth. They liked the idea of it.

But not the doing of it. Not the living it out. but Paul could come in and talk about truth just like he did in Athens. Wait a minute, did I get my city wrong? Yes, anyways, Paul came in and he said, you guys have all these idols, let me tell you about, you have this unknown God, let me tell you about the God, because I know him. Here's truth, and he delivers truth. All of that truth delivery was rooted in love, wasn't it? He loved the people, and he wanted to see the gospel reach them. And then Paul says, in God's power, or in the power of God. Now, that should have gotten the attention of the Corinthians, right? They loved the miraculous gifts, right? In 1 Corinthians 14, it comes out real obvious. It's real obvious. They loved the miraculous, powerful things.

And Paul says, yeah, I came in power. I did these things. While he's on his missionary journey. Now, whose power was it? God's power. Where's he going? God's stamp, his seal is on Paul. That's how you know it's the authenticity of Paul's ministry. And he's whiny babies, right? They don't understand. But Paul is continuing on there.

Now, I don't have a section in there about the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, but I just want to briefly call out, if we look at Ephesians 6, right where we see the spiritual armor, the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, we can assume that maybe he means something along those two ideas in his right hand and his left hand. But what are the weapons of in this verse? They're weapons of righteousness.

What does our enemy bring? What does Satan bring? What does the flesh bring? Deception. Sin. It's lies and wickedness. So the idea of the weapons of righteousness, their tools or instruments of righteousness, would be alternative translations from the Greek there. The idea is they're in both hands. It's not just one hand. I came in and I have both. I'm prepared. I'm ready to go to battle for righteousness and with righteousness.

And that's not the same as like sometimes you have the spiritual warfare folks, binding Satan and stuff. That's not what Paul was doing. That's God's problem. God will bind Satan if God wants to bind Satan. And as it turns out, he will for a thousand years, whenever that happens, right? Okay, we're going to keep moving because I caught my breath for a second there.

So Paul's next list here, he has, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report, regarded as deceivers and yet true, as unknown yet well known, as dying yet behold we live, as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things." So, no biggie, just a big long list of contrasts, right?

So, what does he mean by glory and dishonor? So Paul comes in and there's glory and dishonor. He doesn't use them as contrasts like he does some of the other ones where I'm dying yet living. This is glory and dishonor. They're contrasting ideas but he's getting both.

Why is that? What I look at when I see this idea of glory and dishonor is that if you think about his reputation and people's reactions and you read through the Book of Acts for example, how do the Bereans respond? to Paul. If God's Word, how do the Bereans respond to Paul's teaching? Check to see if those things were true.

And then they were. And they established, with Paul they established, hey this is good. Let's glorify God together in what is true, right? And then you get to other places, and like for example the Galatians, what were the Judaizers doing? They were keeping the law, but they were dishonoring Paul. They were speaking slander to Paul. They were specifically presenting a different gospel, and Paul had to bring the smack down on that. He was not going to be okay with this other gospel idea. But Paul is getting both. He and his cohorts have a reputation in both directions. Is he still ministering for God? For the power of God in love? Yeah, but he's got both reputations coming. And I think it's worth thinking about that.

We as believers, I have to be honest, I was raised culturally in my generation, so our culture is changing per generation, right? That I should never offend anybody. Well, the gospel offends. Instinctively, by the way that the culture surrounding me, my parents didn't raise me by the way to not preach the gospel, but I'm just saying that culturally that which was around me was constantly, we don't want to step on anybody's toes. If I'm worried all the time about offending somebody, then I'm never going to say anything. And then I'll never get glory, but I'll never get dishonor. Yay for me not getting glory or dishonor.

That's what the culture says. But that's how you go to hell. In zero easy steps. No effort required. That's the vain part. Right? When he's talking in the beginning of 6.1, that's the vain. You're not preaching the gospel. Why? You don't want to offend anybody. That's vain belief.

Alright, so glory and dishonor. Then he says evil and good reports. Okay, in Acts chapter 21, 27-30, the people stirred up lies about Paul. evil reports. It's reported that he wants to do away with the law. God's precious righteous law. He wants to do away with it. It's reported that he hates the law. Did Paul hate the law? No. Are we under it? No. But he didn't hate it.

He just knew what it was for. It was the schoolmaster to bring us to salvation. But then there were good reports. Okay? And in the good reports, Paul came back and he reported what the Holy Spirit was doing and the church celebrated together with him. Different believers came together and they reported. So, evil and good reports. And then poor and yet possessing all things. And I wanted to emphasize that one specific section there because I think we need to be able to answer what he means by possessing all things.

Because he was poor, right? He had stuff for making tents. He might have had the money that churches had given to him to help take care of the church in Jerusalem, and as well maybe given him a stipend or something to say, hey, thank you for your hard work and ministry here in our church community. But it doesn't sound like he had a lot, possession-wise. He wasn't traveling in one of those nice fifth wheel trailers. That would have really surprised people. He was like, where's the nearest gas station?

We know what poor means. Nobody's got any questions about that, right? Everybody feels good, they understand poor. I think in this group, looking at the conversations we've all had, not everybody grew up with the silver spoon in their mouth, right? But what does he mean by possessing all things? Okay, it could be spiritual things. I don't think that's entirely wrong, but I also think there's actually physical things he's talking about too.

Where do we get that? Yeah, Philippians 4, 18 and 19. Let's turn there if you've got your Bibles with you. Let's take a moment. Let's turn there and let's This is a rabbit trail, and we have so many verses that we didn't go into deep detail on. Let's go into some deep detail in Philippians. Why not? So Philippians 4, looking at verses 18 and 19. And let's see what God has to say about need through Paul there.

When somebody gets there, go ahead and read it out loud. Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus, the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice well pleasing to God. And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Okay, so Paul says he's learned to live without and in abundance.

Here he knows that there's times he's poor and there's times when God has supplied an excess, an abundance. So there's one detail that kind of matches up with what he's saying in 2 Corinthians 6 there. But what does he say? I think in verse 19, the first time I had somebody teach me verse 19, I thought, man, I knew nothing about possessions up until now. And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Now, where do the needs come from? And there may not be just one answer to this, but let's try to ask, where do the needs come from? Are we talking about spiritual or physical needs? No, no, spiritually we know that that's part of sanctification and growth. But physical needs, because that's what he's talking about here in this passage. He supplies our needs. No, no, but where do the needs come from? That's the question we need to answer. From his traveling, from his ministry? No, he's talking about the church's needs. So we're rabbit trailing and we're going to dig deep on the rabbit trail here, okay?

Where do the needs come from? Sometimes they come from circumstance, right? Sometimes the Lord allows just simple circumstance to happen. And sometimes God brings the need. Paul needed money for his missionary journey. If that wasn't circumstantial, that was divine providence, right? God intentionally brought the need. Now why did he bring the need?

So he would be glorified, but so that he could work on the body. Gary happened to cut down a tree in his backyard. And I said, I need some wood. And he's like, I have wood. And then David brought me some wood because his son cut down a tree. And I was like, this is awesome. I have a need. But you know what happened when that happened? I had fellowship with Gary and I had fellowship with David. And something happened in the body. And we had a point of connection there.

So we hear needs in America and what do we think? I'll fix that. Good thing I have become a wealthy capitalist or I have a credit card, right? And we deal with it by ourselves. What does Paul do with needs in the body? He desperately wants us to share our needs together.

When we read in Acts upstairs, when my dad's been going through Acts, What happens in Acts 2.42-47 when there was a need? I can't remember, I think it was verse 45. He says, what happens when there's a need?

Different brothers and sisters would share what they had. They sold their possessions they gave to those who were in need. Which is why Ananias and Sapphira were kind of jerks. Because they were lying about it. It's just a need. But God supplied the need and he supplied the fulfillment of the need. for his glory and for the development and growth and sanctification of the body.

So Paul had everything. He knew that if God provided a need, God would also provide the fulfillment of the need. In his ministry, it didn't matter which city he was in, or on the side of what road, with the flat tire on his fifth wheel, right? Gary, you look like you had something to say there. So Paul not only worked He worked day and night for the brother. Not only to meet his own needs but at times to meet other people's needs. So it's really an attitude. An attitude to help. He was a servant of God in God's body. So he was poor and he was rich and he knew that if there was a need God would provide the possessions. I possess all things. through God.

Not because it's not the Joel Osteen or Richard Tilton or whatever these name it and claim it. That's garbage, right? Does God deserve a Porsche? He asked me to drive it. That's Richard Tilton there, or Robert Tilton, whatever. It's pretty terrible. But possessing all things was not about literally possessing all the things all the time, but knowing that if there was a possession he needed, God would provide it. And throughout my walk with the Lord, I've met people over and over again where that is the case. That person has a thing that they need and God just goes, bam, there you go. And you know who you should really share your needs with?

Everybody here in this body. Because God maybe gave somebody something that they are not using, that they're just waiting for the Lord to provide the need. So Paul, this is a serious rabbit trail, and I hope you'll forgive me for that. Paul wants the church there in Corinth to understand that God had provided for him every step of the way, in poorness and in abundance. He's got everything he needs, every time.

Even though sometimes, as he said in the earlier verses, what did he say in verse 4? He says that they have hardship in endurance and afflictions and hardship and distresses. That's not all your needs being met every second. Sleepless, hungry, right? Sometimes those are their needs he went without on occasion. But the principle is he knew if God provided a need, he would provide the answer to the need, even if he had to wait on it. Alright, so I'm pretty sure Brian is waiting up by that buzzer, looking at his watch, and he's going to push it again in about 20 seconds, but we're going to keep going here. We're almost done, so I'm going to finish up here.

Paul was trying to restore the church in Corinth to a right way of thinking rooted in God's sovereignty and resting in their fellowship with Jesus Christ. his personal illustrations were given to help bolster their understanding of why he was not going to be returning during this journey through Corinth. If the church in Corinth had understood that, this would have been a lot less focused on the defense. And listen to me say this again and again and again. It might have been focused on some other things. But they were immature. But I don't want to stop there and belaboring the Corinthian scenario. I want to just highlight one more thing, also from Philippians.

In Philippians 1.12-18, Paul's writing from prison.

He's writing from prison and he talks about the Christian rabbits and the Christian jerks. If you've ever seen rabbits, they tend to hide and run away as soon as anything moves and spooks them. They get afraid. But Paul says the people who are afraid to preach the gospel they were afraid they'd get in trouble, are preaching the gospel because I'm imprisoned.

And he talks about the Christian jerks. Those are the ones, you guys know the Christian jerk, right? They're the ones that were preaching the gospel just to show how righteous they were and how unimprisoned they were. He's like, I don't care, the gospel's being preached. That's what matters.

So not everybody responded to Paul's trials and Paul's difficulties with this infantile mindset that the Corinthians had. We know for sure that there were other people who were inspired first by the motivation of the Holy Spirit. Let's own that. That's maturity as a believer, that you're abiding. But they responded. They saw Paul's imprisonment and they acted anyways. They said, hey, Paul is faithful to God's word.

Let's do the same. So even though we can get some discouragement now here in chapter six, where we think these people are a little bit slow on the uptake, the reality is that the Corinthian church wasn't the only church. And I want to offer some encouragement, because this has been kind of a long half of the letter, or a little bit less than half of the letter, where they've not been thinking so clearly. But there's encouragement and alternatives out there. Any other things people want to throw in or add or questions, things you wish I didn't say?

Alright, well let's close in prayer and then we can go upstairs. And you've got to meet my three new nephews, they're pretty sweet. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would Continue to teach us about who we are in you, about our ministry that we have as believers. Similarly to Paul, though we're not apostles, to be preaching the gospel, knowing who we are in you and what you're going to provide. We thank you for the truth that you have revealed here, and we just thank you for the life we have in you. In Jesus' name, amen.