Steeled for the Gospel

having my 45 to 50 minutes, that
that’s what you think this is all about. My great concern with
the tendency of the modern church to set aside the importance of
preaching isn’t so much that 45 to 50 minutes of one guy getting
up and talking, because in some cases, getting up and talking
for 45 to 50 minutes is wasted time anyway. depending on the
orientation of the message. But my great concern is that
what is set aside so often is everything that goes with that,
the great themes of Scripture, the redemption of Christ, our
need of Christ, and all of those things take time to develop.
And you know, well, it’s notorious that to me, 45 to 50 minutes
isn’t enough. And all of those great things
and themes of Scripture get set aside and minimized. And it must
be that something else steps in and fills that void. And what
has happened in so many cases is the very nature of God gets
minimized. The very view of God gets distorted. Our need of God gets stilted
to where we We don’t even know what we need anymore. And no
wonder we don’t notice an absence in the nourishment that we get
from the pulpits in our country. We found ourselves spending time
these last couple of weeks, reorienting ourselves and looking and meditating
on what is the Christian ministry? What is this ministry of the
gospel? What are its great themes? Why is it so crucial and so important? It started back in chapter 2,
verse 12, where we looked at the bedrock of ministry, that
God is conducting a ministry in this land. God does have His
ministers in every place. From there, we looked at the
momentum of ministry in chapter three, verse one, and then God’s
glorious nature in ministry, that the ministry does have a
glorious element to it, even if there is no pillar of fire.
And from there, Paul seems to go the extra mile for us. He
tells us the ministry is glorious and there are blessings that
attend to that ministry. This is where we spent time last
week in chapter 3, verse 12, that the gospel brings a clarification,
a certain clarification that allows us to speak with clarity
and boldness and definitiveness. And that’s what we miss from
the pulpits. That’s what is part and parcel
of the Christian church is the ability to speak with authority
from the pulpit on truth. And not just opinions, not just
entertainment, The other blessing that we looked at last week is
that there is a liberation from our sinful condition. That’s
what the gospel ministry brings. And third and finally, last week,
we noticed that we are being transformed, that there is a
hope and a fruitfulness that one day will bear forth in what
is called glorification. But Paul, in one of the most difficult
chapter breaks at all, isn’t even finished. This break in
chapter four, verse one, you know, years ago, they said that
somebody who ever put in the chapter breaks did it while he
was riding on a horseback, because that’s about how much sense some
of these make. The passage at hand fits very neatly with these verses in chapter
three, as we will see. But I wanted to, if you would,
pick up And for the sake of time, I want to pick up in verse 17
of chapter 3, and then we’ll take the flow into chapter 4.
Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. That’s that liberty we spoke
of. That’s that real, true, genuine liberty where we are liberated
from sin. But we all, with unveiled face,
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as
the Lord from the Lord the Spirit. Therefore, since we have this
ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart. but we have renounced the things
hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating
the Word of God, but by the manifestation of truth, commending ourselves
to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” As I indicated, in our day and age, it’s not
uncommon to find churches that don’t even spend any time really
expounding the Word Much time can be given to music and that
can never be removed. Much time is given to entertainment.
Much time is given to all kinds of accommodations to the so-called
worship service. But the thing that has become
dispensable Convenient to remove is the time spent meditating
in God’s word, preaching in God’s word, expositing God’s word that’s
become inconvenient. But not for Paul. For the Apostle
Paul, he said that it was essentially the core of who he was, as we’ve
already seen in times past. And what I want to look at this
morning, and I know that our time is brief, and so I’m going
to step up the pace. You may not even recognize it.
I entitled the message this morning, Stealed for the Gospel. I’m talking
about essentially a galvanized state of mind and heart. And
that’s where we find Paul. That’s how we find the Apostle
Paul. Not committed to all kinds of
things. not diversified, not willing to try new things at
the expense of the old, but committed to the one ministry, committed
to the one thing. And so I wanted to look just
in this brief passage at the characteristics of those committed
to gospel ministry. What are they? What do we see
here about the Apostle Paul? First of all, Paul said that
the If we are to be those, if we are to have a ministry in
the gospel, if we are to serve Christ in that way. We must have
a battle ready resolve. A battle ready resolve. Paul said in verse one, since
we have this ministry. And you get the sense that one
day he woke up and found himself on the battlefield and realized
that whether the recruiter used unfair tactics or whether he
even desired to continue to serve or whether he believed in the
cause for which he was fighting, he was a soldier and he finds
himself on the battlefield. That’s the sense that I get from
this sentence. Since we have this ministry,
he’s not debating whether he was rightly called anymore. He knows that he has a ministry.
He knows he’s been placed in the ministry, just like a soldier
who wakes up on battlefield one morning. This emphasizes Paul’s humble
acknowledgement that God had granted him privilege of being
a minister of the gospel. God had put him in service. He
doesn’t say, since I have signed up for ministry or since I have
gone to seminary and spent my 4.2 years. He doesn’t say that. He says,
since we have this ministry, a humble acknowledgement that
God was the one that had granted him this ministry. God had called
Paul to the ministry And it was solely based on God’s
mercy, as we’ll see in a moment. Repeatedly throughout the New
Testament, we see Paul reiterating his calling and talking about
how it was God that put him there. And so many men, it seems that
they’ve forgotten that, that any time any kind of ministry
is done, it’s God that put you there. We don’t grasp hold of
any ministry that God doesn’t allow to sift through his gracious
fingers. And in that sense, put us there.
Acts 20, 24, Paul knew it. Acts 20, 24, I do not consider
my life of any account as dear to myself. Paul wasn’t afraid
of his foes. So that I might might finish
my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus
Christ. You know what? A lot of times
I hear people talk about their church and I’ve corrected that
when I pray in my speech, I try not to refer to this as my church
or our church. It’s Christ’s church. And you
know what else? It’s Christ’s ministry. Sometimes
God in His graciousness will allow us to serve, but ultimately
it is the ministry of Christ that He allows us to be partakers,
sharers, participants in. It’s not our ministry. It’s not
my program. It’s not my deal at all. Acts 26. Paul recounting his calling.
Remember when he got zapped on the road to Damascus in Acts
26, he recounts it. And he said that he heard this
voice, get up, stand on your feet for this purpose. I have
appeared to you to appoint you. He didn’t ask Paul’s opinion.
He didn’t ask Paul if he might like to come and serve. I remember
years ago hearing MacArthur say that he never once counseled,
encouraged, admonished any young man to go to seminary. He never
once. Colossians 1.23, Paul reiterates
the same thought there. That he didn’t want them to be
moved away from the hope of the gospel that they had heard, which
was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which I,
Paul, was made a minister. He didn’t talk about seizing
hold of things. I came across one of them in
my illustration file the other day, a place where you can send
away anybody who’s interested, see me afterwards. You can send
away and you can be ordained by the end of the week. Paul
didn’t do anything like that. Paul didn’t seize hold of the
ministry. Paul didn’t go get himself ordained.
He was appointed by God, put there for a reason. Later on
in that same chapter, he says of this church, I was made a
minister. According to the stewardship
from God bestowed on me for your benefit so that I might fully
carry out the preaching of the Word of God and see whether I
think a lot of people lack is a sense this. A lot of people
lack that sense of that mindset, that sense of purpose that says,
I know God put me here. I was listening to an old black
preacher one time that said some is sent, others just went. That’s the problem. Some is sent,
others just went. Paul was sent and Paul knew it. Paul said, since we have this
ministry. It’s as if he wakes up one morning
on the battlefield and all the questions are dissipated, all
the all those questions in anticipating or contemplating going into ministry,
all that’s gone. Now what’s here is the battle. And it’s a sacred trust. It’s
a sacred trust. Almost every time Paul talked
about it with Timothy, Paul tried to communicate to him the nature
of what has been given to us in the ministry. It’s a solemn
thing to be called to the ministry. 1 Timothy 1.8, this command,
I entrust to you, Timothy, my son. 1 Timothy 6.20 and 21, O
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Second Timothy
1.13, retain the standard of sound words which you heard from
me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard through
the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure which has been
entrusted to you. What was the treasure? The gospel,
the gospel of Christ, because it was the ministry of Christ.
There is no ministry except from God. And for Paul, what a great
guide and motivator. To realize and to sit up and
to say, since we have this ministry, we have it. And because of that,
we do not lose heart. God put me here. And there’s
a sense where many of us need to remember that, that God, if
God has put you in ministry, it’s God that put you there.
No discipler, no earthly discipler, no seminary. Not even the church
puts you there. All the church does is recognize
and acknowledge what God has already worked into you. Therefore, since we have this
ministry, as we have received mercy, and it’s always the Apostle
Paul’s model to model the utmost in humility to say that, look
with me, God didn’t get a deal. And that’s the mentality of so
many of the men that I meet in ministry. is to think that, you
know, it’s my it’s my great heritage. It’s my the fact that I’m a fifth
generation preacher. This heritage, this family tree
that I come from. How rare it is to come across
the man that says, I have no idea, I have absolutely no idea
why God put me of all people in the ministry. That was Paul’s
mindset. Romans 15, Paul said it there
again, because of the grace that was given for me to be a minister
of Christ to the Gentiles. It was always because of God’s
abundant grace and mercy and nothing to do with himself. He
never once said, because I’m such a great orator, because
I went to such and such a seminary, because my dad was a preacher.
Nothing like that. Nothing like that. Ephesians chapter 3. speaking to the Ephesians about
being fellow partakers of the promise of Jesus Christ through
the Gospel, of which I was made a minister according to the gift
of God’s grace, which was given to me according to the working
of His power. To me, the very least of all
the saints, grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable
riches of Christ. You don’t see an arrogant man
here. You don’t see a man that says, you know, look at me. Didn’t
God get a good, sweet deal with Paul? Not at all. When he wrote
to Timothy, he said the same thing, 1 Timothy 1, 12, I thank
Christ Jesus, our Lord. And isn’t that always the case
for a humble servant of God to thank God? I thank Christ Jesus,
our Lord, who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful,
putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer
and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, yet I was shown mercy.” God didn’t put him there because
of who he was or because of his potential, because of his oratorical
skills or his organizational skills or any other kind of skills. It was the mercy of God. No one, and I mean no one, inherently
deserves to serve in the ministry. All of us are feeble. All of
us are sinful. All of us are unqualified and
disqualified. It’s God. It’s always God that
makes the servant of God. And if He doesn’t make him, he
doesn’t go. He shouldn’t go. Paul says, since we have this
ministry and he wakes up on battlefield and he realizes he’s in the ministry
and he realizes the only reason he’s in the ministry is because
he’s received abundant mercy from God. And he says, because
of all that, we do not lose heart. What does it mean? What does
it mean we do not lose heart? Because of it means we do not
get discouraged. When our people are wayward,
then I’m in trouble. As is every pastor. You talk
to pastors. It is notorious among pastors
to talk about their Mondays. Because Mondays are down days. They’re blues days. They’re days
of great discouragement. How could it be otherwise when
you see people, when you see them squander? I remember one
pastor used to talk about people would come into Sunday with a
thimble and fill it up full of grace and then trip and spill
it on the steps on the way out. How can you not get discouraged
when you see God’s people make silly choices that ruin their
lives? ruined their families, ruined
their ministries. How can you not get discouraged?
Is it just discouragement that he’s talking about? Is that what
he means by losing heart? The word literally means to give
in to fear, to lose courage, to behave like a coward, to quit. That’s what it is. It’s discouragement
to the point of quitting and saying, you know what? Look,
These people aren’t worth it. This Lord isn’t worth it. That’s
what it means. We do not lose heart. We’ve been
put in battle. We’ve been placed on the battlefield and I am steeled
for this purpose. God is the one that equipped
me. God is the one that put me here and I will not quit. I cannot
quit. This word is used a number of
key, key places. In the New Testament, particularly
Luke 18.1, as Jesus is drawing near to the cross himself, he
began to tell his disciples a parable to show that at all times they
ought to pray and not to lose heart. Don’t quit. You can’t quit. And that’s what
I think of when I think of Jesus coming back and putting Peter
back in the ministry there in John 21, because Peter had quit. He had lost heart. He saw his
Lord crucified. He said, that’s it. That’s it. Now, Paul. Second Corinthians
416, he repeats it, therefore, we do not lose heart. But though
the outer man is decaying, and it is, yet our inner man is being
renewed day by day. There are a thousand reasons
to get discouraged. There’s a thousand reasons, physical
reasons and emotional reasons and frustrations in the church
and conflicts without, as Paul said, and fears within. But we do not quit. We do not lose
heart. I was at Olive Tree this past
week and somebody walked up to me with a just an encouragement
of all things, a doughnut wrapped. Yeah, they know. They know how to get to me. They
brought brought me a doughnut wrapped up in cellophane just
with a little verse on it. You know what verse it was? Does
God have a sense of humor? Galatians 6 9. Let us not lose
heart in doing good for in time we will reap if we do not grow
weary. We don’t quit. If the Lord wakes
us up on battlefield, if we suddenly realize one day that we are in
his service and we know it’s only by God’s grace, if that’s
the case, then we don’t quit. We don’t lose heart. Because
we have this relationship with God, because we have this access
to God, we have to be superior. We have to rise above all the
afflictions and all the difficulties and all the struggles of life
and ministry. We have to maintain a joyful
spirit. Because since we’re the subjects of the great redemption
about which we just celebrated and we have this freedom of access
to God in Christ. We can’t be discouraged, can’t
be discouraged and despondent to the point of cashing it in
and quitting and telling God that no, thanks, I’m going AWOL. Do not grow weary, do not lose
heart. As one said, this verb indicates
the timidity which shrinks from coming forward and speaking out. That’s what Paul was supposed
to do. He was supposed to stand up and speak boldly, not sit
down and cower in the corner. Such faint heartedness takes
refuge in silence and inactivity in order to escape criticism.
It is the opposite of boldness. And I’m telling you, some of
us, some of us have already packed it in. We put the Bible in the
backpack and we’ve already headed home. We’re already we’ve got
our back headed towards. We’re headed back rather towards
camp. But not Paul. Paul had been made
a minister of this new covenant, this gospel ministry. He had
been entrusted with the ministry of righteousness and life. Remember all of those themes
that played out in chapter two and three. It was his commission, he couldn’t
be timid or deceitful, he couldn’t doubt the truth. There will be discouragements,
there are many discouragements. But quitting. That’s the bottom
line of this section, that’s the bottom line, quitting and
quitting for somebody who’s been placed in the ministry because
of God’s mercy is not an option. Quitting is not an option. Secondly,
there was a second characteristic that you see from those committed
to the gospel ministry, not only a battle ready resolve. But a
sanctified strategy. You see, any one that goes into
battle, you know, you just don’t go marching over the hill like
the English did. Remember when when they came
over to America, you know, they just wanted to march, dress up
in red coats and march over the top of the hill. Well, you might
want to rethink that one. Paul said this regarding a sanctified
strategy. He said, since therefore we have
this ministry as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart,
but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame. Oh,
this is going to get good. We’re going to find out what
Paul’s sins were. Because this word shame talks
about disgraceful, shameful things. These are the deep-seated sins
that reside in the recesses of our heart. And the whole reason
they’re called shameful is we couldn’t bear for them to come
to light because then we would be utterly shamed. It talks about disgraceful, dishonorable
deeds that produce embarrassment and humiliation. And so what are they? Typically, they are those things
that people try to conceal. They do in secret because they’re
ashamed of them. Secret scandals or crimes, said
one. It may be taken in a general
sense as including any course of conduct which men conceal
for fear of being disgraced. So that’s what it is. And so
is Paul saying that he had some secret crime or secret sin that
he had entertained since becoming a Christian, mind you, It’s hard
for me to even fathom that somebody would write this. It’s hard for
me to even fathom that this is how somebody would interpret
this passage, that something scandalous was still in Paul’s
life that he had to set aside, renouncing the things hidden
because of the shame. Nor can I even fathom that Paul
is talking about his sinful past and everyone has it. Even the
Apostle Paul with his great pedigree of a faithful and well-trained
Jew. I don’t think that’s at all what
Paul’s talking about here when he says that we have renounced
the things hidden because of shame. What he was talking about
is the shameful things that were going on in the name of Christ,
in ministry, in Paul’s day. And he said they’re shameful,
these things. And because of that, I renounce them. I completely
repudiate all of that. That cowering away from God’s
Word. That denial of the nature of
the Gospel. The offense of the cross. To
say that Christ is enough was for some foolishness. Silly. Certainly, Paul, you’re more
intelligent than that, they would say. In the immediately preceding context,
Paul had talked about his openness in speech and in conduct. And
in the later part of this very verse, he talks about the manifestation
of the truth What Paul renounced is what the false teachers represented,
that lack of openness, adopting all these secret methods and
strategies, all these little unbiblical methods and secret
ways, reducing the gospel, watering
down the gospel, omitting the difficult parts, the hard parts. That was their habit. but Paul knew the truth of the
matter. 1 Corinthians 1.18, Paul said, the word of the cross is
foolishness to those who are perishing. You can’t take away
from Scripture what it is. You can’t take away from the
Bible that God is a God of wrath. You can’t downplay the key points
that we are utterly sinful and in desperate need of a Savior.
You can’t take that away. And to do so is shameful. And it leaves you with no Gospel
at all. There were times in Christ’s
own ministry that some of the things Christ said were so shocking
and so utterly unpalatable to the refined society of His day,
that they quit worshipping Him. They quit following Him. John
6 Jesus said, it’s the spirit who gives life, the flesh profits
nothing. The words that I have spoken
to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who
do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who it was
that did not believe and who it was that would betray him.
And he was saying, for this reason, I’ve said to you that no one
can come to me unless it has been granted him by the father.
And they were utterly stunned by that. What do you mean? I’ll
come and worship you if I want. And if I don’t want to, I won’t.
You can’t make me.” And it says that as a result of this, because
of those statements, as a result of this, many of His disciples
withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. We can’t be ashamed of the gospel. We can’t be ashamed of the nature
of God’s Word. We can’t be ashamed of the truth
of it. Paul said it in Romans one, I’m
not ashamed of the gospel of any part of it. That’s what made
his ministry. It wasn’t that Paul was so stupendous.
It was that Paul saw that the gospel was stupendous. Therefore, We do not lose heart,
but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not
walking in craftiness.” And there he goes at the heart of this
error. They had crafted all kinds of
other means and all kinds of other fanciful opinions. And
they had embellished the so-called gospel to the point where it
was no gospel at all anymore. And we’re very close to that
same thing in our own day. I remember years ago, one writer
said, we have people being saved before they even know they have
need of a Savior. We don’t even tell them about
the nature of their own heart and sin and what a desperate
state they’re in. We just immediately talk about
heaven and what a great benefit it is to them. Not walking in craftiness. The
word just literally means trickery. It’s an attempt to trick people
into following you, into following this false and faulty gospel. And Paul said it was abundant
in his day. Abundant enough to where he took
up major sections of his epistles to talk about this foolishness,
this craftiness. You see what we’ve forgotten
is that as one said, error is evil. We don’t think of it that
way anymore. I remember one time I told you
from the pulpit I was going to say a dirty word. The dirty word
is discrimination. We don’t think of it that way
anymore. To think of error as evil and to think that we are
called to discriminate, to discern, to decide between good and bad
and right and wrong and good and evil. Error is evil. Religious error springs from
moral evil and produces it. The apostle attributes the departure
from the truth to cunning and deceit, which are characteristic
of error or false teachers, said one. Error, therefore, can never
be harmless for false teachers are never innocent. They have
embraced this error, they are fomenting this error, the error
will do grave damage to anyone who hears it and Paul, at least,
is willing to say, you know what? I am not going to embrace these
things hidden in the dark. I’m going to tell you what it is.
It is grave and pernicious error, and it will take people down
to the pit if they listen. If you take the cross out of
the gospel, if you take the nature of man out of the gospel, you
have no gospel at all. You have error. There is no convenient breaking
point, I’ll end with this and we’ll pick up. Though I don’t
know how we’ll figure it out between now and next Lord’s Day. The one pastor said. The false apostles of Paul’s
day were in effect First century marketing experts, they viewed
the gospel as a product and themselves as salesmen. Part of selling
the product, the gospel was veiling its truth and sprucing it up
by tweaking the message, repackaging it to make it more popular and
trendy. They hoped for better appeal
to first century consumers. They would then succeed in making
converts and money. But when preachers ashamed of
the gospel proclaim human wisdom deceitfully in the name of divine
truth, their work is impotent. It is no ministry at all. It is no real, true, beneficial
ministry to anyone. It’s not on behalf of God. It’s
not the ministry of the gospel. It’s not the proclamation of
Christ. and it does them no good. We’ll
pick it up there next Lord’s Day. Our Father God, we thank You
for our time today. We thank You for the richness
of Your Word. We thank You that any time we
ever serve You, we can know that it’s only because of Your great
mercy in putting us in service. Help us to hold faithfully and
fast to Your Word that those in our own ministries will be
nourished and built up. We thank you and praise you in
Jesus name. Amen.