The Lord’s Work

We are approaching Chapter 14 of Romans. But since I will be out of the pulpit for several weeks, I didn’t want to do the back and forth thing where we’re in and out of passage, starting and stopping. And so early last week, I began thinking about some special passage to consider. As we are in the midst of our annual meetings, I always try at least to tie a message to our meeting.

About midweek, as I wondered and prayed about what to preach, the Lord provided me with an overwhelming clue. I cannot provide you the details, but in the midst of a longstanding difficulty, I saw the Lord move in an amazing way. It was too big for me even not to notice. So I thought back to a particular passage that really should encourage all of us because this year, each of us, both as a church and as individuals, have seen God’s great faithfulness to us.

And so I thought back to the very beginning of 1 Corinthians to a passage where Paul observes the Lord’s work. Not just ministry, we often think of the Lord’s work in those terms, but the Lord himself at work. The problem is for believers through many seasons, many dark valleys and testing times, as God’s children, we often fall into periods of wondering if God will keep his word, if God will keep his promises. The psalmists knew this same struggle. We pray and our prayers seem to disintegrate like a vapor as soon as they exit our mouth. We don’t see God immediately and powerfully at work. And so we wonder if he is engaged at all. All we see is our struggles, our pain, our trials, our toil. And all we hear are the mockings of the world, the steady din of doubts in our own head, together with the blasphemous jeering of the devil. And so we need a fresh, even a daily reminder of God’s unending faithfulness. God has proven his faithfulness to us individually and collectively again and again. If we would only pause to acknowledge it.

In a moment, I’m going to have you turn to 1 Corinthians 1, but not yet. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul opens in those first three verses to a very customary greeting, a message of gratitude to the Corinthian church. Almost all of Paul’s letters contain this kind of greeting, Galatians only accepted. Paul routinely expresses his gratitude for what God was doing through the particular believers to whom he’s writing. And yet, the greeting in 1 Corinthians is, even though it’s somewhat routine, it’s very unique. I wanna pick up a line or two from several of Paul’s letters. And if you would, I’d like you to turn to first, pardon me, to Romans chapter one. And I want you to listen to these greetings and see if you can’t detect the difference once we get to 1 Corinthians.

Romans chapter one. And when you get there to verse eight, if you would please. In his greeting to the Roman church, Paul says, first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. For the Romans, Paul was thankful for their gospel witness. If you would, find your way to Ephesians in chapter one. Ephesians chapter one. And once there, glide down to verse 15. His greeting to the Ephesians, for this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you. For the Ephesians, Paul was thankful for their faith in Christ and for their love for one another. to the Philippians epistle, just one epistle to the right, and to chapter one of that epistle, and to verse three. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. For the Philippians, Paul was thankful for the partnership and everything that the Lord had done in them and through them, their partnership in the ministry of the gospel.

and one book to the right to the Colossian church, if you would. In Colossians chapter one, Scroll down to verse three. We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel. Paul is thankful not only for their faith and their love, but for their enduring hope of glory.

His greeting to the Thessalonian church as well, if you would turn there again to the right, is not altogether different. than his greeting of the Colossian Church, but 1 Thessalonians chapter one and verse two, we give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers, constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father. The very same qualities of The Colossian church, faith, hope, and love also stirred Paul’s gratitude for the Thessalonians.

And with that, as the backdrop, turn, if you would, to 1 Corinthians and to chapter 1. In all of those other epistles, Paul expresses his gratitude for some of the very particular things, their gospel witness, their faith, their love, their partnership in ministry, their example of hope.

But here in his first letter to the Corinthians, listen for the content of Paul’s gratitude. I’m in verse four, we’ll course down through verse nine. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you. so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Did you hear or capture the very slight difference in Paul’s note of thanksgiving for the Corinthians. Listen to verse four again. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus. It’s subtle and I don’t want to make too much of it, but neither do I want to ignore it. It really amounts to a difference in the reason or the content for the gratitude that Paul expresses. It’s different than what he articulates for each of the other churches.

The difference is that Paul does not express his gratitude for who the Corinthians were, or better, for what the Corinthians had become in Christ. That essentially is what he does with his other churches. To them, he acknowledges the observable work of grace that God was doing in their lives in those respective churches, but not the Corinthians. For the Corinthians, he simply focuses on what God had done for them. For the believers in Corinth and the church there, God had lavished his grace upon them, He doesn’t address anything about them or what they have become at all. That subtle difference does not seem to be a repudiation of the Corinthian church. There were some commentators that took this expression, verses four through nine, as almost sarcasm. I don’t see that at all. As if Paul really wasn’t thankful for them at all. Some suggested that it was even a rebuke of this church. And without doubt, Paul will, in the course of this letter, address some very difficult things in this church, some even with stern rebukes.

But here, in verses four through nine, at least, of chapter one, Paul seems to be genuinely expressing his gratitude for God. He acknowledges that God had held nothing back. No good thing had God withheld from them. God had gifted them and graced them and blessed them. That is what stirs Paul’s gratitude. Not what the Corinthians were, not what they had done, but for who God was and all that he had done. It’s a subtle difference. from his expressions to the other churches. It’s not that he wasn’t thankful for the Corinthians, but in order to initiate a positive focus, he sticks to that which is most positive.

Paul here, in this very typical expression of gratitude, takes a very untypical approach. The focus is not so much on them, the Corinthians, but on God and what he had done. You see, Paul knew the division in which the Corinthians were embroiled would have other negative effects in their midst as well, not the least of which was doubt. Doubt about each other, doubt about themselves, doubt perhaps about their salvation and doubt even about God himself. And so Paul’s primary goal here becomes evident very quickly. He wants to extol the greatness of God. He wants to remind the Corinthian church of things that at one time they may have had no doubts. He wants to restore and undergird their confidence in God himself.

Paul wants to step back and review and even evaluate God’s performance with regard to the Corinthian church. And he wants to provide a broad perspective of God’s efforts. A panorama, if you will, over time. in order to repair and reinvigorate their view of God. We’re looking at the Lord’s work, and here Paul gives a declaration of God’s great faithfulness, past, present, and future.

Would you track back to verse four, if you would? where we see not only, we see first of all that God has been faithful, that’s Paul’s point. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given, which was given you in Christ Jesus that in everything you were enriched in him. The first thing I’d have you observe is what occurs there in verses four through six. In verse four, he mentions the grace of God, which he points out was given, past tense, in Christ Jesus. Then in verse five, he tells these believers that they were enriched in him. And then in verse six, he says that the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in them. These were the things that God had already done, already accomplished in and among the believers in Corinth. God had indeed been faithful.

There are three elements to God’s faithfulness here. First of all, the grace of God, which was given in Christ Jesus. The first thing Paul points to, the first mark of God’s great faithfulness to the Corinthians, was no less than the grace of salvation. The word translated here as grace means, as you know, undeserved favor or kindness, or as one pastor declared it, the sunshine of which the believer is privileged to dwell. When we remember our miserable standing outside of Christ, our hopelessness, the eternal condemnation that we faced, and deservedly, and our utter helplessness, rather, to do anything about that standing, then and only then do we begin to grasp the magnanimous nature of this gesture from God. We did not, we do not, we never did and never will deserve it. And yet in his infinite mercy, instead of wrath, he gives kindness. And not merely a kind act, but kindness that transforms us. The very grace of God. He takes us from sinners to saints. He transfers us from this fallen world to eternal glory.

And note, it is indeed the unmerited favor of God, it’s God’s grace, but grace given only to those who are in Christ Jesus. That is grace. It is no little random act of kindness, it is life-changing. No wonder Paul begins with that astounding point. This is not always Paul’s starting point in his theological addresses to churches, but he almost always ends up declaring and discussing this supreme and foundational point of grace.

To the uninstructed Church of Rome in 324, He declared that we are justified as a gift by his grace. In 5.2 of that same epistle, he says that we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. To those wishy-washy Galatians who were ready to abandon the gospel he spoke, of him who called you by the grace of Christ. To the rock-solid Ephesian church with whom Paul had spent nearly four years, he reminded them that in him we have the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace. Ephesians 1-7. To the ever joyful Philippians, He acknowledged that they too were all partakers of grace with him. And to that tiny little mountain church in Colossae, he reminded them that they have been growing since the day they heard and understood the grace of God in truth.

The grace of God is core to what Paul communicates. And so, yes, grace and thanksgiving for this saving grace is a great place to begin one lengthy list of gratitudes. The great and comforting reality that Christ has redeemed us and that we are now peacefully reconciled to a holy God. It’s the very first place that this loving pastor and church planter begins, that God had shown his ultimate favor toward these people. Truly, there’s no better place for us to begin our prayer of gratitude.

James says that God is the giver of every good gift, most chiefly the gift of salvation. He reminds the Corinthians and he thereby reminds us that the beginning and the end of all praises and expressions of thanksgiving should be, must be the generous favor of God in saving us. While God, pardon me, while Paul duly acknowledges God’s greatest gift, the gift of grace that issues forth in salvation, it doesn’t stop there. God isn’t finished. And beyond our salvation, the gifts just keep coming for the believer.

Please look at verse five. It is so much so that Paul uses the superlative everything. In everything, he says, the child of God, including the Corinthians, were enriched in him. God gives the gift of salvation and then begins to pour out his riches. The context of this declaration is really remarkable. Remember, Paul is preparing to confront this church on a wide range of concerns. But he forestalls that address for now and focuses on God’s part, what God had done, how generous he had been to these believers. Again, by their faith in Christ and only by their faith in Jesus Christ, by their union to him, they are enriched. They’re blessed beyond measure. They’re graced and gifted. And these gracious gifts of God have enduring results. This is the spiritual equivalent of hitting the lottery. Riches beyond all human comprehension.

Paul uses this word again when he writes his second letter to the Corinthians. There he says, even though they were financially poor, he and his fellow workers in the gospel were making many rich by sharing the gospel, pointing to the spiritual riches that they would receive,

You’ll recall that beautiful scene in Acts chapter three where Peter and John, remember, are going to the temple. They meet with a crippled man whose only means of existence was begging at the temple gate. And as soon as Peter and John had secured the man’s attention, Peter said, I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk. They healed him. and I believe would thereby secure additional opportunities for the gospel because of it with this man and others. What they provided was worth far more than gold.

So Paul uses this very loaded word enriched. The noun on which this verb is formed just refers to great wealth, riches. But it’s very obviously spiritual wealth to which Paul is referring here. And we return to that superlative that leads this sentence. In everything, they were enriched. God had given these believers everything, everything that they needed, spiritually speaking.

This immensely calls to mind the opening words of Peter’s epistle, doesn’t it? His second epistle. grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. God gives to the believer everything they need to flourish and to glorify him, everything pertaining to life and godliness.

And so Paul says, that generally speaking, God had blessed them, but he elaborates on God’s gifts in two particulars. Glance at the passage where he reminds them that they were enriched in all speech and all knowledge. He presents these twin blessings as grace gifts from God. Quite expectedly, there is. There was and is a great diversity of opinion to what Paul refers to specifically by speech and knowledge.

These two could basically be taken as referring to doctrine that is taught and knowledge that is maintained. But some go so far as to narrow these gifts down to speaking in tongues and prophecy. And in this church, both of those gifts were indeed yet commonplace and, I might add, greatly abused. So much so that Paul will invest a good portion of this letter addressing that division.

But to narrow these two elements down to tongues and prophecy is completely unnecessary at this point. Remember, Paul’s whole purpose here is not to begin to chide the Corinthians for their abuses, but to extol the greatness of God for his generosity. And so rather than throwing himself headlong into a theological battle over sign gifts, he simply points to God’s magnanimity in giving these twin blessings.

I see it far better here to take these more generally. The expression or the articulation of the gospel and the reception of that gospel. The bottom line is that the Corinthians were amply supplied. They were fully equipped, lacking in nothing. Some perhaps were gifted in speech as teachers or even prophets. And we immediately think of Apollos as God’s recent provision, gift to that church. They were enriched in their hearing and the reception of the gospel, as well as the sweet blessing of proclaiming it to others. Others were gifted in knowledge, every manner and scope of spiritual insight, theologians, if you will. Some knew the gospel. Some were skilled in apologetics. Still others had mastered theology. Together, they were the great proof of this statement that God had enriched this church with all speech and knowledge.

God had richly blessed them with divine truth, the truth of the gospel, as well as the ability to understand it and communicate it. As I’ve told you, there is yet another aspect to this gift of grace. Please glance at verse six, where Paul tells them that this divine enriching was attended with a divine confirmation. He says that the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you. There was peace in their heart over the knowledge of the truth. They knew it was the truth.

This word confirmed is a beautiful word for the believer. It means a divine attestation to the truth. It’s God’s verification. It has the effect of establishing what has been communicated. And the idea behind this word is stronger still. It was made firm. It was secured. Nothing was left to interpretation or doubt. The gospel is the good news of salvation by faith in Christ, and it was firmly established in the Corinthians’ heart and minds. God had brought them to a deep and abiding conviction regarding Jesus Christ.

The point that Paul’s making here is that God had fulfilled his promises in the Good News, not just generally by providing Christ, a Savior, but to the individual by providing his Holy Spirit as well. To these Corinthian believers, upon hearing the gospel and stirred to faith, they were assured of its validity by the down payment of God’s own Holy Spirit. Writing to the Roman Christians, Paul similarly said, he spoke of this truth when he said that the Spirit himself testifies within our spirit that we are children of God. They knew it. It was confirmed in them. There were no doubts.

Paul wants to show that not only has God been faithful in the past, he’s faithful to them in the present. These past kindnesses to them are bearing fruit even still. Considering the Lord’s work and God’s declaration of faithfulness, not only has God been faithful, but secondly, God is now faithful. Would you glance at verses seven and eight, where Paul adds, having been confirmed that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

From the reality that God had shown himself already, as we saw in those three verbs that spoke of his actions toward the Corinthians in the past, the grace of God was given You were enriched, and verse six, Christ was confirmed, but watch what happens. Paul moves from God’s faithfulness in the past to the enduring results of that faithfulness in the present. Look, please, as Paul moves effortlessly into verse six, you were confirmed, and you are now not lacking, but you are eagerly awaiting. God has been faithful in the past, and that faithfulness endures into the present. Paul’s point is that God is faithful to these believers even still. His faithfulness endures.

We’ve already acknowledged that God has given them everything pertaining to life and salvation. All of their spiritual needs have been met. more than satisfied, but here he expands on God’s generosity by acknowledging that they do not now lack any spiritual gift. It’s one of the remarkable truths about Christianity, that though God does not need us, he chooses to use us. And in fact, he equips us for that very purpose. not only by the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, but also by the bestowal of varied and sovereignly distributed ministry gifts.

It’s an amazing blessing that not only should God choose to use us, but that He particularly selects and provides the very means of that involvement. We call these spiritual gifts. And you likely know that there is much diversity of opinion and much debate, even rancor, over this subject of exactly what gifts are even referred to here.

Paul uses this word 16 times in his letters, not all of which could even be construed as referring to spiritual gifts. Sometimes the word is just used to refer to a gift in the more general sense, like the gift of salvation. You know that Paul will go on to invest in almost entire chapter, chapter 12, discussing spiritual gifts, just as he does in Romans chapter 12 and Ephesians chapter four. But here he uses this word gift to refer to those tools and abilities with which God equips individual believers. Much more general here.

And Paul says that in an addition to being enriched in everything, here he declares that these believers were not lacking in any gift. There wasn’t anything in which this local congregation was deficient. Teaching, or preaching, or evangelism, or prayer, or service, they had it all. The Corinthians were as well furnished, spiritually speaking, as any church. God had fully supplied not only the individual believers, but the church as well. They were lacking in nothing.

Whether you recognize it or not, that word lacking is familiar to us. It’s the very word that is used of the prodigal son when he began to be impoverished. He lacked the basic means of existence. It’s the same word that’s used in John chapter two, which passage we read this morning, that the wine ran out. Literally, they lacked wine. It’s the same word used in Romans 3.23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Sinners lack the righteousness of God.

The same could not be said of the Corinthian church. They had it all, they lacked nothing. They had no cause to feel left out or inferior to any other church. They lacked nothing. Well, nothing except, as Paul so beautifully concludes, nothing but the full revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. For that alone, the Corinthians eagerly but patiently waited. This is to be the clear and eager anticipation of every believer. The anticipation of that eager longing, the culmination of the ages, the return of Christ, eternity itself.

That’s the recurring theme of the New Testament. They longed for this one thing because that meant the full and final confirmation A day of our Lord when God would glorify them, completing their sanctification, making them blameless, beyond reproach, unindictable. This reminder would be greatly stabilizing to a people bewildered by their own disunity. All ensured, likewise, the vacillating Galatian church that we, through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. Paul spoke of that same hope to the Roman Christians in 819, how the anxious longing of creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. With great enthusiasm, this same apostle assured the Philippian believers in 320 that our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. To his fellow worker, Titus, on the island of Crete, he spoke of the anticipation of the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. The idea of the end of the age is like a golden cable coursing through the entirety of the New Testament. And God, who was, is, and ever will be faithful, will bring it to pass.

As believers in Christ, we long for heaven. We long to go home and be with our Savior. Here, we are strangers and aliens. We are not and should not be comfortable here. Home. Home in heaven is where our heart is, where one day we will shake off this blanket of sin and embrace forever the noble clothes of righteousness. so that whether it’s tomorrow or 100 years from now, our longing for Christ in heaven is not dimmed or shaken.

And so really and truly, God had not only been faithful in the past, he must be acknowledged as being currently faithful, and that leads us to an absolute confidence that he will be faithful Our third point in looking at the Lord’s work, God has been faithful, God is now faithful, God will ever be faithful. If you look at verse 9, how simple can it be? God is faithful. Through whom you were also called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul rounds out his encouragement about God’s faithfulness with this overarching statement. Not only has God been faithful, results which carry over and endure to the present so that God is now faithful, but this final statement on his very nature, his character, God is faithful. That immensely implies that God will ever be faithful.

Just as God in his nature is trustworthy in the things which he says, he cannot lie. He is trustworthy in his promises. We can take him at his word. He cannot be unfaithful. God always does what he says he’s going to do. He never goes back on a promise. He never backs out of a promise. Deuteronomy 7, 9 says this of God, know therefore that the Lord your God, he is God, the faithful God, who keeps his covenant and his loving kindness to a thousandth generation with those who love him and keep his commandments. This is no flippant or capricious man that we should wonder or doubt about his intention of his word to us. God does what he says he’s going to do. He never fails to keep a promise. He never fails to fulfill his word. God is faithfulness personified and perfected.

As that mysterious unknown writer of the Hebrews, the epistle to the Hebrews put it, let us hold fast to the confession of hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. God is absolutely reliable to fulfill his promises, to carry out his judgments. What Paul is telling them, what Paul is telling the Corinthians, what Paul is telling us, is that the same God through whom we were called into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, he will grant the grace to persevere to the end. As Paul encouraged the Thessalonians, faithful is he who called you, he will bring it to pass. Paul’s confidence is not in his pastoral capability, Nor is it in the giftedness or in the faithfulness of the Corinthian believers. His confidence, his only confidence, is in God himself. And he is confident that God will see it through because it is God himself that initiated that work. It’s he who called them into fellowship, to loving communion with himself, He who began a good work in you, Paul said to the Philippians, will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. In his trusted volume, the attributes of God, A.W. Pink humbly exhorted, there are seasons in the lives of all when it is not easy, no, not even for Christians to believe that God is faithful.

Our faith is sorely tried, our eyes be dimmed with tears, and we can no longer trace the outworkings of his love. Our ears are distracted with the noises of the world, harassed by the atheistic whisperings of Satan, and we can no longer hear the sweet accents of his still small voice. Cherished plans have been thwarted, friends on whom we relied have failed us. A professed brother or sister in Christ has betrayed us. We are staggered. We sought to be faithful to God, and now a dark cloud hides him from us. We find it difficult, yea, impossible for carnal reasons to harmonize his frowning providence with his gracious promises.

Ah, faltering soul, severely tried fellow pilgrim, seek grace to heed. Isaiah 50 verse 10. Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.

Would you humble yourself before him? Our merciful King, we come before you thankful for the reminder of your great faithfulness. You have been faithfulness to us in the past, sending your own son to pay for our sin on the cross. You have been faithful to us in real time, bring us to life through the gospel, to grant us repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus. And Lord, we who have tasted of Christ know for certain that you have confirmed it in our hearts by your own Holy Spirit. You are faithful even still.

And Lord, that makes us to be absolutely confident that you are faithful, you will always be faithful. You will bring our salvation to completion. Lord, what a comfort we take. And for all who know the Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for your incredible faithfulness to us.

Lord, for any in our midst who do not know the Lord Jesus as Savior, God has done everything. God has provided a savior for sinners. And he beckons, calls all to repentance and to faith in Jesus Christ, the only means of salvation. Ours is not to do, and not to expend effort in trying to save ourselves. Ours is to look to Christ and Him alone in faith. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray, amen.