"But I will come to you after I go through Macedonia, for I am going through Macedonia; 6 and perhaps I will stay with you, or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on my way wherever I may go. 7 For I do not wish to see you now just in passing; for I hope to remain with you for some time, if the Lord permits. 8 But I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost; 9 for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.
12 But concerning Apollos our brother, I encouraged him greatly to come to you with the brethren; and it was not at all his desire to come now, but he will come when he has opportunity.
13 Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love."
I Corinthians 16:5-14
Good Morning Beloved,
Welcome to worship!
It is such an honor and privilege to have you here with us.
As we continue our study in The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians believers, we are quickly coming to the end of the sixteenth chapter of I Corinthians, it’s like saying goodbye to an old friend.
Much like a parent, who's child is leaving home, the apostle Paul was thinking of all kinds of things that he still wanted to say to the Corinthians while recognizing that it was time to finish and send the letter. In these concluding verses of the letter we read of Paul’s final instructions to the Corinthians.
God’s work must be done in God’s way. Jesus is building his church. And He is doing so through us, His workers. Everything that we do in participating in the building of Jesus’ church must be done according to His plan and code, which He has revealed in the Bible, and must be continually subject to the divine inspection of the Holy Spirit.
In these verses the apostle Paul gives us several valuable principles for doing God’s work God’s way.
You may recall that Paul had planted the church at Corinth during the 18 months he spent there in the early 50s during his second missionary journey. After a brief trip to Judea and Syria, Paul settled in Ephesus for three years, 52-55 AD. While there he wrote two letters to the Corinthians, the first of which is lost. The second letter he wrote is the current letter we have and which we call The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, and was written somewhere between 53 and 55 AD.
Paul wanted to visit the Corinthian church again, which he said in verse 5: "But I will come to you after I go through Macedonia, for I am going through Macedonia." Paul was the consummate visionary. He was God’s worker who had a vision for the future. Paul was constantly strategizing about how the gospel could be advanced.
God’s worker plans and strategizes, and looks to the future with a vision for seeing the gospel advance. One writer suggested that Paul was haunted by distant regions, and never saw a ship at anchor but that he wished to board it to carry the good news to people across the waters, and that he never saw a mountain range but that he wanted to cross it and build up the saints in the Lord.
First, let bow our heads in prayer.
Heavenly Father,
Father, thank You for Your Word for us today. Thank You for those gather together both near and far.
Lord, help us to be refreshed by Your Spirit, that it might be seen through our witness and testimony. Help us to be faithful, humble servants. Father, make us more like Jesus. Faithful in our ministry like the apostle Paul, even unto death, if that be Your will. Help us to do Your work the work of the Lord Jesus, in the Lord’s way. And help us to do it the way You want it done, without grumbling or complaining but to fulfill it joyfully. Help us to be committed to it, that Your work would become our life's work. Let it all be done in love. Lord, help us to show ourselves approved unto You, not workers who are ashamed. Use us, O' Lord, to do Your work in Your way that You might receive all the glory.
Lord, we pray for those who yet lost in darkness, may today be the day, that they would come to the light. The light which is Jesus Christ. May we be a reflection of that in the world.
This we pray in Jesus' name
Amen
Today's Message: God's Work, God's Way
Open your Bibles with me and turn to the sixteenth chapter of I Corinthians. Today, in our study we'll be examining verses 5-14. There are some people, who seem to have trouble understanding this passage, trying to figure out why this is included in the Scriptures. I suppose, this is where one is able to test ingenuity and capacity in dealing with the Scriptures. In preparation for today's message, I read this over and over, trying to get all I could out of it before teaching it to you. And to summarize, Paul was talking about. He’s talking about the work of the Lord. He is saying you ought to be always abounding in the work of the Lord
Follow along with me as I read to you from this marvelous, instructive text from the visionary apostle Paul I Corinthians 16:5-14.
"But I will come to you after I go through Macedonia, for I am going through Macedonia; and perhaps I will stay with you, or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on my way wherever I may go. For I do not wish to see you now just in passing; for I hope to remain with you for some time, if the Lord permits. But I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost; for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.
Now if Timothy comes, see that he is with you without cause to be afraid, for he is doing the Lord’s work, as I also am. So let no one despise him. But send him on his way in peace, so that he may come to me; for I expect him with the brethren.
But concerning Apollos our brother, I encouraged him greatly to come to you with the brethren; and it was not at all his desire to come now, but he will come when he has opportunity.
Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love."
Beloved, we never really know how God may choose to use us. However, once we become aware of various needs and opportunities, God’s worker must have a vision for the future expansion of Jesus’ church. Paul was able to give himself to a task and yet he had a vision for the future.
In Nehemiah 1:1 and 2:8, when Nehemiah approached King Artaxerxes for permission to go to Jerusalem, he had a specific purpose in mind. Nehemiah had already prayed earnestly that God would allow him to do this work and that he would open the king’s heart to give permission. He then explained to the king Jerusalem’s great need for its walls and gates to be rebuilt. When Nehemiah’s initial request was granted, he made additional requests in order to secure timber and other materials he knew he would need. Because of his vision for the future, his great success as the rebuilder of Jerusalem began long before he left Persia.
God's worker must also be flexible. Paul says in verse 6, "and perhaps I will stay with you, or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on my way wherever I may go." So we know that not only did Paul want to visit Corinthians, but he had hoped to spend some time there.
Also, one who does the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way, and this is important, must not be superficial. Must not be superficial. Paul had a commitment to thoroughness in the ministry. He wasn’t interested in the superficial. Why? Because you can’t teach somebody to observe all things that God has commanded them without investing your life in them. Because in one way or another, we are all ambassadors of Christ, we are all serving in some capacity, we had ought to do it thoroughly.
God, however, had previously modified Paul’s plans regarding a visit to Corinth. In Acts 15:36, on his second missionary journey Paul planned to "visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are." We learn in Acts 16:6-7, they were able to visit most of the places as planned, but they had "been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia" or "to go into Bithynia"
It was the Lord’s will for Paul and Silas, with their new companion, Timothy, to revisit some of the churches on the original schedule, but before all of them could be visited, God sent the group to a completely new field, Macedonia, verses 9-10, where they became the first to preach the gospel in Europe. Every one of us, who are God’s workers, must be flexible, if they are to be useful in the building of Christ’s Church. We must be willing to do God's work, God's way.
God’s worker must be thorough in present service, if Paul were to accomplish anything worthwhile during his next stay in Corinth, he knew that he would have to spend more time with them than just in passing. He therefore hoped to spend some time with them. In verse 7. Paul says; "For I do not wish to see you now just in passing; for I hope to remain with you for some time, if the Lord permits."
Paul had a strong commitment to thoroughness. Superficiality and shallowness were not hallmarks of his ministry. Paul wanted everything he did to be sound and permanent, worthwhile and lasting.
Paul did not want to start a new task in Corinth because he wanted to finish what he had began in Ephesus. He did not believe that he should go on to something else until he had done all that the Lord wanted him to do in Ephesus.
So he said in verse 8: "But I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost." Even with work that we know is the Lord’s, we should never take on a ministry that we are not willing to prepare for thoroughly and work at. We are never to do any ministry for the Lord, half-heartedly, carelessly, or without proper preparation. And we should be committed to it, never should we begin a ministry and not finish it. I have known many over the years, who frequently start some sort of ministry work, never seeing it through. We must be thorough in our present service. For if we are not, we should not expect the Lord to open doors of opportunities in a greater ministry if we have not been thorough in our present service.
In I Corinthians 15:58, Paul said, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."
God’s worker must accept opposition as a challenge. Doing the work of the Lord is a very vital thing! The apostle Paul was not intimidated by opposition. In fact, I believe that he almost seemed to flourish on it. Why? Because, I believe that Paul realized that the Lord’s work always brings the devil’s opposition. The fact that there were many adversaries opposed to him simply meant that great opportunities for ministry were before him. He said in verse 9: ". . . for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries."
Paul’s ministry in Ephesus was bearing remarkable fruit. Just remarkable fruit. Many people were coming to faith, and believers were growing in their faith. In fact, in Acts 19:20, Luke says that during Paul’s ministry in Ephesus "So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing."
However, with the tremendous opportunity for ministry there was also great opposition to Paul. Paul understood that. In fact, in II Corinthians 1:8-10, Paul later wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians about his ministry in Ephesus, "For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia [the Roman province in which Ephesus was located]. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again."
Beloved, when we are involved in ministry we must not allow ourselves to be surprised when opposition comes. In fact, that is most often a sign that we are doing exactly what God wants us to do in building Christ’s Church. Satan only seeks to oppose those who are valuable to the Kingdom of God. Therefore, if he is leaving you alone, you may want to pray, seeking the Holy Spirit's guidance, to see if what you're doing is His work, and not your own. So, in our service to Christ and his church, we must be willing to accept the adversary's opposition as a challenge to be overcome.
God’s worker must be a team player. God’s worker must be a team player. The apostle
Paul was a team player. Even though he was an apostle and was privileged to receive great revelations from God, he always worked closely with other Christians in whatever he did.
So, speaking of Timothy, who Paul was very close to, even referring to him as his son in the ministry, In verses 10-11, Paul says; "Now if Timothy comes, see that he is with you without cause to be afraid, for he is doing the Lord’s work, as I also am."
In the reports of the missionary journeys in the book of Acts, we read of Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Silas, Paul and Luke, Paul and Aristarchus, Paul and Mark, and Paul and Timothy. Paul always worked with a team. United in One body, One Spirit, One call.
One of the developments in recent years is that more church planters begin with a team when they plant a church. Generally, they are more successful in getting a local church established. It is vital that God’s workers must be team players. Generally, they will achieve greater effectiveness in ministry when they work together in teams in building Christ’s Church.
God’s worker must be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading of others. God’s worker must be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading of others. Jesus, in His earthly ministry, He evangelized, on one hand, however, on the other hand, He took those that believed and He built them up. That’s the work of the Lord. I have seen a lot of people, over the years, who work and they’re always very busy, running around the church, but I’m not sure they’re doing the Lord’s work of evangelism and edification in the Lord’s way according to the principles we see here. Often times, in Christianity, there is busyness without fruitfulness. It may be because they’re doing it in the flesh, rather than Spirit. Perhaps, they simply want to appear busy, in order to be noticed by other church members.
The Lord has set some very stringent guidelines. God wants us to work hard, even overdoing it, in the Lord’s work, in the Lord’s way. Even though Paul was an apostle, though he was clearly a leader in the church, he was sensitive to the Spirit’s leading in the lives of other Christians. Apollos did not believe it was God’s will for him to go to Corinth at the present time, therefore, Paul respected that.
The Corinthians had written a letter to Paul in which they raised a number of questions and concerns. Paul responded to each of their questions. Apparently, the final question Paul addressed had to do with Apollos. Some of the Corinthians wanted Apollos to come and minister in Corinth. So Paul said in verse 12: "But concerning Apollos our brother, I encouraged him greatly to come to you with the brethren; and it was not at all his desire to come now, but he will come when he has opportunity."
I remember some years ago, as I was speaking to a young church planter who wanted to plant a church in our city. I strongly urged him to consider planting a church in the immediate vicinity of the university. There is a great need for campus ministry, especially among college youth. However, he politely and graciously told me that he believed God was calling him to plant a church in a major suburb of town. As of today, I have heard they are about to break ground on a piece of property with the hope of worshiping in their own facility by next spring. All God’s workers must be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading of others.
The greater part of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians has been in the form of correction and rebuke. In these next two verses Paul gave five final commands to the Corinthian believers. These commands are positive, and are in many ways a summary of the corrections that he had given to the Corinthians throughout the letter.
So, in verses 13-14 the apostle Paul gives us five principles for powerful living. "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love."
Paul says we must be on alert, we must be watchful. In the New Testament we are told of at least three important things we are to be watchful for.
The first is, we must be watchful for Satan. I Peter 5:8 says, "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."
Secondly, we must be watchful for temptation. Jesus said in Mark 14:38, "Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
And third, we must be watchful for Christ’s return. Jesus said in Matthew 24:42, "Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming."
Then Paul instructs us to "stand firm." The faith of which Paul speaks here is not the faith of trusting but the faith of truth, that is, the content of the gospel. We must know the gospel, and judge everything by God’s truth and Word. We must stand firm.
Next Paul says, "act like men." What is he saying here? Paul is instructing us that we must be mature.
How do we grow and mature? In I Peter 2:2, Peter said, "like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation." It is God’s Word alone that provides the nourishment we need to grow into spiritual maturity. Paul said in II Timothy 3:16-17, that "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."
Then Paul says, we must be strong. We must be strong. This word is in the passive voice, and literally means, "be strengthened." However, we cannot strengthen ourselves. That is the Lord’s work through the Holy Spirit. Our part is to submit ourselves to Him in order that he can strengthen us. As we wait on the Lord, yielding our spirits to his Spirit, "that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man."
Paul said in verse 14: "Let all that you do be done in love." Let all that you do be done in love.
This principle is the most comprehensive. I Peter 4:8 says, "Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins." Love, like spiritual strength, comes from the Lord. So, John says in I John 4:7, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."
And, in I John 4:19, We are able to love one another "we love, because He first loved us."
We will learn about how love works itself out in the church next time.
In Closing...
We have to do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way to get the seal on it that says this is approved. This is to be fruitful. II Timothy 2:5, Paul teaches us, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth." So when the Lord comes to check our work, we need not be ashamed. I do not want to be ashamed.
And II Corinthians 5:10, says, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad."
Beloved, there is a whole world out there without God. What do you see? Where’s your part? What are you planning? What’s your strategy to reach someone? How are you going to develop your gift, to use your ministry to reach out to those who need to know about Christ?
May God lead each one of us to do His work in His way, that we might put into practice the vital principles for powerful living in serving the Lord. Beloved, that ought to get us excited enough that we’ve even been privileged to do the Lord’s work.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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