Mark of an Apostle

 

"¹¹ I have become foolish; you yourselves compelled me. Actually I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody. ¹² The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles. ¹³ For in what respect were you treated as inferior to the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not become a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!

¹⁴ Here for this third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you; for I do not seek what is yours, but you; for children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. ¹⁵ I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? ¹⁶ But be that as it may, I did not burden you myself; nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by deceit. ¹⁷ Certainly I have not taken advantage of you through any of those whom I have sent to you, have I? ¹⁸ I urged Titus to go, and I sent the brother with him. Titus did not take any advantage of you, did he? Did we not conduct ourselves in the same spirit and walk in the same steps?

¹⁹ All this time you have been thinking that we are defending ourselves to you. Actually, it is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ; and all for your upbuilding, beloved. ²⁰ For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances; ²¹ I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced." 

II Corinthians 12:11-21

 

Good Morning Beloved,

 

Welcome to worship this Lord's Day.

We're so glad you're here.

 

Sadly, there is a sense of entitlement, a mindset that is alive and well in the church today. The attitude of, "What have you done for me lately?" Perhaps, we become spoiled, and accustomed to others doing for us in Christ and we take them for granted saying, "You're a Christian, that's your job!" rather, than truly appreciating them, their efforts. I'd like to point out, that because someone doesn't complain, they make it "look effortless, look easy," that does not mean that it is. Helping others, requires our time, effort, energy and resources.

 

I have been in the ministry for a number of years, and now I live in the place where I am in no mood for debate unless there is the chance of being fruitful. Occasionally, I get long messages from someone who follows me online and want to have a debate over doctrine or a particular statement I've made. 

 

For the most part, my response is just say, go on with your viewpoint, and pray for me so that, if I am wrong, if I am misguided, that I will be led to the truth by the Holy Spirit of God. You will not convince me with a long letter, because quite frankly, if you're intending to argue, I don't have the patience to read it. 

 

Someone may have the opinion that is bigoted and at the very least, narrow-minded. Well, perhaps so, however, I don't believe that arguing over the Word of God will accomplish anything. Our call is to get out the Word of God, as it is written, to make disciples, I'm not called to debate anything. I am called to teach the full counsel of God, book by book, passage by passage, as I come to it, therefore I teach through the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. 

 

I do not believe that myself, or any other pastor, has been given the authority to personally "select" what we deem to be relevant. If its in the Bible, its relevant! 

Let's bow our heads in prayer.

 

Heavenly Father,

 

Father, this has been such a rich and wonderful glimpse into Your Word, thank You for the Holy Spirit, that gives us a vision of clarity. Thank You for giving us this truth to guide us as we walk in Christ. Thank You for helping us to understand these foundational truths, because we long to honor You, to exalt Your name before men. Thank You for authenticating Your Word. 

 

We know that You have established Your Church, You have authenticated Your Son Jesus Christ, You authenticated those who have preached His Gospel. Thank You Lord for preserving Your Word, for raising up those who speak it in truth, with compassion and love.

Thank You for teaching us the Your grace is sufficient, that Your Word is complete, and thank You for causing us to be faithful to pursue it. May it all be for Your glory!

In Jesus' precious name

Amen

 

Today's Message: Mark of an Apostle

 

Today, in our study of the Word of God, we return to the book of  II Corinthians chapter 12. I believe this to be such a rich and rewarding study, which I find to be so important, especially today, as we are introduced to some very interesting subjects, the subjects of signs, wonders and miracles.

The Corinthian church, much like many other churches since, and frankly, even many today, have been led astray by false teachers. Those who are teaching a "watered down" doctrine, a doctrine other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There always has been, and will always be, an ongoing battle between truth and error. This is not by chance, it is no coincidence, not by mistake, it is the careful design and plan of the adversary. To lead the people of God astray, away from God's truth.

 

Open with me your Bibles, to the book of II Corinthians chapter 12, today, we will be picking up where we left off, at verse 11. I invite you to follow along with me, as I read to you from this rich text, as we listen for the Spirit of our Lord. II Corinthians 12:11-21.

"I have become foolish; you yourselves compelled me. Actually I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles. For in what respect were you treated as inferior to the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not become a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!

Here for this third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you; for I do not seek what is yours, but you; for children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? But be that as it may, I did not burden you myself; nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by deceit. Certainly I have not taken advantage of you through any of those whom I have sent to you, have I?  I urged Titus to go, and I sent the brother with him. Titus did not take any advantage of you, did he? Did we not conduct ourselves in the same spirit and walk in the same steps?

All this time you have been thinking that we are defending ourselves to you. Actually, it is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ; and all for your upbuilding, beloved. For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances; I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced."

We learn in our text, that apparently the false teachers in Corinth were suggesting that Paul’s unwillingness to accept remuneration from the church was simply a coverup. They thought that he really had a love for money, and the offering he claimed to be taking for the suffering saints in Jerusalem was only going to be used to line his own pockets. Also his reason for sending Titus ahead was to insure financial gain for himself. With this in mind, the apostle Paul wanted to set the record straight. 

 

In fact he found it very disappointing that they charged him and his associates with such underhanded self gratification. He attempts to prove that his motive is pure, right for the sake of Christ, for the gospel and not to simply satisfy his own ego.

 

Paul didn't use trickery, or clever methods; he preached the Word of God, and he preached it in simplicity. He didn't send other men along after him to make a gain out of the Corinthians.

 

I'd like you to notice, that Paul says, "I wasn't after what you have, I was after you; I wanted to win you for Christ." Isn't that what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 4:19, when He said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" and He didn't say that every fish they caught would have a gold piece in its mouth! He made them fishers of men and that is the emphasis.  

 

There were things that Paul expected to find in the church when he would get there. They expected a great deal of Paul. Paul expected a great deal of them. But what would he find? There would be debates and arguing, there would be envying and back biting, strife and tumults. Sadly, the modern church today, is still filled with many of the things that Paul mentions here in this passage. Have we not learned anything?

Today, there continues to be a battle between God and Satan; between those who represent God and preach His Word and those who represent Satan and teach his lies. It is an ongoing battle between the servants of Christ and those disguised as servants of Christ; between the true messengers of light and those who are the true messengers of darkness, merely disguised as messengers of light.

 

Verse 11 which reframes things for us again, Paul says "I have become foolish; you yourselves compelled me. Actually I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody." 

 

Paul says, and I'd like to remind you that he has stated this repeatedly. This whole idea of having to defend himself is folly to him. Why? Because only fools brag. Bragging is characteristic of fools. And, here he has been forced to have to speak about his superiority, and he really doesn’t like it. Paul would rather speak about his failures, his weaknesses and his suffering because he is comfortable in doing that. He’s comfortable talking about himself as a nothing and a nobody and a cracked pot, an broken earthen vessel, nothing more. He is a former blasphemer, a persecutor and injurious killer of Christians. He is the chief of sinners, and he’s content to talk about that, because then he can put the power of God on display. However, what Paul really dislikes, is to talk about his superiority as an apostle. 

There are some very pompous Christians today, and most often, they are the very ones who so clearly recognize it in others. For this reason, I often pause and consider myself soberly and in humility, lest I dare to be one of them.

 

Corinth was a corrupt and vile city. It was known as a sin center throughout the Roman Empire. It was the Las Vegas, Sodom and any other sinful city that you want to put with it, all rolled into one. It was the place people went to sin. It is true that where sin abounded grace did much more abound. Yet, the problem was, it caused the people of Corinth to look lightly upon these sinful things.

 

What the Lord had done through Paul in Corinth was obvious to all of them. They were there because of him. They had heard the gospel through him. They had believed because of his instrumentality. They had formed a church; they had been taught the Word of God; they had leaders established. He had been there nearly two years; he was God’s instrument in their salvation. 

 

If you would like, you could read the story of how it happened in the eighteenth chapter of Acts. It is remarkable. It should have been the most immediate things for them to do, when the false teachers came, they should have felt compelled to rise to Paul’s defense and to stand against them on behalf of this good and godly man whose power and whose truth was very clearly manifest to them. 

I am compelled to remind to you, it is our duty, it is our responsibility, it an honor to defend godly men.

The believers at Corinth should have defended Paul against the lies of the false apostles rather than believing them. This does not present an attractive picture of the church, does it? I'm sure that as we have gone through this epistle you have thought, the church in Corinth certainly was not a very good church. And, that would be correct. Not only was it true of that church, however, it is also true of many of our churches today.

Let's examine this for a moment. Suppose the Lord took the church out of the world right now. What would happen if He removed all true believers who are in the world? We believe that the Great Tribulation would begin. A contributing factor of the Great Tribulation will be the absence of the church. The church today is the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and the Holy Spirit indwells the church today.

Is the world getting better or worse? There are many who would say that the church has done little to improve the world because the world is worse now than it was nineteen hundred years ago, quoting II Timothy 3:13, which says "But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." However, I disagree. I believe the world is better today than it was over nineteen hundred years ago because at that time the world committed a sin which would have been an unpardonable sin had not the Lord Jesus said in Luke 23:34, "...Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do...". They crucified the Son of God. And, I recognize that the world today, by its rejection of Jesus Christ, is in a sense, crucifying Him afresh. The greatest sin in all the world is the rejection of Jesus Christ.

 

Every generation has been guilty of that. In John 16:9, the Lord Jesus said, when the Holy Spirit would come, He would convict the world of sin, "Of sin, because they believe not on me." There are many sins which are bad, but the greatest sin is the rejection of Jesus Christ. The greatest crime that was ever committed on this earth was the murder of the Son of God 2,000 years ago. The world today is still just as corrupt, just as vile, just as wicked as it was then. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit, is the unpardonable sin.

I would have to say, that in many ways, the world today is a better place to live than it was then. We certainly live more comfortably. However, "to whom much is given is much required." The church as a whole ought to be holy unto God, ought to be living for God. I wish I could point to the church at large and say it is doing wonderful at that. However, the truth is, its blatant failure in this area is one of the biggest reasons the present interest in the Word of God has in many instances bypassed the local church. 

 

It is far too busy with internal problems. Yet, that does not destroy the fact that the church is a group of people which is loved by the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave Himself for it that He might wash it, that He might cleanse it, and that He might make each believer acceptable to God. Although we are far from what we should be, we should be moving in that direction.

 

In Closing...

 

So here in Paul's epistles to the Corinthians, we have this rich insight into a church which was in the worst city of the Roman Empire, and how bad it was! I still dislike to hear it said that the church does not in any way affect the world around it. It may appear as if it has very little effect, and yet, then as now, if the godly people were to be removed from this world today, the world would be far worse.

Paul says I don’t like to talk about visions. I don’t like to talk about revelations. “It’s not profitable; it’s not helpful; it’s not useful, and the reasons is because it’s not reproducible, and it’s not verifiable. I can’t prove it ever happened."

 

Therefore, I want to talk about power, dunamis in the Greek. So in verse 12, Paul says "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles."

I want to talk about what was visible, what was reproducible, what did occur and was very clearly the works of the power of God.

 

This is a vitally important verse. Why? Because, there are those, who are going all across the country, all across the world, "claiming" to do signs, wonders, and miracles. This is occurring nearly everywhere today. And its is confusing to many people, not only Christian people but non-Christian people alike are equally confused by it. While it may draw large crowds because it plays on people’s desperation, people's fascination with the supernatural, people looking for some kind of "proof."

However, in careful examination and comparison with the Word of God, we must draw some pretty serious conclusions as to its validity, when compared to the Word of God. Then, as now, false teachers are agents of Satan. They are disguised as servants of Christ.

Paul was saying "You should have known the difference, you saw the signs of a true apostle of Christ coming through me, I performed them among you. These are benchmarks of a true apostle, God authenticated my apostleship to you with signs and wonders."

Paul did not receive the Gospel from man, he received it directly from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Remember after Paul's conversion, he was taken out in the desert? And he was given the message of Jesus Christ and the clarity of the gospel directly in a three-year period at that time from the Lord. It was a distinctive characteristic of an apostle to have received the gospel message by revelation from Jesus Christ, this was true of Paul. They were also inspired by God to write it down, that revelation by inspiration, that communication rendered by the Holy Spirit, through the apostle, was therefore infallible. It is infallible! Which Paul had done.

There were external protections placed upon the life of the apostle during his ministry. And Paul could give testimony to that, as the Lord certainly protected him and watched over him and delivered him from things that could have easily taken his life, many times over. 

When Jesus called the apostles, the Twelve, and later Paul, He gave them authority, He gave them miracle powers, supernatural power over Satan’s kingdom of demons, to cast out unclean spirits. They also received the power to instantaneously heal every kind of disease, every sickness. Their healing was always the same, unlimited, immediate healing. Paul has been given this same power, of which he demonstrated in Corinth. If you really get into the book of Acts, you can read about the miracles Paul performed. Paul never claims that the power was "his," he says they were the work of God performed through me.

Those who claim to have power, are in contradiction to the Bible, they preach a theology of error. Why would God authenticate error? He wouldn't! God would never do that. The true apostles never claimed to have that power, only that they were the channel used by God to perform His mighty works. It was never for spectacle. It wasn't even to make people feel better, it was for the authentication of the apostle, so people would listen to their message. The purpose of miracles was to authenticate the preaching of the apostles, as the true Word of God, at a time when there was not yet a New Testament written down.

There are many today, who would have us to believe, they have been given that power. However, if God were to grant that kind of supernatural power to someone today, it would be to preach some unrevealed, new revelation, because that has always, always been the pattern. A miracle is an extraordinary supernatural event wrought by God through a human agent. Why does it have to be through a human agent? Because miracles are designed to authenticate that human agent as the true spokesman for God. 

 

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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