These verses and this sermon is for everyone who may feel a little discouraged today. Perhaps you don’t like what you see in culture, politics, or your family. You thought you would have a better handle on your purpose or your life by now. The culture, christians, and family, have disappointed you.
Maybe you are asking:
“Why isn’t God blessing this area of my life more?”
“Why do I feel lethargic or out of sorts?”
“Where are you God in this time of need?”
Maybe you just want to give up.
Instead of Giving up, our scripture encourages us to look to Jesus and his example of persistent love for us, even when things looked bleak.
Paul addresses this in the Church at Corinth through this letter and has said to them already in the letter:
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; (4:7)
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling,(5:1-2)
we walk by faith, not by sight. (5:6)
Yet in the midst of all this he doesn’t give us an out, but compels them, and us, to continue to consider others and the ministry he has called them to do.
He reminds them that “if anyone is in Christ he is a new Creation” (2 Cor 5:17) and that we are “called to the Ministry of Reconciliation” (2 Cor 5: 18-19)
So that’s the context, the precursor to the verses today. It says:
2 Cor 6:1
Working together with him, then (all that I said before), we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
For he says,
“In a favorable time I listened to you,
and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”
Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Paul is quoting Isaiah 49 there. The is the Prophet foretelling the coming of Christ. Just before this prophetic verse, Isaiah says:
Is. 49:4 But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the LORD,
We know that even Christ was misheard, misrepresented, and mislabeled…pretty much every day. But he continued to have his eyes on the Father and His mission. We know that
it was the JOY that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and seated at the right hand of the throne of God. – Heb. 12:2
You and I are that JOY. He was looking for the day when our redemption was complete and he could sit down. Finished.
So we look at Christ’s example and revel in the fact that God the F, S, HS have a love for us that outshines all tribulation. However, we see in these verses a realistic perspective on the labor ahead. He let’s us know because as one author put it, “Forewarned is to be Forearmed.” Armed for the battle, and disappointments ahead.
3 Things that we look at in these verses that ‘Forearm’ us to have a realistic perspective of the task before us:
1. Co-laboring with God doesn’t make life easy
Paul says:
by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;
We saw a couple weeks ago in 2 Cor 11, that Paul will actually address all the terrible things that have happened to him as a strength, because ‘When we are weak he is strong’. Here he starts to address this topic before that declaration. He tells them that we can expect it as Christians. Just because we know the God of peace, doesn’t mean the world will greet us with peace.
One reason the world won’t accept us is because we will look different from the world. The way we conduct ourselves stands out, or should. This is our second point:
2. Co-laboring with God stands out to people far from God
by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;
It wasn’t their outward religious piety that makes them stand out in the culture. The culture in Corinth was full of religions, but it didn’t cause the inner person to change. Those who know the love of God through the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus are not just pious outside, but inwardly different. Kind, patient, genuine love. Wow!
Even today, maybe especially today these characteristics stand out even from those who claim to have the corner on religion and Christianity. In a time when those who claim piety seem to be cruel and thoughtless, we should not loose heart but continue to co-labor with God.
Lastly
3. Co-laboring with God will not be linear
I was texting with a friend who used this word, “Linear” about the Christian life this week. I like it. “Linear” doesn’t put a moral label on the lows or a positive spin on the highs. Sometimes life is inconsistent and there is no reason other than we live in a world that doesn’t understand us. Paul says we will experienced this:
through honor and dishonor, / through slander and praise./ We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;/ as unknown, and yet well known;/ as dying, and behold, we live; /as punished, and yet not killed; /as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; /as poor, yet making many rich; /as having nothing, yet possessing everything.
I love how these verses end:
as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; /as poor, yet making many rich; /as having nothing, yet possessing everything.
It show the ‘other worldliness’ we truly have as Christians. We may look like we should be pitied, or poor, or have nothing; yet we actually are REJOICING, RICH, AND POSSESS EVERYTHING.
All we ever need or want is in the redemption we have in God. If you are discouraged, think on this. If you are on top of this world, think on this.
As we start this journey of Lent together, on this the first Sunday of Lent, we may start to distance ourselves from things of the world that we enjoy. This is good! It continues to remind us that we are not of this world, that our joy, our success, our riches aren’t tied to this world, but to the love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that will never wain or spoil.
Amen.