Timely Truths That Pack a Punch

Sermon Transcript

Well, you know, when I was younger, going to the mailbox seemed a whole lot more important. There’s more gravitas to walk in the mailbox because you’d open it up and there were things in there that just seemed more urgent. There would, of course, be the bills in there, credit card bills and utility bills, and there’d be letters from people who actually wrote on paper and put them in an envelope, put a stamp on them, tried to communicate things to me on paper. It was just a different world back then. Then we got email and those went away. And then it was all bad news because it was only bills. And then we learned to pay our bills online, and now it’s just telling me who the number one realtor is in Orange County and people who want to trim my trees and, you know, people who want to get rid of the cockroaches in my house and pizza coupons. I mean, that’s pretty much what’s in my mailbox these days. Pretty much you can go into your mailbox and summarily throw it all in the trash. Matter of fact, on trash day when I take my trash cans out that’s what I do. I open the mailbox and just put it right in the trash can.

Although you should be careful about that because there are a couple of things in there that have the sense of urgency and importance to them. There’s a little flimsy blue piece of paper. It’s about that big, and it is really flimsy. It’s like four by six. It may not be that big. It has a little black box in the middle of it all, a red border around it, in capital letters that says jury summons. And you know what happens when you see one of those in the stack? The first thing you do is look to see who it’s addressed to. I got one of those last week and I looked quickly to see who it was. It said Carlynn Fabarez. I was like, yes! (audience laughing) I only said that not because I’m mean but because I already got one this year. So I was like I already did my time. And here’s what I realized because, you know, my wife says what everyone says, I’m too busy for this. Like, okay, I am too, but they don’t like that answer. And I started researching, what happens if we just throw it away? Just throw it away. Which I found out after preaching this a couple of times that’s what a lot of you guys do. (audience laughing) So now I feel really weird because I researched what happens if you keep throwing it away, at least what the civil law code in California says, eventually they can track you down. They can fine you up to $1,500.

Now that’s, you know, not the end of the world for you I understand, but that’s not fun. And they can throw you in jail for up to five days. That’s not going to ruin your year. But it is five days in jail. That can’t be fun. And then the more I read, I read the, you know, what it says and the real kicker in all that is, after they take your $1,500 and you eat jail food for five days, once you get out, you still have jury duty, (audience laughing) you have to go do jury duty. So if you find that in your mail you should respond to it, because it really doesn’t matter how fancy the paper is, it doesn’t matter, you know, how it looks, it doesn’t matter anything about the quality of the communique. What really matters is who it’s from. And that one’s from the Superior Court of California, Orange County. And if it comes from the Superior Court of California here’s the thing, they have some jurisdiction over you, enough jurisdiction to get into your bank account up to $1,500, and enough jurisdiction to send you to jail for five days. So you probably should pay attention to that. And that would be a good thing. A lot of the mail doesn’t matter. Pizza company is not going to track you down. Feel free to throw the rest of it away.

Now you know where I’m going with this if you’ve been to church a few times. There are a lot of things that you hear you can just summarily throw it in the trash. A lot of opinions, the cacophony of noise in this world, whatever. But there are some things they may not come in fancy packages. It might come through an inarticulate sermon. It might come in a book that’s not the best-selling book in the country. It might come through some aged apostle who runs through town and he’s not as good as the Roman orators who you’re used to hearing. And you might be in a snooty town like Corinth and you think who’s this guy? But if he’s speaking the words of Christ, if he’s carrying the message of heaven, then the message has jurisdiction over you, and you’d be a fool not to respond. You have to know what you’re dealing with. And the problem with the Corinthians is as we’ve learned is that they were listening to critics who were telling the rank and file in Corinth Paul’s not impressive enough. I don’t know that you should be listening to him.

Now what Paul went on to do in the previous chapters that we’ve been studying before we got to the last chapter is he went through all the things that should make them realize that they should be listening to him. The most telling, I think, is one verse that we covered not long ago in Second Corinthians Chapter 12 verse 12, and that was something that should end all the debate. There were a lot of what he called sarcastically super-apostles who pass themselves off as very fancy people who are much more articulate, they looked better, they sounded better, they came in better packages. It wasn’t just the flimsy Apostle Paul. And yet in Second Corinthians 12:12 Paul said, you know, when I was there I did this with great patience. I performed deeds that were associated with real apostles. I performed deeds that only come through real apostles, and that is I performed “signs and wonders” among you. Now that goes all the way back to the time of Moses where God is giving authentication to his spokespersons, not just by giving information that would, if you pulled your lawn chair up, if you sat around and watched, it would come true down the road. Yeah. Predictive prophecy, clearly that’s a part of what proved to a lot of successive generations that the prophet had spoken. But the prophet was speaking most commonly about the here and now. And you should listen to God about the here and now. And yes, it would be peppered with predictive prophecy. But the one thing that came with the prophet’s message was the ability at times to suspend natural law, to do a miraculous sign and wonder. And Paul says, remember when I was there I did that. And so you should just know “the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience.”

So I don’t know what you need. The official seal was upon the communication and I don’t know what further proof you need. But they were asking for further proof. You saw the title. It’s again emblazoned on your worship packet here as you walked in. We’re talking about Christ’s Correction, which is how the book ends. It’s talking about the fact that they were resistant to the correction that was coming through the Apostle Paul. And for us, of course, all the correction we have is now inscripturated, if you want to use that word, and the result of the apostle’s work, the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,” Ephesians Chapter 2 verse 20. And we are recipients of that codified 27-volume library of the New Testament. And we’re reading all of that and that book is the God-breathed library that corrects our life as Christians. And we should understand that it speaks to correct our lives. And we shouldn’t be like the Corinthians who are saying, I don’t know, maybe we need a little bit more from you. We need a little bit more proof before we listen. We should take a little time and show a little bit more skepticism toward it. Now I’m all for being skeptical about the Bible. We should start there. But once we get past whether or not this is God’s Word, well then we’re at a place where we ought to be listening to it. We ought to be allowing it to change our lives. We ought to be letting it rebuke us and admonish us and exhort us.

So turn with me to the next two verses in the passage that we started last week, Second Corinthians Chapter 13. We looked at verses 1 and 2 last week. Let’s move on to verses 3 and 4 as the Apostle Paul is really mid-sentence here, so I can’t fail to read the last part of verse 2 just to give this sense. You might remember he said, “if I come again,” bottom of verse 2, “I will not spare them.” Who is the them? Well, look at the top of verse 2. “I warned those who had sin before and all the others.” We even went back to First Corinthians to think about that. Certainly the pattern was there in First Corinthians. He talked about the incest that was involved in the church of Corinth, and he said you guys were just sitting around putting up with it because you thought you were all about grace and it was no big deal. And aren’t you great because you’re not even condemning the sin in your church? Well, I rebuked the sinner, and I rebuked the people who were putting up with the sin and they weren’t dealing with it. “And I warn them now while absent.” I’m doing it in letters, “as I did when I was present on my second visit, that if I come again,” which he talked about in the first verse of this passage, I’m going to come a third time, “I will not spare them.”

Now, we didn’t look and speculate about what that means but it isn’t good. We can speculate about it. Maybe if we have time we’ll get to that today. He’s going to come and bring some kind of discipline. And there are hints. We read First Corinthians as to how that might look. He’s going to show up with apostolic authority and do some things that are going to bring some unpleasant realities to the Corinthian church if they don’t listen. Just like I say there are some unpleasant realities if you disregard the message from the Superior Court of California, Orange County, there’s going to be some unpleasant consequences if you keep disregarding it. And so he says, I’m not going to spare them. Time is going to be up. Why? Because you keep stalling, verse 3. Here’s our passage today. “Since you seek proof that Christ is speaking in me.” Here’s the real problem, you’re not seeing my message as authoritative. You don’t think this is Christ’s words. You don’t think that my apostolic message that I’m bringing when I tell you to do something, you don’t think it carries the weight and authority of Christ. You keep wanting more proof.

Now, “he is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you.” Now we’ll unravel what that might mean because I think it’s important to see that, of course, God was powerfully at work in them. We’ve studied passages like Second Corinthians Chapter 5. God had changed these people’s lives with the preaching of the Word. Like in First Thessalonians Chapter 2, the Word of God came and changed them. Or as Second Corinthians Chapter 5 said, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” The miracle of regeneration starts with a message of the gospel. It changes people’s lives. It’s a big deal. God’s not weak in dealing with them. He’s radically transforming them by the power of God among them. And then he gives the paradigm that justifies everything he said in the last three chapters about defending his own ministry. He says this, “for he,” Christ, “was crucified in weakness.” Now, isn’t that true? Think about it. Not that he was weak but he willingly submitted himself like a weakling and said, okay, I’ll just stand there, as it says in Isaiah 53, “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,” and I won’t even open my mouth and I’ll stand there, even though, as Pilate said, “don’t you know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” And he says, yeah, well, “you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above.” Of course, he could have called 10,000 angels and come down and slaughtered them. And he said, you know, if my kingdom was of this world, my followers would fight. But of course, he could have exercised power. But in weakness he was crucified. He allowed himself to be crucified.

But he “lives by the power of God.” Present tense. Think about this now, a couple of decades after Jesus’ resurrection Paul is saying he lives “by the power of God.” It’s enough that he lived three days after his death. I mean, professional executioners knew how to kill people, and the Romans knew how to kill people on crosses. So he was clearly dead and put in a tomb and three days later by the power of God he’s alive. Now he’s not only alive for 40 days showing himself to hundreds of people. But then he ascends from the Mount of Olives and then he does things through the apostles in changing people’s lives by the power of their word. The Word was starting to get written down and even the written Word, just like the Old Testament written Word, starts to change people’s lives. And he’s doing work through his Word in the world while he is ascended in some other dimension and promises when I go away I’m going “to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” So he promises to come back and set up this kingdom. So he lives currently by the power of God, both in some other place and also among us. And that’s what Paul’s talking about here, his work of preaching and ministering and leading among these people. And so then he applies that paradigm. He says, “for we’re also weak in him.” What do you mean? Well, everything he said. Shipwrecked. Beaten. Whipped. Right? Cat-of-nine-tails I had. I was lowered in a basket out of the wall in Damascus. I was just like Christ in this regard. Hated, excluded, whipped and beaten. Do you remember when we would compare that to the super-apostles? They were living in luxury. They were sitting in their easy chair. They were saying if he was a great apostle he certainly wouldn’t be treated like that. Well, Paul is trying to show that’s how Christ was treated. So “we also are weak in him,” we followed that pattern, “but in dealing with you we live with him by the power of God.” So our interaction with you, our preaching with you, like we said in Second Corinthians Chapter 5, it changed lives and it will still change lives. But you have to respond rightly to what we’re saying. Yes, Christ is speaking in me, but you keep dragging your feet. You want to know if Christ is speaking in me? What are you talking about? I’m not going to spare you if I have to show up again and you’re not obedient, you’re not repentant.

So you catch the flow of this if you’ve been with us. I don’t want to talk about this one section at a time. Let’s deal with verse 3 and just that real indicting phrase, “since you seek proof that Christ is speaking in me.” Now, why in the world would they want that if Second Corinthians 12:12 is true? Why? That makes no sense. It makes no sense that they would need further proof than thinking back to the time when Paul was in the streets of Corinth and did a few miracles. I’m thinking I don’t need any more proof. I don’t need any more proof just like Hebrews Chapter 2 says verses 1 through 4, if an emissary, an apostle of Christ, does something miraculous and speaks for… I’m thinking, okay, I better listen. It seems unthinkable and yet that is the biblical pattern. It’s all over the Bible. That’s the biblical pattern. Do you need examples of this? It’s all over the place.

People who are told to do something in Scripture in a miraculously authenticated message, they delay obedience. It’s everywhere. Why? Because obedience is hard and we don’t want to do it. And when you don’t want to do what God says you drag your feet, you come up with stall tactics. I don’t know, do any of you do that? Oh, not you guys, but you know, people at other churches. Do you know how they do that? They drag their feet. I say that sarcastically because we all do that. We drag our feet. I don’t know, let’s think of a few. Speaking of our kids’ ministry, what’s the first one we learn about in the early chapters of the book of Judges? He has some fleeces handy. His name starts with a ‘G.’ What’s his name? Gideon. And he needs confirmation. He wants, as our text says, he wants proof. He’s seeking proof. Now, I just want to know, just like I’m saying, people want proof that Christ is speaking in Paul, even though in Second Corinthians 12:12, the previous chapter, he is saying don’t you remember I did signs and wonders among you? I’m thinking, why would you need further proof? Can you remember what happened when the angel showed up and talked to Gideon? Just think back to how this all played out. It makes no sense that he was commissioned in this angelic encounter that he needs to figure out now whether the dew is going to stick to the fleece, or whether it’s going to stick to the ground. You want to do a magic trick now. This makes no sense. Why? God has already told you what to do and he’s already given you proof and you want more proof? How in the world would you need more proof than that?

How about Moses and the burning bush? Moses and the burning bush. Moses is living out there, working for his father-in-law. He knows what the wilderness is all about. He was trained in Egypt. He knows when a bush should be burned up. It’s not burned up. That in itself is unusual. Now there’s a voice speaking out of the bush. That he knows just because he’s a smart man doesn’t happen. So speaking out of the bush as the angel of the Lord, speaking first person for Yahweh. And now he’s saying you’re going to go back to Cairo, go back to Egypt. You’re going to speak here now to the leader of Egypt, and you’re going to be telling him to let my people go. Okay. You’re being miraculously told by a voice out of a burning bush after you’ve been told to take your sandals off. I’m thinking what further proof would you need? And yet he argues for a chapter and a half about the fact that he thinks you have the wrong guy. I don’t think I’m the guy. What further proof would you need? Do you remember how that all escalated? I mean, it’s just a constant argument until finally it says, “the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.” What was he doing? Dragging his feet. Why? Because he didn’t want to do it.

Now, I’m not saying he’s just being stubbornly rebellious. I think his fears were real. He didn’t want to go back there. Remember, he was run out of town because he was caught when he killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. He was afraid. I get that he was afraid. And I know you are afraid to obey God. I get that, but I don’t care why you’re dragging your feet. Do you think Jeremiah was afraid in Jeremiah Chapter 1? I think he was afraid. God said I’ve appointed you. I knew you before you were born. Before you were born I appointed you for this job. And what did Jeremiah say? Do you know, Sunday School grads? I’m too young. Too young. I am too young for this job. I can’t do it. God’s not taking that excuse. Jeremiah wants to delay obedience and God says no. Can’t do it. Right now you may be clearly being shown what God wants you to do. We talked about this in the Giving Series back in Chapter 8. Remember how we started that? I thought of it when I was preparing this sermon thinking about how to illustrate it and all that. And I thought, you know, that’s how I started that one. I will obey this section of Scripture when I get, I don’t know, more financially stable. We do that all the time with God’s commands. I will do it, but I really want to do it but I’m going to do it later. That’s just a classic one. I think everyone wants to be a generous Christian, but I’ll do it down the road.

You know delayed obedience, you understand this, is disobedience. Number one on your outline. Let’s just deal with this. I want more proof. Number one, you need to “Obey God’s Word Quickly.” The Corinthians weren’t doing that. Moses wasn’t doing it. Gideon wasn’t doing it. Jeremiah wasn’t doing it. Zechariah became mute in Luke Chapter 1. I’m not talking about his namesake. I’m talking about the Zechariah who was the priest, the village priest, who was there now burning incense because his number came up and he was told he’s going to have this child, probably explained enough to know that he was, after studying and probably teaching the book of Malachi, going to give birth to the forerunner of Christ. He’s going to be the father of someone fulfilling biblical prophecy, and he doubts at all. Why? Because, you know, my wife and I are too old for this. Oh, no, you’re talking to an angel in the temple, and God’s like, oh, yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. I was talking to the wrong guy. What are you talking about? You should say what the teenage Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Now, she balked also, but I’m going to say hers was a little harder to believe than yours. Nevertheless, God said to Zechariah, you’re not going to speak. He now ends up writing things on a tablet from that point on. God doesn’t like delayed obedience.

Does he capitulate to it sometimes? Well go back to the story in the book of Judges. Did God condescend to making the fleece wet and the ground dry, and then the ground wet and the fleece dry? Yes he did, yes he did. How about Thomas? He said I’m not going to believe unless I see the scars. I have to touch his hands. Did Christ accommodate that doubting? Yes. But should he have? I mean, no, if he’s going to be hardcore. No. Why? Because he says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Now, that’s not blind faith. I know some people read that passage that way. That’s not what that passage is about. It means that when you later go out, Thomas, and you say after 40 days are over and Jesus does all of his public appearances, and he ascends from the Mount of Olives. And then you go to some land, maybe that’s, you know, 50 miles away. And there’s no one in that village who has seen him and you give a reliable testimony. Don’t you expect them to believe you? And you can’t believe Peter and James and John who you’ve lived with for three and a half years. You can’t believe their testimony, but you expect people to believe your testimony. What are you talking about? And yet, Christ sometimes accommodates.

Remember how this all started last time in verse 1? First time, second time, third time, I warned you once, we looked at verse 2, warns you twice. I did it in person. I’m telling you, God is a long-suffering God. But what kind of obedience does he want? Let me give you an example. Turn to Luke Chapter 17. Here’s the kind of obedience that he wants. Quick. He wants the quick kind of obedience. Luke Chapter 17. Drop down to verse 12. Short little pericope here, short little story, at least for us. We’ll just get three verses here. Verse 12, Luke 17:12, “as he,” that’s Jesus, “entered a village,” Luke 17:12, “he was met by ten lepers.” Now you remember what this is all about, lepers. You lived in a colony, you’re away from other people, you have a contagious skin disease. It was terrible, it started to rot away parts of your body. Your flesh was rotting. It was a terrible disease. You had to live in a colony. If anyone came towards you without this disease you had to yell out, unclean, unclean! Well, they stood at a distance. Well that’s good, they were supposed to. Verse 13, they “lifted up their voices, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.’” They were yelling that. “When he,” Jesus, “saw them he said to them, ‘Go and show yourself to the priests.’” I just want you to think about that.

If you know Leviticus here’s what you should know. That’s what you do when you’re healed. You go show yourself to the priest and you bring a sacrifice, right? And on your way, by the way, and you remember this from Jesus tipping over the tables, right? You would exchange money for a sacrifice, right? That shouldn’t be happening within the courts of the temple but all around the temple that’s just part of the process. You would take your money, you would exchange it, you would get a sacrifice. And there’s a designated sacrifice that you’re supposed to bring in Leviticus to show to the priest and give the sacrifice. And then he would inspect your skin. He would look at it all. He would accept the sacrifice, give the sacrifice on the altar, and then you would be approved by the priest to go back into the community. You wouldn’t have to live in the leper colony anymore. If Jesus said, here’s the command, go show yourselves to the priest. Grammatical imperative. It is a command of God. Jesus says go show yourself to the priest. The first thing I’m going to do is roll up my sleeves, pull up my robe and say am I clean? Am I clean? Why should I go?

By the way, that just is a lot like what we do. Where’s the blessing? Let’s just go back to Chapter 8 in our minds again. A lot of people say I will be generous when God pads my bank account. God’s calling you to be generous now. God’s calling you to do your Bible study now. God’s calling you to serve in church now. God’s calling you to forsake sin now. Do you understand? Not when it’s going to be easy, right? The blessing is going to come on the other side of this. And he says, “go show yourselves to the priests.” And do you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to have to make sure you have money in your pocket because you’re going to have to go buy the sacrifice on the way. That’s what you do when you’re going to show yourself to the priest to be entered into the community again. So you’re going to have to take a step of faith to say I guess God’s telling me to do this because I guess I’m going to be clean. And all ten of them did it, “And as they went they were cleansed,” bottom of verse 14. That’s immediate obedience. That’s a beautiful passage. That’s fantastic. Now, I know there’s another lesson attached to this about thanksgiving, but let’s just leave it at that for now. All of them immediately obeyed. One of them went the extra mile to be immediately thankful. But all of them took the steps to go do what God asked them to do. They did it right away.

Obey God quickly. And why would you wait? Why would you wait? Why would you engage in the evangelical stall tactic of having someone say to you in a discipleship program or in a small group, you ought to do this, and you respond with, I’ll pray about it. If someone shows you in Scripture something you should stop doing or start doing, just never have come out of your mouth I’ll pray about it. That sounds like a good spiritual answer. It’s not a spiritual answer. It’s a ridiculous, a blasphemous answer. Because God is not going to go, oh, yes. What? What do you want? He’s not going to listen to your prayer like he can’t wait to hear what you have to say because he finally has someone to tell you exactly what you should do and you say, no, I have to go talk to God about it. No. God just talked to you about it. He doesn’t want to hear from you about it. He wants you to do something about it. Don’t use I’ll pray about it as a stall tactic. I’ll just pause right now so I can let that sink in so you can remember it next time you feel the pang of conviction. And that can happen silently as you’re reading a Christian book and you feel the pang of conviction on page 82 and you’re like, oh, wow, you’re right, I should stop doing that. Or page 102. I should really do that. That’s what the Bible says I should do. I should do that. And then you say, well, okay, I guess I’ll pray about it. When that goes through your head, smack yourself in the forehead and just remember this sermon. That’s blasphemy.

Prayer is not used for you asking God if his commands are negotiable. They’re not. Do what he says. And why would you wait? Why would you wait? If those guys said, well, I really, in Luke Chapter 17, I really want to talk about, I really want to wait for my skin to clear up. No, you’re just delaying the blessing. James Chapter 1, it talks about the blessing that comes in verse 25 to those who are not hearing the Word, but those who are what? Doing the Word, “he will be blessed in his doing.” It’s a weird grammatical way to say it, but you’re not blessed in the hearing, you’re blessed in the doing. So if you forgive and you’ve been withholding forgiveness, why wouldn’t you want to start that cathartic feeling of forgiveness now? Generosity. Why wouldn’t you want to experience the joy of being generous today instead of next month after you’ve prayed and prayed about it for a month? Why? Why wouldn’t you want to do the right thing now and have all the good that goes with it? To be able to sleep well this week. Why wouldn’t you want that now? Why would you want to keep putting off baptism? Because you know that you need to be baptized but you’re afraid to get up on the platform. Why would you want to wait? I say it all the time. No one sits back there after they get off the platform being baptized and go, oh, I wish I hadn’t have done that. I wish I would have waited another year. Nobody. But I’ll tell you what people do all the time. I wish I wouldn’t have waited so long.

Obedience is always something people regret waiting so long to do. Obey God’s Word quickly if you know it’s biblical. I’m not talking about opinion. I’m talking about the pizza coupon in the mailbox of your life. I’m not talking about that. Do it, don’t do it, I don’t care. But when it comes with the jurisdiction of heaven, if it’s a God-breathed command, whatever it is, if it’s to stop, if it’s a prohibition, or if it’s to go, it’s a command. Just to do it. You’d be blessed in your doing more than you think. You’ll be “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and it’s leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” I know that sounds like the prosperity gospel. Don’t let Joel Osteen steal that verse from you. You understand there’s applicability in that in your life, you’ll sleep better. You get that sinful habit out of your life. You’ll feel the joy of telling the truth. Of working where you should work. Of doing what you should do. Of getting that thing out of your life. This is a good thing.

Let me read one more for you before I leave this point. First Thessalonians Chapter 2 verse 13. It’s such an important text. Paul says, “when you received the word of God, which you heard from us,” here’s the key word, “you accepted it.” I can’t read this without giving that word, its other usage, “Dechomai.” I often say the Greek word, not that I have to say the word dechomai. It’s the word that is used of Simeon taking the baby Jesus into his arms. How do you take a baby into your arms knowing that it’s the Christ? Very carefully you accept that child. As one preacher put it, you welcome the Word. When you received the Word of God from us and you welcomed it. And it says this, “not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God.” Now, were the Corinthians doing that? No, they were listening to the critics saying maybe you shouldn’t do that. And they were crossing their arm and going, yeah, Paul, give us some more proof before we do it. Here’s how it ends, “which is at work in you believers.” It gets to work in you when you accept it for the Word of God. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be skeptical of the Bible, but you get over the skepticism once you affirm that it is the Word of God. And once you affirm that it is the Word of God then it gets to work in you because you welcome it. And you do what it says, and you’re blessed in the doing.

All right, back to our passage, Second Corinthians Chapter 13 verse 4. “For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God.” Let’s just take that template which provides the paradigm of Paul’s defense. As I said when I read the text, Paul has already talked about how he was rejected, he was beaten, he was maligned, he was despised just like Christ. And yet he’s powerfully commanding people to do what Christ commanded people to do. And the impact and the effect was great. People’s lives were transformed. Paul was having a transformative effect on people. Okay. That’s great. And we can take it from Paul’s perspective. But I want to take it from our perspective because this message is about us being corrected by Christ. It’s hard for me to wholeheartedly be corrected by Christ in this context, the context of the world, because the Christ that we’re following was rejected by men. The Christ that we’re following was crucified in weakness. Who crucified him? The world, the people, right? The Sanhedrin, the religious leaders, the political leaders, the Romans, everyone turned on him. Even his own people.

I give one little passage in Mark Chapter 14 verse 50. It’s probably the shortest verse I’ve ever given for you to read and think about in the discussion questions on the back of your worksheet, and it simply reads, “And they all left him and fled.” And of course, I want you to read the context or at least know the context. It’s when he goes in the garden and they come to arrest him. They all fled. Everyone left him. This is the story of Christ. Even Peter saying, I’ll never leave you. I’ll never. I’ll die with you. I’ll go to the end with you. They all split. And back up earlier in that passage, I think it’s verse 27, the quotation of the Old Testament, “For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’” So here’s the reality, the world isn’t really keen on Christ, wasn’t keen on Christ. That was the predictive prophecy of the Old Testament regarding Christ. And so for me to be counted with him isn’t going to be popular for me. If they rejected his word, they’ll reject my word. If they hated him, I’m quoting now John Chapter 15, they’ll hate me. If they persecuted him, they’ll persecute me. That makes it hard for me to obey him. It’d be easier for me to be like Peter to hide in the shadows and in my mind say I’m with him. I’m with him. But be quiet, I don’t want to tell anybody. I don’t even want to tell this servant girl in the courtyard of the high priest. I don’t even want to tell her. Matter of fact, I hope she doesn’t find out I’m following Jesus. I’ll just hide here in the shadows.

That’s how a lot of us live the Christian life because we’re afraid to be counted with Christ. Number two, let’s put it down this way. You need to “Obey God’s Word Courageously.” You need a lot of courage to do this in the present life. And the wonderful analogy that is super helpful for me is to remember David. King David was the king for a long time before he was the king. Did you catch the paradox there? King David was the king for a long time before he was the king. And I don’t mean when he was a little boy. I mean in real time. Samuel came and poured the flask of oil over his head. And in a real sense you could say right there he has just been granted the position of king of Israel. And he was the king of Israel. I keep reading the story year after year after year after year after year after year after year he really wasn’t the king of Israel. Jot this one down. I know you know this passage, but Second Corinthians Chapter 4 verse 4, Second Corinthians Chapter 4 verse 4 speaks of the God of this world that blinds the eyes of unbelievers. Now who blinds the eyes of unbelievers? The Bible says right there in the context, Satan does that. And now we have the Bible saying that Satan is “Theos,” the theos of the cosmos. He is the God of this world. How about this in the book of Ephesians? He is the “prince of the power of the air. “He is the one governing this world. He’s like the stratosphere of the world. First John Chapter 5. He’s the ruler of this world. He’s in charge.

Now you’re saying I thought Jesus was in charge. I’ve read Matthew Chapter 28. It says, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” I thought all authority. Well, David could say that, too, because the real prophet Samuel had poured the oil over his head. He was the anointed king. Who’s the anointed king of Israel? David is. And yet where did David live? Well, he lived in the palace in Jerusalem? No, he did not. He lived around the borders and the edges of Judea. Matter of fact, he actually lived in the Philistine territory for a long time. He lived in a cave, the cave of Adullam. Do you remember that place? And the people who followed him were the people who really didn’t do very well in Israel. Here’s how it’s put, those who were distressed, those who were in debt, those who were malcontents. They weren’t happy. They were struggling. They were in trouble. And they came and rallied around David. Who was in the palace? Saul was in the palace. He could lift his pinkie and have someone bring him a lamb chop to eat. He could shake his hand like this and tell some soldier to leave the palace and go hunt down his enemies.

Who was in charge? Who’s in charge now? Second Corinthians 4:4. First John Chapter 5. Ephesians Chapter 2. Satan. And if you don’t think so, start following the news feeds and subscribe to all the social media channels and you’ll find out who’s in charge. And then say I’m going to stand with Christ. I’m going to follow the Bible and then put that on all the social media and say I’m unashamed to stand with Jesus and then let’s talk in a month. See how that goes. Do you know what you’re going to need to be faithful to Christ? You need courage, and you need some wisdom not to do what I just said. You need to be strategic, “as wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” Matthew Chapter 10 verse 16. Because in this world Jesus was beaten up. He was crucified. He was hung naked on a cross, jeered at and murdered. Even the things he said made people leave him. In John Chapter 6 he said hard things and the disciples said, oh, those are hard things. Stop saying those hard things. And seven verses later people just left. They just said, I’m not going to put up with this anymore. His disciples tried to say can you maybe tone down the teaching? Maybe you could do some things that are a little more palatable.

Let me just read for you just a little bit from Isaiah 53. Prophetic perfect. This is put in the past tense, the completed tense even though it hadn’t happened yet, hundreds of years before Christ came. Isaiah 53:2. “He grew up before him,” Christ grew up before the Father, “like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground.” You can come into this garden, let’s say, beautiful. And that’s not what Christ was like. Like a little weed growing out between the pavers in your driveway. “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him,” no form or majesty that we should look at, “and no beauty that we should desire him.” Do you know that in all four gospels, including the book of Acts, there’s no description of what Jesus looked like? None. Is there any of David? Yes. Any of Saul? Yes. Any of Solomon? Yes. They’re describing the kings of Israel and what they looked like. Not describing what Jesus looked like. “No form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” As a matter of fact, “he was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Is that your king? Is that the guy you’re trying to obey?

If someone famous walked into the place you’re going to have lunch at today, you’d have a hard time turning your eyes away. Some major league baseball player, some NBA player, some your favorite, you know, I don’t know, musician or whatever. Oh! You’re constantly looking? Did he see me looking? Oh, I have to stop looking. Jesus was just the opposite of that. Do you understand that? Like “one from whom men hide their faces.” You saw a famous person in a store, right? You’d be going down that aisle even if you didn’t need bird feed or whatever was in that aisle. Christ, even if you went for the very thing that was in the aisle, you’d be like I’m not going in that aisle. Jesus is in that aisle. That was the reputation of Christ. People don’t like Jesus, the real Jesus, and you’re supposed to obey him to the letter. The Bible says that the disciples in the world are supposed to, quote now Matthew Chapter 28 verse 20, teaching, all these disciples in the world, “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” That’s what we’re supposed to do. That’s my job. That’s your job. Everybody’s supposed to teach each other to observe, that means obey, everything that Christ commanded. And they crucified him. It’s going to be costly, I understand.

There’ll be a day when someone at your work tells you to do something that you know is not allowed by Christianity and not allowed by Christ, and you’re not going to feel strong and powerful when you don’t do it. You’re going to feel weak. You’re going to feel like a loser. You’re going to feel like you’re going to lose relationship, you’re going to lose status, you’re going to lose your next promotion, you may fear losing your job. But here’s one thing you won’t lose. You won’t lose the words of Christ, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” Matthew Chapter 25. You won’t lose that. And with that doesn’t come a slap on the back from the king. What you get with that is tangible reward. Hebrews Chapter 6 verse 10, Christ would be unjust if he didn’t reward his servants for what they sacrifice to be faithful to him, to serve him. He’s called us to this, First Peter 2:21. He suffered. He’s called us to suffer. And with all the suffering he says there’s reward. It takes courage, though, and I need us to all say we’re going to be courageous. I know we can fold our arms and say we need to pray about it or we need more proof. That’s really a cover sometimes for our cowardice.

He says, middle of verse 4, go back to our passage, Second Corinthians 13:4, “for we also are weak in him.” We will experience what I just talked about, “but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.” When the message is preached by people like Paul, or when it’s read from the page, the work of the apostles, the power of God is at work. It’s like that First Thessalonians 2:13 passage. The Word gets to be at work in us. God himself is at work in us when we welcome the Word. To welcome the Word into our lives as the Word of God, not the word of men, it works in us. God gets to work in us. He implants the Word in us to use the words of the book of First Peter, and it changes who we are. This is a big deal and Paul knows it’s a big deal. And to do this right we have to remember who this is. I mean, the power of God, the power of God. The word “God” should carry enough power with it but he adds this phrase “power” because we just have to remember who we’re talking about. The bigger the authority, let’s go back to the jury summons, if this were the federal government it would be even more frightening to disregard it. The greater the authority, the more humbling it is, the more you’re going to read that thing over five or six times to make sure you do exactly what it says.

The Word of God comes from God, our creator. What kind of person is that? Isaiah 66:1, the Lord says, “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me.” My hands created all this. I created everything. You can’t put me in a temple. I know I told you to make that. That’s for your good. “But this is the one I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” Okay, there’s the key. The Corinthians weren’t trembling at Christ’s word. They were there standing in judgment of Christ’s word. The average problem of every liberal church, every Christian who says they’re a Christian, but they really are just all about standing in criticism of the passages they don’t like, is they don’t tremble at God’s Word. Why? Because they don’t see God as exalted. “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” Footstools were things they had before they were recliners, right? Something to put your feet up on. And it’s not the cleanest piece of furniture in the living room. And here it is, the earth, it’s nothing to God. And he says but you know the one I’m going to lean forward and have this tender care for, the one I’m going to draw near to, to this one I will look, humble, contrite. When he sees, hears, reads my word trembles. I have to do it.

Number three “Obey God’s Word Humbly.” And I do mean that, just exactly how it sounds. Humbly. I humbly read it, and I read it with a sense of trepidation. That’s Old Testament Pastor Mike. Old Testament, I understand it. It’s still valid. And the same thing is said in the New Testament. Philippians Chapter 2 verse 12. Philippians Chapter 2 verse 12, “Therefore, my beloved, as you’ve always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” So now we get to work, the whole topic here in verse 12 is obedience, and we do it with fear and trembling. Obedience. How do I know how to obey? Well, I have to look to the instructions and the instructions are to be responded to with fear and trembling. I said last week to learn to love correction. Yeah, I want to love correction. When I read the Word, I want to love being corrected. What I want to fear is the discipline. If you get corrected before you have to be disciplined then we’re winners, right? No problem with fear. The fear is I don’t want to be disciplined. That’s right out of First Corinthians Chapter 11 by the way, “if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged” by God. When we’re judged by God we’re being disciplined. I don’t want to be disciplined. I’d rather be corrected. I want to learn to love correction. To be humble is to be able to be correctable and to be able to say I’m humble enough to know I have to change.

There’s a comma at the end of verse 12. If you happen to quickly have turned there to Philippians Chapter 2 verse 13 says this. Yes, we “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” This is a lot like First Thessalonians Chapter 2 verse 13, when we welcome the Word, think about this now, “not as the word of men,” which you might sit there and say, oh, this is a letter from a peer. Why don’t you go up to Santa Ana and cruise around by the courthouse? No, it’s not a letter from a peer. It’s not the word of men. It’s the Word of God. That means I’m accepting it with some trepidation here. I’m trembling as I’m reading it. I’m rereading it three or four times to know exactly what I’m supposed to do. Well, when I do that, I accept it as the Word of God, not the word of men, then it’s at work in me, right? God’s work, that is God’s Word that is at work in me. Those who believe. Philippians Chapter 2 verse 13, for the believers, “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Psalm Chapter 127 verse 1, if “the Lord builds the house” well, then we’re good. But if he’s not building the house, you’re building for nothing. This is why this is not about us just getting the set of instructions from the Bible and going at it. You have to start here by saying I need God, I need Christ, I need this whole thing to start relationally. Make disciples and then we teach them to observe all that Christ’s commands.

The correction part, it may be uncomfortable but it’s not the bad part. The bad part is the discipline part. We can avoid all of that just by having this mindset. I mean, look at it. It’s not that hard. Obey quickly. Obey courageously. Obey humbly. I know the warnings can be jarring. A good Christian book can be jarring. A good sermon can be jarring. A good, hearty conversation at a small group can be jarring. A good discipleship meeting can be jarring. If you took a road trip this summer there are moments that can be jarring on our almost 50,000 miles of interstate in this country. Of the almost 50,000 miles of interstate, almost every mile of it outside of the urban areas has these rumble strips on the edge of the highway, outside the lanes on both shoulders. If you took a road trip this summer you know what I’m talking about. Because it’s hard to drive, you know, hundreds of miles without occasionally hitting the rumble strips. Right? That’s going to happen, right? Now don’t look at me like you haven’t run over the rumble strips. Now, I don’t know the engineers who worked on this, but they’ve perfected that thing because those are loud, those things wake you up. When you veer off, you get over the paint strip, that’s nothing. But then you hit the rumble strip and BRRRR. And it wakes you up.

Now, if you’re a wise driver you don’t get angry. You don’t get frustrated. Matter of fact, you should be thankful for that. You shouldn’t even be embarrassed unless your wife is in the car. (audience laughing) Then you’d be a little embarrassed. But you should be thankful. Because what it’s really trying to do, obviously, is to keep you from going beyond the rumble strip. And if you take a good look at whatever else is there, it could be the side of some mountain with some giant boulders. And I’m thinking, oh, I’m glad. Because if you’re driving your SUV that weighs over 4,000 pounds driving 70 miles an hour down the interstate, and you were to not have the rumble strip and you’re doing whatever you’re doing, not paying attention, and there’s nothing to warn you. And you hit some big old rock on some side of the mountain. You know, the force of you hitting that rock in a 4,000-pound SUV going 70 miles an hour is the same as someone taking a crane, lifting you up as high as a 15-story building, turning you upside down and dropping you. That spells a really bad day. That’s crushing. Instead all you get from the rumble strip is what? A loud noise that disrupted your conversation or your favorite song on the radio. This is a good thing; I understand God’s Word can be hard. It disrupts our flesh. It makes us uncomfortable. But if we would just be quick to say if that’s what it says then that’s what I’m going to do. And we know that even if it’s hard we can be bold enough, brave enough, by God’s grace to do it. And I know if we were making the rules, yeah, we might make different rules. But we’re not in charge. We’re going to humbly say, okay, God, you’re God, I’m not. Let’s just do what you say. God will honor that. And I pray that he would in us.

Let’s pray. God help us all, please, to be obedient Christians, not just of any variety, but the kind who is quick to obey. Brave and courageous to obey and humble. Humble enough that when we open your Word, we take a deep breath and say, okay, God, whatever you want me to do, whatever your Word shows me today, I’m going to commit myself to do it. Even when we walk into church, whatever the sermon is, we go to a small group, we go to a Bible study, we pick a book out from the bookstore today, and we say, okay, whatever it is that you teach me from your Word, I’m going to do it. I know we hear a lot of stuff from podcasts and videos we watch that mean nothing, and we can throw all that in the trash. But when we hear from you through your Word, God, we want to listen really carefully. May you use your Word to transform us as you work in us, because we believe you.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.