A GOSPEL WELL WORTH THE COST
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 29, 2020 under 2020 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; November 29, 2020 from 2 Corinthians 4:11-15
Theme: The hope of enjoying eternal life together motivates us to minister the gospel to one another—no matter what the cost.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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I have grown to think of the book of 2 Corinthians as the apostle Paul’s New Testament ‘cardioscope’. Back in the old days, a cardioscope was an electronic device that was used to give a visual display of the beatings of a living heart. And in 2 Corinthians, Paul—the greatest evangelist who ever lived—gives us a very intimate view of his own heartbeat in terms of the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In our last time of studying this letter, we looked at what he said in 2 Corinthians 4:7-10. He wrote that it’s the divine power of the gospel that makes it so effective; and then he added,
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body (2 Corinthians 4:7-10).
He and his partners in ministry felt as if they were carrying around a glorious message that they themselves were far too weak and frail to proclaim. They often felt hard-pressed, and perplexed, and forsaken, and struck down in their work of proclaiming this gospel. And yet, he could testify that they were not crushed, nor given to despair, nor forsaken, nor destroyed. This was because the power behind the gospel that they preached was not their own. It was of God. And their weakness in the ministry only ended up showing forth the glory of Jesus Himself.
I love those words of Paul. They express the reality that every Christian feels whenever he or she faithfully declares the message of Jesus’ love to this fallen world. But then, in the words that follow afterward, Paul truly shows us the depths of his own heartbeat. He turns on the ‘cardioscope’ for us so that we can clearly see the beating of his own heart in the matter. He shows us what the motivation was that drove him to be so willing to pay such a high price for proclaiming this message. In verses 11-15, he wrote to the Corinthians and told them;
For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God (vv. 11-15).
Clearly, what motivated Paul to proclaim the gospel of Jesus was his own love for the people who would hear and believe—and also his joyful anticipation of being with them in heaven forever, in the presence of Jesus Himself, to the glory of God.
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Now dear brothers and sisters in Christ; there’s a reason why the Holy Spirit led the apostle Paul to share his heart in this way—and why his words were preserved for us today.
You and I have been entrusted with the very same life-transforming gospel that Paul preached. It’s not that we are preaching ‘Paul’s version of the gospel’. It wasn’t something that he in any way created. It was something that was entrusted to him. It’s the gospel that was revealed to all of the apostles, who were all eyewitnesses to the life and ministry of Jesus. Who Jesus is and what He did for us—that’s the gospel. And we share with Paul and the other apostles in the ‘great commission’ call of our Lord to go into all the world and proclaim that gospel in our day.
But just like Paul, it will cost us to do so. We too will feel what he felt—pressed in on every side, frequently perplexed, often forsaken, and many times cast down. It is the greatest message the world could ever hear; and yet, it’s a message that the people of this world, who most need to hear it, most often fight against. Nevertheless, it’s the one and only message that God has chosen to work through in saving and transforming sinners. And in order for it to shine through us, we who bear it must—like Paul—repeatedly die to self.
So; God gave us these words from Paul because He wants us to know that there’s a cost to sharing the gospel. But in looking deeply into Paul’s heart, we also see the conviction that drove him and motivated him to accept that cost and to pay that high price—even to the point of physical death if need be. He was not afraid to pay that price because he looked ahead to the day of resurrection—knowing that he as the messenger, and those who were believers in the message, would one day stand together in the presence of their blessed Lord and Savior glorified! And as we peer even further into his soul and listen to his heartbeat, we also see the assured hope he had in the consequence of it all—that God would then be glorified by the eternal thanks and praises of those who believed.
This passage, then, shows us three things: the cost, the conviction, and the consequence of it all that drove Paul to preach this glorious gospel. And it’s God’s desire that you and I embrace the same things that we find in Paul’s heart. As these words show us, the hope of enjoying eternal life together motivates us to minister the gospel to one another—no matter what the cost.
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Let’s begin, then, by understanding that …
1. IT COSTS TO MINISTER THE GOSPEL.
It doesn’t matter whether it is through a great apostle like Paul, or through those like us who believed in the gospel that he preached. It doesn’t matter whether it is through a preacher in a church, or through a trained evangelist, or a missionary, or a Sunday School teacher, or even the humblest Christian in the church family who shares the gospel with friends and family. It costs all of us to bear the gospel of Jesus to this world. The cost really boils down to this: that in order to proclaim it as we should, we must be prepared to completely die to self.
Look at how Paul expressed this to us. In verse 11—after explaining all the things that he suffered for the cause of Christ on a regular, ongoing basis—he wrote, “For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake …” Paul didn’t mean, of course, that he physically died repeatedly over and over. He eventually did lay down his physical life for the gospel. But what he meant was that in the course of fulfilling the ministry that God gave him of proclaiming the gospel, he had to face the frequent jeopardy to his life that preaching involved; and he had to constantly hand himself, as it were, over to death for Jesus’ sake. Back in 1 Corinthians 15: 31, he put it this way:
I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily (1 Corinthians 15:31).
When Paul got up in the morning, and looked ahead to the day’s work of proclaiming the gospel in this fallen and hostile world, he had to make a decision. Will he pay the price or not? And so, he prayed and—as it were—said, “Good morning, Lord. Here I am. I’m your servant. You have given me the message of the gospel to proclaim. I don’t know what it may cost me today. I may have to pay the ultimate price for it. And so I just settle the matter in advance. I die here and now today; so that I may proclaim the message of life freely to others.” And that would not have been a strange thing to do. After all, that’s what the Lord Jesus Himself taught us to do. He said;
“Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:34-38).
Now; I can’t say what it would look like for you to ‘die daily’. It would undoubtedly involve something different than what it would involve for me. But whatever it would involve for all of us, it would mean dying to self. Following Jesus is not the pathway to the easy life. It’s not the road to short-term comfort. Jesus didn’t say to take up our latte mocha cappuccino and follow Him. He said to take up our cross—the instrument of death to self. That’s what He did for you and me. That’s what Paul—the preacher of the gospel—did in a figurative sense every day. And that’s what the Lord Jesus calls you and me to do in our service to Him.
But let’s be sure we understand that, by doing this, something glorious happens. Paul said that he and his co-preachers were delivered over to death “that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” There is no other way for Jesus’ life to be fully manifested through us than by our dying to self. We cannot have our ‘self’ shine through, and Jesus shine through at the same time. It’s only when we die to self that the life of Jesus really shines through us. But as Jesus said, “whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it (Mark 8:35).
And here’s the really amazing thing. Do you know what else happens when Jesus is allowed to shine through us in that way? Life is spread to others. In verse 12, Paul told the Corinthian believers, “So then death is working in us, but life in you.” There is a great paradox in this; and I certainly don’t pretend to fully understand it. But when we die to self, and let the life of Jesus shine through us, the message of the gospel we proclaim is given the freedom to spread life to others. The Holy Spirit works through it to enable others to believe; and they then themselves have eternal life. And what’s more, they also rise up and take up the cross and follow Jesus—spreading His life to others.
Jesus Himself demonstrated this. Just before He went to the cross for us—in John 12—He said;
“The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor” (John 12:23-26).
Paul exemplified our Lord’s principle to us. As a preacher of the message of the gospel, he always delivered himself over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus would be manifested in his frail mortal body. That’s the price we must be willing to pay too.
But when we pay it, it spreads Jesus’ life-transforming power to others.
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Now; the great goal that Paul looked to in all of this was not death. It was eternal life. It’s true that, in order to proclaim this message as we are called to do, we must be willing to pay the price of dying to self daily. But there is not only a cost to pay, but also a conviction that moves us to pay it—and that conviction is about the end-goal of eternal life.
As Paul goes on to show us …
2. THE HOPE OF RESURRECTION MOTIVATES US.
You see; the taking up of our cross and dying to self is not the end of the matter—any more than the cross of Jesus was the end of the matter for Him. It was that necessary step that had to be taken in order to lead to the resurrection. After all, there was no resurrection without the cross. But the grim suffering of the cross gave way to the glorious joy of resurrection. And the same is true for you and me. In verses 13-14, Paul wrote; “And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.”
Paul was quoting from Psalm 116. In that psalm, the writer—some say it was King David; others say it might have been King Hezekiah—wrote about an experience in which he was brought to the very edge of death. God rescued him, and brought him to life. And so, the psalm is about God’s gracious deliverance from death. In that psalm, it says;
For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.
I will walk before the Lord
In the land of the living.
I believed, therefore I spoke,
“I am greatly afflicted.”
I said in my haste,
“All men are liars” (Psalm 116:8-10).
Paul grabbed hold of the theme of that psalm—God’s gracious deliverance from death in the midst of a great trial of opposition from men—and applied the words of it in a unique way to his and his co-preachers’ ministry in the gospel. They had to die daily in order to preach the message of life to others. But they weren’t afraid to pay that price—even if it meant literally dying. In the same kind of spirit or attitude of faith in which the psalmist said, “I believed, therefore I spoke”, Paul said that he and his co-preachers also believed in the power of God to deliver His servants from death, and therefore spoke the message of the gospel of life. They were not afraid to die to self—and even to pay the price of dying physically—in order to proclaim the gospel to others who would believe; “knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.”
What a great picture this is into the heartbeat of this great man Paul! And what about you and me, dear brothers and sisters? Do we think ahead that far? Do we look to the resurrection that follows after the cross?
Sometimes we only look at the immediate price we must pay to bear this message to others. People might reject us. They might laugh at us. Family members might misunderstand us or be angry with us. We might lose our reputation. We might lose our association with others. Nowadays, someone might even lose a career. They might lose their freedom. It may not even be too far away when we would suffer physical violence for the gospel—and even lose our lives. That was what happened to Paul. It’s what happened to many of Jesus’ followers throughout history. It’s what is happening to many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world even as we speak. It’s reasonable to count the cost. It’s realistic. But it’s far from being the whole story! We’re not being realistic enough if we don’t go further and remember the day when we will be raised with Jesus at the time of His return.
Paul looked to this. In Romans 6:3-5, he wrote;
… do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection (Romans 6:3-5).
All of us who have heard the message of the gospel, and have placed our faith in Jesus, and who have been united to His death, are also united to His resurrection. Though we are delivered over to death for the message of the gospel, we will be raised to life with Jesus together on the day of His return. Paul looked forward to being raised in glory with those who heard and believed the gospel he preached.
What a great picture this is of the heartbeat of Paul! What a great motivation this was to him to proclaim the gospel at any cost. May it be ours too!
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And even then, Paul looked further ahead—past the cost, beyond the conviction, all the way to the great consequence of it all. He showed us that we can be motivated to pay the price …
3. AS WE ANTICIPATE ABUNDANT THANKSGIVING TO THE GLORY OF GOD.
I believe that this was the greatest motivation of them all for Paul. He looked ahead to how all his brothers and sisters in Christ, who had believed in the gospel with him and had been saved, would then one day be raised in glory at the coming of Jesus. And as a result, they would eternally praise and thank God and give Him glory forever. Paul counted the cost of it all; and in verse 15 said to his Corinthian brothers and sisters, “For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.”
Do you know what the greatest purpose of our salvation is? It’s that God would receive the glory forever. When the apostle Peter wrote to his brothers and sisters in Christ, he told them;
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy (1 Peter 2:9-10).
Eternal thanks to God our Father—eternal praise for His grace in giving us His Son to be our Savior—is the end-goal of it all. And notice how Paul says that this wonderful grace spreads. He said that the grace of God toward us also spreads to others through us. His expectation was that we would pay the price, count the cost, and die to self so that we might share the gospel with others; and they would also hear it, and bear it, and spread it. It’s so that more and more thanksgiving would multiply and abound to God our Savior; and that more and more of us will be raised together and glorified at the return of Jesus, and that the thanks and praise would overflow to God forever!
That’s what Paul looked ahead to. That was his heartbeat in the matter. May it be the beating that’s found in our hearts also!
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So; it costs to share the gospel. There’s a price involved. But when we look ahead to the things that set Paul’s heart a-beating about the matter, we become willing to pay the price. As he put it in the verses that follow;
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
Let’s allow that bright outlook—that hope of eternal life that we will spend together with thanksgiving unto God—become the motivation for sharing the gospel of Jesus no matter what the cost.
EA
