The Heart of God in the Call to Proclaim

Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord and bless his name. Tell of his salvation from day to day, his marvelous works among all the peoples. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, oh families of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts. Father, I pray that you would make that happen in our generation. That all the remaining unreached, unengaged peoples will be penetrated by this generation. That you would go before the army that you are raising up, the army of love, the army of peacemakers, the army of reconcilers. That you would go before them and disillusion the nations with their gods. Any god but Jesus, may he come to nothing in the minds and the hearts of many so that there are Cornelius' and Lydia's and Ethiopian eunuchs all over the world when the army of peacemaking arrives. Grant, Lord of the harvest, that in this room you would raise up many to be radical senders and radical goers. Lord, magnify your Son, Jesus Christ. Send the Holy Spirit in sync with the gospel all over the world and glorify Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords. The one who was crucified that he might redeem for himself a people from all the peoples and tongues and tribes of the earth. So move in our day, Lord. Take down every barrier, open doors nobody expected to be open and bring the nations to yourself. We ask through Christ, amen. We're making our way through 2 Corinthians 4 and 5 with a view to its missionary implications. Missions is not the same thing as local evangelism. Missions, frontier missions, if you want to put that word on the front of it, is the specialized calling to the church to plant the church, make disciples in peoples where the church hasn't yet taken root. The International Board of Missions estimates 3,100 unengaged people groups. That is, nobody has yet developed an evangelical plan for even targeting them. And I want to leave you with the impression that's a very small number. There are 305 million evangelicals in the world. That's 98,000 evangelicals for each of the unreached, unengaged people groups. There are 4.6 million Christian congregations in the world. That's 1,483 congregations for every unengaged people group. There are 44,000 Christian denominations in the world. That's 14 whole denominations for every unengaged people group. There are 4,900 mission-sending agencies in the world. And you can do the math on that one. Two whole mission agencies. If 10% of the Passion Conference last January and Urbana last December and the Crew Conferences over Christmas, if 10% of those students felt called newly to the unreached peoples of the world, then we would have how many? Three missionaries for every one of those unengaged groups. And the reason I just mentioned that statistic is because that gathering of those students is an infinitesimal part of the Christian students in India and China and South Korea. And I mentioned those three countries because after the United States, those are the three largest sending countries. They send out more missionaries than any other country in the world. The point is 3,100 unengaged peoples is small. We can do this if we will, which is a big if. The world, the flesh, the devil, war against the will of the church to do this. It's not a mistake or an accident that we are doing exposition at a missions conference because if this will is to be sustained, the will to reach 3,100 unengaged peoples, it will be the will of faith. It will be sustained by faith. And faith comes by hearing. And hearing by the word of Christ, hence exposition. So my job is to take verses one to 10 of chapter five and as I see it, strengthen your faith and your will and perhaps clarify your calling to be a part of this great task. The whole of this unit, chapter four and five, begins with Paul's statement that his ministry is given to him by mercy, therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God. And it ends with the great missionary call to be ambassadors and summon the world to make peace with God. That verse in chapter four, verse one, was a huge verse for me when I was 28. Was married, had a child, no job, finishing graduate school, wanted to serve Jesus and no place to do it. And one of my most influential teachers wrote me and quoted this verse to me and he said, John, you will have your ministry as clearly by mercy as you were saved by mercy. Because that's what the verse literally says. We have this ministry as we were shown mercy. In the same way we were shown mercy to be saved on the Damascus road, we have this ministry. My conversion and my ministry come together, Paul said. You will have your ministry as surely by mercy as you were saved by mercy. And that was true, that came true. Ministry is by mercy, we have it by mercy. And then you've heard Don and David unpack chapter four, jars of clay, this gospel moves forward in weeks and we're of good courage and do not lose heart in verse 16 and verses one to 10 of chapter five are intended by Paul to give added reasons for why you shouldn't lose heart in the ministry of the word and in particular in our case, the cause of world missions. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give you four more reasons why you should have a joyfully serious courage in the cause of world missions. So I think that's the thesis over this message. You should have as a follower of Jesus, a joyfully serious courage in the cause of world missions. And this text that I'm to unpack is four reasons for that. And I didn't have to do any homiletical gymnastics to find four R's, so I'll tell you what they are. Realism, this is my outline, you can write it down, I'm gonna follow it. Realism, resurrection, reunion and reward. Number one, realism. These are four foundations for joyfully serious courage, for not losing courage. He's still arguing for verse 16 of chapter four. Few things are more disillusioning in life and in missions than shattered expectations based on unrealistic expectations, right? And therefore, one of the best remedies that Paul could give us for not being disillusioned in ministry is to give us really realistic expectations, which is what these chapters are doing. Clay pot expectations, you could call them. So that's what verses one to five are about. Let's read them. 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. If indeed by putting it on, we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan being burdened. Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the spirit as a guarantee. He pops four bubbles of unrealistic expectations. So under realism, there are four evidences of realism that will keep us from having disillusionment. Number one, we live in a tent, not a building. He calls this body a tent. Not a castle, not a fortress, not a building, but a tent, verse one. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home, verse two, for in this tent, verse four, for while we are in this tent, and the point of calling it a tent is that tents aren't very good against harsh weather. Nobody expects a tent to last very long against harsh, hot, cold, windy, rainy, snowy weather. Therefore, since that's where you live all your life long, you should be free from the expectation that you can escape frailty and transience. Jars of clay equals live in tents. Verse 18 of chapter four, the things that are seen like tents are transient. We do missions in our bodies. Would there were another way? There is no other way. We do missions and ministry in our bodies. They are frail and they are temporary. That's the first piece of realism. Number two, this tent may be destroyed, verse one. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, not just tattered, not just shabby, not just threadbare, not just wasting away, but destroyed. Adenauer and Judson was the first missionary to leave the shores of America, and he buried three wives. And the children of Anne, his first wife, he buried all of them. The first one born dead. The second one lived 17 months and died. The third little girl outlived her mother by six months and died. This is the way it's been since Adam. And this is the way mission will go forward because the tent is destroyed. Get rid of every expectation to live a long life or to be married to somebody who lives a long life or to have babies who live a long time. Get rid of it. He didn't come home for years and years. Buried them all there. Number three, he pops the bubble of unrealistic expectations in describing not only the objective destruction of the tent, but the subjective groaning of the tent. Verse two, in this tent we groan. Verse four, while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened. Not once in a while, but while you live in the tent, you groan, that's all the time. Being a Christian doesn't lessen the groaning of being human. Being a missionary doesn't lessen the groaning of being a Christian. I would argue being a Christian intensifies the groaning of being human, and being a missionary intensifies the groaning of being a Christian. So be free of all illusions of not groaning. You're gonna groan while you live in the tent. You're gonna groan. The tent has nerve endings. It has physical and emotional limits. It can break. I know one great veteran missionary whose spouse has valiantly battled seasonally immobilizing depression their entire lives, and they never. Number four, fourth point under realism. He pops the bubble of the unrealistic expectations by calling the Holy Spirit a down payment. Verse five, second half of the verse. He has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. Now guarantee is right as a translation, but it's only half right. It's not, I think, a very effective translation because it only gets half the meaning of arabon. Arabon means payment of part of a purchase price in advance, B-dag. The point is it really is a down payment of what's coming, and the other half of the point is it's only a down payment. And guarantee misses that. Someday you will have the rest of the down payment. Someday, not now, that's half the point. That's realism. He's a down payment, not a full price. Get used to it. The Holy Spirit dwells in you and doesn't make you well all the time. Doesn't cause you to escape from all kinds of suffering. He is a precious, precious, precious only down payment. And both halves of those meanings are absolutely crucial. That's point number one. A great help for us to endure in mission is realism. And there's a big dose of it, four times in verses one to five. Second, he helps us with this joyfully serious courage in world missions by the promise of a resurrection body. Resurrection, realism, resurrection, same five verses. Another take. He's proclaiming a resurrection body, a beautiful, durable building, not a tent, building to replace the rotting tent and a swallowing up in life. Verse one, for we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building that does not refer to the intermediate state between death and resurrection. That he'll get to in verses six to eight. That's reunion. Here, he means there's a body and he shrinks back from dying before the body's ready to be given to him. He ponders the possibility here that he might die before the resurrection and he doesn't want that to happen. Doesn't want to be naked, unclothed. He says this twice, look at it. Verse two, in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. If indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked, disembodied souls. Verse four, while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened. Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be overclothed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up in life. That's what he wants, that's what we want. Come Lord Jesus, to be found naked. Verse two, to be found unclothed. Verse four, are the same. And they both refer to dying before the resurrection. And Paul is declaring loud and clear, the ultimate Christian hope is not release from this tent. Mere release is nakedness. Mere release is bodiless existence. That is not our final destiny. We were not made for bodily, bodiless existence. We are destined to be swallowed up, this body to be swallowed up in life into a new body. And he says, I lay it down as sure, verse five, because he who has prepared us for this very thing is God who gave us his spirit as a down payment, which is the logic exactly of Romans 8, 11. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will raise your mortal bodies from the dead by the spirit that dwells in you. That's the way Paul thinks about the down payment. It's a down payment of a physical resurrection. The Holy Spirit is in me holding on to me so that I'm gonna get a new body someday. That's the logic here. That's the logic in Romans 8, 11. God made you for this. He made you for an everlasting, new, durable building, not a tent, a glorified, sturdy, stable, shining like the sun in glory body raised from the dead. And if you ask, what will it be like? He gives us three answers in this text. First, it will be a building, not a tent. Verse one, we have a building from God. This is a God-built building called resurrection body. Number two, that means it's durable. Number two, it's not a tent anymore. It is like a house not made with hands. Verse one, a building from God, a house not made with hands. That's very strange. Why would he say that? Not made with hands. Like who would even think that the resurrection body would be made with hands? Where did that come from? I wonder if you're thinking what I'm thinking. It doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes from Jesus, I think. Can't prove this. The word destroy and the word not made with hands is used in Mark 14, 58 like this. I will destroy this temple that is made with hands and in three days, I will build another not made with hands. That's where it comes from, I think. Paul is saying Jesus built a temple when he rose from the dead and we will have a body like his body. Philippians chapter three, verse 21. Our citizenship is in heaven and from it, we await a savior who will give life to our mortal bodies, give us a body like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself. And so the second thing he says about this body is indirectly, it's like Jesus' body. Number three, it's eternal in the heavens. Verse one at the end, we have a building from God, not a house, not made with hands, eternal, eternal body. You never ever be without a body when you get your resurrection body. In the heavens, I think means it's there being kept by God for us. It's risky being a missionary in a tent, very risky. And I can't help but think that this promise is in the Bible, this stress of a resurrection body is in the Bible because we all love our bodies. Nobody intentionally hits his thumb with a hammer. We love our bodies and we watch them get old and we watch them get diseased and we watch them become what we wish they didn't. And the Bible comes to us over and over with you're gonna get a new one. You won't have to be without this familiar friend. And he will be made whole beyond your imagination. And the reason I think that's such a precious promise is because if you have to be fed to the lions in the Colosseum and you watch what happens to the bodies that are in front of you, or if you have to be a John and Betty Stam in 1934 in China, stripped to their underwear, driven up a hill outside a city in China and made to bend over, he before her and they swing that sword and take off his head in front of his wife who just left a 10 month old baby hidden, how would she feel? I hope there rose in her heart, that head's coming back on, mine is too and that baby's gonna be okay. We serve our risen savior who promises to give us our bodies back. So let the lions eat, let the sword swing. We have a resurrection hope. Surely that's the function of this promise for missions. I love the story of John Patton, some of you know it. You remember, missionary to the New Hebrides, Vanuatu today and the old Scottish pastor, not all that excited about this young fellow's enthusiasm to go to the cannibals. You're gonna be eaten by cannibals, remember that? And he answers, Mr. Dickinson, you are advanced in years now and your own prospect is soon to be eaten by worms. I confess to you that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I'm eaten by a cannibal or worms and in the great day, my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen savior. That's a true story. He did that, he did that, he went out and he served all his life. So point number two for a joyfully serious courage in the cause of world missions is resurrection. Number three, reunion. If we must die before the resurrection, we will be reunited, there will be a reunion with Christ. He was here in the flesh, we will be with him there in his flesh, though naked and unclothed and not our final destiny. And that, Paul says, is better than tent dwelling. Let's read it, verses six through eight. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Now, verse eight is extremely important because without verse eight, we would almost certainly misunderstand verse four. There, verse four, Paul said, we do not want to be unclothed. They don't want to be unclothed. That was true. And you might get the impression just from verse four or the first five verses, Paul considers two good options. Stay in the tent and be overclothed with life in a resurrection body. Anything else, bad. That is not what he says. And he intentionally prevents us from drawing that false inference from verse four by giving us verse eight. He denies that it's bad. No, he doesn't prefer bodiless existence, but he does if it could be with Jesus short of his desire for the resurrection body. Let's read it again, verse eight. We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. That's exactly what he said in Philippians 1.23. I don't know what I should do. My desire is to depart and be with Christ for that is exceedingly above far better. Piles up the words there. So to any missionary who's lost a believing loved one, and when we sent out a young family years ago and they buried their dad the week before they left, or you bury three wives on the mission field, you do not have to labor under the sadness that they are in an inferior condition between now and the resurrection. You don't have to go there. You dare not go there. You may not go there because it's the opposite of what verse eight says. Paul, choosing between three options, not two options, chooses B when he can't have C. Live in the tent, live bodiless with Jesus more intimately, have a resurrection body. His choices are C, B, A. That's in the text. And yours should be too. That's how much we should love Jesus. Even though we love our bodies, don't want to lose them. That's why we pray Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, wrap it up. Finally, reward. So now we've seen Paul trying to help us with joyfully serious courage in missions with realism and resurrection and reunion. And now finally reward. The reason I have put the word serious as I thought about this thesis statement, I keep repeating and waving in the air up here. Sticking that word serious right there, joyfully serious is because of these verses. Let's just try and think, how do I say it in a way that captures all the pieces here? Let me read these two verses with you. Verses nine and 10. So whether we are at home in the body or away disembodied with the Lord, we make it our aim to please him, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. I'm saying that makes a person serious in his joy, really serious. And here's the reason I say it. Paul draws the inference from these verses in chapter five, verse 11 of fear. I'm saying serious, he says fear. Fear, and I mean that, what he means. Verse 11, therefore, on the basis of every Christian standing before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account for the good and the evil and receiving back for the good and the evil, therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. We get about our ministry and our mission with a trembling in our hearts, joyfully and full of courage. This fear in verse one, verse 11, because of the judgment in verse 10 is perfectly compatible with the good courage of verse eight. The good courage of verse six, the down payment and guarantee of the Holy Spirit in verse five. We know we have an eternal house in verse one. We do not lose heart in verse 16 of chapter four. The fear of the Lord in no way keeps Paul from saying in verse eight, we want to be away from the body with the Lord. No way. The judgment of believers by the Lord Jesus, and it is believers here, you see that, we must appear, we must appear, verse 10, especially in its link with verse nine. The judgment of believers awakens in Paul a kind of fear that does not push him away from Jesus, but draws him to Jesus. He embraces this event, this fearful event. He embraces it because this is the path to Jesus. Insert a comment here, not in my notes. Just thought of it this morning. If you right now are feeling, that doesn't make sense to me. Emotionally, that sounds like a contradiction. That sounds like double talk. That sounds like nonsense. Joy, confidence, don't lose heart, fear at being judged by Jesus. You need to change. I'm 67. I think about this a lot these days. I'm 67 and I feel as I read my Bible, often immature emotionally because I'm not yet where the Bible is emotionally. So many people, and I'm just pleading with you not to be one of them. So many people, if they find something jarring emotionally in the Bible, I can't get that. That didn't fit in my heart. That didn't fit in my emotional structure. They drop it. Do the opposite. Figure you're the problem, not the Bible. That's what I figure. I go to my Bible and I say, God, I don't feel like that a lot. And the Bible says, yeah, change. And so I plead for help to change. So I'm just this little parenthesis here on how to read your Bibles emotionally. If the fear of the Lord, because you're going to face him and he's going to assess your good and evil and reward you accordingly. And these wonderful statements of, I'm going to have good courage and I'm going to be with the Lord and I have a building in heaven and I'm a down payment of the Holy Spirit. If those don't fit for you, you got to change. That's what the Bible's for. I come to the Bible, a broken sinner. I come to the Bible emotionally, a wreck. I'm coming to be fixed. Not to tell the Bible what it can tell me about how to feel. Okay, close that parenthesis. Now, see if I can find my place again. Peter described this fear in the same connection, perfectly compatible with a loving father. First Peter 1 17. If you call him father, who will judge impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves in fear throughout the time of your exile. Go figure that out. I have a father. He's going to judge me according to my life. And I'm going to walk in fear and trembling before him in confidence all my life. Luke tells the story of the early church. Listen to this, Acts 9 31. Walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, the church was multiplied. Could it be that one of our problems is we only know comfort from the Holy Spirit? This fear of the Lord might be missing in our churches. Maybe because you haven't preached texts like this, or you've just done an end run, or you just said, can't be that. Cannot be, no, fear cannot mean fear. Cannot, it has to mean something else. Paul refers to it in Ephesians 5 21 as the fear of Christ. So it's a serious, sobering expectation of judgment and it's embraced as good and healthy and strengthening and motivating, empowering. Missionaries who have fiber in their being know how to tremble before the living God. They're not softies who have this patsy in the sky who as soon as some horrid thing comes into their life or a prospect of judgment comes, they don't have a God anymore. No, no, no, no. Missionaries who get the job done have roots down in a sovereign, holy God and a God of great comfort who doesn't let us lose heart, but keeps us trembling before his awesome holiness. Two chapters later, chapter seven, verse one, Paul makes fear of God the motive of Christian holiness. Since God promises to be your father, chapter six, verse 18, bring holiness to completion in the fear of God. What is it about the judgment that is so serious or produces this fear in verse 11? Makes it so motivating for holiness in a right, godly, gospel, not legalistic way. Don't let your theology dictate here. Oh, if we preach this, we're gonna produce legalists who just try to get into the favor of God, blah, blah, blah. Look, the Bible is the Bible. You're not. Don't tell the Bible what it should say. Say what it says and labor all your life to put the pieces together. Don't bring your little gospel paradigm over here that's so limited, so limited. Make it big with all the Bible. You won't lose the gospel. You'll have a biblical one. So what is it that makes it so serious? And the answer is verse 10. So that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Now that deserves a sermon and it's gonna get another three minutes and then we're gonna wrap it up. The best commentary I know on that verse is 1 Corinthians 3. I commend it for your consideration. Paul and Apollos, and Paul is referring to himself and Apollos when he says in verse six, he who plants and he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor. You could say reward. Each will receive his reward according to his labor. Then he explains. There's labor that builds on the foundation that is bad and there's labor that's built on the foundation that's good. And those are the words used in chapter five, four, five, verse 10 of 2 Corinthians. Whether good or foul on, corrupt, inadequate, perishing, foul, evil. So here's what he, here's his explanation in verses 12 to 15 of 1 Corinthians. If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw, in this case, largely the kind of teaching one does, each one's work will become manifest. That also is there in 2 Corinthians. For the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has done is built on the foundation, built on the foundation, survives, he will receive a reward. That's referring back to verse six. We'll be getting our wages according to our labor. Each will receive a reward. However, if anyone's work is burned up, building with wood, hay, and stubble, teaching things that aren't so, teaching with attitudes that are lousy, maybe like the ones in Philippians, is it one, two? If anyone's work is burned up, he will experience loss, loss, though he himself will be saved, but as through fire. So reward for building on a foundation. That's good, good building. And the experience of loss for bad building on the foundation. And that corresponds to verse 10 of our text. Each one will receive what is due for what he's done in the body, whether good, reward, or evil, loss. You lose something, not your salvation, according to verse 15 of 1 Corinthians 3. From this awesome scene of rewards and losses, Paul draws this conclusion. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. We please him. We seek to do what pleases him because he's the judge. So two great motives here. The happy, sober, serious Christian fears the experience of loss in the presence of the Lord. And he rejoices at receiving a reward in the presence of the Lord. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And his goal here is to please him. Therefore, what you're rewarded for is the obedience of faith, the works that come from faith. And what you lose is deeds that don't accord with the gospel. They don't accord with faith. They're done in self-reliance. There's a reward for that. They get all swept away, and that whole chapter of your life goes away, and there's no reward for it. Reward. So, conclusion. Paul is laboring in this text, in the wider unit, to undergird, verse 16, we don't lose heart in this jar-of-clay-type tent-dwelling ministry that we have. We don't lose heart. We are of good courage. We are of good courage, he says it twice, in verses six and eight. And then he gives us four reasons for why we can be joyfully serious in this courage in missions. Realism, we're freed from the shattered expectations that are false and unrealistic. Resurrection, whether we're eaten by worms or lions or cannibals, we're gonna receive a building. We're gonna be over-clothed with life. We're gonna have Jesus' resurrection body, and we will shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father. And if you should die, number three, if you should die between now and the resurrection, you will be at home with Jesus. There will be a homecoming, a reunion with the Lord, which is far better than tent-dwelling. Yes, it is, even though not as good as being over-clothed. And finally, we're gonna be a serious lot. There's gonna be a lot of serious trembling before our great King, because we're gonna stand before him and give an account for every idle word he said. His grace will save us there. Justification by faith alone will be given to us. And if you're gonna be true there, you will make it, and you will be rewarded for every good you do. Every one of them will be known and written in the book. You've forgotten a thousand of them, and God's forgotten none of them. And everything built with wood, hay, and stubble, you throw it in the basket, you're gonna suffer a loss. That will be sad. And your sadness will only serve your joy forever and ever. May God make missionaries like that, even in this room. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for realism in the Bible. Thank you for the promise of resurrection someday. I love the thought that my aging, broken, wasting away body will be made so glorious that it will shine like the sun in your kingdom. I like to think about that. And I thank you that short of that, if I die before you come, I'm gonna be at home. I won't be in a foreign land. I'll be at home with my friend and my savior, and yes, my judge. And I am happy to have it so. And I thank you for teaching us, Lord, that you're gonna reward the good that we've done, the acts of faith that don't earn anything. They don't earn anything. They're just freely and graciously rewarded because they were done in the power that you supply and you get the glory. And you will strip us of all the evils that we've done. And we will look back with sorrow. And in the end, you will turn our regret into a love for the cross. And you will intensify by it, our greater joy in you. Pray this in Jesus' name.