Giving of oneself & financially is proof of our love - Part 2
2 Cor: 8:16-24 · Randy Peterman · Aug 27, 2017
2 Corinthians (2017), No. 33
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/41026163517196

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

After last week's lesson, which had a lot of good theology to dig into, this morning's lesson, when I was first looking at it, on the surface it sounds like we're going to be talking about three dudes. I'm pretty sure Paul would not refer to them as the three dudes, and I'm from California though, so I will. Yeah, the three amigos. But we're going to get to take a look at these three believers that Paul is writing about.

And at first, I'm going to be honest, I wasn't excited about this lesson. I had to kind of dig into it before I started to get really excited. And this morning, as I was reviewing the notes, I just kept finding myself getting more and more excited about this. So I hope that you're as excited as I am when we walk out of here this morning. We're going to be taking a look at 2 Corinthians 8 verses 16-24. I'm going to go ahead and read those out loud and then we'll dive in. But thanks be to God who puts the same earnestness on your behalf in the heart of Titus. For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest, he has gone to you of his own accord.

We have sent along with him the brother whose fame in the things of the gospel has spread through all the churches. And not only this, but he has also been appointed by the churches to travel with us in this gracious work, which is being administered by us for the glory of the Lord himself and to show our readiness, taking precaution so that no one will discredit us and our administration of this generous gift. For we have regard for what is honorable, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men. We have sent with them our brother, whom we have often tested and found diligent in many things, but now even more diligent because of his great confidence in you. As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker among you. As for our brethren, they are messengers of the church, a glory to Christ. Therefore, openly before the churches, show them the proof of your love and of our reason for boasting about you."

Alright, so on the surface, we've got Titus and the Mystery Men. They're unnamed. Like, Titus, there's his name, and then the other two, it's kind of like, what's his face? And so, on the surface, maybe this is a little bit ambiguous. But Paul is transitioning from the collection of the compassionate gift for Jerusalem to the stewardship of that gift and the cohort who will be traveling to collect it and ensure its delivery to those suffering. I think it's worth calling out, and we kind of touched on this last week a little bit, but it's worth calling out that it is unsafe to travel on the dirt roads between the different cities. There are criminals who will come in and they will attack you and they will take your possessions.

When Jesus told the parable of the guy getting beaten up and the Sumerian comes by, remember the priest walks by and he doesn't touch him, which would have been compliance with the law by the way. And the various pious Jews come by, and then the Samaritans, the dirty Samaritans. If you want to talk about racism, there you go. The dirty Samaritan comes and he grabs and he takes care of and he cleans up and he pays for the wounded man.

That analogy was not lost on those when Jesus was sharing that parable because that would have been a real-life threat that everybody understood. So now we're talking about Paul and he's sending these three messengers and their cohort. They're traveling together because there's safety in numbers.

That's a real thing here. So as we look at this, a lot of this is not application focused on the surface. It is actually talking about the character of these people. There are some valuable principles that we can glean from it. So as we're going through this, I want you to keep these four questions in mind that I've got listed here. Who is used by God for his work? What is stewardship? What is diligence in the believer, and how can you show the proof of your love for others in Christ? Okay, so those are our four questions.

In fear of legalism, here at Ollie Hills, we have a tendency to shy away from some of these terms, but Paul uses them specifically here for us to learn. We need to learn about spiritual maturity and its impact on our daily lives. Grace is bigger than just liberty or just covering up sin. It motivates us.

So when you hear any of these words like diligence, that's a hot word. If you hear diligence and you're worried about legalism or salvation by works, that word right there could make you a little panicky. but I promise you Paul uses it here in a way that shouldn't make us panic. It's illustrating something.

So Titus verses 16 through 17 here. Thanks be to God who puts earnestness on your behalf in the heart of Titus. So Titus here, he not only accepted our appeal but has gone to you of his own accord. And a whole section of my notes is missing here. I don't know why, but I'm going to go through what should be there. I'm proud of having reviewed this and still skipped my notes on that. So high five to me. So Titus here, as we're looking at 16 and 17, you don't see this as mystery for you now, right? But thanks be to God who puts the same earnestness on our behalf in the hearts of Titus. What is the earnestness on your behalf? What does that mean? When we think of earnestness? Tom? We think of earnest and down payment. In this case we're talking about something else. What is the down payment?

We call it earnest. Why? Why is it called earnest? You say somebody is earnest. He was earnest. What does that mean? It shows their intent. They're putting something behind. They have an intention to do something. He has personal intent. So Titus has personal intent. We asked, will you go? But it didn't even matter if we asked. He wanted to go. He had personal intent. So Titus had earnestness.

And so Titus' earnestness here is something that Paul is talking about. Remember as we've gone through this letter, have you kind of noticed in the first parts of this book Paul was defending his ministry and he was really wrestling with the carnality in the church at Corinth? And what I've loved about 7 and 8 is we're discovering that despite whatever carnality they might have been wrestling with and having, Both Paul and Titus had a deep compassion, a love for this body. They had an earnestness that said, I can't wait to go see you again.

Yes, I'll carry the letter. I will carry the gift to Jerusalem because I love the Corinthians. So Titus had an earnestness. And since there's no notes there, you can make a note about that, right? That's good. Every once in a while hiccups like this work in my favor. Titus had earnestness that was on their behalf and it was in his heart, in the bowels. Bob got to talk about bowels earlier a little bit.

The Romans' understanding of what we call our heart. Now that we understand physiology, our heart really just pumps our blood. It's not the seat of our emotions, but because of the tradition of our culture. We say heart. Everybody thinks of love and our feelings. The Romans and the Greeks' understanding was bowels, your inner gut. This is where all the feelings come from. But the idea is from deep within yourself there is a compassion or affection.

So Titus has this affection in his heart on behalf of the church in Corinth. For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest, he has gone to you of his own accord." They wish they had an accord to go in. It would be a lot safer if you could have the three of them traveling in an accord. But his own will was behind the idea that he go and he carry the letter and he carry the gift to the Jerusalem body that was in such dire needs.

Titus was fully engaged. Now how did they get the letter that said this? How did they get 2 Corinthians? Titus was carrying it. So that's always one of those weird things where for me I always think wouldn't it be strange if somebody gave a letter of recommendation and I came in carrying it and gave it to you? But that's what's happening here. And I bet you the Corinthians were actually excited to see Titus too. So Titus is operating with a great amount of earnestness. That word is used twice here in these two first verses.

For us as believers, have you ever met somebody who is earnest? And I think the answer to that is yes, even though we don't use that as a vocabulary word in a lot of modern literature and communication. But the idea that somebody is intentional and earnest, and you can see that they're motivated to be engaged.

How many of you have gone on a long trip, or an airline trip, or a driving trip, and you can't wait to get to your destination because you want to see those people? And that's what's going on here. Next month we've got some folks coming into town for my birthday and I'll be quite honest with you I can't wait for them to get here. I'm earnestly waiting. I'm not doing the transit but I will be waiting for them to come here and it's that same idea with Titus. I can't wait to see him. You guys went to a wedding. I bet you went there earnestly. Right? It's the same principle. So moving on back into the part where I have my proper notes in place We're going to be introduced to an evangelist. Let's read verses 18 through 21 together.

We have sent along with him the brother whose fame in the things of the gospel has spread through all the churches. And not only this, but he has also been appointed by the churches to travel with us in this gracious work, which is being administered by us for the glory of the Lord himself. and to show our readiness, taking precaution so that no one will discredit us in our administration of this generous gift. For we have regard for what is honorable not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men." Alright, so who is this brother?

Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, just says, we've got a dude. We don't know. There's traditions. There's one tradition that Luke was who he was writing about. And the best people can point to as to why this is Luke is because of Romans where Luke sends his greetings. There is no reason at all to assume this is Luke. Paul is quite capable of writing the name Luke he does in the book of Romans.

So we don't know who this is. It could be Luke. I'm not saying it isn't, but it doesn't say. So let's not run around with a bunch of conjecture. But we do know some things about him. And that is what is revealed in what Paul writes about him. So we're going to spend energy on what we do know rather than what we don't know. It says that he has fame amongst all the churches.

He's like the next American evangelist or something, right? Instead of an idol, right? It's the opposite of idols. It's evangelism. No, it says he's got fame. That's crazy to us, right? We hear the word fame and immediately we think of the flesh and carnality, right? That's terrible, except for that it's not.

Paul's paying a compliment here. How many of you would hate to have fame for preaching Jesus Christ? on the recording. For the record, no one has raised their hands. So it's important here that we recognize Paul is using fame and it's not for the building up of this brother as some kind of ego problem.

He's just talking about the truth. Listen, I'm sending this guy. It doesn't sound like they've met him. But around here, he has a reputation. We could use that word instead, although the Greek word for reputation is not here. But I think it conveys the sense of what Paul was trying to communicate. The idea here is he has fame for the things of the gospel. And that reputation is spread around. So let's talk about this idea. How do you get fame in things of the gospel? Tom?

By not just preaching it, but living it. Okay, so I think that's a good observation. He's not just preaching it in the same sense of like, well, I have a duty to preach, but it's part of his life or his lifestyle. Would that be a good restatement of what you're thinking? I'm getting a very gentle head nod. I hope that's the case. Now I've got a vigorous head nod. So we have these things of the gospel. What motivates evangelism? and love for people. Okay, the love for Christ and love for people. I think that's a great answer. But what we find often in various denominations is a sense of legalism.

Have you ever run into that? That you better be out preaching the gospel every day. How many of you know for certain that you have the gift of evangelism? I got a few heads shaking no. and no hands up in the air for the record on the recording. Okay, now that doesn't shock me. Not everybody is an evangelist and not everybody, you know, there's not like an even distribution of evangelists in the church according to the scripture. We all need to know how to share the gospel. Who wants to share with us the simplicity of the gospel? Anybody feel like they can volunteer that?

Alright, go for it. Christ died. He was crucified. He was buried and rose again the third day. According to the scriptures. From 1st Corinthians 15 verses 3 and 4. So what we have here is the simplicity of the gospel. Thank you for sharing that with us Cheryl. What we have is a guy who had developed a reputation for being able to share the gospel confidently.

And everybody didn't raise their hand, right? In the room here, saying that I'm certain I'm an evangelist. No one was certain that they're an evangelist. That being said, I think it's worth calling out something very, very important about evangelism. Who saves the lost? Is it the evangelist? No. Who needs to be ready to share the gospel? All believers.

Almost everybody said something like that all at once, which is great. I can't wait to hear that on the recording. But what I think is worth calling out here is that we have this principle of evangelism that this person has, and I think for a lot of believers, we get nervous. We get afraid. We're like, because I'm not an evangelist. And other people I've met who are evangelists, it's really funny because the gospel just comes flowing out of them at all times.

They're just constantly talking to people. And I've met people who do it legalistically, and it's terrible. It turns people off. And I've met people who do it by the empowering of the Holy Spirit, and it's amazing because the Holy Spirit is the one that woos the lost soul and brings them in and says, you know what? Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you and you and you and you and you. And I want you to hear it. And so when I asked what motivates the evangelist, Winnie's answer is, right, a love for God and a love for those who are lost.

And in our own lives, I know we have people that we're ministering to. I know that we've prayed for sin. And we have people that we're ministering to, not that we're all constantly beating on doors like the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons, right? We're not called for that, I don't think. But that we're praying and constantly being open, saying, okay, Lord, I'm a vessel, I'm abiding, I'm waiting for you to put this good work in place, and I'm ready.

We're going to talk about readiness a little bit more in a bit. But Grace was such a powerful motivator in his life, he was compelled to share the gospel, and that became the reputation for who he was. I'm not telling you that you are a bad Christian because you don't share the gospel enough. That will never come out of my mouth. You won't hear that from me. I don't bring judgment there. But I am encouraged when I read about people who are evangelists to be reminded myself that I need to be ready. And I might even need to be praying, Lord, please bring people into my life so that if I'm abiding, I can share the gospel.

And the good news is that Ephesians 2.10 says that that's what's going to happen. So I don't have to worry about those events. If God never brings anybody into your life to share the gospel and you're abiding your whole life, are you walking in sin because you didn't preach the gospel over and over again? For those of you on the recording, I got head shakes, no. So that's good.

That's an important doctrine to understand. Remember that the church in 1 Corinthians, chapters 12 through 14, Paul talks about the spiritual gifts. And when we look at chapter 12, we see the body, and then we see the spiritual gifts, and then we look at 13, and in 13 he says, hey, you need to love one another. That's really critical, even more important than the spiritual gifts. But then we get to 14 and in 14 the Corinthians didn't understand the purpose of some of the gifts for preaching the gospel and evangelism. So the reason why I'm kind of belaboring this a little bit is because it's easy for us to be just like the Corinthians and not understand how evangelism works in the body.

How many of you have ever been to a church where every week there's what is proverbially called an altar call, although I don't think that's a good term. We don't have an altar in the church. Jesus was on the final altar, and I'm good with that, until the new temple is built. But you go to church and every week the message is really about the gospel. When you go to that kind of church, how much are you growing as a believer? I like that answer. But what happens is you tend to not get fed, right? Is the purpose of the church service only evangelism? No. Should we not have evangelism in the church service? I don't think that's also an absolute statement we want to make. But the purpose of our coming together is for our growth and edification.

And so we have this practice, this principle of fame for sharing the gospel that we can, if we start to look at what evangelism means, which is what this little rabbit trail has been about, we can see that it impacts our lives in a big way. Now the question I have is when we run into believers who are famed for the gospel, aka evangelists, how does it make you feel? How does it make us feel? Here we go. I use the feeling word because I want to coax out some thoughts on that. Do you feel insufficient? You ever feel insufficient? I have. But what's the doctrine that we can lean on heavily to remove any sense of regret? Tom? Not I but Christ.

And the Holy Spirit is going to direct us in Ephesians 2.10 that God is going to prepare good works for you is true. If the Holy Spirit moves in you and in your heart and you preach the gospel, awesome. That's great.

And I'm not trying to make some kind of large pendulum statement. We should never preach the gospel. There are people who teach that actually. There's a theological tradition called Calvinism, and the hyper-Calvinists, these are the people who are really big on the five or seven points of Calvinism. I jokingly say seven points, but really it's just five. The hyper-Calvinists say, I don't have to preach the gospel because God will save those whom he is going to save. Well, I don't think that's in the Bible. I really can't find don't preach the gospel. Can you find preach the gospel? I think you can.

When Peter says be ready in season and out of season to defend your faith, well that means I've got to be ready. I might have to preach the gospel. But then you've got people on the other side, the legalists, who say you must always preach the gospel. I have one guy that I know. I had to hide his information, his feed on Facebook, because I just got tired of the legalism he was pumping out. Everybody should always be preaching the gospel all the time. And you should all have tracts on your person. You should always be ready to tell people about Jesus. And if you don't, you're a bad Christian. You might even doubt your salvation. So we have these two pendulum ideas, neither of which is in the scriptures.

Instead, Ephesians 2.10, coming together, Ephesians 2.10 says the Holy Spirit is going to move in you to preach the gospel.

And he's going to move in the person, he's going to woo the person and draw them to himself. And he's going to present them to Jesus. And they're going to respond. And you're just an agent. So this guy is famed for preaching the gospel. But it was only something he was doing because the Holy Spirit moved in him. And people were coming to the Lord because the Holy Spirit was moving in them. So you can relax. Everybody feel no regret now? The goal is no regret because we looked at chapter 7 and we said, hey, no regrets. Alright, so no regrets about preaching the gospel, only trusting the Lord.

Appointed by the churches to travel with us in this gracious work. The churches in Macedonia appear to have communicated amongst one another and despite their poverty, remember we talked about how they had given even more than Paul had expected, despite their poverty they had even put together and supported this brother who was an evangelist and they sent him.

The idea here of churches working together is only familiar to us today in the idea of denominational circles. Almost never do you hear about churches who are in different non-denominational scenarios working together, although I think we have a pretty close relationship with Fort Collins Bible Church. Or maybe I only think that because I work with Brad Mastin on a weekly basis on some theological things together. We work together with other churches, but the churches in Macedonia actually in the region worked together to provide for this dude and send him out. So they appointed this mystery man, which is partially why for the record I don't think it's Luke, but they appointed this mystery man to travel with Paul and Titus for this gracious work. this gracious work.

We're going to talk about grace. We're going to have our working definition. Grace is the unmerited, unlimited blessings of God due to the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. The gospel is grace. It motivates us. It is God's blessing over and over again.

It's also very lopsided. Have you noticed that grace is lopsided? Whose favor is it lopsided in? It feels like it's lopsided towards us. But you know God doesn't see it that way. That's the cool thing. It feels lopsided, but it isn't. The blessing is God's to give. Richly. Endlessly.

Into eternity, as Ephesians 2.7 says. So, he's appointed by the churches to travel with him in his gracious work. Now, He uses the word grace, or gracious, and the word work in the same sentence. They're conjoined together.

Let's talk about works, shall we? Is everybody ready and excited to talk about works? Are these works unto salvation? No. All right. Are these works empowered by the Holy Spirit? Absolutely, because God Himself said that He has works for us prepared from before the beginning of time. That's right.

Ephesians 2.10. God has those works prepared for you. So if we are abiding, He's going to do those things through us so we can relax.

When I figured that out, and it took me a long time, when I figured that out, I finally rested because I suddenly realized that it wasn't up to me to be scheduling it and delivering on it. All I had to do was wait. And I hate waiting. I'm an American. Darn it, if the line is more than five minutes, I'm out, right?

But if we wait on the Lord, and it's on His timing and His plan, He gets the glory. He gets to be working in us, but we still get rewards. I love that. Only God can make a system where we get rewarded for His work in us, right? That's grace. Alright, so works under grace here are not works of the flesh. They're not works of our own merit. They're just that we're cooperating with the Holy Spirit in getting things done.

How many of you walk up and down the ramp instead of the stairs upstairs between the sugar room and the sanctuary? I love that ramp. Every time I see that ramp I remember Norm Avery. every time I come Sunday mornings come to church see the ramp Norm Avery and I remember Norm when we first got here was on crutches and then he quickly declined in health and had to switch over to wheelchair and they had a temporary ramp that they put up every week but then they realized that kids like a temporary ramp and people might get hurt on it so Phil Mills built the ramp that's there And do you think Phil Mills did that so he could get a pat on the back?

I think other people probably helped him too, but I'm going to say Phil just because I know for sure he worked on it. But the thing is that Phil doesn't do this for his glory. It's a gracious work. because the Holy Spirit gave him the opportunity and he said, I'm willing. If he hears this recording he's going to be embarrassed because that's the kind of humble guy he is.

But every time I see that ramp I think of Norm Avery and I think about Phil and I think about, wow, that was a great expression of love in our body. It was a gracious work. Grace to Norm, grace to the little kids who were playing on the ramp and ready to take a nose dive and get a goose egg, right? But the gracious work was there and the work was made available because the need was there. We need need, right? So the gracious work of the body. And we are crawling along here. I suspect I'm not going to get to finish here, but that's okay. Hopefully everybody's tracking with me and you're learning and thinking. So, the gracious work which is being administered by us for the glory of the Lord himself.

So Paul had a special stewardship. What's a stewardship? This is one of the main questions we wanted to answer when we started, right? So what's a stewardship? Something you're responsible for. That's a great way to define that. So we have this idea of something you're responsible for and Paul is responsible for preaching the gospel.

He's an apostle. And what I love about this is that Paul has the authority from God to do that, but he has those who are traveling with him. Are they apostles? No, they're not apostles. But they are his cohorts. They are his ambassadors. And so this evangelist dude that we don't know the name of, along with Titus and the other dude that we don't know the name of, man, I'm saying dude a lot, I'm sorry. It's California, I was born there. They are sent out by Paul to be preaching the gospel as part of the stewardship that they have.

But what is the result of the working out of the stewardship? What does it say the result is? It talks about bringing glory to the Lord, right? Glory to the Lord. We talked about the legalism of evangelism, right? And how some people have a sense of regret or duty that they have not fulfilled, something like that. How about bringing glory to the Lord? Do you ever feel a sense of guilt, like maybe my life had too much sin in it and it didn't bring glory to the Lord?

Nobody's raising their hands, but I'm seeing smiles. So, the thing that I think is worth calling out here is that Paul says they're just doing what the Holy Spirit has empowered them to do. They're being willing vessels, and they're doing it, and their obedience is bringing glory to the Lord. So let's ask this question.

Can you bring glory to the Lord? I'm getting some head nods, yes. Do you need to work harder to bring glory to the Lord? More glory? Does He need more from you? No, I'm getting shakes of negative. Actually, maybe less. Yeah, you need to not be working of your own accord. You need to be waiting, right?

And so what's amazing about this is that if you were to look at this idea of glory to the Lord, we have a stewardship that results in glory. And so we can find places as we go throughout the scriptures where the stewardship leads to glory. You've been given a stewardship. If your stewardship is cleaning the bathroom, how many of you love cleaning the bathroom? I did it for a while professionally. That's right. Put that on my resume. If you're abiding and you're serving the Lord, while you're scrubbing out the toilet, you're bringing glory to the Lord. You.

That's a powerful thing to think about, because sometimes we don't think that we're bringing glory to the Lord, do we? It's easy to think that we're making money, we might be taking care of our family, we might be taking care of our pets. I'd be making sure that our job gets done so that people know that we're reliable as human beings, right?

But you're bringing glory to the Lord. If you're abiding and you're serving Him, you're bringing glory to the Lord. It doesn't matter what it is. It can be cleaning the toilets. But Paul was saying they have the stewardship. They're there to administer it. They're sending these three believers to the church in Corinth so that the Lord is glorified.

So even in our own lives, let's hold on to that. One of the stewardships that we have in the body is an Acts chapter 2 verse 42 stewardship. And we see that that is repeated in other places in the scripture and it is a koinonia stewardship. How many of you know what koinonia means? I got some hands up. Somebody tell me what koinonia means.

Togetherness, fellowship, intimacy with one another. We have a stewardship of one another. If I'm alone, I can't execute on that. I need you. Do you know I need you? Now you do, right? So this koinonia principle is a stewardship we have. And when we execute that stewardship in fellowship and intimacy, in hospitality, who's glorified? God is. You coming over and hanging out at my house, or me going to your house, brings glory to the Lord.

It also brings calories to our body, I hope, right? But the glory is the more important thing. All right, so we ask the question sort of facetiously, do you need to work harder to bring more glory? And the answer is no. And I think to Roger's point, we need to work less. We need to be abiding. And we will work, but it will be his works in us.

So Paul says, showing our readiness. Now who knows what readiness is? Is anybody ready to talk about ready? All right. Readiness is the mental willingness to go at. Okay. So Paul is talking about readiness. He's mentally prepared to do something. We don't think about readiness a lot other than in my household we talk about readiness like this morning.

Are you ready to go to school? Are you ready to go to church? I usually give my family the 10 minute warning. Okay, we have to leave in 10 minutes. And of course then I start getting the I'm readies. which usually means that when I say, okay we gotta go out the door right now, somebody's gotta put their shoes on, go to the bathroom, find their jacket, like they're not ready.

But they say they're ready. But Paul is talking about readiness and he is ready. He is mentally prepared to go wherever the Lord sends him. And he is mentally prepared, he is ready. Showing our readiness. Who wants to see the readiness? Who cares about the readiness in this context? God does. God is looking for ready vessels.

If we're abiding, we are ready vessels. He will use us. With confidence, we can rest in that. And he uses readiness three times in this passage, in 8, 11, 12, and 19, and then he will use readiness again in 9-2 next week. So we have readiness here. ready for or prepared for action or zeal. So then, as we take a look at this here, we have readiness. Taking precautions so that no one will discredit us in our administration of this generous gift. So, discrediting He's got precaution on his mind. What is Paul's precaution? Do we know? Anyone want to take a stab at his precaution?

Randy, I think you're coming to it in 21 there, I think. Yes. That's the correct answer. I was hoping people would connect to me. Talk to us about that briefly, Roger. He wants to be transparent before men. That's a large part of his focus, but he's also transparent before God. In collecting this generous gift, that he's not perceived that he's getting money for his coffers, it's to the Lord and not to him. It's interesting how he points out, there's a bunch of folks that are going to make sure this gift gets back to the Jerusalem Saints. And it will be credible that no one put their hand in the till so that they don't watch each other. Very human concerns here about, well, If one person takes it back, then who knows how much it really was? The safety, will it make there? Is there integrity? Did the books get... Did they make the second books, the cook the books? Very, very real concerns there. But his precaution was in 21 that they would have regard for what is honorable.

But before we jump to that section there, I want to take a look at this idea of discrediting our administration of this generous gift. Paul has been very concerned about being discredited. He's mentioned this more than once now in this letter. I don't want to be discredited. And so when we think about being discredited, as our own walk with the Lord works out, how do we know for sure that we ourselves will not be discredited? I keep coming back to one principle, but I think it's important worth calling out.

We need to be abiding. If we're abiding or walking in the Spirit, whichever term you prefer, I think they're synonyms. If we're abiding, if we're beholding the Lord, will our ministry be discredited? No. No, it will not. So Paul's concern about the discredit, it's so that there There's no question about their stewardship of this generous gift.

It's easy for us to understand what is honorable, in verse 21, what is honorable in God's sight. How do we do what is honorable in God's sight? We abide. I don't want to say easy, let's be honest. We understand that the abiding state is something that requires focusing on the Lord and it's part of a life that is maturing in him. But we can understand the principle easily, right? We can say that. But how about what is honorable in the sight of men? What is honorable in the sight of men? It glorifies man. Can you say that again? I'm sorry, I missed. It glorifies man. It glorifies man. Well, and that can be the case in some contexts.

What were the Jews expecting from Paul? Quite a bit of weird legalism, because they had the 613 laws of the Old Testament plus the buffer laws that they created above that. Can you imagine that? Not only do you have to memorize the 613 laws, which they did, but then you have to also try to memorize the other laws they created above the laws. which aren't even recorded in the Old Testament, but is what people had to do so that they could make sure that the legalists would stay off their back. Not because they were walking in fellowship with God, but because of the legalists.

Timothy paid a very real price, in my humble opinion. As an adult male, Paul circumcised him in one of the more sensitive areas of one's body. so that they would not make the Jews angry and it would remove some of the hindrances in their ministry. That was honorable in man's sight. Did God honor Timothy's circumcision? This is a trick question, but let's think about it, okay? Was Timothy's circumcision to fulfill the law? No. What was it for?

An open door. There we go, it's an open door. Timothy complied with what the legalists would expect so that he could tell them about how to not be under the law. So it's a very unique circumstance and we read later in Galatians what does Paul say about circumcision in the legalist department. He wishes that they would emasculate themselves. That's a good, that's a really Excellent verse to get into a discussion with people about when they're atheists and they're like, so what is this about? Well, Paul's making a joke. But the idea here is that doing what is honorable in man's sight was part of Paul's evangelism strategy.

When he came into a place, he would go to the synagogue. and he preached the gospel to the Jews who would already know Isaiah 53. He'd go in, preach the gospel to the Jews first, and then also to the Greeks. He'd go out. He found if he had in-rows with the Jews, it would make it a lot easier because they would know the Gentiles around them, and then he could start preaching the gospel and have connections. This person is going to be receptive. So he'd go first to the Jew and then the Greek. But Paul was very strategic.

It's almost like the Holy Spirit made him useful because he was willing to learn about the cultures as he was going through them, right? And in our own lives, sometimes we find that we must do the same thing. How many of you have read missionary stories or books and biographies where somebody had to go out into a village and learn what the people were doing to be able to connect with them? Hudson Taylor went to China and he changed his dress and his hair to stop looking British and so he could look Chinese. And the funny thing about that is that we think, oh, I don't know if I want to do that. He shaved the whole front of his head and then grew out a ponytail. Well, some of our legalists would say, a man with long hair? No way. And he's like, that's the only way I can preach the gospel to these people. And they listen. Paul did the same thing. Hudson Taylor just did what Paul did, right?

And you'll run into missionaries where the women will go out into the tribe where women don't wear shirts and bras, and the women will go out and they will also not wear shirts and bras to fit in. That sounds like my Victorian senses are totally offended, right?

But those kinds of things will be what people do to fit into the culture so they can preach the gospel because they're not being indecent in that culture. I am probably going to get spoken to for that analogy. But the reality is that that is something where people have to be willing to go and fit into the culture in a biblical mindset. Understanding the culture to preach the gospel.

Not violating things and being gross. they understand these things. And Paul had that same mindset. Being honorable in what was in men's sight. So when he's dealing with the Jews, he's like a Jew. We can follow that rabbit trail. There's some cross-references there in your notes. Please take a few minutes this week and look at those cross-references. You'll see Paul did this not just once.

Alright, verse 22. We get the... running out of time. Verse 22, we get the diligent brother. We have sent with them our brother whom we have tested and found diligent in many things, but now even more diligent because of his great confidence in you. Now diligence, we hear diligence and everybody's legalism radar goes off, right? Oh no! Diligence, that sounds like works.

Again, are these works empowered by the flesh? No, they're empowered by the Holy Spirit. But I can run alongside with my physical energy where the Holy Spirit is directing. It's not me being carnal, it is me being obedient. So that's okay. It's works that Ephesians 2.10, again, that we keep coming back to, works that the Lord put together, works that are there.

So Paul is going to bat for this guy. Have you ever had someone go to bat for you and been surprised by their confidence in you? Because Paul's going to bat for this guy and this guy's going to bat for the church in Corinth. He's excited about them. He's energized by them. He's encouraged by them.

I've had people go to bat for me and been surprised multiple times in my life. I'm well aware of my failings and my weaknesses. But the amazing thing is that multiple times people have been very complimentary in front of me, of myself, and I've almost been unsure what to do. But that's what this guy is.

He is excited to go see them. He's complimentary of them. He's energized. He's diligent, and he cannot wait to see the Corinthians. Again, this is empowerment by the Holy Spirit. It's not this guy's carnality that's operating here. Within intimacy of the body, that should be normative. We should be going to bat for one another. We should be diligent, right? But diligent in a, you know, not a legalistic way. It's just the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and we're going along with him as his agents. So how can we be diligent without being legal or leaning on works? We do it by the Holy Spirit.

The Greek language is full of imperatives, right? Quit stealing, Paul tells the Ephesians. How are they going to stop stealing? By the power of the Holy Spirit. They're going to ignore the culture and instead set their mind on things above. The funny thing is that you hear imperatives and people go, oh no, is this legalism? No, it's not legalism. But for some reason, no one ever asks that about the quit stealing passage in Ephesians. People go, well, duh. But if you find another imperative, other places are like, whoa, watch out for legalism. No, this isn't an imperative for legalism. It's an imperative because it's reasonable.

It's a logical thing for you to do because of your life in Christ. And the Holy Spirit, if you're abiding, will lead to those things. Turns out that's how the spiritual gifts get manifested. So if you're not seeing spiritual gifts, if you're not seeing things like in Romans 12, where he goes through what the body should be doing, or in 1 Corinthians, then that probably means that there needs to be some abiding going on. That's all. All right, so verse 23, since we're running out of time.

Titus and the Messengers. As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker among you. As for our brethren, they are messengers of the church, a glory to Christ. There's that glory word again. So Titus was not an apostle, but he is a partner in the ministry. There's the word koinono, Koinonos shows up there, which is like Koinonia that we talked about earlier. It's a fellowship. They have fellowship in this ministry together. And so they share that ministry. They're partners. And he is a fellow worker among you. You are also partners in this. You're partners in sharing the gospel in this work.

As for our brethren, the mystery men, they are messengers of the churches, a glory to Christ. Messengers of the churches. They're going to be sharing the message of the gospel and the message of what God is doing. They're going to testify to what God is doing in those churches under the glory of Christ. There's that glory word again. I love the idea that we as vessels of God bring glory to Him. The radiant essence of God's being manifested in you, in me. Three men are ministering as missionary evangelists while on their journey.

They're ministering to believers as equipped Bipol saints, and they're protecting the collections for the church in Jerusalem. And all of that is to the glory of Jesus Christ. And the last, in verse 24, make sure that all of this, when they get there, is an expression and a proof of your love.

Therefore, openly before the churches, show them the proof of your love and of our reason for boasting about you. The proof of your love. No biggie, right? The proof of your love. Paul calls out the fact that all the churches, the messengers, if all goes well, are going to be back in Macedonia. and they will testify.

I like your jaw-dropping definition of agape love. I had to skip over that one. I guess you brought attention to it. The mnemonic there, the last paragraph before the conclusion, the last sentence, agape love is the kind of generous love that leaves your mouth agape. It's a mnemonic there to remember the definition of agape. It's benevolent charitable love. Show the proof of your benevolence, your charity. Let them see it. Let their mouths be agape.

So in conclusion, Paul's love for the church in Corinth is shared by others in his cohort. These three people are just an example of that. The depth of whatever he was wrestling with before doesn't compare to his love for them and their love for the church in Corinth. And Paul was encouraged and Titus was encouraged and these other two guys were encouraged and they came together.

And so I have two questions and a statement here to close with. What encouragement do you need today? And then secondly, when you listen to other believers, would you be or would you consider looking for opportunities to encourage them as well? Because if you need encouraging, I bet you some other people do. And lastly, you are loved, and I can prove it.

When this recording is over, you just have to come up here and I'll show you. I mean that. It's an open invitation to find out what I mean. All right, let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we come before you. We are so grateful for this passage. What looked like it was just three dudes is actually a really powerful testimony of what you're doing, not only in the body then, but in our body here today, that we get to be part of this. We pray for the gospel to be preached in our own lives, even if we're not evangelists. We pray that you would draw those who are lost to us, that we can say, I know who brings hope. And we thank you so much that all debt is erased and we can live without regret and walk in your love and life and bring glory to you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.