Encounter the Truth

Jonathan Griffiths: As we minister together, we recognize that we are conduits of the work of God. We are those who are in Christ and seeking to walk closely with him and to serve him in faithfulness and sincerity. Not in perfection, because we won't, but in sincerity. We then assume the best of one another to welcome the ministry of one another.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. I'm Steve Hiller, glad you're listening today as we continue a message called "Serving with Godly Sincerity." Jonathan, as you just pointed out in what we heard there, we do want to serve faithfully, but we want to serve faithfully with sincerity. Why is that so important?

Jonathan Griffiths: I think that word is such a key word, and it's a word that the Apostle Paul gives us in his testimony about his own ministry at Corinth. He doesn't claim to be perfect. He doesn't claim never to have made any mistakes at Corinth, but he wants to say to the Corinthians, "You know, I served you and I served the Lord among you with godly sincerity."

I think that's a wonderful standard for us to aspire to and to seek to honor in our service of the Lord and as we serve one another. We'll look back and see we've made mistakes. Of course, we will. But if we can stand before the Lord and say we've been sincere, that's very, very meaningful. I think that's something for us to be praying for as we serve the Lord together.

Steve Hiller: It's a good challenge and reminder for all of us today. So, let's continue to explore this from the book of 2 Corinthians. We're at the end of chapter 1 and the first few verses of chapter 2, continuing our message, "Serving with Godly Sincerity." Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: What is Paul saying and what is he modeling? He's saying that his concern throughout has been the good of the Corinthians, his concern has been their repentance, their experience of grace, their fellowship with him and with the Lord. He's saying that as best as he knows how, even in the midst of a challenging and painful relational strain, he has been seeking their good. He has been endeavoring to bring God's grace to them.

So, the lesson for us within this: as we seek to minister to one another and to serve one another in the various ways that God has called us to do, we want to strive to be able to say with Paul the words of verse 12. "For our boast is this: the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity, not complex motives, not shifty motives, but with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God and supremely so toward you."

Paul couldn't control what others thought of him, what they said of him, what accusations they made against him, and nor can we control what others think or say about us. But we do want, with the Lord's help, to maintain the clear conscience of saying that we've served one another with sincerity, without selfish or complicated motives, without a personal agenda, without any kind of craftiness. We should always be seeking the good of the other, their growth in grace, their ultimate endurance in the faith. That is our responsibility, of course, as we minister and as we serve.

We might reflect on all that, and we might think on it and we might well say, "Okay, but what other factor could possibly motivate us in the work of the gospel if we're involved in serving others and bringing the gospel to them? Surely if we are involved in ministry, we're going to have simple motives, straightforward motives. Those motives are going to be shaped by the gospel itself. Surely that's the case."

I think the truth is it is possible not to serve with godly sincerity and not to serve with simplicity of motives. Really, in any ministry that's possible. I think it's possible in Sunday School. It's possible in community group ministry, in women's ministry, in men's ministry, in neighborhood evangelism, in pulpit ministry, anywhere.

It's possible for us to be interested in building our own little kingdom, to build our own reputation, to prove ourselves to other people. It's possible to serve out of rivalry or of jealousy, pushing others out of the way, seeking prominence for ourselves. It's possible to be using people rather than serving people, even in the course of ministry.

So, as you serve within the fellowship, as you engage in different forms of ministry as I hope you do, let me ask you this question as I ask myself this question: how is your conscience today? As you look at your motives within and do so with honesty, what do you see? Are there things within that you discover that do not meet the standard of sincerity set here by the Apostle Paul? Are there matters before the Lord, perhaps, that you would need to set right?

For all of us, as we look at one another, as we look at others and consider others, can I encourage us to do our level best to assume the best of one another? We should put aside any spirit of suspicion, which so easily creeps in, and rather in a spirit of charity, assume and trust that others are serving out of godly motives, committed to our good and our flourishing in Christ. If we really did those things, if we actually did them, if we checked our motives carefully, served with consistent godly sincerity, and assumed the best of one another, the effect of that would be transformative. It really would. And the fruit from our ministry together would be extraordinary.

That's Paul's model of godly sincerity and we do well to learn from it, all of us. But now we turn to the foundation of this godly sincerity. Here Paul draws attention to nothing within himself but to the very faithfulness of God. Follow this with me from verse 17 of chapter 1. Paul writes this: "Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say 'yes, yes' and 'no, no' at the same time? As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been yes and no."

"For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not yes and no, but in him it is always yes. For all the promises of God find their 'yes' in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our 'Amen' to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee."

I'm always quite intrigued when companies make somewhat outlandish promises to their customers. I love watching to see if they will really carry through. When we were buying a new heating system for our house, the sales rep came by and told us about all the options. He brought on all the brochures from the manufacturer, but told us that this particular company had, I believe, a 70-year warranty on the key component of the system, the heat exchanger. Others had 5 years or 10 years or 15 years, but this particular company had 70 years on the warranty.

The moment I heard that, I was sold. I was already practically putting a note in my calendar for 68 years in the future to file the warranty claim when the thing invariably broke just before the warranty expired. I practically can't wait to see what the response will be if I do indeed file that claim and if I'm still alive at that point.

I love the Costco return policy. I don't know if you're familiar with this. It's basically you can return anything at any time for any reason. I actually secretly kind of enjoy it when something we bought seven years ago breaks—something maybe cheap and insignificant—and I have the thrill of just walking up to the returns counter and seeing if they'll actually honor the policy. This is the point at which my family won't be seen near me. They sort of run for cover while I'm doing this. But I discovered that normally Costco will do it. They're pretty good. I do think it's a sign you've really hit middle age when returning stuff to Costco is something you look forward to at the weekend. But we won't probe that too deeply.

I gather that one of the most stunning marketing fails of all time was the promotional campaign of the Hoover vacuum company in the UK in the early 1990s. They offered this deal and it became quite famous, where if you spent over 100 pounds on a Hoover product, they would give you two free round-trip airfares to the United States from Great Britain.

Hoover thought that this would boost sales of expensive products, but people found items within their catalog valued at just over 100 pounds—basically the cheapest things they could find. They bought the cheapest thing that they could grab and then put in the claim for the two flights worth hundreds and hundreds of pounds more. The company was unsurprisingly overwhelmed with requests that they could not begin to fulfill. They pulled the promotion, they got sued by lots of angry customers, they lost tens of millions of pounds, they became the subject of a BBC documentary over all this, and eventually, they had to sell off the UK division of the company altogether.

I mention all these things because the people of this world don't always feel bound to keep their word. Gone is any cultural expectation that a person's word is their bond. We just don't assume that anymore of others today. For the world around us, I think it's perfectly fine to say we'll do something and then not do it. It's perfectly fine to promise and then not follow through. It's fine for businesses to make a commitment to a customer and then not keep the promise, especially if they don't feel that they're going to get sued for it.

If we think of the world of politics, it seems there's often no problem in making commitments at the time of an election and then not following through once in government. In personal relationships, it's often simply expected that promises will not be kept. But God in his holiness is utterly unlike us in this respect. God is a promise-making and promise-keeping God.

One of the reasons why Paul will have raised the issue of God's faithfulness is that there have been long seasons of time in salvation history when the people of God have questioned whether God was indeed going to keep his promises. Remember that the promise of salvation in Christ was initially made right back at the beginning at the time of the fall to Adam and Eve. God promised to Eve that her offspring would crush the head of the serpent, that is, destroy the works of Satan and bring salvation to humanity. But the wait for the fulfillment of that promise was a very long wait.

God added layers of extra promise to that foundational promise over the years. He promised to Abraham that he would make of him a great nation and that he would bring salvation blessings to the world through his family. He promised to David that a son of his would sit on his throne and that it would be the throne of an eternal kingdom. He promised the exiled generation exiled in Babylon that he would bring them home to Judah and that he would fulfill all his plans and purposes for them. But following the return to Judah were 400 years of prophetic silence and generations of profound discouragement as foreign nations dominated the people of God. Yes, there were times when the people of God might well have questioned whether God was going to keep his promise and fulfill his word.

Paul raises all this because he and the Corinthians have together actually seen that God fully intended to keep his promise and was able to keep his promise even at the tremendous cost of sending his son to suffer and die on the cross of Calvary. That's why Paul is able to say, knowing that the Corinthians will understand him, that all the promises of God find their "yes" in Christ. They have seen the fulfillment of those promises in the gift of the Son.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths, and we're going to pause right here, but we'll get back to this message from 2 Corinthians 1 in just a moment. If you've missed any of the programs in the series so far, you can always come and listen online. Our website is encounterthetruth.org and there you can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. Again, that's at encounterthetruth.org.

Another way to listen is to get the Encounter the Truth app. If you don't have it yet, it's free at your app store. That's a great way to listen to Jonathan's teaching on demand as it fits your schedule. But whether you listen to the program on the radio, online, or through the Encounter the Truth app, it's all made possible because of your generosity.

As you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to say thank you by sending you a book that Jonathan has picked out. It's called "Weakness Is the Way," written by J.I. Packer. For Christians, weakness should be a way of life. Yet most of us try to be sufficient on our own. We resent our limitations and our needs. But J.I. Packer shows us the importance of embracing our frailty and also helps us look to Christ for strength, for affirmation, and for contentment. You're going to find a path from discouragement to freedom in light of our all-sufficient God. Again, we'd love to send you a copy of this book, "Weakness Is the Way," as our way of saying thank you for your financial support. You can give online at encounterthetruth.org or when you call 1-833-99-TRUTH. That's 1-833-998-7884 or encounterthetruth.org.

Back to the message. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: It would be very hard to count up all the promises about Jesus made in the Old Testament, from the details of the offspring of the woman, the son of Abraham, the son of David, the suffering servant, the one whose hands and feet would be pierced, the king riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, his burial in a rich man's tomb, his resurrection to life once more. The prophecies and the predictions and the illusions and the images, they are so numerous. Some would count and say that there are 300 and more, and I'm sure that's right. But Paul's point is this: each and every one is fulfilled in detailed perfection in Christ. And there is nothing more faith-fortifying, more confidence-building than to see that.

But why exactly is Paul raising this? Why is he drawing attention to the faithfulness of God? Is he simply making the point that God is faithful and so God is an example to us? Paul's point is deeper than that. His point is that God's faithfulness is the driving force behind his faithfulness in ministry and the Corinthians' faithfulness as disciples of Christ. Their faithfulness is grounded in the very faithfulness of God.

Paul is actually claiming that their ministry is grounded in the character of the God who has proved himself faithful through fulfilling the promises of his word. Verse 19 is not an entirely easy verse to translate, but it's really quite fascinating. You'll notice that in the ESV, in the version we're using, it says this: "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you..." But the original would more literally, perhaps, be translated in this way: "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the one preached through us among you." Let me say that again: "the one preached through us among you."

It's a little bit awkward, that I understand, but the sense is that Paul and Silvanus and Timothy were the conduits of the preaching, but Jesus Christ is the one at the center of it all. He is the one empowering it and he is the one who comes among the people through the conduit of the preaching. The preaching is something done through the preachers, but its source is divine. That's the implication.

The same sense, the same kind of logic is there in verse 20. Notice that again with me. "For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory." All God's promises are fulfilled in Christ. Christ brings salvation. He redeems his people. He gives his Spirit to impart new life. He forms the church. And so, as the church then responds in worship to the God of our salvation, as we hear the gospel proclaimed and we say our "Amen" to the gospel, Paul is saying it is Jesus Christ who enables us to say that and to make that response. He enables the worshipful response of the people of God.

We are a people in Christ. We are a people whose worship and response is achieved in him and through him. And so not only in the preaching of the word, but in the church's response of worship, Jesus Christ is central. Jesus Christ is everything. Jesus is the agent. He is the one who actually makes it happen. He is the source and the enabler of it all.

Now, in case all of that has been a little bit too subtle and a little bit too implicit, Paul now makes it all explicit in verse 21. All that we have and all that we are as the people of God, it is in and through the work of God himself. Notice it there. "And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee."

Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, they haven't saved themselves. They haven't set themselves apart for ministry. And the Corinthian Christians, they haven't saved themselves. None of them has achieved their own salvation. No, God has done all of it. He has established all these believers together as a people in Christ. And he has anointed Paul and his co-workers for ministry. He has put his seal upon them as he has put his seal upon every believer.

What's Paul saying? He's saying that the God of absolute faithfulness is the one who has done everything in his life and in the life of the Corinthian believers. He is the one who is now working through Paul in his ministry. This ministry is actually God's ministry through him in Christ. That's how Paul sees it. That's how he operates. That is the basis of all that he does, and it's the basis of his relationship with the Corinthians.

Of course, it is possible for any believer and any minister of the gospel to deny these things and to operate in a way that runs contrary to the character and the will of God. But Paul's security comes from seeing himself as a conduit of the work of God. He wants the Corinthians to see that too, to recognize it and so to operate then on the basis of trust and of fellowship in Christ, and not on the basis of suspicion or derision or hostility.

What does all this mean for us, for you and for me, as we serve together in ministry, as we share together in the life of the church and the community of the people of God? Well, it means that we need to maintain a high level of trust and charity with one another. That's got to be our goal. We want to avoid at all costs the kind of thing that Paul experienced where folk within the church assumed the worst about him, ascribed to him bad motives, kept a list of complaints and charges against him, and sought to write off his ministry.

That's an awful way to live. It's an awful dynamic within a fellowship. It's corrosive and it is destructive and it is unworthy of us, the people of God. We can all see that readily. I think we can all identify that.

So, we want to go back to basics and we want to remember that God has made us a church together through his gracious work. He has established us in Christ through the gospel. He has given us his Spirit to breathe new life into us and to make us his people together. And as we serve and as we minister together, we recognize that we are conduits of the work of God. We are those who are in Christ, through whom Jesus is living his life and through whom Jesus is doing his work.

We seek to walk closely with him and to serve him in faithfulness and sincerity. Not in perfection, because we won't, but in sincerity. We then assume the best of one another. We resolve to think charitably of one another, to welcome the ministry of one another.

Friends, if we do that, if we actually live that out through the help of the Holy Spirit, if we take the warning of the Corinthian situation to heart, if we remember who we are in Christ, if we would be distinctive in this, the Lord can use us in powerful ways for his glory and for our good too. Let's pray to that end as we conclude together.

God our Father, how we thank you that your word is honest with us about the challenges of ministry and of church life. We want to thank you for the warning that we received from the Corinthian situation. We want to thank you for the model we've received from your servant, the Apostle Paul. And we want to thank you most of all for your faithfulness to your word. We pray that by your Spirit, you would enable us to serve indeed with godly integrity and sincerity, and to serve in a spirit of charity with one another, that your church might be built and that your name might be glorified among us and through us. For we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Steve Hiller: Jonathan Griffiths wrapping up his message, "Serving with Godly Sincerity," and we're going to continue our series called "Strength in Weakness" next time. If you ever miss a broadcast, come and listen online at encounterthetruth.org.

Encounter the Truth is a listener-supported ministry. We're able to be on the radio, make the podcast, the app, all the tools available because of your generosity. As you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a book that Jonathan has picked out. It's called "Weakness Is the Way," written by J.I. Packer. Jonathan, why did you pick out this book?

Jonathan Griffiths: Steve, I picked this book out because I love the subject and I love the author. J.I. Packer, I think, is one of the most capable and faithful theologians of the last century of the Christian Church, and I so appreciate all his writings. I particularly appreciate this book because he's touching on the theme of weakness in the Christian life, which, of course, is really central to our teaching this series this month from 2 Corinthians.

I think it's such an important topic for us to think about as believers because we often despise weakness. We try and avoid weakness, we try and overcome weakness. But what we discover in the scriptures is that the Lord loves to use our weaknesses to display his strength. I think we'll have a lot of listeners and you're following the program and you are in a season of weakness for all kinds of different reasons. But you know that this is a time of weakness. You're walking through it and you're wanting to know how to live faithfully through it, and this book is for you. Within this book, J.I. Packer shares something of his own story and he shares truth from the word of God. He teaches us in all kinds of different ways that the Lord works through our weaknesses to show his strength and to use us for his glory. I think this is going to be a real encouragement for you. I'm eager to get this book into your hands.

Steve Hiller: We want to send you a copy of this book, "Weakness Is the Way," as our way of saying thank you for your financial support this month. Again, it's called "Weakness Is the Way," and you can give a gift of any amount and we'll send you a copy again as our way of saying thank you for your support.

Give online at encounterthetruth.org or when you call 1-833-99-TRUTH. That's 1-833-998-7884 or encounterthetruth.org. You can also write to us at Encounter the Truth, P.O. Box 5513, Ottawa, Ontario, K2C 3M1. Or in the US, Encounter the Truth, 215 North Arlington Heights Road, Suite 102, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 60004.

For Jonathan Griffiths and our producer Mark Breathed, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join us next time.