Do please take a copy of the Scriptures in hand and turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 2, 2 Corinthians chapter 2. We’ll be reading from the twelfth verse. While you are turning there, let me say what a particular joy it is for me to be preaching tonight at Wes’ ordination. Wes has been a very dear friend, one of God’s good gifts to me over these last five years, has been Wes and Claire Strebeck and their precious family, and I’m rejoicing, at no small part, though I grieve to see them go in due course, but I’m rejoicing because the Lord is sending them back to Scotland, and that’s a thrill to my heart, and back to work with the denomination that sent me here. So the Lord knows what He’s doing and we praise Him for His great goodness.
When I started thinking about this message tonight I asked Wes if there were any significant passages for him when it came to his own inner sense of call to Gospel ministry. And this is the passage that he pointed to, which was good for me because it was also the passage the Lord used in my own sense of call to the ministry, so I was glad to preach on it. Most of all, though, I’m glad to be preaching on this text because it is one of the places in the New Testament that gives us some key principles about the nature of faithful, fruitful, Gospel ministry. And so it naturally lends itself to our business here this evening. Before we pray and read the passage together, let me quickly outline for you the major headings we’re going to consider from the text.
First of all, in chapter 2:12-17 we’ll think about the character of Gospel ministry; the character of it. What’s it like? What does it involve? What are its dynamics? The character of Gospel ministry. Then in chapter 3:1-3, we’ll think about the commendation of Gospel ministry. What is a minister’s legacy? What commends him and his message to the watching world? The character of Gospel ministry, the commendation of Gospel ministry, and then chapter 3:4-6, there’s the confidence of a Gospel minister. Given, as we’ll see, the spiritually weighty implications attaching to the work of the ministry of the Word of God, how can any mere man face it with anything like the kind of confidence he’s going to need to persevere in the work? Where ought his confidence to lie? The character of Gospel ministry, the commendation of Gospel ministry, and the confidence of a Gospel minister. That’s where we’re going. Before we look at those themes together we need to read the text. Before we do that, let’s pause and pray and ask for the Lord to help us. Let’s pray together.
O God, speak now, we pray, for Your servants are listening. In Jesus’ name, amen.
2 Corinthians chapter 2, beginning at verse 12. This is the Word of Almighty God:
“When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me in the Lord, my spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia.
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy Word.
The Character of Gospel Ministry
Well the first thing I want us to consider in the passage has to do with the character of Gospel ministry. What is it like? What can Wes expect? What should the people to whom God is sending him look for in Wes’ ministry? You’re going to discover I can be a little alliteration happy, and I’m sorry about that, but sometimes I just can’t help myself and that’s going to be on display a little tonight! The first characteristic Paul mentions in our text is the mark of grief. Notice how he speaks in chapter 2, verses 13 and 14. An opportunity for preaching has arisen for Paul in the city of Troas. He’s gone there to preach Christ. “A door was opened for me in the Lord,” he says. So there he is, preaching and testifying to the Gospel about Jesus, and yet he tells us he’s not happy. “My spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there, so I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia.” So Paul is restless, he’s disturbed, he’s pained even because he’s been waiting to meet up with Titus, whom he expects to come to him from the Corinthians with news about how they’re going, what’s going on with them, how they’re doing. He has them, he has the Corinthians on his heart, you see. In fact later in chapter 7, verses 5 and 6, Paul tells us even when he went to Macedonia he was still in distress. “Our bodies had no rest,” he says, “but we were afflicted with every turn, fighting without fear within. But God who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, Corinthians, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me.”
Do you see the picture now? It’s the picture of a pastor who loves the Corinthian Christians. And let’s remember, they were a pretty messed up bunch, the Corinthians – divisions, a party spirit, lawsuits, sexual immorality, chaotic worship, idolatry – there’s was a very messy church life indeed. But Paul loves them, and when he is at Troas he has no rest, and when he goes on to Macedonia, still he gets no rest because of his concern, his burden for their welfare. He cannot settle down until Titus finally brings word the Corinthians have in fact received Paul’s admonitions well and have responded to them with repentance and with love.
Here’s the point. I hope it’s not too hard to see. Pastoral ministry brings grief. It brings trouble. It brings the weight of concern for the flock of God. It is the mark of God’s call on a man’s life, that when the Lord gives him a people, a congregation to shepherd, he has them in his heart, he’s burdened for them, he loves them. Get ready, Wes, Claire. You are going to fall in love with God’s people and it’s going to be messy and it will often be sore. It will often be a grief, a pain, as you’re burdened for them. “To love at all,” writes C.S. Lewis, “is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it in tact, you must give your heart to no one. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of heaven,” writes Lewis, “where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love, is hell.” That is right on. Lovelessness is not an option. But Paul is showing us that to love the people of God as every good pastor must, is to be exposed to grief.
But not to grief only; to gladness as well. Look at verse 14. Paul’s tone changes rather abruptly, doesn’t it, in verse 14? He bursts into thanksgiving. “But thanks be to God who, in Christ, always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” Paul has in mind the metaphor of a Roman triumphal march like the one famously depicted on the arch of Titus in Rome that showed Jewish prisoners being led as captives in chains into the city, spreading the victor’s incense everywhere. And note this now. Paul sees himself, he sees ministers of the Gospel, as the prisoners. That’s important. Not as the leaders of the procession, but as the prisoners.
And actually, that rather resonates with anyone who has done ministry for any length of time because it will often feel like defeat, like you’ve been conquered rather than that you are conquering. It can even feel like failure. It can feel like chains. No doubt in Troas and again in Macedonia Paul felt like that. “Have I made any difference in the Corinthians’ lives? Maybe I’ve made it worse.” And he’s filled with concern for them. And yet even as he says this, he knows, nevertheless, that all that has taken place in his life and experience and ministry, God has turned and used and through him, all his weakness notwithstanding, disseminated the aroma, the fragrance of Jesus Christ, everywhere he went. And so he gives thanks.
Here’s the apparent paradox of ministry. Can you see it in the text? The tension? It really is vital that we grasp this or if you’re engaged in ministry you’ll never make it. It’s only in chains that we are mighty. It’s only in weakness that Jesus gets the glory and wins the victory. It’s only when our hearts are breaking for the people of God that God through us spreads the aroma of Christ everywhere. But if we can get a firm grasp on that dynamic as we serve the Lord Jesus, whether we serve Him in an ordained capacity or however we serve Him, we will have cause yet to join the apostle Paul and praise God and give Him thanks so that alongside the gravity of serving the Lord Jesus, there will also be gladness. We’ll find ourselves almost like spectators saying, “Look what God is doing! How did He get that done when I did this? I’m so weak, I don’t often understand as I ought, and yet look what the Lord is doing.” And we find our hearts filled with gratitude. So there’s grief and there’s gratitude.
And then there’s glory – glory to God. Look at verse 15. Paul says, “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” Don’t miss that, now. Who is Paul’s ministry for in the first place? It’s not for those who hear him preach the Gospel on the streets of Troas or Macedonia or Corinth. His ministry, first, he is “the aroma of Christ to God” first. He is engaged in ministry for God’s sake, for God’s glory, for the smile and praise of Abba Father, for the “Well done, good and faithful servant” of his master. We are called, you are called Wes, to labor for the praise of your King, not the praise of your hearers and not the recognition of your peers.
Grief, gladness, glory, fourthly, gravity. Look at 15 through 17. He is spreading the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. His ministry, he says, is to one, a fragrance from death to death, to the other from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not like so many peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity as commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ. So God, just as He is doing tonight with Wes, has commissioned Paul, set him apart, sent him to go speak in Jesus’ name to a dying world. And what happens when Paul does that, when he proclaims the Gospel? Eternal destinies are being worked out before his very eyes as people either embrace or reject the good news about Christ. To those who are being saved, the message is the aroma of life and it leads to life; it produces life in them. But to those who are perishing, it is the smell of death and it leads to their death.
If you’re not a Christian here tonight, understand please, if you’re watching at home and you’re not a believer, understand what you do with Jesus will determine either life forever or death under God’s judgment for you. The good news about Jesus is a critical moment. God Himself is inviting you to hear the good news and to believe and live rather than die. That’s what’s at stake. It’s enormous. It’s weighty. And as Paul faces that in this text, his knees virtually buckle. Don’t they? “Who is sufficient for these things?” Who can shoulder this burden? Who is adequate to this task?
We are not doing the work of ordination tonight lightly, as though this were some administrative hurdle that we have to jump in order to get on with our plans to send Wes to Scotland. Let’s be clear. What we are doing as the Presbytery lays their hands on his head, is placing a great weight on his shoulders. We’re saying to Wes, “Go preach Christ. Go make disciples. And as you open your mouth to speak for Jesus, the decrees of God, of election and reprobation, will be worked out in time, in history, right before your eyes in the midst of the people you love and have come to serve. We’re not sending Wes off tonight with an optimistic bounce, telling him, “You can do it.” We do send him off with joy, with rejoicing, because this is the work of God; with confidence in God and His promises to be sure, but with a sense of moment, with gravity. Because when a man is ordained to Gospel ministry, we can be sure that God purposes to save the lost and bring His enemies to judgment through that man and through his labors. And so we ought all to join Paul and say, “Who is sufficient for such things?” Grief, gladness, glory, gravity. They all characterize Gospel ministry.
The Commendation of Gospel Ministry
Then notice in chapter 3:1-3, Paul tells us about the commendation of Gospel ministry. You might know in the ancient world it was common practice when you traveled from one place to another to carry with you letters of recommendation introducing you to those amongst whom you were coming to live and work. And we have examples of that in various places in the New Testament – Acts 9:2, Romans 16:1 – just a couple of examples. That was the custom. And it seems like in the Corinthian churches there were false teachers who had showed up with letters of commendation which has allowed them to insert themselves into the churches lives and they’ve been wreaking havoc. And now Paul is worried at the beginning of chapter 3 that he’s being perceived as boasting in himself, of being self-promoting.
And so he says, “Unlike the false teachers who have crept in amongst you, I really don’t need any letters of recommendation. I don’t need to promote myself even. You yourselves,” he said, “are our letter of recommendation written on our hearts.” Or actually, if you look at the footnote there’s a marginal reading in some ancient texts that says, “written on your hearts,” which I think is a little better and makes better sense of the passage. They, the Corinthians, were Paul’s letter and God has written that letter on their hearts through his ministry for everyone around them to see. Probably he has Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31 and the writing of the law of God on our hearts by the finger of the Holy Spirit. That’s what God has accomplished in their lives. It’s extraordinary. Paul just preached Christ and the Holy Spirit worked new life and new obedience within them.
That tells us two things, by the way. First, it reminds us that God’s aim in sending ministers is to write His law in their hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is changing lives through the Gospel. That’s what he’s about; that’s what this is about tonight. That’s His great business – the radical transformation of sinners saved by grace. That’s what God did through Paul amongst the Corinthians; it’s what God is sending Wes to do in Inverness in Scotland. Preach the Word. Pray down heaven. Pastor the flock. And God, by His Spirit, will take away hearts of stone and give hearts of flesh and put His law within them and enable them more and more to keep it. That’s the work for which we are setting Wes apart tonight. He’s not sent to be a CEO. He’s not sent to be a church growth consultant. He’s not sent to be a life coach. He is sent to be an instrument in the hands of the Holy Spirit to renovate lives forever by the Gospel.
And secondly, it tells us where ministers ought to look for their abiding legacy. Doug Kelly, in his comments on this passage, mentions the tomb of Christopher Wren, the architect who built St. Paul’s Cathedral. His tomb is in the crypt at St. Paul’s. And you can find a Latin inscription, which translated reads, “If you require a monument, look around you.” “If you require a monument, look around you.” Isn’t that what Paul is saying here about the Corinthians? “You are my legacy. You are my monument. You are my letters of recommendation. Your changed lives.” What is the abiding evidence of a faithful ministry? It’s not the books you’ve written or the conferences you speak at or the boards that you serve on or the power that you wield or the institutions that look to you for guidance. It is men and women, boys and girls, who have met Jesus as you’ve preached the Word and their lives will never be the same again. That’s to be our monument. Take aim, Wes, at that. That’s success in Gospel ministry. That’s a lasting legacy.
The Confidence of a Gospel Minister
The character of Gospel ministry. The commendation of it. Finally, the confidence of a Gospel minister. If you look at verses 4 through 6, Paul finally answers the question he asked at the end of chapter 2. “Who is sufficient for these things?” We’ve seen just how weighty a business Gospel ministry really is. How is Wes going to make it? He’s just a man. Paul, just a man. Verse 4, “Such is the confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us. Our sufficiency is from God who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” We are not up to the task. Wes, you’re not; I’m not. Paul wasn’t. In ourselves we are not sufficient to claim anything as coming from ourselves. But God makes us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant by the life-giving Spirit. That’s where our confidence lies. God is called, God ordains, and He will equip you. He will. He will not leave you to beat the air. He will not leave you without power, without the resources of His grace. You can’t do it, but He can. Be assured that having called you and sent you, He will never abandon you. He will equip you and strengthen you and go before you. God makes you a minister today, not the Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley. And God never yet deserted any of His servants as they go in obedience to Him. “Go,” Jesus says, “and I will be with you.” So preach and pray and pastor. Do it all in weakness and insufficiency. But do it confident nevertheless, that God will supply His Spirit to His servants obediently engaged in His work and for His glory.
The character of the Gospel ministry is marked by grief and gladness and glory and gravity. The commendation of Gospel ministry – labor so that the lives of the people who you leave behind you may be your lasting monument. And the confidence of a Gospel minister – our sufficiency is from God who makes us ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter that kills, but of the Spirit who gives life.
Amen. Let’s pray together.
God our Father, we praise You for Your holy Word, a Word that You are now entrusting to the stewardship of our brother. And we pray that You would grant to him a sufficiency not his own, but that sufficiency that Your Spirit alone can supply. Grant that there may be many monuments indeed to his ministry in Inverness, Scotland, lasting forever, testifying to the work of the Holy Spirit in their midst as our dear brother preaches the Gospel. We are grateful, O Lord, for the shepherds of the flock that You have sent into our lives. And we pray that You would work in us to labor in the strength that You give us for Your everlasting glory, in Jesus’ name. Amen.