If you have your copy of God’s Word, I would invite you to turn with me once again to 2 Corinthians chapter 8. This evening we will be looking at verses 16 to 24, finishing off this chapter. I want to again mention my thankfulness for the invitation to preach this morning and this evening. We, again, are grateful for your prayers and your support and your encouragement. We look forward to seeing some of you again in Honduras this summer and look forward to that happening really swiftly. That will be around the corner. Also I just want to say that I know, Dr. Wymond, this is his last Sunday, but he taught part of my class on worship while I was at seminary and many of the things we learned we are still using in Honduras. So the legacy goes on. The Lord has used Dr. Wymond not just here but in other countries as well and we are grateful for that reality.
So with that being said, I would invite you to look at verse 16 of 2 Corinthians 8. Let us read the Word of the Lord. Just a reminder, this is the Word of the Lord and it is the power unto salvation, so pay close attention to what our God has to say:
“But thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same earnest care I have for you. For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest he is going to you of his own accord. With him we are sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel. And not only that, but he has been appointed by the churches to travel with us as we carry out this act of grace that is being ministered by us, for the glory of the Lord himself and to show our good will. We take this course so that no one should blame us about this generous gift that is being administered by us, for we aim at what is honorable not only in the Lord’s sight but also in the sight of man. And with them we are sending our brother whom we have often tested and found earnest in many matters, but who is now more earnest than ever because of his great confidence in you. As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker for your benefit. And as for our brothers, they are messengers of the churches, the glory of Christ. So give proof before the churches of your love and of our boasting about you to these men.”
The grass withers and the flower fades but the Word of our Lord stands forever. Let us seek the face of our God once again.
Heavenly Father, as we close this Lord’s Day, as we gather to sit under Your Word and hear Your Word, we ask that You would give us eyes to see and ears to hear wonderful things from Your Law. We ask that the truths of this Word would be imprinted upon our hearts, that as we think on what all Christ has done in taking on poverty, that we would be convinced once again of what it means to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. And as we think about going this evening, we pray, O Lord, that we would go in a way that is a way of response, a response to the good news of Christ, that You are a God who continues to save, that You are a God who continues to call people home, that our confidence is not in us but it is in You. And we pray that Christ would be magnified and we pray this in Christ’s name, amen.
I know that for many of us there are things that we greatly anticipate, and when we are anticipating things we oftentimes will do anything and everything to get ready for it. So Saturday mornings I love to wake up and watch English premier league soccer. For many of you that does not matter. You’re thinking, “Why would I waste my time on that when there’s college football in the fall?” but I love to get up at six-thirty and get up and have my coffee and watch. And each week I am anticipating it. But if there’s other things to do like mow the yard or do something with the car, there’s not so much desire on Saturday morning to wake up and get after it. And so in this text what we see is these men who are very earnest towards this task of going to the Corinthians.
And I don’t tell you all of this for any other purpose but just to be an encouragement to you. When we were getting ready to come here for this missions conference we had not told our kids anything, and so we waited until probably two weeks before we came to come. And we didn’t even have to ask them if they wanted to come to First Pres Jackson. Because of last year’s experience, they were so ready they could have packed their bags faster than we could have asked them to. They were excited about coming because of the way that you guys have loved our family and the faces that they know here, it creates an earnestness, a desire.
And what we see in this text is because of what Christ has done, because of what we have seen even this morning, “For you know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, for your sake, became poor so that by His poverty you might become rich,” these men are so captivated by this same Gospel that they long to go to Corinth. They long even in a way that they don’t have to be asked. They just go, specifically Titus.
And so this evening I would like for us to see three brief points. The first is a desire to go. The second is the men who are sent. And then third is the administration of the task. So the first is a desire to go. The second is the men who are sent. And the third is the administration of the task.
And so we see the desire to go and we see that in verse 16 and 17. We see that Paul says, “Thanks be to God who put it into the heart of Titus the same earnest care I have for you.” The first thing we must notice is who gave Titus the desire to go? It was God. It was God who had placed it within his heart. This desire, this love, this affection to see this task done, of gathering this collection for the church in Jerusalem and he has a great desire for these people. And it is God who has called him to that. It is God who has worked that out in his heart and there is a desire for it. Even this evening in the prayer for Abigail Conroy, there was a prayer for the desire that there would be people from this church, people who are in campus ministry, people who are in seminary, people who are studying to this end that there would be a desire to go, a desire to want to go and do this, and that the Lord would give them that desire. That is a faithful prayer. It is something that we should be constantly praying for – that there would be more and more people willing to go.
And just as way of application, that’s something that we are consistently praying for, asking that the Lord would give a desire for men and women to go, for young families to make the decision to live in another place, that it would not be that we think, “Oh this is just a second rate option.” No, this is the option. We want the best to be going, to be sent out. That as you come to gather, that in coming years there would be men and women standing here and you wouldn’t have room for the amount of people that were wanting to go, that there is a desire to go, that there is a great burden for the need of those who are to have people be sent to them. And so we see that it is God who has caused this and he has, Titus has this desire to go.
But I think it’s so interesting that Paul makes a statement in verse 17 about his desire to go. He says, “For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest he is going to you of his own accord.” In essence what Paul is trying to say is, “I mean I asked him to go, but I didn’t even really have to ask him to go. He was already ready to go! He was chomping at the bit to be able to go, so when it came time he was ready to go.” And in one sense, this shows forth the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ was willing to come and serve. Christ was willing to take on flesh, to take on poverty for the sake of us. You see, this Christ is willing, and what we see from Titus is the same concept. “You don’t even have to ask me. I am ready to go!” And we should be praying for that, that we shouldn’t even have to ask people if they want to go on the mission trip. That they are ready to go! That it shouldn’t be a cajoling and a pulling and like, “It will be a great experience!” Who cares if it’s a great experience! Go and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Go and see what the Lord is doing. Go and be encouraged by the brothers because what Paul is making an argument about is that he has seen that the Corinthians have been offering this money and he wants, verse 24 he says, “So give proof before the churches of your love and of our boasting about you.” Right? So when they get there, we want them to see what we boasted about. And so as they go, he’s wanting them to see that.
And so what we see, brothers and sisters in Christ, is this desire to go. And I can’t help but think that Titus wants or has this desire because, because Titus understands the Gospel. Because as we talked about this morning, Titus is overwhelmed by the good news of what Christ has done and he is so ready to see the church in Jerusalem receive this gift. He is ready to give of himself, give of his time, give of his efforts, and to go willingly to do this Gospel work. And so as a way of application, my question for us – “Is there an earnestness to go?” For everybody sitting in this room, is there an earnestness to go? There are four mission trips being offered this year at First Presbyterian. I’m listening to the announcements as well. And you have opportunity to go. But you also have opportunity as Abigail Conroy settles in and you think, “I don’t know how I can go on a mission trip. I can’t make it work, but I could go down for a weekend and spend a weekend with Abigail to encourage her, to pray with her, to spend time with her.” Or maybe it looks like going in ministries locally. There are ministries in Jackson that you support that you can give your time to. Or maybe you’re in a place where you think going somewhere and giving that amount of time, I can’t do, but maybe it looks like going and serving, serving those around you, members of this church – young moms, young married couples, single moms, single dads. Looking for ways to go and love others around you. You see, I might be extending this idea of what Titus is doing, but Titus’ earnestness comes through. There is a desire to serve, there is a desire to go out, there is a desire to look for ways to love those around him because he understands what Christ has done and he is willing to give of his time and his energy and his finances at some level, if you want to say that, because his time is part of his finances. And he is ready to go and he is earnestly going and nobody has to ask him.
Jamie made a joke this morning about the fact that oftentimes the mission conference is this time to appease the missions pastor, right, and we get to talk about missions. But it shouldn’t be that way. There shouldn’t have to be this sense that Jamie has to feel bad – he didn’t put me up to this – to feel bad about having to ask people to go on mission trips. If you have a desire to go, go! If you have a desire to come, come! Serve! Grow in your earnestness for a place. You see, Titus had a love for these Corinthians, the same as Paul had, but how did that happen? By hearing from Paul. Probably Titus is the one who showed up and gave this letter to them. And so his affection is for them. So it’s not bad to have affection for a place. I would love for all of you to have deep affection for Tegucigalpa, Honduras. But if that happens to be Jackson or if that happens to be Mississippi or if that happens to be some other place in the United States, or if that happens to be another country – if you go to South Africa this year – but there is a deep love and affection and a desire to serve and to go because of what Christ has done. Are we willing, are we willing to go? Are we willing to serve? Are we willing to look for ways that we can serve the Lord Jesus Christ in this way?
Young people who are thinking about missions, are you willing to go, to test those waters? Parents, are you willing to pray that they would go? Are you willing to encourage them to go? I know that if you get on the internet and read about some of the places that y’all are taking mission trips, don’t read the internet about what they are doing in those countries! But do we trust the Lord, knowing with earnestness that we want to serve the Lord? You see, Titus is not captivated by that. He has a desire to go, of his own accord, driven out. Is that what we want to see? Is that what we are praying for? Is that what we are seeking? Because as we have sung, and constantly in the hymns today all I’ve wanted to do is quote them because all of them are so full of Gospel truth. We long that people know the good news of Christ. That’s one of the very encouraging things about being here right now at six-thirty-eight. I know where our congregation is right now because churches have allowed us to go and plant churches where there’s people sitting listening to preaching of the Word of God; that’s what we want! That’s what we’re longing for! And we desire that people would go, and that would even be some of you and even some of your children and even some of your grandchildren. Are we praying that way? Do we have that earnestness? Do we have that desire that they would go?
The second thing we see in the text are the men who are sent. There are three different men sent. We already saw that Titus was the first one who went and Paul tells us that Titus in verse 23 is “his partner and fellow worker” for the benefit of the Corinthians. But there are two other men mentioned that are not named but we are told a little bit about who they are and what type character they have. You notice that one is said to be this one who loves to preach the Gospel in verse 18. It says with him we are sending the brother who is “famous among all the churches for his preaching of the Gospel,” or of his speaking about the Gospel. He is so captivated by the Gospel that there’s fame for this brother and that the Corinthians, without having to put his name in there, would already know who Paul is talking about. What a great testimony about us if it were just to be in an off-hand note. “And we’re sending that brother who is always talking about Jesus!” What a great reminder. They don’t even need his name. “I know exactly who he is talking about” – that’s the testimony. And this is a man who is captivated by Christ. He is a spiritually minded man. He loves the Lord Jesus Christ. He loves that the fame of Christ is proclaimed.
But we also see that there is another man if you look in verse 22. It says, “and with them we are sending our brother whom we have often tested and found earnest in many matters but who is now more earnest than ever because of his great confidence in you.” And so we read that this man is a godly man and faithful man as well. He has been tested. He is a man that Paul can commend to them. And so what you see Paul doing is putting together a group of people to go and gather this money to be faithful in this calling. And they are men that, it seems to be, rather different. You’ve got Titus who is a fellow worker. You’ve got this one who is preaching the Gospel. And you’ve got this one who has been continually tested. And they are all men who are spiritually sound men.
And I think that’s a very important point, brothers and sisters. That those who are going to have oversight over these things are men who are respectable. These are men who are spiritual men who are going to care. Paul wants them to have confidence in these men. They are different kinds of men but they are men that they are trusted. Paul wants to give them confidence because he wants the glory of God to be something that is proclaimed and so he is careful about who he sends. And he wants them to have confidence. And I think there’s something about that when we think back to the day of giving. The people that we put in charge of finances should be people that are spiritually minded people first. They are godly tested people. It’s why we believe in giving to the local church and asking the elders and the leadership – “Give the money that has been given so that it can be rightly given.” I’m not saying that you can’t give beyond that, but Paul is wanting to say these men have been tested. They’ve actually been, in verse 19, “And not only that, but he” – talking about the one who is famous for the Gospel – “has been appointed by the churches to travel with us as we carry this gift,” he says, “this act of grace that is being ministered by us.” So what he wants them to see is to have confidence in these men and for these men to show forth this confidence and to administer this gift well.
And so as you give, as you think about giving, that it’s not something we normally think about in a missions sermon – administration. But that’s what this is. Paul is saying these men will administer well what they have been given. And I think about how these men are gathered and sent. And when we were, last year, getting ready to buy our church property, there was a church that gave a large amount of money to help us buy our property. One of the very encouraging things that I felt like their church did when they did this was they took five elders, their senior minister, their young adults minister and their missions pastor and sent them all to us in Honduras as a way to show, “Here we are coming to bring this gift to you, showing that we are partners in the Gospel.” I’m not saying that First Pres Jackson has to do that, but there was an element that the church was trusting, trusting these men to do this calling, to love the church and to administer this gift well and to show forth this earnestness.
And so we see that Paul wants them to understand first and foremost that they should be amazed at the willingness of Titus to go and these men to go, and then we see that these men are godly men and they are men who are sent and called and sent for a purpose. And then finally we see that they have a task of administration. And we see that in verses 19 to 21. It says that, “And not only that it has been appointed by the churches to travel with us to carry out this act of grace that is being ministered by us for the glory of the Lord and to show our own good will.” And he says Paul wants them to know what is going on, they are doing this act of grace, they’ve been given this money and they want to administer it well, and so he says, “We take this course so that no one should blame us about this generous gift that is being administered by us,” so we are doing what is good in the sight of God and man in verse 21. “For we aim at what is honorable not only in the Lord’s sight but also in the sight of man.” It’s interesting that Paul is concerned about and thinking about what it means to do things in an orderly way.
You may think for a second, “What does this have to do with going, Aaron?” I was talking to Jaime before we came down here. We were talking about the idea that oftentimes when we think of administration gifts it’s a secondary thing. But you see, Paul is commending these people, these men, as men who are doing something faithfully to the glory of God. That there are people who should be going and doing things and using their gifts for the church and their gifts may not be standing and preaching. Their gifts may not be evangelism. But it may look like administration gifts. It may look like sitting on a board and doing finances, which for most pastors I hope, and I think for myself, I am so thankful for the brothers in Honduras who sit with lawyers and who sit with the accountant and do those things because it is not where I feel that I have been called to focus. But God has gifted the church. And so maybe you’re sitting here thinking, “You know, Aaron, I’ve never thought about going or serving a ministry locally and I’m just not good at this part or that part.” But maybe you have administrative gifts. Maybe you are a spiritual person who have very good gifts at serving others in this way. Have you ever thought that going to a ministry locally and asking how you could support them might be some ways that you can serve that you can go out of response to what Christ has done?
You see, oftentimes we think that it is only one way, but there are so many ways that the Lord uses and gifts the church, that He uses men like this that are ready to go and ready to minister. And Paul wants this to all be done publicly to that there is glory given to Christ, that as they do these administrative things, as they oversee this money, that they are doing it because they understand that these are the riches that Christ has given forth through the church in Corinth and He wants them to be used well, so He is putting in this idea of administration. And so we need to think about how we can do that. Maybe be willing to go and serve in different roles. I already mentioned that there is a man in Honduras who had joined our team recently and has been an administrative help. I’ve made the joke recently I am a big picture person and oftentimes on Monday mornings I want to have my staff meeting at 9 o’clock. But I also like to talk a whole lot and so at eight-thirty I’ll stroll in the office and start talking with people. And about nine-fifteen, this person will walk up and kind of lean into my office and say, “Did we miss an email or a text message? Did we change the staff meeting?” “No, no, no! I’m just talking to people! That’s all that’s going on!” But his desire to have things running well is a service to our staff. It’s a service to our church. It’s a way that often times goes unnoticed. There are many people doing administrative things in this church and are serving the local body and that’s what we see even in this text – that we can serve Christ in a myriad of different ways.
And how that applies to us tonight is in the reality of what we saw today. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor so that you might, by His poverty, become rich.” What did Christ come to do but to serve? To deny Himself for the sake of others. You see, these brothers that are willing to go are willing to go because they are willing to deny themselves for the sake of others because they have been captivated by Christ. They have been captivated by the poverty that He has shown. They have been captivated by the reality that Christ is willing to lay aside His glory so that, so that we might be brought in. And so the response once again is, “Here I am, Lord, send me! I’m ready to go!” And this week you’re going to have missionaries, you are going to have campus minsters in, you’re going to have interns in, you’re going to have people reporting about all kinds of things, about missionary endeavors that are happening, and I would challenge you to be praying that maybe that is you. Oftentimes we sit and we think, “Man, I hope so and so is listening to this. Maybe they’ll be the one that goes,” when maybe what the Lord is saying is, “Maybe you should consider going or maybe you should consider encouraging your children to go or maybe you should be encouraging your grandchildren to go.”
I’ll never forget one time my mom in a moment of sheer honesty was talking about moving to the mission field. I grew up in Honduras; I’m a missionary kid from there. And we were talking and it reminds me a lot of what’s going on with the Conroys. My mom made a comment one day, we were asking her about us being on the mission field and her and my dad moving there 40 years ago. And my mom said, just in a moment of candor, she said, “You know, Aaron, when we went I was so excited to go, but if I knew it was going to cost me my grandkids, I don’t know if I would have gone.” And I thought, “Well I’m glad you’re being honest, but at the same time, she flipped on a dime and was like, ‘But there is nothing else I would rather you be doing.’” Right? It’s hard to think about. I know I’m talking to folks from Mississippi. My wife is from Tchula! We don’t move much farther away from the farmland! But maybe, maybe the Lord is calling you to encourage your kids or your grandkids. Or maybe you have young kids and you’re thinking, “I don’t know how we would ever do this.” Maybe the Lord is placing a desire to go on a first mission trip and you go, this year, and then that grows into something more and there is an earnestness to go and to serve and to go because there is a deep love for the Lord Jesus Christ, that there is a longing that the world would know the glory of Jesus.
And as you look back through history and read through missionary biographies, there are all kinds of stories and all kinds of people throughout the world who are speaking in different tongues this evening who are gathering together because missionaries willingly went, they left a place, a desire that Christ’s riches would be known. That they would see their poverty and be captivated by Jesus! That’s what we want. We don’t want people just to say, “Hey, I guess I’ll go if I have to.” No, we long that our neighbors – because it may not be that the people you need to be evangelizing are in another country; it could be that they are next door and they’re just waiting for you to speak to them about the glory of Christ. It is to see that the Lord has placed us in a place where we, in earnestness for the lost, for those we long that people would know the riches that are offered to them in Christ Jesus.
And that’s the truth tonight. If you are an unbeliever and you are sitting and you can hear me and you’ve heard this time and time again and you think, “Aaron, but there’s so much sin within me,” there is way more wealth within Christ to cover your sin and He is ready and able to do it. Come, run to Him, depend upon Him, look to Him in faith. He is your only hope in this life and in the one to come. If you are a believer and you are resting in Christ, find great encouragement that Christ will continue to sustain you. And if you are a young person or an adult or anyone thinking about missions tonight, go talk to Jamie. I’m sure he can give you a bunch of options about where you can go. Pray earnestly for a desire to go, to serve, and then it would be driven not by your sense of, “Oh, I want to go do this,” but it would be driven by being captivated with the glory of Christ, the Creator of the universe taking poverty so that you might be saved.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your grace and Your mercy to us. We thank You that Your Word never returns void. O Lord, we ask, we ask even this night, we ask that there would be boys and girls and families from this church going forth, going forth in a desire to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be, because of what You have done, that there would be a desire to say, “Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord, to Thee.” That there would be a response to the Gospel in a way that says, “I am ready, O Lord. Here I am, send me.” O Lord, and for those who fear that, that that might be their kids or their grandkids or their family member, that their comfort would be Christ as well, that what we are longing for is the fact that one day we will be in glory with You, that we are pilgrims headed to a better country, that one day the brethren and the brothers and sisters in Honduras and in South Africa and in Asia and here in the United States will gather together to sing Your praises. O Lord, we ask, we ask this day that You would send workers to the field. And we pray this in Christ’s name, amen.