Messengers that smell like Marmite

This transcript has been automatically generated

Do keep 2 Corinthians open. 2 Corinthians 2:12 is where we started, if you’ve lost it already, as I have, weirdly. There we are. 2 Corinthians.

Good. And we’re on page 16, Messengers That Smell Like Marmite. And I’ll explain why I’ve called our talk that in a bit. But first of all, let me ask you a question. How bold are you expecting me to be this weekend?

Not bald, I’ve got no control over that. How bold are you expecting me to be? Some of you know that I’m not particularly confrontational. I hate being confrontational. And so you’re not expecting me to be that bold.

But how bold would you be willing to let me be?

That’s an important question because our Gospel is a bold Gospel. It’s a message with huge claims. Huge claims inherent to itself and huge claims on our lives. We’ve been seeing that on Sundays and on Wednesdays at RML. That the teaching of Jesus clashes with those around us.

It’s bold. And in some areas, I think we don’t actually mind that much. There’s a boldness to the Gospel that we’re quite happy with. So, salvation being available to anyone. I mean, that is scandalous.

That is a really shocking teaching. But I guess, for most of us, we’re okay with that. Salvation available to anyone. And it’s available to anyone by faith in Jesus. Again, I think we’re okay with that.

And most of us here, if we’re Christians, recognise that our works don’t contribute towards our right standing with God. We’re really not about to claim anything else. It’s a bold teaching. It’s a teaching which some people have been put to death over. But I think most of us are pretty happy with it.

Indeed, I guess we’re thrilled by it, as we come together this evening and think about how much we need that to be the case.

But there are some things in the Gospel that we find much harder to stomach. The idea that Jesus is Lord, for example. Sure, we’re happy to tick that box on a doctrinal basis or a form of the things that we believe, but really embracing it, embracing the fact that Jesus is Lord and I’m not, that Jesus is God and other gods are not God. The exclusivity of that claim, the authority of that claim, The all-consuming necessity of that claim. The reality that Jesus is Lord is actually a deeply controversial teaching.

Or take the biblical call to follow him. To deny myself, to take up my cross and to follow Jesus. It’s an idea that I might, that I might give up my claims to my own life and devote myself to Jesus instead. Well, that’s not hard to see how controversial that is.

And I guess we will feel that particularly keenly because we live in a culture that’s opposed to extremities. And we’re constantly looking for that Goldilocks point— not too hot, not too cold. We don’t like things to be extreme. Not black and white, just grey. And we don’t like distinction or difference or conflict.

And I say that as probably one of the most conflict-averse people in this room. If you start to kind of frown in a conversation with me, I’ll start to feel really tense. In fact, some of you are looking at me with that frown at the moment and I’m thinking, oh, is this already too controversial? I’m not, because everyone looks naturally grimaced when I’m speaking. I think it’s just one of those things.

The gospel is inherently controversial. It is bold. And that might be fair enough if the whole thing looked really impressive, but it doesn’t. It looks weak. It’s a profound sort of weakness as well, a painful sort of weakness, a kind of, do I really want to listen to this, kind of weakness, as we’ll see later on in the weekend.

Paying attention to the bold implications of the Gospel is hard enough at the best of times, but it’s not even coming from a particularly impressive source. We’re reading from a letter written by a feebly old Jewish guy who wrote some rather bold letters, but who isn’t even around anymore. And it’s not just unpopular with people out there, our friends, the people to whom we might invite to dialogue events. It’s not just unpopular with them out there, it’s challenging to us in here. And I think we can start to find lots of reasons not to listen to these bold claims.

And so we’ve got this book, 2 Corinthians. What I think is quite an often missed letter of the New Testament. It’s slightly too long to just kind of read in one sitting, isn’t it? And it doesn’t have some of those really famous passages that we’ll know in Romans or 1 Corinthians.

It’s a slightly missed letter of the New Testament, but it’s quickly becoming one of my favourite letters. Because its message is deeply applicable to a conflict-averse culture. And because, although it was written 2,000 years ago, I wonder if it’s even more relevant now than it was when it was written. And because what it says about the Gospel, and Gospel ministry is so significant, it will change the way that you and I view even the boldest claims on our lives. If we would let 2 Corinthians have its way in us, we might finally be able to say with sincerity, Jesus is Lord.

To say it’s life-changing sounds like I’m overselling it. I think I’d probably be underselling it. I’m not saying this book would affect your career or where you choose to live or who you choose to marry, although actually I think it could affect all of those. But more than that, this book has been written so that we would embrace a weak-looking, unimpressive Gospel in all of its audacious, gutsy radicalism and be transformed by it.

If we’re reluctant to make big changes to our lives in light of the Gospel, this book has been written for us. And isn’t that all of us?

But before we dive into the detail, we need to nip back in time. I don’t have an actual time machine, I’m sorry for those who were briefly very excited. We need to nip back to the first century and suss out what was going on in and around the time that the letter of 2 Corinthians was written. It’s true of any book of the Bible. If we want to really understand it, we need to get back to the original context.

Who were its recipients? What was going on? What prompted this letter to be written to them, then? But I think that’s easier to do in 2 Corinthians than any other book in the Bible. It gives us the most answers to those questions and it’s going to help us if we can get our heads into their worlds.

So, we’re going to spend a bit longer than we usually would asking questions about what was going on, so that we can really feel the punch of what’s coming later on in the weekend. So, if you’re worried that I’m not getting into the passage that we just had read, don’t worry, we’ll get there. But, to begin with, we need to look at Paul and the Corinthians. And they go way back. Paul and the Corinthians go way back.

In fact, Paul was involved in planting the church back in Acts 18. So fruitful was his time there in Corinth that he hung around for about a year and a half and then hung— swung back around to his sending church in Antioch, which is just the other end of the Mediterranean Sea. And it wasn’t long before he went on another trip. So, you can see that he set up this church in Corinth and headed back to Antioch, but it wasn’t long before he went on another trip.

He went and hung around in Ephesus for a while. He decided to go back and strengthen all these churches that he’d been planting and see all the issues that had come up, and it was Ephesus that he just decided to stick around. From there, he sent the letter of 1 Corinthians. I know I don’t have time to go into 1 Corinthians now, but good news, there’s a few Student Ministry Apprentices in the room. Stick up your hand if you’re a Student Ministry Apprentice.

There are only 3 of you, so I’m really going to spot if you’ve not got your hand up, which is all of you at the moment. Really high in the air. Thank you. Right, these guys are studying 1 Corinthians this term. So, if you’ve got any questions about that book, then you can go and ask them.

But suffice to say that a whole load of issues had come up. The church was a catalogue of immorality and wrong thinking. They were sinning in loads of different ways. They were deeply divided. And they were even teaching that there’s no physical resurrection of the body.

I think 1 Corinthians must have been a really awkward letter for Paul to write. But it’s clear from the way he writes it that he was in a good place to appeal to them to change. They clearly wanted to hear what he had to say. They had a strong relationship. Fast forward a couple of years and we get to 2 Corinthians.

What is the relationship like now? And rather than me telling you, I’m going to get you guys to go to work. So, we’re going to split the room in half. So, if this side of the room wants to look at that first list of quotes, and if this wants to look at the second list of references, and ask the question, how do Paul and the Corinthians feel about each other? If you get to the end of your list, don’t bother looking at the other list.

Just spend longer on that second question. What clues do we get about why they feel that way? Let’s spend 5 minutes on that. Let’s go into groups. This side is looking at the left-hand list, this side looking at the right-hand list.

How are we doing? Have we managed to do a few? More than one? Is anyone still on their first one? Great.

Not to worry if you are the one person who’s shaking your head, um, there’ll be plenty of time in the future to look up other verses, but I think we’ll come back together, um, for now. Let’s start with this side of the room. How is the relationship between Paul and the Corinthians? Thumbs up? Words?

Anyone got any words?

Yeah, he seems confident in them, doesn’t he?

Yeah.

Yeah, he’s been boasting about them to other churches. They seem to be really kind of tight-knit. Things are still going really well. Brilliant. Similar on this side?

No. No, a little bit different? How different?

It’s complicated. Anyone got any more than complicated?

Yeah, there’s some talk about some kind of painful visit. Yeah, anything else from this side? Yeah, he’s worried about arguing with them when he comes to see them. Yeah, there’s some tension. There’s something that seems not to be going quite so well.

Paul is clearly still really thrilled about this church. You guys, later on, look at those other verses. He really is thrilled about them. He thinks they’re great and he’s boasting about them, but their feelings towards him seem to have changed. It’s like they don’t want to hear from him anymore.

Their relationship has soured. When he was writing 1 Corinthians, things seemed to be going well, but now 2 Corinthians, things seem a bit more tense. Clearly, something has happened between him writing 1 and 2 Corinthians. Between Acts 19, where 1 Corinthians was written, and Acts 20, where 2 Corinthians was written. What was it that happened?

Now, we need to root around a bit within 2 Corinthians to pick up the pieces, but with a bit of detective work, we can see something terrible occurred. And do you ever look back on something and wish it had gone differently? I think that happens to me quite a lot, but I’ve got a fairly bad memory, so I couldn’t think of anything, and certainly nothing as good as the example of that girl who got trapped between 2 windows. Did people hear about this? She was on a date with a guy and went round to her flat and went to the toilet, and I think, if I remember it rightly, she couldn’t flush it down, and she was so embarrassed she decided to climb out the window, only it was a weird kind of— Oh, she tried to throw it out the window, didn’t she?

And then it didn’t work, so she climbed out of the window and it got— it was a kind of a double window and she got trapped between the two. The kind of trapped where you can’t— as in it’s not like, oh, I have to call out to this boyfriend and get her to help her out. They had to call the fire brigade. Really embarrassing. And I think, you know, I don’t know her, but I’m pretty sure that when she looks back on that evening, she wished it had turned out differently.

Well, Paul must have wished that things turned out differently for him in Corinth. His intention had been, if we move on a slide, his intention had been to come up to Macedonia before coming down to Greece and to Corinth. That was his original plan. We see that at the end of 1 Corinthians. But something changed.

Clearly, his letter of 1 Corinthians didn’t quite have the effect he wanted it to, and so he decided to follow it up with a brief visit. He followed it up to urge them to repent of the sin that he’d already identified. But as Katie helped us out— was it Katie who mentioned the painful visit? Or Steph? As Steph mentioned earlier, there were— it was a painful visit.

Chapter 2, verse 1 tells us that. And it seems like it could have been painful in various ways. Of course, Paul urging them to repent would have been painful for them to hear. But they seem to have reciprocated with a painful response. Chapter 2, verse 5 says, if anyone has caused pain, he’s caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, to all of you.

So, clearly, someone has done something that could have been described as causing Paul pain, but he sees it as being even more dramatic than that. It’s caused pain to all of them. And we can only guess what it was. Did someone kick back when Paul called them to repentance? Did they even attack Paul?

Whatever it was that happened, Paul shrunk back and returned to Ephesus, disappearing weakly into the shadows without resolving the issues. But chapter 13 tells us that when he left them, he gave them a parting warning. Picture him as he climbs into the taxi on the way down to the harbour. He promised that he would return, but that on his return visit, he would not spare them.

You can see why Paul called it a painful visit. It’s like one of those, kind of, EastEnders moments, just before the doof-doofers come in. Paul marching out of the church and sending back a stern glance. Sort yourselves out, he says, because when I come back, I’m not going to tolerate this. I won’t spare you.

And you can feel the tension between these guys, can’t you? Can you imagine how horrible it would have been to experience that kind of fracture in a relationship with a church that he’d planted, Christians that he had led to faith? Imagine that person on your course that you’re desperate to come to know Jesus and they do. They become a believer. But a couple of years later, they are ignoring the way that Jesus calls them to live.

And so you, you nudge them. You call them to live in the way that Jesus asks us to, and suddenly there is a fracture in your relationship. The very person that you led to know Jesus now resisting you because you were so bold. Paul wanted to come back and clear the air. So, instead of going up around Macedonia, as he’d originally planned, and then coming down into Corinth, he wanted to travel to Corinth first to clear it all up.

To get it all sorted. Chapter 1, verse 15 says, I wanted to come to you first so that I might have a second experience of grace. I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea. As you see, he wanted to come back to his favourite church and have an encouraging time together, to forget the anguish of that painful visit and to move on.

But he changed his mind again. He realised that the return visit was just going to be another painful one. Chapter 2, verse 1, I’ve made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you. For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I’ve pained? Given how badly that first one had gotten, well, he wasn’t optimistic that his return would go very well.

And so instead, he decided to write a letter and he sent it with Titus. And not this letter of 2 Corinthians, It’s a letter that’s become to be known as the letter of tears. Chapter 2, verse 4, I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you. Can you hear Paul’s heartache in what he’s writing? The pain of that fractured relationship.

We can’t read that letter, but we can see it was designed to show Paul’s concern for them. He loved them. He hadn’t given up on them. And despite their painful resistance to his visit, he still loved them enough to call them to repentance. Indeed, read chapter 7 later on and you’ll see that it was a letter designed to bring about their repentance, to follow up on that painful visit and to get them to change their lives around before he actually visited again.

And so Paul sends off this letter with Titus and waited to see what would happen. What an excruciating weight. What would happen? Would they respond with sincere repentance? Would they embrace the guy who planted their church, who was leading a missionary effort across the continent?

Or would they turn their backs on him, reject Paul, the great Apostle to the Gentiles? Would Corinth be a solid fortress on the western border of gospel advance? Or would they turn on Paul and start a tide of abandoning him and his gospel?

Paul made his way around the Aegean Sea towards Greece, hoping to meet Titus on the way to find out what had happened, how the Corinthians had responded. And we’re back in our passage at last, ready to understand how tense Paul was feeling. Chapter 2 and verse 12.

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 didn’t find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia.

Can you see how concerned Paul is about this relationship with the Corinthians? Like, really concerned. Even though there’s a door open for the Word in Troas. It’s like he’s gone on a mission week in Troas. And the lunchtime talks are packed.

People want to come and hear the Gospel. But even though that’s going on, Paul’s spirit was not at rest. And so he left and went on to Macedonia, hoping to meet up with Titus there.

And all of this came about because Paul had been laying down The bold demands of the Gospel. Now, the call to repentance. The Lordship of Christ. As the Corinthians struggled to engage with such difficult teaching, their once strong relationship with Paul appears to have broken down. There was quarrelling and anguish and tears.

It was horrible. And the details of the history are specific to Corinth, but the The attitude is timeless. We may not be in the middle of a fight with Paul, but we’re just as prone to get tetchy when the temperature gets turned up. And when someone talks about giving something up for Jesus. And when someone points out my sin and shows me how much bigger repentance is than I thought.

When someone shows me that living in the light of the Gospel is more costly than I realised. When someone paints a picture of how extreme the implications of the gospel might be for us, well, we’re confronted with a similar choice. Are we going to embrace this world-changing gospel or reject it? Are we going to be part of a solid fortress of gospel advance or join the tide of those abandoning the gospel?

We’re not that dissimilar to the Corinthians. But, in fact, for them the situation got even worse. You know when you’re watching a film and something appears on the horizon. You know it’s about to come. There’s a letter that says so-and-so is about to appear.

And you know that whatever else has been going on in the film, this is going to make it worse. And you’re kind of pleading with them to do something, like skip the town and leave and not have to face whatever it is that’s going on. Well, that’s what we’ve got going on here. At the very moment when the relationship between Paul and the Corinthians was most tender, troublemakers started to rub salt into the wound. Keep a finger in chapter 2.

We’re on to page 17 of the handouts, but keep a picture, a finger in chapter 2 and flick forward to chapter 11.

Chapter 11 and verse 4. And can someone shout out a page number when they’ve got it?

1166. That should find you in 2 Corinthians 11, And as I read verse 4, Paul is talking about these troublemakers who’ve slipped in. Verse 4, if someone— for if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different Spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I’m not in the least inferior to these super apostles, Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I’m not so in knowledge. Indeed, in every way we’ve made this plain to you in all things.

Now turn to the 3s and 4s and just 30 seconds, as many as— see how much you can see about what it was that these troublemakers were doing, just from those, just from those verses. If you manage to get enough in the next minute on that, feel free to read on, but you won’t get that far. Let’s see how much you can get from those few verses. What were the troublemakers doing?

Okay, I know that wasn’t very long.

Anyone see anything about what was going on with these super apostles?

Oops, these troublemakers.

I’ve literally just told you one. Anyone see anything?

What were they calling themselves?

Super Apostles, thank you. Which I take it was a lot more sinister than the cartoon in the handouts. They almost certainly weren’t, no, they certainly weren’t wearing capes.

And what were they teaching?

Yeah, a different Jesus, even a different gospel. Now, they were using all the right language, all the right buzzwords, even talking about Jesus, but fundamentally it was leading the Corinthians astray and steering them towards the devil. Paul is actually as bold as to say that in verse 13, chapter 11, verse 13. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, For even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, so it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.

Paul says these guys are dangerous. They are servants of Satan, hazardous to the enduring faith of the Corinthians. But they were all the more hazardous because even while they were contradicting the gospel, they were selling themselves as an upgrade from Paul. Super apostles. Now, you can see that in the way that Paul defends himself, that he’s not in the least inferior to these super apostles.

They were capitalising on this weak relationship between Paul and the Corinthians and the recent events which had soured it. They talk about him being unskilled in speaking, or they contrast his kind of bolshy, aggressive letters with the fact that he wasn’t that impressive face to face. Chapter 10, verse 10, and they say, his letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech of no account. Can you see why that’s such a powerful argument? He says that he’s writing all of this demanding stuff, but you’ve seen him, haven’t you?

He’s overreaching himself, isn’t he? They go on to accuse Paul of being crafty. Manipulative, getting the better of the Corinthians by deceit. And they even call into question the authority that Paul has from Jesus. And so, in the midst of this torn relationship, these super apostles draw attention to everything that went wrong and fan the flames of discontent in the Corinthian church.

Do you really want to listen to that weak old Scrooge? The one who’s just out to ruin your fun. He throws his weight around, but he’s really past it. Look how old and tired he is. Look how feebly he tried to control the church when he came across last time, before he ran away scared.

Do you really want to get bossed around by such a cantankerous old guy?

In the moment when you’re struggling with the Gospel’s hardest implications, It’s those kinds of doubts that we’re vulnerable to. Because we want to find a reason to distrust the messenger. And we don’t want to face up to its demands. In the moment when I’m struggling to— struggling between a challenging sermon and my desire to do what’s wrong, I’m eager to hear someone point out why I don’t have to listen to that preacher.

You can’t listen to a thing he says, someone suggests. He’s all talk and no action. He sounds ballsy, weighty, brash, but really he’s overselling it. You’re fine as you are, someone says. You’re more restrained, more moderate.

And it’s what I want to hear.

But Paul is unrelenting in his description of his own ministry. He refuses to make it sound any less scandalous, And that, he says, is because he is the aroma of Christ. Now, let me read those verses again from 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14.

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. Paul pictures the scene and we are staring out at a victory march.

At Christ returning from having won the battle, parading his victory through his home city. We don’t have exactly that kind of parade anymore, but it’s kind of like the open-top bus coming through the centre of London with all of the Olympic team on it. In a year when we’ve done well, obviously. Or, well, the rugby team when it comes back having won, returning to the UK and lapping up all of the cheers from the crowds. Joy on faces.

The victor revelling in his success. And while this triumphal procession is going on, well, back in the day when Paul was describing it, victors would return and there would be incense that was burned. There’d be a fragrance kind of drifting off the parades. And Paul compares himself to that fragrance wafting from the march. Have you ever visited someone’s house and instantly noticed the smell?

And not in a good way. My chemistry teacher once talked about the difference between his side of the room and his wife’s side of the room when they woke up in the morning. On his side of the room, a stale, fetid stench, and then crossing to his wife’s side of the room, it was all kind of a paradise garden of sweetness and light. I need to be careful not to look at anyone here, but classically this is the kind of smile you’d expect from male freshers. Sorry guys.

If you’re not convinced this is you, then be warned, you might just be blind to it. Febreze. Have you seen that advert from Febreze? They introduced us to the term nose-blind, the idea that some people no longer even realise that their home smells. They’re blind to it, and so they’re nose-blind, which is clearly just playing into our paranoia, isn’t it, in order to sell more products?

Now, you don’t even need to smell a bad smell and you might just be blind to it, so buy our product anyway. Which isn’t quite the tagline they went for, but never mind. Well, Paul captures our sense of smell in these verses and he talks about himself as the aroma of Christ. Verse 15, for we are the aroma of Christ amongst those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. And we’re talking about really high-impact odours here.

To one, a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. So, the crowd isn’t all cheering. For some of them, this is the smell of death wafting up the road. Worse than the smell of the boys’ dorms at the end of task. Worse than the smell of your fridge when you get back from holiday and find that cheese that you never dealt with.

Paul says that to some he smells like death. To those who are perishing, to those who are blind to the gospel, his ministry is going to reek of death. Of course it is. Because to those resisting the Gospel, it’s not good news. It’s news of guilt, of condemnation and judgement.

To those who are perishing, the Gospel is the herald of that verdict. And you know the kind of response that’s going to get.

But to others, Paul smells like life. And you know that kind of refreshing smell you get when you pull the laundry out of the washing machine and you’ve remembered to put fabric conditioner in. Or the flowers that spin into the air, black and white turning to colour. Not in real life, but in adverts for Comfort and Glade and that kind of thing. Any advert for something that wants you to think it smells really good.

Well, that’s the feeling we’re supposed to get when we consider Paul’s message. Words of life.

Some are watching the procession and turning away in disgust, horrified by the stench drifting down from the parade, but Others are filled with delight and eagerness as they recognise in Paul’s message words of life. High-impact odours. That’s what I like to call the Marmite smell. And you know how Marmite have made a big thing of the fact that everyone either loves it or hates it? Who here loves it?

Who here hates it? Who here doesn’t really care? Yeah, you see, it’s not actually true, is it, about Marmite? Not everyone either loves it or hates it. But in Paul’s case, it really is a Marmite smell.

You either love it or hate it. You either recognise life in it or death. For one, a fragrance from death to death; to the other, a fragrance from life to life.

And that’s important to recognise about bold ministry, isn’t it? That’s not the sort of procession that we want to join in. A procession with polar opposite responses. Some launching themselves towards it as the sweet smell of life. Others leaping away as they smell death.

It doesn’t quite seem to be the victory procession that we want in on. But Paul says this is the aroma of Christ. It’s the fragrance of the knowledge of Him which He’s spreading everywhere. For one, a fragrance from death to death. To other the fragrance, a fragrance from life to life.

It’s a binary position. It’s a bold position.

And I wonder how you feel about that kind of message. Why don’t we turn back into 3s and 4s, and this time it’s not searching through the text, but just chatting in your 3s and 4s. How do you feel about that kind of ministry? And there’s a second question, what makes it hard to listen to? Let’s turn to 3s and 4s and I’ll call us together.

In a few minutes’ time.

Should we come back together?

There’ll be more time to talk about that, lots of time in the weekend to be talking with one another. And some particular opportunities to chat through some of those questions tomorrow morning. But I hope we’ve found that the more we think about it, the more we need to hear the message of this letter. We haven’t had a public falling out with Paul. We haven’t got people wandering around claiming to be super apostles.

I haven’t seen anyone in a cape since my godson’s birthday party. But maybe, well, you know, we’re not necessarily about to believe a different gospel, But this letter, it’s a letter we desperately need to hear in our day and in our church. We’re not so far from the Corinthian church, really. They were enthusiastic, and perhaps like us. They were keen, perhaps like us.

And it all seemed to go wrong when Paul started to push them, to charge them to change their lives. When he turned up the temperature. When he asked them to live with Jesus as Lord over everything. And isn’t that the point at which it starts to get more uncomfortable for us? When the teaching of the Gospel starts to put me at odds with my flatmates, or my coursemates, my teammates, my family, maybe even other Christians.

When it’s so bold as to stand apart from the crowd, when it’s so bold that it makes me stand apart from the crowd, isn’t that when it starts to get more uncomfortable?

Jesus is Lord. It’s perfectly good in theory, isn’t it? But when it means Lord of my life, when it means making changes, when it means something costly, is He still Lord? Isn’t that when it starts to get more uncomfortable? Now, the path of discipleship is one of denying myself, taking up my cross and following Jesus.

And I know Jesus says that, but surely He doesn’t literally mean denying myself. Surely He can’t mean giving up that relationship, that hobby, that career. Surely He can’t literally mean denying who I am. Isn’t that when it starts to get more uncomfortable? As the boldness of a sermon goes up, our discomfort increases.

Our boldness threshold will be different across this room. Some of us will feel uncomfortable the moment I say anything negative. Others of us are happy when I name-drop a false teacher. But all of us get increasingly uncomfortable as the demands of the Gospel grow. And at some point, we’ll all have a threshold when we’re tempted to abandon the talk.

Switch off. Stop listening to the preacher, perhaps even listening to the Gospel.

And then you start to notice how unimpressive he is. His greying hair, his receding hairline, and the fact he can barely see a few feet before his face. His dullness, his lack of illustrations, his interminably long talks. And he talks with this boldness, but in person he’s so disappointing. He’s massively overreaching.

And then we hear of another church where the preachers don’t even use scripts, where everything is more lively and dynamic, and they’re more smiley-faced than this sour-faced balding guy up front. And they don’t push so hard, and they still talk about Jesus, but, well, it’s not quite so controversial, and it’s not quite so demanding. It’s not quite so bold. Do we really want to listen to this weak, overreaching minister?

And maybe some of us are feeling that already. Now, you’re already thinking that this talk has been a bit too involved, too intense, too much like I’m just trying to defend myself, and you’re mentally switching off. You don’t want to sit here while I spend a weekend trying to defend my right to be bold. Which is why we need to hear chapter 3 and verses 1 to 6.

We’re halfway down page 18 of the handout, if you’re still following. And 2 Corinthians chapter 3, let me read from verse 1. 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’re 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. And not that we’re sufficient in ourselves to claim anything is 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. Paul is not some self-interested con artist who’s trying to commend himself. The super apostles, they were guys who’d come with letters of recommendation. You can listen to us, they said. Look at all this backing we’ve got from card-carrying, Bible-bashing evangelicals.

We are legit. You can be sure of that. But Paul’s different. Now, he doesn’t have any positive reviews in the front of his book. They exist, you can find them elsewhere in the Bible.

Peter is really positive about Paul in his book. But Paul doesn’t put them on his opening page. Paul’s recommendation comes from the Corinthians themselves. Verse 2, you yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts. Now, Paul’s own heart, his concern for the Corinthians is his letter of recommendation.

The fact that he loves them is the reason that they should listen. Have a look later in chapter 12 where Paul says, have you been thinking all along that we’ve been defending ourselves to you? It’s in the sight of God that we’ve been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding. Beloved. He’s not writing to defend himself, but to build them up, to serve them.

Look how wracked with concern he was when he went to Troas on that mission and moved on from it because he wanted to find out if they were okay. That’s not the behaviour of someone who simply wants to garner support for his own ministry. Paul’s concern for the Corinthians is his letter of recommendation. And so is the church itself. Verse 3, 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.

The very church that Paul planted in Corinth is testament to the effectiveness of his ministry. His work amongst them should demonstrate that he’s a gospel worker, worth listening to. And none of those reasons are reasons to think highly of Paul himself. No, verse 5, not that we’re sufficient in ourselves to claim anything is coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient. Paul remains eternally humble, pointing the attention always to God, but it’s his love and his fruitfulness amongst the Corinthians that mean we should listen.

To what he has to say.

It’s easy to get drawn by impressive ministry. The next internet sensation, the keynote speaker at some great conference, the one who’s written so many books you can’t even count them anymore, the person with 1,000 followers on Twitter. But who is the minister who has you written on their heart? Who is the Bible teacher whose knees are sore from time spent praying for you?

Instead of looking for the novelty, look for the one who has already borne fruit in your life. And when they start to challenge you, when their words are uncomfortable, will I focus on their flaws or their faithfulness? On their boldness or their affection?

Now, this isn’t merely an exercise in theological self-defence. Paul isn’t just wanting more people on his team. I’m not interested in a weekend that justifies my right to be bold. Paul is writing for their upbuilding. He’s writing to stop them from swapping his ministry for the ministry of the devil.

He’s writing out of love, so that they would embrace the ministry that God has given Paul to perform. One that doesn’t kill but gives life.

And isn’t that the kind of ministry that we want to listen to? Isn’t that the kind of ministry that we want to be able to identify? And that is the kind of ministry that we get to spend this weekend thinking about together. Shall I lead us in prayer as we come to a close?

Father, we praise you for the Gospel that you have proclaimed to us. And we praise you, it’s such a great Gospel, with such bold implications. And we praise you for ministers like Paul, who have proclaimed it boldly to us. And pray that we would be ready to acknowledge its boldness, to register its boldness, and to embrace it. And please, would You help us this weekend as we seek to do that?

And we pray it in Jesus’ name. Amen.