Ready for the Harvest

Heat. Heat. Well, good morning. It's me again. Um, I'm going to keep saying that. Uh, has, but uh, yeah, I'm Pastor DJ if you forgot already. I'm just kidding. But would you open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 13? 2 Corinthians chapter 13. And uh if you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back in front of you and feel free to use that and make it your own. That is your Bible, our gift to you. You can take it. All we ask is that you bring it back and use it. Make it your own. But we will gladly replace it. 2 Corinthians 13 for this morning. We are coming to the end of our study through 2 Corinthians. Oh, I know. So sad. I'm sad, but I'm excited for what's coming. But we started this back in uh 1 Corinthians, our study back in January. So, it's taken us about a year to get through 1 and 2 Corinthians. We took a few breaks, but here we are finishing second Corinthians. I believe one of the most forgotten principles of scripture that the modern American church and other churches around the world, but especially churches in America have been ignoring is the principle or the truth that God tests his people. God tests his people. This is a clear biblical truth. In both the Old and the New Testaments, for example, in Genesis 22, we read that God tested Abraham when he called him to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Mariah. And if you don't know the story, I highly recommend reading it. But in Genesis 22, God did test Abraham. In Deuteronomy chapter 13, Moses says, "Look, if a prophet comes to you and proclaims a sign or a wonder and it happens, so exactly what the prophet said would happen happens, it would seem to validate who they are. Oh, this must be a real prophet of God." But Moses goes on to say, "If they say this is going to happen and it happens, but they also say let us follow and worship other gods." Even though the sign and wonder happened, God says, "Do not listen to that prophet." Why? The scriptures tell us why. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. It's Deuteronomy 19. In Psalms, David would ask God to test him. In Psalm 26:2 through3, he says, David says, "Prove me, oh Lord, and try me. Test my heart and my mind, for your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness." But David would welcome God testing him. And we can't say, "Well, that's Old Testament, DJ. Like, we're in the New, bro." Right? God doesn't test Christians in the New Testament. That's not true. In 1 Thessalonians 2:4, for example, Paul who wrote 2 Corinthians says this to the church at Thessalonica, he says, "But just as we have been approved by God," we, meaning him and his ministry team, Paul, "But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please men, but to please God who tests our hearts. I want to be clear. God does not tempt us. God does not tempt anyone to sin. That is different. Satan does that. Yes, God does not tempt you to sin, but he will allow you to be tested. And there's a difference. If you recall, Paul first challenged the church at Corenth to be rooted in holiness. We talked about that in chapters 1 through 7. And then in chapter 8, Paul transitioned his focus to the church's readiness. And we've seen the word ready a few times. Uh from chapter 8 on, readiness to participate in the collection for the poor saints of Jerusalem. They're doing a fundraiser, so to speak, a giving uh a gift for the poor saints in Jerusalem who are starving. There was a readiness to deal with sin. He talks about there's even a readiness for Paul's return to Corenth because he's saying, "Y'all better be ready for me to come back because if I find you in sin, we're going to have some problems." So Paul says, "Are you ready to get your act together, Corinth, before I come?" And we'll see that today. And so Paul issues a test. Is the church ready to move forward? Is Corenth ready to get right? Is the church ready for the harvest? Whatever harvest they might God might bring them because that's the whole point part. One of the points, one of the purposes of church gathering is to make a difference in the community that it's in. But Paul has had to spend all his time correcting their sinful behavior. He would love to just come rejoice, have fellowship, hang out, and just do some more new ministry things and just do stuff with them. But he can't because every time he comes, there's all this sin and stuff that he has to deal with them. And a church wrapped up in a bunch of sin isn't going to make a whole lot of impact on the community around it. And Paul's heart for them is that they would. Are they ready to make an impact on the community? Are we ready to stand for the gospel? Are we ready as Cross Church Phoenix to make Jesus known in our community? Are we ready for what's next? And so what we have here is a test of readiness in chapter 13. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. Thank you for your word. And God, I pray that you would impress upon the hearts of your people uh your word this morning, not DJs. There's some hard things in this passage, some difficult things that need to be addressed. And so I pray, God, that you would give soft hearts. Lord, prepare us to hear what you have to say. And God, I pray Lord that you would give us eyes to see, ears to hear what the spirit has to say to Cross Church. In Christ's name, amen. Let's start with verses 1-4. Paul says, "This is the third time I'm coming to you. Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. I gave a warning when I was present the second time, and now I give a warning while I'm absent to those who sinned before and to all the rest. If I come again, I will not be lenient. Some translations will say, I will not spare you. It will not be lenient or easy. Verse three, since you seek proof of Christ speaking in me, he is not weak in dealing with you, but powerful among you. for he was crucified in weakness but he lives by the power of God for we also are weak in him but in dealing with you we will be uh we will live with him by God's power so the first thing we see in this test of readiness is a warning warning and the warning is simply this continuing to walk in old sins is dangerous territory Tory continuing to walk in old sins is dangerous territory. So if you look back at chapter 12:14, Paul repeats what he just said. I am coming. And in chapter 12:14, he said, "I'm when I come, I'm not going to burden you." Which meant I'm not going to ask you for financial support when I come. But here in chapter 13 verse1, so we know what he's not going to do when he comes in 12:14. 13:1 tells us what he is going to do when he comes and that is address sin. But what I love about Paul is that although he will come deal with sin in the church, he will not do it unbiblically. Paul says, "Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses." What he's doing is he's quoting Deuteronomy 19:15, which basically says, "A charge against someone can't be established by one person going around pointing things out, making a bunch of accusations by themselves. It would need to be a a legitimate accusation against somebody would need to be have witnesses, be witnessed by others. Jesus taught the same principle when he taught in Matthew 18, church discipline, which I'll summarize quickly is basically if you can't solve a problem between two people, you get more people involved. And ultimately, if there's no repentance, this person is living an open unrepentant sin and they won't they won't change. They won't turn away from their sin and repent, then ultimately it goes to the church. And the possibility is that you could be removed from the church. That's Matthew chapter 18. So here Paul says, I'm going to come. I'm sending you multiple warnings. and those who've sinned before and not repented, I'm not going to go easy on them. Notice who Paul has an issue with. It doesn't just say and those who've sinned before, cuz that would be everyone then. And Paul would have constant problems with everyone in the church. Notice how he says those who sinned before and not repented. That's who Paul has a beef with. Not just people who sin, which would be all of us, but people who have sinned and not repented. And Paul's going to come deal with that. He says, "I will not be lenient. I won't spare you. I won't go easy on you." Why? And this is very important for us to know. Because claiming to be a Christian and living an unrepentant sin is so dangerous. Your very soul is at stake. And so Paul takes this very, very seriously. In our Tuesday night Bible group this past week, we asked the question in the group, how many churches in modern America today would actually welcome Paul as their pastor? You could answer that question yourself. I can tell you right now, first of all, Paul would get ran out of every LGBTQ affirming church in about 60 seconds flat. I say that with a sober mind because that it is serious and ought to be a point of prayer because the veil is still over their eyes. They need the veil removed. But the issue is that some churches have created a version of Paul in their minds that doesn't exist. The Paul of Scripture would not be welcomed in any of those churches. But what about other churches? What about those churches that are generally bible believing? Um, you know, they they like the Bible. They have a decent statement of faith on their website, but you know, they just really don't want to talk that much about like sin. We we don't really talk about sin here. Really, what I can't stand personally about churches that don't address sin is that they're ignoring the whole reason Jesus came. Do you understand that? The whole point of the cross is salvation from sin. To be rescued, to be redeemed, from sin. And if we ignore sin, we don't need the gospel. Then we don't need the cross. Because if you are okay, I'm okay. Let's all just eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. And God generally, he'll be fine with us. We don't need the cross. Then we are negating, we are nullifying them. And we are saying that Christ died in vain if we don't have a sin issue which is completely not true. The whole point of the cross is salvation from sin. And if we refuse to talk about sin that's crazy. The whole Bible from Genesis 3 to like Revelation 20 is we need Christ as our savior from sin. Everything was fine in one and two. everything will be fine in ch Revelation 21 and 22 in the in between. Sorry, we live in a sinful world and need Christ as savior. And so in verse three, if you if you look at verse three, Corinth was seeking proof that Christ is speaking in him. And you got you'll remember Paul was told that he was weak, right? You're weak, Paul. And all Paul does is say, "Yeah, and also my ministry models Jesus Christ, by the way. Christ was crucified in weakness." What does that mean? It means Christ who is eternally the son of God. Jesus Christ is God. Okay, plain and simple. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Jesus is God the Son. He subjected himself to sinful men. He was arrested by sinful men. spat upon and beaten by sinful men, nailed to a cross by sinful men, and suffered and died a humiliating death for sinful men. He humbled himself and was obedient to death, even even excruciating death of the cross. And the world would look at that and say that's weak. Because if Jesus was truly the Christ, if he's the son of God, he would have never gone through that, he would never subject himself to that. That's weak. But that's the gospel. If you remember in chapter 11, Paul endured all kinds of sufferings as well. So Paul's ministry might look weak, too. If you look back in chapter 11, he was beaten multi multiple times with rods. He was whipped with the 39 lashes. He was shipwrecked and hungry and naked and just without food and just starving and living this life. And that people might look at Paul and say, "If you're really a minister of God, an apostle of God, why would why are you living such a miserable life? But we know that God is using Paul for his glory and good. And so Paul says, you know what? Christ was crucified in weakness, but Christ is alive by the mighty power of God. And so Paul says, we're in Christ. So although we might look weak on the outside, our ministry is powerful through Jesus Christ. People look at Christ and say it's weak because he died on the c. It he was beaten and scorned by by men and God. No, that would never happen to a savior to a God. And then people look at Paul's ministry and say that's weak. You've you do all this trials, all these issues going on in your life. That's weak. And he says yes, Christ died in weakness and he's risen in glory, in power. My ministry looks weak to you, but it's powerful in Christ. And he says, "You know what? If we have to come over there and show it to you, we will." That's what he's saying. Here's the thing. If you say you love Jesus, you're going to love those who are like him. Corinth though was in a dangerous place because they professed to love Jesus Christ. Right? This is the church. This is believers. We would assume they profess to love Jesus Christ but are rejecting Paul who is like him. Paul suffered for his message like Jesus. Paul addressed sin head on like Jesus. Some churches who churches that don't address sin, not only do they have a different Paul, they have a different Jesus, by the way, because Jesus addressed sin constantly in his ministry, but they don't like Paul. And if we don't like those that are like Jesus, we probably won't like Jesus either. So, if you're not a fan of Paul because of what he says in his letters, you won't be a fan of Jesus either. The bottom line is this. Church leaders, elders, pastors, myself, others are expected to deal with sin. It shouldn't be a surprise. It should not be a surprise. It should not be a novelty that, hey, the pastor keeps harping on sin. That elder over there uh keeps talking, telling me to run away from this sin or cut out this sin in my life. That shouldn't be a surprise because the Bible's full of addressing sin. The scriptures address it a lot, so we will, too. If it didn't, I wouldn't. But it does, so we have to. And that leads us to our next section pretty um seamlessly here. Let's read verses 5-10. So Paul says, "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. examine yourselves or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you unless you fail the test? And I hope you will recognize that we ourselves do not fail the test. What he's saying is I hope you'll recognize we are genuine Christians. We're believers in Jesus. Verse 7, but we pray to God that you do nothing wrong. I love that. I would just want to preach on that. Like praying for other people to not sin is so wonderful. Can I invite you to do that in your and put that in your prayer life. Pray for others not to sin. Not that we may appear to pass the test. What he's saying is I don't want you to um not sin or not do anything wrong so that we look good. I want you to do the right thing. Not that we may appear to pass the test regardless of what the world thinks of us. We want you to do good. But that you may do what is right. even though we may appear to fail. For we can't do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. Verse nine, we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. We also pray. So we see two prayers. We also pray that you become fully mature. This is why I'm writing these things while absent. So that when I am there, I may not have to deal harshly with you. in keeping with the authority the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down. What I want you to know is the words test and examine in verse five are commands. So in Greek they're imperatives command. So these are not suggestions, right? If you feel up to it, test and examine yourself and see if you're in the faith, if you have time, if it fits your schedule. No. Paul is commanding the Corinthians to test themselves. So that's the second point we have command. Evaluate your walk with the Lord. Is there evidence of your salvation? The Corinthian church had put Paul on trial quite a bit. And here Paul says, "How about you put yourself on trial?" They've been testing and examining Paul and making all these things. False teachers are accusing Paul and then they're kind of joining him. Corinth is and Paul says, "You know what? A lot of this has been put on me. How about you test and examine yourself for a moment? Are you really Christians then?" Is what he's saying. Test yourself to see if you're in the faith is like, "Are you guys really believers?" Then don't look at me. Because we can be really good at testing everyone else and examining everyone else, right? Pointing out what everyone else is doing wrong. But here we're commanded to examine and test ourselves. Now, Paul's not saying that they're not saved, but he's also not assuming or saying that they are. And I'm going to approach it the same way. God knows hearts. Paul doesn't. I don't. So, how do we examine ourselves? And what can I what tool can I give you to test and examine yourself? Well, Jesus told us exactly how to evaluate ourselves and see if we truly belong to him. Jesus makes it very simple. John 14:15 says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." And that's Jesus speaking in the Gospel of John. But what if we turn to uh first John right the epistle a letter of John 1 John 5:3 John writes for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome saying if we love Jesus Christ we will not only have a desire to obey him and keep his commands but we also will find that Those commands are not burdensome. It's a joy to give up that sin. It's not like, oh, I got to give up like pornography or sexual morality or drunkenness or or getting high and doing all this stuff, lying, cheating, stealing. Oh, it's such a burden to like not murder, right? It should be a joy to say yes, I want to stop these things, not keeping his commands and start keeping his commands. Now, I want to be very clear on matters like this that can be maybe a little confusing. You and I are not saved by keeping the Lord's commandments cuz none of us can. know that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ who did keep the commandments of God perfectly. And what Jesus and John are saying is that the evidence our salva the evidence of our salvation is a desire to obey God. Not to get saved, but because you're saved. Notice the evidence of our salvation is not emotional. A lot of people struggle feeling saved. And I understand that. I get that. And it is a struggle. But nowhere in scripture is salvation evidenced by feeling because our emotions and feelings fluctuate. You don't want your salvation to fluctuate. Right now, when you genuinely get saved, getting saved might be emotional, right? I celebrate and shed tears when people come to Christ. It's fun. It is emotional. It's a joy. Emotions might accompany salvation, but they will not be the long-term evidence of your salvation. Does that make sense? I hope it does. So when we read verses like test yourself, examine yourselves, we don't reflect on emotion. Well, do I feel saved right now? You reflect on how you live. That's what Jesus, John, and I could quote other passages. I just picked two because we're going to run out of time. But Jesus and John are saying if we love him, we'll obey his commands. Do our lives are our lives characterized by obedience to Christ? Again, it won't be perfectly, but is it generally characterized by a desire to obey Christ in what you do? Test yourself, not against yourself, against the scriptures. strive to obey his commandments. Does that describe you? Do you strive to obey Christ? Or is it annoying when someone calls your sin out? When someone who is godly, not just the pastor, who someone who is godly says, "Hey, that's sin. You got to stop that." Is that something that you can appreciate or is it irritating? One of the lies many people in churches today believe is that if you pray the sinner's prayer, which is not in the Bible, you can search it yourself. Call me when you find it. There's no sinner's prayer in the Bible. We that is a tool and we can use those things to bring people to Christ. I'm not saying that. But there is no sinner's prayer in the Bible. But it people will say it pray this prayer parrot this prayer right after the pastor repeat after me. That's why you don't catch me doing that because I I not that that's wrong but it's not I it's it's a personal conviction that I don't ask you to parrot prayers. Um but we can talk later about that. But ultimately, one of the lies people believe is that if you prayed a prayer 10 years ago, then it doesn't matter how you live. You're fine. You and God are good. It doesn't matter how you live from there on out. But the Bible says God chasens those whom he loves. So if you're truly saved, when you do go astray, cuz we'll struggle, right? When you do go astray, God corrects you. God convicts you. God brings you back. He convicts you and draws you back to himself. But if you can live in sin and not feel conviction all the while professing to be a Christian because of something you did, felt, or done, or whatever years ago, the scripture, not DJ, the scripture is warning you to examine yourself. Because Paul is talking to professing Christians. He's talking to the church. He's saying, "Test yourself and see if you're in the faith." Why? Because of everything he's written in 1 and 2 Corinthians. He's like, "Well, by golly, if we have a bunch of unrepentant people in here, we might have a bunch of false converts, not true Christians. We shouldn't be having certain issues long term." And so Paul's telling Corinth simply what churches today ought to be telling themselves to do. Eric Mason, uh, a gentleman who wrote a commentary on 2 Corinthians once said this, so I'm quoting directly. Quote, "The church was never supposed to be a picture of us saying, "I'm saved by grace, but live like hell." End quote. To that, I said, "Amen." Yet, there's a lot of professing Christians who live no differently than the world and assume they're believers because they prayed a prayer or voted a certain way or went to church after Charlie Kirk was murdered. That makes me a Christian, right? No, it does not. I love that churches are church attendance is up after that. Now, I don't love that that happened. No, but I love that God is using it to bring people to church. But that doesn't save you. It doesn't save you that you came to church after Charlie Kurt. It doesn't save anyone. I'm not saying that those are bad things, right? But I'm saying that none of that makes you a Christian. Christians might do those things, but evidence of true belief is a life marked by obedience to Christ. And we must recognize that dealing with sin is for, I love that Paul writes this verse 10, for building up. It's for building up, not for tearing down. Many people do receive correction as though it's meant to tear down. And that's not true at all. It is meant to build you up, to build us up. When we address sin in our lives, when I address my own sin, when we deal with it, put it to death. I love the old King James that says mortify the flesh. Um, but more modern translations just say put to death the deeds of the flesh. But King James, mortify it, right? Mortify. Well, but why? It's for your good, for the church's good. It's for your own good. It's for God's glory. What more could you want? I want to share a quote from Spurgeon um that I got from him as well. A lot of people wear a cross around their neck which is fine but he says the true Christian carries the cross in his heart and a cross inside the heart my friends is one of the sweetest cures for a cross on the back. If you have a cross in your heart, Christ crucified in you the hope of glory. All the cross of this world's troubles will seem to you light enough. Then he says this, Christ in the heart means Christ believed in, Christ beloved, Christ entrusted, Christ espoused, Christ communed with, Christ as our daily food, and ourselves as the temple and palace wherein Jesus Christ daily walks. Is Christ in you? Are you the temple palace where Christ walks? We are told that we are the temple of the living God, right? In Corinthians a few chapters ago is Christ in you. Let's read verses 11 to13. Paul says, "Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice." Some will say farewell. It's literally rejoice. Become mature. Be encouraged. Be of the same mind. Be at peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints send you greetings. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. So, we've been warned, we've been commanded, and now it's time for exhortation. And our exhortation is simply me summarizing verse 11. But are we growing in maturity, unity, and love for each other? Are we growing in that as a church? I hope so. Back in verse 9, if you were to look back at at verse 9, Paul said, "We pray that you become fully mature." Other translations might say fully complete or restored. And in verse 11, he prays the same thing. He says the same thing, become mature or fully restored or made complete. But the idea is maturation, right? Something that is growing and turning into something else more mature. So rejoice, be fully mature, be encouraged, be of the same mind, meaning be unified, be at peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. I don't think I need to explain the greet one another with a holy kiss. It's a greeting, right? It's a sign of respect like shaking hands. It's nothing inappropriate or anything like that. It's how Judas identified Jesus and betrayed him with a kiss. But I won't spend the last minute or two here at the end with this. We have a a fancy name for it would be called the trinitarian blessing. But you see, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, talking about the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. This is very rich and I could probably talk about it for another 30 minutes. You guys ready? I'm just kidding. Um, but the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, back in 2 Corinthians 8:9, Paul says, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." What is it? That though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich. It's the gospel. It's that Christ, the eternal son of God who created everything, who owns everything, who is everything, emptied himself. He was rich became poor so that you us who are poor might become rich by his poverty. How are you rich? You might not be rich and have a lot of money right now. It's not talking about that. You're rich because you're going to heaven. And then we have the love of God. So the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, undeserved favor, Christ becoming poor for our sakes. Romans 5'8, the love of God, but God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And so when you see the grace of Christ, the love of God, it's all about Christ dying on the cross for our sin. And when we trust in that, when we believe that, when we receive that, when we turn from our sin, put our faith in Jesus Christ to save us from sin, then we have fellowship in the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul said, "For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body. Jews are Greeks, slaves are free, and all were made to drink of one spirit." So Paul wants Corinth to be complete, completely blessed by our complete and perfect, holy God. Our concluding thought is simply this. Do we pass the test? Are we ready for the harvest that God is bringing? I want to invite the worship team back up before we sing our last song. I want to pray if you would join me in prayer. Um but before I pray, I just want to invite if if ultimately the invitation to come to Christ is wide open, right? The scripture says, "Today is the day of salvation. Don't put it off until tomorrow or next week." Sometimes people are like, "Well, I got to clean some stuff up in my life, you know, fix a few relationships, get rid of some things, and then I'll come to Jesus Christ." And I just tell them, "You have it all backwards, bro. You come to Christ just as you are and watch him clean you up." And so if Jesus Christ is not in you, as Paul says to the Corinthians, you can come find me at the I said yes corner. I'm going to go hang out back there during this last song and I'd love to chat with you about what it means to know Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning, Lord. me. Thank you ultimately. I thank you for your word that we get to just come sit under your word, under the authority of your word. And that's for all of us, myself included. Lord, I must examine myself no less than anyone else. And God, I pray that we would reflect and think, do our lives, does it look like we love Jesus? I hope it does. I think for many of us it does. God, I just want to encourage as well. Lord, you said what the Holy Spirit would do. He'd convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. That's what he's going to do. Sin, righteousness, judgment. Pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit would convict us of sin. Show us righteousness because judgment is coming. That's a fact. You will judge one day, Lord. and I pray that we would be found in Christ. In whose name we pray, amen. Let's stand and sing our last song.