Please be seated. Turn in your copy of the scriptures to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Today we’ll be looking at verses 1 through 6. Remember the context. The Apostle Paul is desirous to go see the Corinthians. He’s probably laid up in Philippi. Titus has met him and given a report of how 1 Corinthians was received by them. Paul would like to visit with the Corinthians, but he pens this letter and sends it along.
Remember, we’re in about a four-chapter digression, and in this four-chapter digression, the apostle Paul is making a defense of his apostolic ministry, that it is from the Lord, and it is different than, it is more sincere than the ministry of those who are what he calls peddlers of God’s word. And so it’s in light of that context that we consider verses one through six. Here God’s word with me, Paul says in second Corinthians chapter three, verse one, are we beginning to commend ourselves again?
Or do we need as some do letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation written on our hearts. to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts, such as the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are 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. Amen. This is God’s wonderful and gracious word.
Maybe you’ve cleaned out your wallet lately and you found coupons that were expired four years ago. You’ve found maybe value cards from stores where you no longer shop. Maybe you’ve found a credit card that no longer works. You’ve maybe found a $20 bill that you forgot you had, but you clean it out and you wonder why in the world I ever lugged these things around. You know, today’s wallet is supposed to be slimmer and lighter and all the rest.
There’s a particular card that I have that I don’t carry in my wallet. And the reason I don’t carry it is it has no value to me, but it is a card from our Presbytery, and it’s a card that says he’s ordained. Now, I don’t ever occasion on anybody saying, hey, can I see your ordination card? I would not hand it to a police officer if I got it pulled over. It wouldn’t really help. But nevertheless, there it is, a certificate carry a membership card in the club or something like that.
But you notice today, if you look around ministers in America, they love to commend themselves. They commend themselves in the way they dress. They commend themselves in the degrees that are attached to their name. They commend themselves in the things they have written, the stuff they have said, and on and on and on. And you begin to read their commendation of themselves and you wonder, when do they have time to be a pastor? If they’re being this, this, and this, and this.
And so it’s in light of this commendation of self, self-commendation, that we compare the ministry of God compared to the ministry of men. Paul says at the beginning of this letter, are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Are we showing our card? Are we displaying our diplomas? Are we listing the books that we have written or the podcast we host or on and on?
And those things aren’t terrible. Don’t don’t hear that. But we can begin to commend ourselves in such a way that it leaves God out of the equation. It is man who does ministry. Well, Paul is going to turn that upside down and he’s going to say, no, we do not commend ourselves. Our sufficiency is in God, our confidence is in God. Paul is speaking to the Corinthian church. It’s a church that he founded on his second missionary journey. He had an 18 month ministry there. And when he left, he sent others like Titus. He sent Apollos.
I think Peter or Cephas passed through there, but they also had others show up. And in the early Roman era, during the time of the building of the church, there were traveling speakers who would show up with letters. Imagine if someone popped in our door and said, I’ve got letters from all these places. You should let me speak today. I have something to say. And we would read their letters and say, hmm, I don’t know about this. Or we’d read the letters and say, oh, so-and-so says you’re a good person.
That’s what was going on in this particular time. And people would get paid to come speak. And they would get hospitality and all sorts of things. It was sort of a way to be a hobo. what he called a hitchhiker, but to get a little pay and to get a little notoriety and to get some hospitality.
And so Paul is writing to the Corinthian church where they have all these people who have shown up with letters, some perhaps letters from the high priest at Jerusalem. These would be what we call the Judaizers. And they definitely did not like Paul. They definitely did not like his, ministry continuing with letters and visits to the Corinthian church. And so these insincere opportunists are saying to the church, Paul is bad. Don’t listen to him. Listen to us. But these peddlers of God’s word, they have their letters of recommendation. And perhaps they have said Paul has no letters. He has no letters from Jerusalem. Maybe he had letters from Damascus, but who’s Damascus? And who is Paul?
And so today we want to think of this. A ministry is made sufficient by God, the Holy Spirit, through a faithful ministry of the powerful, dead raising, life giving word. That’s what makes a ministry profitable. A ministry is made sufficient by God, the Holy Spirit, through a faithful ministry of the powerful, dead raising, life giving word of God.
It’s that simple. No man made metrics. No human letters of recommendation, no measurements from the world, but only God can make it so. Now you’re not going to believe this, but there’s only two points today. Three is Presbyterian and six is double good. But today we got two. The first one is, Paul says to the Corinthians, you yourselves are our letter of recommendation. And then the second is this, our sufficiency to be ministers of the new covenant is from God. There’s just two, they’re long. Let’s think of the first one for a moment. You yourselves are our letters of recommendation.
The apostle Paul is saying to the Corinthian complainers, the Corinthian naysayers, or the ones who’ve maybe been Push to think that Paul doesn’t have letters. He’s not bona fide. He’s saying to them, don’t need them. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. And it’s personal. It’s public. It’s proof.
And it is delivered by us. And it’s written not with ink, but by the Holy spirit. This is the nature of you being a letter of recommendation on behalf of at least here, Paul and Titus. You yourselves are our letter of recommendation. It’s personal. Paul says it is written on our hearts. Paul and Titus are likely the plural here and you yourselves are our letter of recommendation. It is personal. It is written on our hearts. Paul loves the Corinthians. Titus loves the Corinthians. They’ve been through it with the Corinthians and they love them dearly. Yesterday, there was a big football game. I think it was Notre Dame in Miami.
I don’t think I’ll offend anybody by bringing that one up. But before the game, they were speaking of Lou Holtz, the old football coach at Notre Dame. And they had brought in some of the old players. And one of the things that the players would say of Lou Holtz is, he treated us like his own.
And can’t you see? The players that maybe played under some of these old school coaches, their hearts were knit together. There was an etching of the hearts. You look at the current, I don’t know, college football slash pro football, I guess is what you really ought to call it, situation we’re in. Old school coach could take a kid for four to five years and make something of them for their future life and get some good out of them for their football or basketball program.
Now that’s not the case. But in those days, these players would be with this particular coach for a lot of years. And they would not only land on their feet for life, but they would score some touchdowns or some basketball goals along the way. And it’s not that way anymore. You have these kids move from here to here to here, and now coaches are moving from here to here to here. And I think the missing ingredients, perhaps, of these sports programs is they never have long enough to be knit together in heart. They never have long enough for a coach to say, you are my living letter. You’re my, you’re my player.
But here we have Paul lived with the Corinthians 18 months. He’s corresponded with them several times. He’s been back on what he refers to as the painful visit. He had built a culture with them, a church culture, a Christ-centered culture, a Bible teaching culture. He was the shepherd of this congregation.
And if for a distance, he would ensure through letter or through the sending of another, that he showed them, you are a letter written on our hearts. You are our letters of recommendation. So it was very personal, but it was also very public. And he says to them, you are yourselves our letter of recommendation. and it’s to be known and read by all. You know, if you’re a Christian and the Spirit is at work in your life, if you’re a Christian and the Word of God is at work in your life and you are being sanctified, you are being shaped and conformed into the image of our Savior, God’s Son, the Lord Jesus, you will be a letter that can be read publicly. People can see if you bear the fragrance of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And so what Paul says about them is you yourselves are our letter of recommendation. It’s very personal. It’s written in my heart, but it’s very public. The people around you can see who you are and what you have become in Jesus Christ.
Now, interesting in the Corinthian church. These weren’t people that grew up in the church. These weren’t people that grew up in Christian homes. These were people that out of a total rank dark dying, immoral to the nth degree culture came from death to life, came from darkness to light, came from faith in some pagan deity to faith in the living and true God through Jesus Christ. And so it was very public to be a Christian in Corinth that’s becoming that way in our culture.
Christianity has ebbed greatly in our nation and so to be a Bible-believing, Christ-following, spirit-changed, word-centered person is to be a public letter before a watching world. And so Paul is saying to them, you yourselves are our letter of recommendation. It’s written on our hearts, the apostles. It’s public to be read and known by all, but it’s also proof. It is proof that you are a letter from Christ. Think back for a moment of, self-commending preachers. I mean, it’s fine to say your bio. People want to know who you are and, you know, where you grew up and this sort of thing. They want to know if you have degrees. They want to know all those sorts of things.
And while that’s wonderful and those things can be helpful, the proof of a ministry, the proof of your evangelism, the proof of the influence you have on the world around you, The proof is that spirit written salvation. That is only of Jesus is etched into the hearts of those that you love and serve. It could be your students. If you’re a teacher, it can be your children, your grandchildren, your coworkers, those in the marketplace where you serve or where you volunteer.
But the proof is not in man’s credentials. The proof is not in self commendation. The proof is that you show that Christ has written his letters on your heart. He has etched them in your heart. Now, the other thing that Paul says about you yourselves or our letter of recommendation, he says, you have been delivered by us.
You can imagine in the apostle Paul’s brain here, he’s writing a letter to the Corinthians, but it’s not written in his hand. He has a scribe. He has a secretary or the technical word is the amanuensis. And so Paul is writing a letter to the Corinthians through a scribe, through a secretary or through the fancy amanuensis word.
And so Paul is saying Christ writes a letter in the hearts of the people, but it’s through the scribe of the one who ministers it. And it could be you who speak the gospel to someone. It could be you who tell your children or the generations after you, it could be you who speak it to your students. It could be you who speak it in all sorts of settings where God sends you.
But the proof that we are living letters comes in that Christ has used us to etch that in other people’s hearts. It’s not written with ink. It’s not chiseled in stone, but it is written with the Holy Spirit of the living God. So here’s a good chance to pause for a moment. You’re sitting in church. You came today for a reason, a variety of reasons. The reason you ought to be here, we say from time to time, the little phrase saved people sing.
And so if we believe that God, the Holy Spirit, through his life giving word, his dead raising word has made an effect on our lives, where we’ve seen our sin, we’ve understood our misery, we understand the wrath, and the curse of God that is due to us for our sin and we lay hold of Jesus life and death and obedience by faith. We understand, we know that God has been at work in us.
We know it was nothing of our doing that we would have continued headlong in sin. We would have continued headlong into a life of misery and unbelief. But like the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah say, God comes And he takes our hearts of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. He takes our conformity to a standard that cannot save us. And he etches his life-giving law on our hearts.
And each of us ought to consider today, is that true of us? Am I sitting in this place calling on the name of the Lord who has indeed saved me and is at work in my life? Something to think of, something to consider. And if not, ask that the Lord might do that today.
So the first thing that Paul says to the Corinthians is you yourselves are our letter of recommendation. A ministry is made sufficient by God, the Holy Spirit, through a faithful ministry of the powerful, dead-raising, life-giving word. And that’s what Paul had done at Corinth. That’s what saved people when he went there to preach after his stop in Athens. Is that what has saved you? But second, Paul says our sufficiency to be ministers of the new covenant is from God.
He does not have letters on paper from others. He does not have a biography where his teeth are white and his hair is brushed perfectly and his tunic is, you know, been to the dry cleaners. When people see the apostle Paul, they see a man who bears stripes. on his body because of the ministry of the gospel. When people see Paul, they see one whose eyes aren’t healthy and strong. When they see Paul, they see one who is shipwrecked. They see one who has been homeless and sleepless, one who has had such anxiety over the ministry among God’s people that it shows in his wear and his tear. And he says his sufficiency to be a minister of the new covenant is Not from letters. It’s not from my own strength. It’s not from my own ability.
And Paul had abilities. He had strong rhetorical skills. He could speak. He could weave words together, language together, arguments together. He was very well trained in it and very good at it. He had the equivalent of today, we would call them two PhDs in the Old Testament.
And so Paul was very well equipped from a human standpoint, but he says no letters from men on our paper will do only letters from God. That’s you people. He’s defending to, I think, an argument that was made several verses back where he says, we’re men of sincerity. We are commissioned by God. We speak of Christ. We’re not peddlers, swindlers of God’s word. And here he is declaring so clearly our sufficiency to be ministers of the new covenant. is from God. He has confidence in a very simple ministry.
You know, from time to time, we’ll say around here that we believe in what’s called the simple and ordinary means of grace. How does God ordinarily communicate grace to his children? Ordinarily, it’s through preaching and it’s through the sacraments and it’s through the church gathered together for prayer. And so a church that preaches, teaches, does sacraments and does prayer, if that’s by the spirit of God, by the power of God, that ministry will be made sufficient by God, the Holy Spirit.
He’ll make a faithful ministry of the powerful, dead raising, life giving word of God. He will make it work. And that’s all Paul did. among the Corinthians, that’s all Paul did, among the Athenians and the Bereans and the Thessalonians and the Philippians and at Troas and throughout Asia Minor, Ephesus, throughout the stretch of Galatia and Dalmatia. It’s what he’ll do when he goes and ministers in Rome. He will have a simple and ordinary means of grace ministry, word, sacrament and prayer. And he says, this is our confidence, our confidence. Our sufficiency to be ministers of the new covenant is simply to minister the new covenant to the new covenant people. Uh, what did, what did George W. Bush say?
It’s not rocket engineering. Uh, you look at the church today and it is so complicated. Just look at the church through the eyes of architecture. You go back a couple hundred years and a church basically had a sanctuary and then maybe they squeezed on a fellowship hall later. There’s, Good to have fried chicken together. And then they put on the education wing and now they throw on gymnasiums and rock climbing walls and sanctuaries are no longer sanctuaries. They’re concert halls, they’re auditoriums where you passively sit and hear noise and hear words.
And what we ought to have confidence in as the people of God is a simple spirit blessed word, prayer and sacrament ministry. We will have our human limitations. We will have our human weaknesses. We may have some gifts and we may have some abilities, but God ultimately must bless the work. Now think of this passage in light, not only of your personal salvation as we did a moment or two ago, but think about this message in light of the rotting culture. Think of this message in light of perhaps your view of politics this week.
Very often we put our trust in horses and in chariots and in silver and gold and in princes. And we put our trust in things that cannot raise the dead. We put our trust in things that cannot etch everlasting truth in the hearts of people. But we live in a world that is rotting. We live in a culture that is dark and decaying, where Satan is at work, where death is marching and where the values of Protestant Reformation thought of the values of Judeo-Christian principles are no longer. We live in an anti-God world, an anti-family world, an anti-church world. It’s a pro-state, pro-individual, pro-feelings world.
And so how are we to consider that there could be cultural change? Do we alter the message of the gospel to be more palatable? Do we quit doing that strange thing once a Sunday or once a month on a Sunday where we eat bread and drink out of a thimble? Do we make the gospel more palatable to reach more people? Or do we submit ourselves to a Holy Spirit wrought word sacrament prayer ministry where we become living letters etched in stone to be read by the world around us?
Our change, our confidence, People will see an unmistakable difference as you bear the fruit of the Spirit, as you live by a Christian ethic, as your morality is very different from the world around you. Remember what Jesus said to believers, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give praise to your God in heaven. What are people reading? They are reading you. What are people seeing? God willing, they’re seeing unashamed workmen who believe the message. They’re seeing people who are holy and trying and striving to live faithfully, part of a spirit blessed ministry. And perhaps as you go out in the world, your efforts are spirit blessed.
What are you writing in people’s lives? Are you writing Jesus Christ? Are you writing the words of his mediatorial work on behalf of sinners? And are you writing it on the hearts of those God has placed before you? It could be here in the context of church as you teach. It could be there in the context of the world where you go with all sorts of people God’s putting in your path. But we want to end with this question. Are you writing for God? Let’s ask for God’s help and blessing. Father, we pray that You would use each of us to be unashamed workmen, to spread the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And may the words we speak and the efforts we produce, may they be used by the Holy Spirit to etch everlasting truth into the hearts and into the minds of those who we’d love to see with us in your everlasting presence. and bless us now, we pray in the name of Christ our Savior, amen.