You can be seated. Please turn in your copy of the scriptures to 1 Corinthians chapter 16. Today we’ll be looking at verses five through 12. 1 Corinthians 16, five through 12. We are at the end of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. It’s the first letter we have in our copies of the Bible, but he wrote a total of four letters. And we come to the end where he’s giving miscellaneous instructions. And so we pick up in chapter 16, verse five with his travel plans. And he says to the Corinthian church, I will visit you after passing through Macedonia, for I intend to pass through Macedonia and Perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter so that you may help me on my journey wherever I go.
For I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you if the Lord permits, but I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost for a wide door for effective work has opened to me and there are many adversaries. When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you, for he is doing the work of the Lord as I am. So let no one despise him. Help him on his way in peace that he may return to me, for I am expecting him with the brothers. Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers, but it was not at all his will to come now. He will come when he has opportunity. Amen. Let’s look to God in prayer. Father, we pray that these words, yes, even these travel plans would edify us and encourage us and nurture us in our faith. We pray in the name of the Savior, Jesus. Amen.
There are all kinds of parts of the Bible that you kind of scratch your head and wonder, is this really necessary? Do we really need to know what to do when we get leprosy? Right? We don’t get it these days, but do we need to know about all that? Do we need to know about the thousands of temple utensils that got carried off to Babylon and brought back to Jerusalem? Do we need to know all the names? the Hebrew names of that of the people who led up to the birth of Jesus. Do we need to know this detail or that?
And we are reminded of Paul’s writing to Timothy, the young pastor, and he says, all scripture is breathed out by God. That’s all scripture. And he says, it’s all useful for teaching and for rebuking and for correcting and for training in righteousness so that the man of God is thoroughly equipped or thoroughly furnished. so that we may walk in the ways of the Lord. And so yes, even Paul’s travel plans to the Corinthians are part of the word of God and they are of help to us.
And we wanna think today with these details he gives us, we wanna think about missions and we wanna think about missionaries and we wanna think about ministry and also ministers. The apostle Paul is writing to them to announce his plan to visit. He had not seen them in about three years.
And as you know from our studies, the church at Corinth was quite a messy place. I’ve mentioned to you the book on my first Corinthians bookshelf that’s called 20 20 problems in the church that should have killed it, but didn’t. I think I’ve mentioned to you that we have letters from early church fathers, not just Paul, but we have letters into the first 200 years of the church to Corinth, same problems. generational problems that passed from one generation to the next. The same old messes in that church went on for years, went on for generations and for lifetimes.
And so Paul is writing to them saying, on my third missionary journey, I am going to come see you. Now, last week, we looked at the collection that Paul was raising from all the churches where he administered. He’s raising a collection for the people at Jerusalem who have fallen on hard times. There’s been a big famine in Jerusalem, but also great persecution on the New Testament believers. And so Paul is raising a collection for his kinsmen in the flesh and blood, but their kinsmen in the faith, all who put their faith in Jesus Christ can call on Abraham as their father.
And so he is, on this trip collecting that collection. And his trip will end in Jerusalem where he delivers it. But for a time or two, he has been telling the Corinthians through couriers and through other letters, I’m gonna come see you. And so these travel plans are very important to them. It may seem like, you know, a little tedium or boring to us. But the first thing I want us to understand from this little passage is the idea of missions. Paul is a missionary of God to the Jews and to the Gentiles throughout the Roman empire in the latter part of the first century. Paul is on mission to obey the great commission.
You remember Jesus, when he was preparing to ascend up into heaven, he took his disciples up on a mountain and he said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me And so I tell you, go into all the world, make disciples. The way you’ll make disciples is by baptizing them and folding them into the church. And you’ll teach them everything which I have commanded for Christian obedience.
And so Paul shortly after Jesus’ great commission is on the road to Damascus. He’s a persecutor of the church. He’s just stood and approved of the stoning of Stephen. And he’s on his way to Damascus with letters to arrest and imprison, and perhaps even put to death those who are followers of the way. And the Lord Jesus meets him on that road to Damascus. Paul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And as he brings him to faith in himself, he says, I will show you how much you must suffer for my name. And so Paul is sent out by the church at Antioch, with others on these missionary journeys.
And his task is to obey the great commission, to go and while going make disciples. How do you make disciples? You baptize them, bring them into the church and you teach them everything God has commanded. Some years ago, John Piper wrote a little book on missions and he made this little statement that stuck with me. And he says, this is the call on the church. It’s to go or to send or to disobey. So some will go, others will send. And then if we do neither, we disobey. It’s that simple.
And so Paul was a goer. He was called by Jesus Christ out of unbelief in Messiah. He appeared to him himself and he set him apart. prepared him for this gospel ministry, both with his formative years and those quiet years Paul spent in Arabia being taught the good news of salvation. And so Paul is sent out by the church at Antioch to go into the Roman empire, speaking to Jew first and then to Gentile and proclaiming to them all that God has done for his people in Jesus Christ.
And so the church, is responsible for sending. The church is responsible for going. The church is responsible for supporting those who go. But also as a church on the mission field is founded and established, it should then be a going and ascending and a supporting church. So how do we support the work of missions?
Well, on Wednesdays we pray. We pray for the Goodmans and we pray for the Kings. We pray for the Mitchells. We pray for the Millers. We pray for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes locally, the rescue mission, pregnancy center. We pray for the family shelter.
We pray for the Gideon’s ministry that came and spoke to us today. We pray for all of the local, national and foreign missions that we support. We are helping Through our Presbytery, a church down in Rayford, Liberty Reformed, get off the ground. We have home missions, we have foreign missions. And so we support financially, but we also pray.
And so the work of missions is really important, but we simply must remember the Great Commission. As we go into the world, our job is to make disciples. And we do that by baptizing, bringing them into the church, and teaching them all that God has commanded.
So when Paul is writing to the Corinthian church, he is currently in Ephesus. Now you’ll remember at the beginning of his second missionary journey, he’s made his way through the churches at Galatia. He’s passed back through there and encouraged the saints. They were the ones that he ministered to on missionary journey. Number one, you know, in the back of your Bible, you got those maps and you got those arrows and one colors, missionary journey one and missionary journey to all the rest.
Well, passes through Galatia and he wants to go to Ephesus, which is, in that part of the world at that time called Asia, but he is hindered by the spirit of God from going there. And so they pass north of Asia and end up over at Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and then eventually at Corinth. And so that’s the second missionary journey. Paul had wished to go to Ephesus, but could not. So here he is sometime later there at Ephesus, and he stays there about three years.
Lots of good gospel work. The gospel seed fell on good soil. Now there was all kinds of opposition, which he’ll mention, but he’s telling them that the door is opened here, so I’m going to stay. And so you can imagine that Paul going to the synagogue first, preaches the gospel. When the Jews reject him, he goes to the Gentiles.
And I think for two years, he set up shop in what was called the Hall of Tyrannus. And during the afternoon siesta, while most people were at home napping in the heat of the day, he would use that hall that was empty at that time to teach or make disciples.
And so that is the work of missions. That is what Paul is up to in our passage as he writes to the Corinthians, but also to us. I wanna think in addition to missions, think about missionaries. There are people with gifts and graces from God who go, they are sent by the church and they go out into the world where the gospel is not. Another John Piperism, if you will, he wrote a book on missions called Let the Nations Be Glad. And another statement that he made that sticks with me, in addition to go send or disobey, He makes this statement that I think helps us focus on what is the work of missionaries.
And he says, missions exist because worship does not. If our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, how can we glorify God and enjoy him forever if we do not know him through faith in his son, the Lord Jesus? What does Paul say in Romans chapter 10 of his missionary work? He quotes the book of Isaiah when he says, how will they hear if no preacher is sent? And he quotes how beautiful are the feet of him who brings good news.
And so missions work is taking the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus across the lands and into the dark places of the world where worship does not exist. It’s the same here in North America when our presbyteries look for places to plant churches. It’s best if we set up shop where there are no churches, where worship does not exist. Our presbytery in the last six or eight months has determined that in the next five years, we should plant five churches east of Raleigh.
And so our hope is that we’ll find five ministers with gifts and graces willing to go to that part of our state and where there is not worship, they will go and establish worship by preaching the gospel, making disciples and teaching and training people to obey the Lord, especially our duty to worship him. And so missionaries, both at home, and we’re seeing the need in America for more at home missionaries, but also foreign missionaries are set apart and sent to these places Because worship does not exist and so the gospel brings a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus. We’ve been putting together our budget for next year and we’ve got the opportunity to support one of our brothers from the Presbytery who goes in and out of a country preaching and teaching but also training ministers. And one of the things we’ve discussed as a session, as a group of elders, is it’s really good for us to support missionaries who are ministers of word and sacrament.
Not to be critical, but I guess to be critical, we’ve seen over the last, I don’t know, number of years, let’s send people to go play chess in the park. Okay, that’s great. Now we’re gonna form relationships. Okay, that’s great too. But you could just go over there and get a job and play chess in your free time.
What about sending ministers of word and sacrament set apart to establish churches? That’s what seems to us the best use of our finances, the best use of our funds. And so we love the Goodman’s teaching seminary in Uganda. We love the work of our denominations seed ministry where we send missionaries to these other parts of the world to train ministers from their own countries to stay in their own country and to be well-equipped and trained ministers. We love that model. And so we want to encourage it and support it. So we’ve got missions, we’ve got missionaries, but this passage also brings up the idea of ministry.
You know, Paul spent 18 months at Corinth. On that second missionary journey, when they swung through Galatia and encouraged the churches there, they had to skip past Asia because the Holy Spirit said, no, no, no, don’t go there. So they go up and cross over at Philippi, where they’re shamefully treated and run out of town, where they were beaten in the Philippian jail, but the Philippian jailer heard them singing psalms and praying and came to faith in Jesus. They sneak off from there and go to Thessalonica, then Berea, then Athens and end up in Corinth where Paul spends 18 months of ministry. And if you’ve paid any attention to our study of Corinth, you have seen it every turn.
They are really good at making a mess and a royal mess of something. What was it? Lawsuits between believers. There was the one man who was sleeping with his father’s wife. There was the folks getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper. There were the poor people without food and without bread and wine at communion. There were just problems after problems after problems. And so ministry at Corinth was very messy. Ministry at Corinth was a messy ministry among broken people. Among the broken people riddled with sin, riddled with all kinds of wickedness that was taking a slow path to exiting their lives.
And so Paul’s 18 month ministry of word and sacrament, then later Timothy’s visit, Apollo’s visit, I believe Peter visited, and several others, it still seemed to make slow to no headway. And so Paul has had this deep concern for the Corinthians from across the Aegean Sea at Ephesus, where he has been ministering. He’s been receiving reports from entourages that travel across and tell him what’s going on. He’s been sending ministers over and they come back and tell him, and it’s a royal mess. It’s a big mess, lots of immorality, lots of strife. And so ministry among broken people is always very messy.
What sin does to us and the long road of conversion and sanctification is something that requires that we sit in church our entire life long. We will never stop learning, never stop growing, never stop changing, never stop being shaped and formed by the Word and by the Spirit. And so we need to be under the ministry of the Word.
And Paul’s concern for the Corinthians, they need more ministry of the Word. And so in a sense, not a self-aggrandizing way, it’s probably in his thought process, they need some Apostle Paul ministry. They need to hear from the one who had first taught them the gospel and who first explained them some of the weighty things. Now, something interesting you’ve got to know about Greek and Roman culture is they love their teachers and they love to say, Oh, my teacher is Paul, the apostle. He sat at the feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem. He was trained in this school. He knows the art of rhetoric. He knows the art of, you know, argument, these sorts of things.
And so they, they had their favorites. Remember at the beginning of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, I think it was in chapter three, he said, some follow Paul, others follow Cephas or Peter, others follow Apollos, but I follow Christ. And what he was reminding them of is whoever comes, whoever is sent, they’re all ministers. of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the ministry at Ephesus was a messy, hard, difficult ministry and it needed his personal attention. And so, you know how it goes when someone becomes converted to faith in Jesus, they’re very energetic, they read through their Bible, they’re growing in grace, maybe they’re a little bit obnoxious, but doing pretty well.
And then what happens over time, the speed slows down. And maybe some of the old sinful habits sort of creep back in. And life in ministry can be three steps forward and two steps back. You think of the parable of the soils and how some of the gospel seed falls on the path, some falls among the rocks and others grows up with weeds among it and some gospel work is choked out. by the cares of the world. Some gospel work is snatched away by Satan. Others don’t get water and nurture. And so that just fizzles out and dies.
It’s wonderful in ministry when the seed falls on good soil and it grows and it grows and you see fruit. And you can imagine what Paul’s prayers were like for the Corinthian church. Oh Lord, you know, probably like Moses, who are these people? Why have you stuck me with them? They don’t seem to grow. They keep falling into these old patterns and these old paths. And yet he wanted to show up. He wanted to be among them. He wanted to minister to them. He wanted to straighten out what was crooked and pick up what had been knocked over and wanted to do a ministry among them. And so he wants to be at Corinth.
And so we have missions, we have missionaries, we have ministry. The passage shows us a little bit into the life of ministers. Very specifically, we understand the work of the apostle Paul, but we also get a glimpse, at least a teeny went into the life of Timothy and also into the life of Apollos. Our representative from Gideon’s this morning made an interesting comment about pastors.
He said their job is pretty crummy. I think he maybe used a different word, but, It can be that way. Ministry is messy. People can be very difficult. And I think the difficulty that happened at Corinth comes from that Roman culture, those Greek expectations. We want an eloquent minister.
And so perhaps it was that they really, really, really wanted Apollos to come. Now, Apollos, I believe, had been a convert under Priscilla and Aquila. And as he grew in the knowledge of the Lord and was able to speak, maybe he was teaching Sunday school, whatever in our layman’s terms, people really enjoyed listening to him because words rolled off his tongue. He was brilliant. He was eloquent. Maybe he brought the Bible to life, those sorts of things.
Well, Paul is going to send Timothy and any good missionary, any good minister, any good leader knows Who’s gonna be a good fit? Who should you send? And maybe Paul really wanted to send Apollos. He’s gifted, he’s got some graces, he’s got some eloquence and some abilities. They will both hear from him and receive him. Well, apparently they’ve sent for Apollos and he’s like not having any of that. I mean, if you’re Apollos and you’re smart, you’re gonna stay away from Corinth.
So poor Timothy draws the short straw. Now, Timothy, remember, Paul picked him up in the churches at Galatia on his early first missionary trip. Now, Timothy’s probably in his twenties, raised by his mother and grandmother, brought to faith through reading the Old Testament. You know, Paul writes him a couple of letters. Timothy is timid. Timothy is young. Timothy has a weak stomach. Timothy is not very bold and there are several weaknesses about Timothy. And so what you get here is Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians. Apollos is not coming. He’s a big boy. He can make decisions for himself. I’ve told him he should go, but you know, Paul can’t make him go.
And so Timothy’s coming, deal with it. and put him at ease. Isn’t there a lot behind what Paul says, put him at ease. Make sure that you show Timothy the respect that he is due. In fact, he says, when Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you for he is doing the work of the Lord as I am.
Paul is giving them that language that we ought to remember. When a missionary is sent, they are an envoy of Jesus. When a minister stands before you, they are God’s mouthpiece. When someone who represents God is before you, it doesn’t matter if they’re young, old, eloquent. It doesn’t matter if their speech is weak. It doesn’t matter all these things. If they are God’s mouthpiece, we ought to listen.
And so he says to them, when Timothy comes, put him at ease. He’s doing the work of the Lord as I am. Now you can imagine Paul here’s like, boy, This, this is a 50 50 proposition here. They could run them out of town or Timothy could go running back to the dock and hide under the luggage in a boat like Jonah and say, I’m out of here, right? This could be a very difficult thing, but he says, put them at ease. He’s a servant of the Lord. Do not despise him. and then help him on his way in peace. Paul’s hope is that he’ll come back to him at Ephesus and work with him on his journey the rest of the way.
And so ministers, we ought to remember, are human. Missionaries that we send are human. They have gifts and graces, but they also have strengths and they have weaknesses. And so one of my hopes is this passage encourages us to be a sending church, a praying church, a supporting church, and that we think about not just the ministry that people go do, but we also think about the lives of those that are set apart and sent. They are going to uproot and transplant themselves into a faraway place, probably husband and wife and their children. And they’ll do that for some time. And so the other thing we ought to remember is Paul’s little side note. I’m gonna stay at Ephesus. A door has opened. He’s got to stay because the gospel is ripe.
But he also says there are many adversaries. And so perhaps on Wednesday evenings, when we pray for our missionaries, we’ll pray for them by name. We’ll pray for Satan’s opposition to disappear. We’ll pray for the doors of the gospel to be open so that much fruit can be accomplished. These are the marching orders of the church. We go or we send or we disobey. And we want to be a sending church, perhaps, Uh, someone would go from here one day, but we want to be a sending church, a praying and supporting church.
And so may what we do from this place be of help to the kingdom of God. And so that the knowledge of Jesus has spread to the ends of the earth. Let’s ask now for God’s help with that. Our father, we pray that you would put a. a bug in us that would cause us to want to with all our hearts make sure in one way shape or form the gospel is made known to the ends of the earth so that men and women and boys and girls who do not know or worship God would come to know and worship him through our small efforts in this place. May what we have come to know and love be made known to the ends of the earth. And this we ask in the name of Jesus, our savior. Amen. We want to worship our Lord in response with Psalm 67B. May God bless us and shine the light of his face on us so that the earth will know him. Amen.