We turn together to God's word
this morning, and we'll turn back to the chapter that we read
in the second epistle of Paul to the Corinthians in chapter
four, and we'll read this morning verse five. The second epistle of Paul to
the Corinthians, chapter four, verse five. For we preach not
ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves, your servants,
for Jesus' sake. When Paul wrote his first epistle
to the Corinthians, he did so primarily to address a number
of problems which had arisen in the church at Corinth. And
as you read through the epistle, you can see he turns from issue
to issue addressing those things that had crept into the Church
there, things such as the immorality, such as the observance of the
Lord's Supper, and so forth. When he comes to the second epistle,
it has a slightly different focus, because here it had become apparent
to the Apostle that there were teachers who had risen up within
the Church at Corinth who, essentially, were false teachers. They had
infiltrated the Church, were preaching wrong doctrine, a different
gospel, and in doing so were accusing the apostle himself. They were suggesting that he
was not a true apostle of Jesus Christ. They were suggesting
that the things he did wasn't from a pure and honest heart,
that he had ulterior motives, They were suggesting he wasn't
a trustworthy preacher, because he had promised he was going
to come to them. And now he was saying it was being delayed or
that he would come in a different way. And they were saying, Paul
cannot be trusted. Paul is not a true apostle. They were dragging the church
in a wrong direction. And Paul uses a number of ways
throughout this epistle to describe these false teachers. Firstly,
in the second chapter, verse 17, he describes them like this.
He says, we are not as many, and he's really referring to
the false teachers, we are not as many which corrupt the Word
of God. They were corrupting the Word
of God. They were changing it. We corrupt something, it's changed,
it's made less than what it was before. They were corrupting
the Word of God. They were changing the Word of
God. Changing what it taught and changing its implications
and what the people should do in response. They were corrupting
the Word of God. And I'm sure in doing so they
were imposing man's views upon the Word. They had their ideas
and their views, what they thought was right, and they imposed that
on the Word of God, or at least they interpreted the Word of
God in their way, and in doing so they corrupted the Word of
God. No longer did the church at Corinth hear the preaching
of the pure Word. It was being corrupted. We read
together in chapter 4 that those who were dishonest, he says,
we have renounced. the hidden things of dishonesty,
not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully. And the implication here is that
there were others who were being dishonest and walking in craftiness
and handling the Word of God deceitfully. They were dishonest
in the things that they said, in the preaching of the Word
of God. And they were clever and crafty. in the ways that they did these
things. Our text, verse 5, we preach not ourselves. What's
the implication? These teachers were preaching
themselves. That is, they were preaching
something to exalt themselves. They wanted the praise of men. They wanted to lift up their
own pride. Later on through the epistle
in chapter 10, the apostle says, For we dare not make ourselves
of the number, nor compare ourselves with them that commend themselves. That's verse 12 of chapter 10.
So you see, they were preaching themselves and they were commending
themselves. That is, they were recommending
themselves to others. They were seeking to lift themselves
up. They were wanting to be compared
with other people. I'm a better preacher than that
person. I'm a better leader than that person. I can explain the
word of God better than that person. They were comparing and
commending themselves. They were man focused. And ultimately, he tells us in
chapter 11, that they preached another gospel. If he that cometh
preacheth another Jesus who we have not preached, or if he receive
another spirit which he have not received, or another gospel
which he have not accepted. You see, there was wrong teaching,
a wrong emphasis, a wrong gospel. Now I'm sure there wasn't an
entirely new religion that they were inventing. that they had
discarded the Bible and Jesus Christ altogether. What was subtle
about this message and the teaching of these false teachers was it
was close to the truth. It was still a gospel. It was
still Jesus that they preached, but it was twisted. It was changed. It had a different emphasis.
It had a man-centered emphasis. And that was why it was so dangerous,
because it was close to the truth. But it was not the truth. And we have to be careful today
that these epistles are so relevant as well. There were many who
would call themselves teachers of the Christian gospel, and
we may hear it, and it sounds close to the truth. It sounds
close. It has a familiar ring, but it's
not quite right. The focus isn't quite right. It exalts man and his ability. It exalts man and his goodness
and his righteousness. It pulls down Christ. Whatever
it might be, we need to be very careful and pray for discernment
in these things. So this is what had come. into
the church at Corinth. And Paul writes this second epistle
largely to address this issue. And when he comes to chapter
four, he comes with this teaching, this emphasis, that in his preaching
there would be a difference. When he came as the true apostle
of Jesus Christ, he would not preach himself. He would not
exalt himself. He would preach Christ Jesus
the Lord. And that was Paul's great desire,
and Paul's great concern, that he would preach Christ Jesus
the Lord. We preach not ourselves. Paul was always a humble man. He was always humble. Contrast that to his life as
a Pharisee. Before his conversion, I'm sure
he was anything but humble. He was proud of his heritage,
proud of his knowledge, proud of his works, his righteousness. He was proud of his position
as a Pharisee who had sat under the feet of Gamaliel. And yet
when we come to his conversion on Damascus Road, his calling
as an apostle, and his following teaching and his journeys, he
has humility throughout it all. You think when he wrote, and
he opens the chapter, chapter one of his first epistle to the
Corinthians, what was his great concern? Well, there was division
in the church. Some people were joining themselves
to certain individuals. Every one of you said, I'm of
Paul. There was the Paul camp. I'm of Apollos, there was the
people who followed Apollos. I'm of Cephas, the people who
followed Peter. And I of Christ, the people who
followed Christ. Different camps, different emphasis,
different people who they had as their head. And the apostle
challenges them. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified
for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul? You see,
it says it's not me. I don't want a certain section
of people who follow me as opposed to Peter or someone else. It's
Christ that you follow. Christ is not divided. I was
not crucified for you. You weren't baptized in my name.
I thank God that I baptised none of you but Crispus and Gaius,
for Christ sent me not to baptise but to preach the gospel. You
see, he didn't want to be lifted up. He was humble in the way
he addressed them. He didn't want a section of the
church dedicating themselves to him. He didn't want people
to think that he was great because the people he had baptised. I
don't come to baptise, I preach the gospel. He was humble in
his life. But he had reasons, naturally
you could say, to be proud, didn't he? He could have been proud. You think of that occasion when
Paul was, the people wanted to bow down, wanted to make them
gods and worship them. When the people This is in Lystra,
when the people saw Paul, the things that he had done, he had
healed the cripple, he lifted up our voices and said, the gods
have come down in the likeness of men. They called Barnabas
Jupiter and Paul Mercurius because he was the chief speaker. He
could say he did, through God, an amazing miracle. And the people
wanted to worship them as gods. Now you say, that could have
really played to his pride, couldn't it? And yet he maintained this
humility. We preach not ourselves. So God helped Paul to walk out
his calling as blessed as he was in the spirit of humility.
I do not preach myself. Now this is an important lesson
for us today. There is often a temptation for
pride. If we analyse almost everything
we do, whether in or outside of the service of the Church,
there is very often an element of pride. We're proud of our abilities,
proud of our gifts, proud of what we do and how we do it. And in doing so, we want to claim
some credit for ourselves. We want someone to comment. We
want someone to say something. We want someone to notice. We
want some credit for us to think well of us. You see, this even
creeps into the service of Christ, the service of God. See if we're
used perhaps in something we say or used in teaching. We think, well, this person was
blessed through me, through what I said, through how I encouraged
them. And instead of thanking God for
the ability we had and praising him that he has blessed them
because it's him that's done it, we want some credits. You know, even if someone is
blessed through a prayer, if we've been praying for a certain
person or praying for a certain outcome, And then God answers
that prayer. Isn't there some element that
wants to claim some credit that we prayed that prayer, that they
were blessed because we prayed? You see, there's an element of
pride in everything, even in the service of God. And you know,
this is particularly dangerous for preachers. This is something
that can easily be a challenge and a struggle. That if God uses
the ministry, that we think, well, how wonderful we are. We should pray for a spirit that
Paul had. We preach, not ourselves. And
I say it applies to preachers. This isn't only for preachers.
It applies for all of us. The Church of God, we do not
exalt ourselves. we do not preach ourselves and
remember this if we are blessed in the ministry is thankful we
should be for the instrument but it is God who has blessed
us it is God who has granted salvation by his grace and the
servant is only a servant we preach not So if Paul didn't
preach himself, he didn't preach him as the way, he didn't preach
him as the authority, who did he preach? Or what did he preach? Christ Jesus the Lord. He preached Christ Jesus the
Lord. This was the centre of his ministry. This must be the centre and the
substance of all ministry. And of all preaching today, not
only preaching that you hear from a pulpit, but the ministry
of teaching, the ministry of distribution, the ministry of
encouraging one another, the ministry of listening to one
another, all of the different ministries of God's church should
be centred and grounded in Christ Jesus the Lord. And it is vital
that when we come, perhaps, to try and discern the ministry,
and whether it is of God or not, here is a test. Is Christ Jesus
the Lord the centre of that ministry? Is he the substance of it? But I think what the Apostle
says here is very important, the order of what he uses. Christ, Jesus, the Lord. What should be the center of
our preaching and of our ministry? Christ. Christ. What does that mean? Well, Christ
in the New Testament is essentially the same as Messiah in the Old
Testament. One is the Hebrew, one is the
Greek. And what is the Messiah, the
Christ? Well, it means the promised one. It means the anointed one. It
takes us right back to the fall in the Garden of Eden when one
was promised who would come to bruise the head of the serpent.
There was a promise of a Messiah. the one who would be anointed
by God, set apart by God for a particular purpose, to lead
his people, to save his people, to bless his people, the Messiah,
the Christ. He would come from the seed of
the woman, as promised in Genesis 3.15, the seed of the woman would
bruise the head of the serpent, but he would also come from God.
He would be God's servant sent, and God the plan throughout all
eternity that he would come, the Messiah. So what do we see
in this element? We preach not ourselves but Christ. Here we preach that God has come,
sent from glory to this earth, the eternal second person of
the Trinity, the Son of God, the promised Christ, that he
would come as God has come to earth. Isn't that an amazing
and glorious thought? God, eternal, self-existent,
I am that I am. That's how God names himself
to Moses. I am that I am. He has always been, always will
be, no change, no deviance, Always the eternal God. He is dependent
and reliant upon nobody and nothing. He does not need us. He does
not need his creation. He always has been God and always
will be. Self-existent, all-glorious and
eternal God. The Creator, the heavens of the
earth, who spoke all things into being, and they were because
of the power of His voice. And we today, as his creation,
owe everything to him. Our life and every breath that
we take belongs to God. Everything belongs to him. And
yet the world and the creation that he has made is fallen and
immersed in sin. To think that that God, the great
I am, became his creation. He became his creation. God became
flesh. God with us. And God always will
be identified in that sense with his creation because Christ risen
again will always be in that human form. as he rose from the
grave and ascended into glory and to live eternally in his
resurrected body. In that sense, God, for eternity
to come, is fully engaged in his own creation. And he did all of that to save
sinners. God was willing to do that to
give life to the dead. This is something of what's meant
by Christ. The Promised Anointed One has
come. God has come. So we preach Christ,
but we also preach Jesus. We shall call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. Jesus is the
Deliverer, the Saviour. That's what the name means. It's
the same, isn't it, as Joshua in the Old Testament, the one
who delivered and led the people of Israel into the promised land. Jesus, the Savior. Here we have not so much his
divinity, but his humanity. We preach Christ as man, fully
God and fully man. Jesus Christ. as he came to be
a real man, came to be born in a manger in Bethlehem and to
live amongst men, he was fully human like you and I are fully
human, sin accepted. He felt what we feel. He knew
the emotions, the instincts that we know. Fully man. And yet as man he was able to
represent man. to stand in man's place, to carry
the sins of man and suffer the death of man, and to suffer that
we might be saved. This is what we preach. Christ,
God's eternal plan. Jesus, the Saviour who lived
and died in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. That's the essence and centre
of the Gospel. that God has sent his son, that
he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. And then he says, the Lord, Christ
Jesus, the Lord. He is the Lord, the Lord of all. The Lord of the heavens and the
earth, he is the King of kings and Lord of lords, the sovereign
almighty God. But for Paul, he was also his
Lord. And that's true for every Christian.
Jesus Christ, the Lord, but also Jesus Christ, my Lord. He is the sovereign head of the
church. Sovereign One for whom we must
yield our obedience and who we must serve and we must obey. The Great Redeemer, the Great
Head of all things who has looked upon us and in His sovereignty
come to bless us. This is the preaching of the
Gospel. We preach not ourselves because
the preacher is not Christ. The preacher is not Jesus and
the preacher is not the Lord. To claim so is blasphemy. We
preach Christ Jesus, the Lord. This is the message that is so
wonderful to be able to proclaim and what a blessing it is for
each one of us to hear. God sent his son, he suffered
and died as a real man and now he is Lord of the church and
owns us and we yield our obedience to him. He is the one we must
look to. He is the one that must be lifted
up in the ministry. And that's what Paul's concern
was. That's what Paul's desire was. We preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus, the Lord. But then he goes on further to
describe who he was. In the light of that, who was
he? And in the light of the preaching
of the gospel in its truest sense, who are we? And if we have been
blessed by the knowledge of Christ Jesus, our Lord, then what are
we? Ourselves, your servants, for
Jesus' sake. Your servants. What does it mean to be a servant?
What does it mean to serve? Well, we have, before we come
to the apostle, we have our greatest example of a servant, don't we,
in the Lord Jesus Christ. The great servant who came to
serve his father and to serve his people. The Lord Jesus Christ
is that greatest example that we can look to. He told the disciples, he said to them, you know that
the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them. They that
are great exercise authority upon them, but it shall not be
so among you. But whosoever will be great among
you, let him be your minister. Whosoever will be chief among
you, let him be your servant. Even as a son of man came not
to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life
a ransom for many. There is the example of a servant. The great king, the eternal God
came to this earth Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
And then to give his life a ransom for many. That is what it means
to serve. To serve the unworthy, the undeserving. And then to pay the ultimate
price on their behalf. And that is our example then.
As we consider, well, what does it mean to serve? To serve the
Lord? To serve his people? There is
our example. He came not to minister, sorry,
not to be ministered unto, but to minister. And we should consider
our lives and our response to this glorious gospel in the light
of who he was and what he did. I think again of the time when
he, in the upper room, took that towel and washed the feet of
the disciples. low position, that lowly act. And yet he said then, if I then,
your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, so also ought to wash,
so ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given
you an example that ye should do as I have done to you. You
see, the Lord gives us these examples. He came to serve. He came and washed the disciples'
feet, and we shouldn't think we'll be any greater than that.
We shouldn't think that the acts that Jesus stooped himself to
are acts too low for us. This is an example of what it
means to serve. Sometimes we have an idea that a servant,
particularly in the Lord's service, is a place of high office, a
place of great pride, it's a place of great responsibility, it's
a place of great privilege, but it's a place where we should
be willing to get on our knees and wash each other's feet. That
is what it means to serve. that we come down. We're not
important. We're not what we think we are.
We are servants in the service of God. Ultimately, we have that example
in Gethsemane. I've mentioned this a few times
recently. It struck me at Lord's Supper in April when we were
together. The Lord Jesus Christ in Gethsemane
knew what was before him. And he praised that prayer three
times. If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless,
my will but thine be done. You know, the Lord had been,
particularly in those three years, engaged in very important ministry.
He had been serving the people. He had healed the sick and raised
the dead. He had provided food for the hungry. He had opened
the eyes of the blind. He had taught the multitudes.
Many had rejected him. A good number had received him.
His ministry had been fruitful in many ways. I know there were
many who turned away from him, but there was work that was done. And you see, it could be argued,
and I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but it could be
argued, there was so much more to do. There were so many who
hadn't heard his teaching. There were still blind people
in Israel. There were still lame people in Israel. There were
still people dying who could be raised to the dead. There
was still work to be done. And yet for Jesus, what did it
mean to serve? It meant to be utterly rejected. even by his disciples for a time,
who forsook him and fled. It meant to be accused, to be
beaten, to be mocked. It meant to be judged falsely
and wrongly condemned. It meant to carry a cross and
be nailed to it. It meant to die. That's what it meant to serve. Nevertheless, not my will. but
thine be done." And that was the way that he had to go to
serve as the Lord had called him and commanded him. And we shouldn't expect anything
different. We might say, well, there's so much work to be done,
so many things I can be involved in, quite rightly, important
work to be done, important things to be doing, But our calling
might be to lay that aside and to become nothing, to become
unimportant, so that God's work might be done. The Lord Jesus
was rejected, but for a glorious reason and a glorious purpose,
so that God's salvation work would be done. And we may have
to learn that we come down We lose our position so that God
can be exalted. And that's a hard, hard lesson
to learn. So he says, you are servants.
We are servants. for Jesus' sake. So we have that
great example of our Lord Jesus Christ as the great servant. But the Apostle, as he writes
to the Corinthians in this epistle, uses another number of words
to describe what it meant for him to be a servant. And there's
great teaching in that as well. The first word he uses in chapter
3 is the word minister. The word minister. And he says
this in chapter 3 verse 6, who also hath made us able ministers
of the New Testament. So the apostle was a minister.
What does it mean to be a minister? Well, often we think of that
as someone who preaches. It does include that, but it
doesn't only include that. In a sense, all of us are God's
servants, all of us are God's ministers. This has really means
someone who attends their master. Someone who runs their errands,
someone who delivers their messages, someone who does the things that
the Master calls them to do, does their bidding. A minister
is someone who serves in doing what the Lord commands them to
do. So in that aspect we see we preach
not ourselves, we are servants, we are ministers. And each one
of us, if we're a believer this morning, is a minister. If the
Lord calls us to do something, we do it, or we should. If he
bids us in a certain path, we walk it out. If he gives us a
certain message, we receive it as his word, and we act upon
it. We are ministers. We do his bidding. The apostle here in chapter four
uses the word servant, and it is a different Greek word. From
the word minister, it's the word servant. And here is more the
idea of a slave. So the apostle's saying, I'm
a servant in that I do his bidding, but I'm also a slave. I am bound
to my master. I am bound to do his will. I
cannot bring myself out of it. Indeed, he wouldn't bring himself
out of it. It's a voluntary binding. But he is a slave. which means
he is in complete subjection to him. He owns the Lord as his
sovereign master, his all-wise master. And it is not for him
to argue with him. It is not for him to debate with
him. It is not for him to question the orders of his master. He's
a slave. He's a minister. And he is bound
to his master forever. And so are we. If we're a Christian,
then we are servants, we are slaves. We've been bought with
a price, we've been bound to our master by the work of Christ
and the work in our hearts, and as such it's not for us to argue
and question, it's not for us to break free. We are willing
slaves. There's another element of what
it means to be a servant. Later on in this epistle, he
refers to himself as an ambassador. A minister, a servant, and an
ambassador. Well, what does that teach us?
Well, what's an ambassador? An ambassador is a representative. It's someone who represents,
as we use the word, other countries. We have embassies around the
world in different cities, and each country sends an ambassador
to represent the government in that embassy. And they should
work the commands, do the will of the government back at home,
but also speak on its behalf, seek the best interests of the
country they represent. They're an ambassador. for that
land. And the apostle says, I'm a minister,
I'm a servant, slave, and I'm an ambassador. I represent my
master. I speak on his behalf. I seek
to do his will before others. He's a representative. And you
and I, we're ambassadors for Christ. We represent him. Now I hope, like a good ambassador,
we seek to do so honorably. We seek to represent his will
and his way and that others see through us to the master who
we represent. But remember, an ambassador can
be a bad ambassador. And if we're a believer here
and we do represent the Lord, we need to be careful we're not
a poor witness and a bad ambassador. and a bad representative of our
Lord Jesus Christ. So he's an ambassador. Chapter
six, he refers to himself as a worker. We then as workers
together with him, we beseech you also that you receive not
the grace of God in vain. A worker, someone who works,
is energised, doesn't just sit down and put his feet up and
say that all is done, but continues to work on the behalf of the
Lord. But you notice he says he's workers together with him. There's cooperation here. And
this is an amazing thought, together with him. You see the apostle, He knew
that he couldn't bring, through his own ability, blessing to
the people. He knew that it was not himself that must be preached,
it was Christ Jesus the Lord. He knew that only God could do
that, and therefore it's for God to work. But he says, I'm
a worker with him, together with him. to think that both were
engaged in the work, in the ministry. That God, yes, he brought the
blessing, but Paul was an instrument that it might flow through to
the hearing and blessing of the people. And that's our privilege
as we minister and preach, and as we distribute and seek to
reach out, it's our privilege to know, yes, it's God who works,
it's God who blesses, it's God who reaches into the heart and
applies the word, but we are workers together with him. We have the privilege of being
used as his instrument, and that's our privilege and our duty. So he is a worker, and also,
of course, He is an apostle. He was an apostle of Jesus Christ. Now, of course, this is unique
to Paul and to the other few apostles of the New Testament.
The apostles were people who were literally and personally
called and sent out by the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, each
of the disciples were in that situation, and the apostle himself
saw the Lord on the Damascus Road and was called as an apostle.
So that was unique. In that sense, we are not apostles.
We do not have the authority that they had, and we have not
been personally and directly sent by the Lord Jesus Christ
himself in a physical way like they were. But we do have a similar
work. In the sense that we have the
word of God to proclaim, and we can do so when we stick to
the word of God with authority. Not my word, not my inspiration. But as the word of God is proclaimed,
there is authority behind it, because it's true and reliable.
And in that sense, therefore, the servant of God should be
heard. and respected because they preach
the Word of God and they declare as an apostle in that sense with
the authority of the Word. Not an apostle in the New Testament
sense, but has a similar work in that way. So this is what
it means, something of what it means to be a servant. Ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. He served Jesus, his Lord, and
in doing so he was a minister, he was a slave, he was an ambassador,
and he was a worker together with Christ. That is our position
as well. Now the servant, we read, is
worthy of his hire. Servant is worthy of the blessings
that God pours on them because they are a faithful servant.
But remember, A servant is but a servant. In all of this, I
hope I can say this with our pastoral way, it behoves us to
particularly remember him and remember him in prayer because,
be assured, he faces the temptations for pride and difficulties that
every one of us faces. And it's important to honour
him as the under-shepherd over us and the servant whom God has
given. But it's important also to put
the right perspective in its place, to remember that he serves
the Master and that Christ is the head of the Church. He needs
our prayers. So, we are servants. And this is the message then
that Paul was so desiring to preach. He loved to serve. He was a willing servant. But he wanted the Corinthian
church to be in no doubt that in his ministry he did not preach
himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord. This is what must be preached
today And this is the message that we must focus on, and by
his grace, hear and receive today. This morning, may we be helped
to look beyond any man or any means, and remember Christ Jesus,
the Lord. He is the way, the truth, and
the life. He is the way to glory. He is the way to have our sins
forgiven. He is the way to know the Lord.
He is our best friend. He is our shepherd. He is our
saviour. Christ Jesus the Lord. May we in true humility seek
him and then serve him. Remember the servant can point
you to the door. but the Master has the authority
to let you in. Go to Him and He will grant you
the blessings that no servant can. We preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for
Jesus' sake. Amen.