Now, you know that we've seen
this in the first epistle and so far a little bit here in the
second epistle, that false prophets had come in there to the church
at Corinth and they tried to slander Paul and his message.
And he's forced here again to defend himself. He said in the
last chapter, our gospel is a sweet savor of Christ to them that
are saved. Yet he's still forced to defend
himself here again. So that's what he begins doing
in chapter three and verse one. He says, Do we begin again to
commend ourselves or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation
to you or letters of commendation from you? Now, here's Paul, he's
forced to defend himself, but is he bragging on himself? Is
he doing this looking for glory from men? Is he looking for a
letter of recommendation from the people there at Corinth that
he can give to other people? Or worse yet, does he need a
letter of recommendation to give them so they'll listen to his
message? You know, a better question would
be, why does Paul have to defend himself here? What he's telling
them is we shouldn't have to commend ourselves to you. We
shouldn't have to get a letter of recommendation to give you.
You've experienced the power of our message. You were saved
by that message. You saw Christ in that message.
You've been blessed by that message. You of all people know that this
message was preached to you in sincerity and truth. And it wasn't
preached for our glory, but for the glory of Christ. We didn't
preach this message to you for our gain. We preached it for
your gain so that you'd win Christ and be found in him. And, you
know, I thought God's preachers, God's preachers now don't need
letters of recommendation. They don't need degrees framed
on the wall in order to impress people, not in order to impress
believers. That's what false teachers do.
You know, they got their degrees framed on the wall and they got
their letters of recommendation. You know, they got their pictures
taken with famous people and everything. But our message is
our letter of recommendation. When you hear the gospel and
you're blessed by it, you know that's the gospel. That's the
preaching of Christ. You know, I do a little bit of
traveling around preaching in different places, and I was preaching
somewhere one time, and a lady never met me. She never heard
of me, didn't know anything about me, and she sat there. I was
introduced to her before the service, and afterwards she said,
well, I'd never met him before, but I know I found another preacher
I can listen to. How did she know that? Did she
get a letter of recommendation from somebody? No. She heard the gospel. And that's
what Paul's saying. Do we need this letter of recommendation
from you or for you? We've got our conference coming
up. Anybody want a letter of recommendation for the men John's
invited to come here and preach? No. You know these men. You've heard them preach. You've
heard the gospel from them. Their message. is their letter
of recommendation. And in verse 2, Paul gives us,
here's another letter of recommendation we have. You are our epistle,
written in our hearts, known and read of all men. Paul tells
them, you, who I've preached to, you are my living letter
of recommendation. You're my living credentials
for my ministry. Paul came and he preached to
these folks. They believed Christ. God gave them faith in his son. He gave them love for Christ
and love for the brethren. They stood, some of them anyway,
stood steadfast in the gospel. Those are all testimonials that
God was with Paul, that God blessed his preaching and the power of
the Holy Spirit. And Paul says, now you've been
saved under this message. You weren't converted under a
false gospel, but under the truth. And you're our living letter
of recommendation that men can read to see the evidence, the
fruit of our ministry, of our message. You know, last week,
last Sunday morning, I went to preach in Piteville. I always
enjoy going there to preach and fellowship with the folks. We
had good services. And I was reading this verse
this week, and I thought that congregation in Piteville is
a living letter of recommendation to the ministry of Tom Harding. That's that is really true. They
love Christ. They love the gospel. They love
each other. I was there teaching and preaching. I looked up and there was a woman
out there finishing my sentences. I mean, they love the gospel.
They know the gospel. That's a living letter of recommendation
to Tom's ministry. And you can tell a lot about
a pastor. by getting to know the people that he's preached
to for years, that they've been under his ministry for a long
time. You can get to know a lot about that man because they will
be a reflection of what they've heard. You know, the old saying,
you are what you eat. Well, that's true spiritually,
too. You are what you eat. If you've had a steady diet of
Christ, a steady diet of the gospel and God's word, You'll
be a reflection of that. You'll be a reflection of Christ.
You'll be a living letter of recommendation, whether good
or bad, to the ministry that you've been sitting under. And
Paul says this letter is written in our hearts. These people are
not cold statistics to Paul. They're not numbers on a ledger
that he can go brag about, you know, a number of people that
were converted under his ministry. These people were written on
his heart. Now, it's a blessing when God writes you on anyone's
heart. That's a blessing. You're on their heart to pray
for them and to know that they love you and that you're on their
heart. But that's especially true when
God's written you on the heart of the man that's your pastor,
that preaches the gospel to you, because if you're written on
that man's heart, He's not going to just get up here and give
you a lecture on the gospel. He's going to preach to you from
his heart, from his heart, out of love for you and out of care
for your well-being. And that's a blessing. And Paul
says that you're the letter that's written on our hearts. In verse
three, he goes on, he says, for as much as you are manifestly
declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written
not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Not in tables
of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. Now, Paul told
him, you're our letter of recommendation. But let's be clear. God gets
all the glory for that work. He gets all the glory. Paul is
just the instrument that God used. God's the one that did
the saving. He's the one that gave life.
He's the one that gave faith. And really, Paul says, what you
really are, you're the epistle of Christ. Not so much our epistle,
but the letter of recommendation to the power of Christ, to the
love of God, to the grace of God. You're a living letter of
recommendation to the mercy of God in saving sinners. And Paul
says, we're just the instruments that God used for that. Really,
you are the epistle of Christ. And the church is a letter written
by God, the Holy Spirit. Every letter is written by somebody.
This letter is written by God, the Holy Spirit, and it's written
on your heart. Now, you remember when God called
Moses up to Mount Sinai. The finger of God wrote that
the law and those tables of stone he gave to Moses was that same
finger of God that writes the gospel on the hearts of his people.
But he's not writing that gospel in tables of stone. He's not
carving that gospel in the old hard heart that you were born
with. He's writing that gospel on a heart that's been made soft
by the grace of God. A new heart. Look over in Ezekiel
chapter 36. He's not getting out his carving
instruments to carve the gospel of his son and that old dead
heart that we're born with. In Ezekiel 36, verse 24. For I will take you from among
the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring
you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness and
from all your idols. Will I cleanse you? A new heart
also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.
And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and
I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within
you, and cause you to walk in my statues, And you shall keep
my judgments and do them because you've got a new heart, a soft
heart of flesh. Now look over in Jeremiah chapter
31. Soft heart of flesh. But this will be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and
write it in their hearts. And I will be their God, and
they shall be to me a people. Now, if God's going to write
his law in our hearts, it can't be the one we're born with. That
heart's enmity against God. That's what Ezekiel's saying.
He gives us a new heart, a heart of flesh, a soft, loving heart. A heart that loves God, that
loves His Word, that loves His Gospel. We've been given a new
heart that contains the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've
been given a heart that contains the Holy Spirit, just like that
ark contained those tables of stone back in the tabernacle.
This new heart contains life. Just the same way that that ark,
the Ark of the Covenant, contained the law on tables of stone in
the tabernacle. And this new heart has the gospel
of Christ written on it with the finger of God. Now, Christ
is the author of the gospel. Christ is the subject of the
gospel. Christ is the life of the gospel. Christ is the one
who's formed in the hearts of his people. Christ is the one
who makes the gospel effectual. All this is a work of Christ. And this is what Paul is saying.
Preachers were just voices crying in the wilderness. Look to the
Lamb of God. God's the one that's got to give
you eyes to look and a heart to believe him and receive him.
Now, verse four, he says, In such trust have we through Christ
to God. Believers, God's children, trust
the Lord Jesus Christ, we trust him. Paul says we've got a trust
and a confidence that God has called us, first of all, to preach
the gospel. And that's a good thing. That's a necessary thing,
because there's no preaching without the call of God. None
whatsoever. We must preach in the power of
God, in the power of God the Holy Spirit, or else our preaching
is vain. It's just a voice in the wind
is all it is. without the power of the Holy
Spirit. So God's got to call a man to preach or else it's
just going to be useless. And we trust that God's done
that. Second, we have confidence that God's called us to preach
and that he saved you through the preaching of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's given you faith in him. He showed you Christ.
He's given you life. And we have confidence, thirdly,
that God has given us all access to his throne of grace. through
the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's all through
Christ now. Now he says in verse five, remember people, you know,
I told you might be thinking Paul's bragging on himself now.
So he says in verse five, not that we're sufficient of ourselves
to think anything as, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. Now, don't be mistaken. No one
who knows anything about themselves or no one who knows anything
about God or God's grace will ever think they're sufficient
in themselves to do anything. We don't even have sufficient
strength to take our next breath physically, to just take a breath
unless God permits. We are the most insufficient
creatures I can imagine. And certainly we're not sufficient
to do anything spiritually. We're not sufficient to preach.
Who's sufficient for these things? We're not sufficient to pray.
We're not sufficient to hear the gospel. We're not sufficient
to believe the gospel. We're not sufficient to repent.
We're not sufficient to look to Christ. I was going through
my notes yesterday and I thought, we're not even sufficient to
rest in Christ. We're so insufficient that we
can't do nothing. We need God's grace to do nothing,
just to rest in Christ. That's how insufficient we are.
We need the power of God to do nothing. Look back here in chapter
two. I've written down the wrong. No, I did. Chapter two, verse
16. To one, we're the saver of death
unto death, and to the other, the saver of life unto life.
And who is sufficient for these things? Well, no one. No one's
sufficient for these things in themselves. But now, Henry said this in his
outline. God did not find us sufficient. But he has made us
sufficient. He didn't find us sufficient.
We're not sufficient in ourselves, but he has made us sufficient.
That's what Paul says here. But our sufficiency is of God.
Of course, we're not sufficient in ourselves. But now the Lord's
given gifts to people to use for His glory. We know men who
can preach. I mean, they can flat preach.
Well, the Lord's gifted them, made them sufficient to be able
to do that. And it would just be plain silly to say, well,
you know, they're not sufficient to preach. Well, in themselves,
they're not. But God's made them so. He's
given them the gift to do it. There are men here who have the
gift of public prayer. And we don't feel very adequate,
do we? Gary and I were talking about that. We don't feel very
adequate. We're not sufficient in ourselves, but the Lord's
gifted them to be able to do this, made them able. And it
would just be denying the truth to say, well, they're not able
to, you know, they're not sufficient to do this. They are because
God's given them the gift. He's made them sufficient. And
what we're saying is that we are what we are by God's grace. Remember back in 1 Corinthians,
verse 15. In verse 10 or chapter 15, verse
10, but by the grace of God, I am what I am and his grace,
which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, it made me sufficient
for the work that God's called me to. But I labored more abundantly
than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God, which was in
me, even though I did labor more abundantly than they all. It
wasn't me. I wasn't sufficient to do that.
It was the grace of God which was in me. And our sufficiency
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's made us able. He's made
us sufficient. He's made us mean and fit. Look
here at verse six. Who also has made us able ministers
of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit.
For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. Now, God,
in his mercy and grace to the church, has made men qualified
for the ministry. And like I said, that's not bragging.
It's just a fact. As it's pleased the Lord for
the good of the church, he's raised men up and made them sufficient
for this task. And Paul says we're made ministers
of good news, of the New Testament, the new covenant. Now, he says
a new covenant. You know, we're not talking about
a covenant that God newly made because the first one didn't
work. So we had to make a new one. That's not what he's talking
about. This is the new covenant. But if you look over Hebrews
13, we'll see it's a new covenant, but it's also the everlasting
covenant. It's the eternal covenant. Hebrews 13, verse 20. Now, the
God of peace that brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus,
that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting
covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will.
It's the everlasting covenant. And we're not talking about a
covenant that's newly revealed because this covenant was revealed
in the Old Testament scriptures. It was revealed in type and shadow
and promise. But it was revealed, it was promised.
What we're talking about here is the difference between the
old covenant and the new covenant. The covenant of the law of Moses
and the covenant of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's
called new because it's newly fulfilled. In human time, it's
newly fulfilled in the person and work of Christ. It's called
new Because now it's finally clearly revealed through the
preaching of the gospel. Look back in Romans chapter two
or Romans chapter three. It's newly revealed in the gospel,
it's not hidden in the types and shadows and promises anymore.
Now it's clearly revealed. In verse 21, but now. the righteousness of God without
the laws manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets,
even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ,
unto all and upon all them that believe. For there is no difference
for all of sin to come short of the glory of God, being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God has set forth, clearly set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood. to declare his righteousness
for the remissions of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God, and to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness,
to clearly declare his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. That's clearly revealed
to us now. This covenant is called new because
it's new every morning, just like God's mercies are new every
morning. This gospel is new every day. I couldn't even count up. I guess
I could if I sat down and got a calculator. I might could estimate
it. How many times I've heard the gospel in my life. It's new
every morning. Every time you hear it, it gives
manna, fresh manna for today. It's new, new every morning.
And then again, look over Hebrews chapter 10. It's new Because it's going to be eternally
new. It'll never be replaced. Hebrews 10, verse 9. Then said he, lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first. He
taketh away that first revealed covenant, the covenant of the
law. He taketh away the first that he may establish the second.
By the witch will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. This is for all. It's never going
to be replaced. And God has made us ministers
of this new covenant. Now, we're not ministers of the
letter of the law. All the letter of the law can
do is tell you what you're required to do, show you what you must
do and then tell you what the consequences are when you don't
do what the law requires. The letter of the law will show
you the problem, but it'll never show you the solution. The letter
of the law will tell you what God requires, but it will never
tell you how to obey God. The law never tells you how to
obey, it just tells you that you're required to obey. And
we're not ministers of the death of the letter of the law. We're
ministers of the Spirit, which gives life. Look at Romans chapter
7. Thank God we're not ministers
of the letter of the law. Paul says in Romans 7 verse 6,
but now we're delivered from the law that being dead wherein
we were held, That we should serve in newness of spirit, not
in the oldness of the letter. We serve in the newness of the
spirit. Well, what is it to minister
of the spirit which gives life? Well, it's to be a minister of
the gospel of Christ, which in the power of the Holy Spirit,
in the hands of God, the Holy Spirit gives eternal life to
sinners. Now, the letter of the law kills.
and stops there. That's the end of the story.
The gospel also kills, doesn't it? But then it makes alive,
it gives life. The gospel will do what the law
does. It'll reveal our inability to
keep the law or to satisfy God's holiness. But then the gospel
goes further and reveals Christ, who kept the law for us and satisfied
God's holy justice for us as our substitute. The gospel, the
new covenant, reveals our sin, just like the law does. But then
the gospel goes further and washes us in the blood of Christ. The
gospel reveals our dead, sinful nature, but then gives a new
nature. The gospel shows us we've got
a dead heart of stone. Then the gospel gives us a new
heart flesh. The gospel reveals a heart and
a mind that hates God, that's enmity against God. and then
gives a new heart and a new mind that loves God, that loves His
commandments, that loves His Word, that produces true repentance
and faith. And none of that can happen without
the power of God the Holy Spirit. We are in way over our head if
we ever try to make any of that effectual. That's a work of God
the Holy Spirit. It's the Spirit that giveth life. And if there's no spirit, there's
no life. I mean, it really and truly is
as simple as that. If there's no spirit, there's
no life. And we must be so careful to preach the gospel and the
power of the spirit and demonstration of the power of the spirit to
see God's face and beg his spirit. Or else what we're left doing.
Is preaching the letter of the gospel just to preach Dry dead
doctrine is written down on a piece of old parchment. It's just it's
the letter of the gospel, not the gospel and the power of the
spirit. Now, we know the letter of the law kills. But I'm telling
you, the letter of the gospel kills, too. If the gospel, all
it is, is the letter of the gospel, you're no better off hearing
that than the law. Preaching the letter of the gospel.
Is just to preach the ABCs of the gospel. It's just you're
checking off the checklist. Yeah, I got that one. I got that
one. I got that one. I got that one. I'm done. That's the letter
of the gospel. It's a whole lot different than
preaching Christ. Preaching the letter of the gospel
might make some true statements, but it's just external truths.
It's ignoring the spirituality of the gospel, just like Saul
of Tarsus ignored the spirituality of the law. And what did he say
when he ignored the spirituality of the law? It killed me. That's
what that's what will happen. And preaching the gospel and
the power of the spirit. So obviously requires God, the
Holy Spirit, to be present. That's why Gary asked for his
presence or else we met here in vain. And a believer will
recognize when a man's preaching the gospel and the power of the
Holy Spirit, they'll recognize it like that. And they might
not be able to tell you exactly what it was. They might not be
able to put their finger on what it was, but they'll know it's
the gospel. And you know how they'll know?
They're eating. Somebody's giving them food,
not telling them the recipe from Betty Crocker cookbook about
good food. All the difference in the world.
They'll know they're hearing the gospel because they're being
given life, not hearing about the biology. that goes into lungs
breathing and a heart beating and circulating blood around
the body. All the difference in the world. And people know
when a group of people or someone has received the gospel and the
power of the Holy Spirit to look over 1st Thessalonians 1 and
I'll quit. They'll know that you've received
the gospel. It'll be obvious when you've
received the gospel. And the power of the Holy Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 1 verse 5 For our gospel came not unto
you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost,
and in much assurance, as ye know what manner of men we were
among you for your sakes. And ye became followers of us
and of the Lord, having received the word, and much affliction
with joy of the Holy Ghost. So that you were examples to
all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded
out the word of the Lord, not in Macedonia and Achaia, but
also in every place your faith that God were to spread abroad
so that we need not to speak anything. See, this is obvious.
We don't need to speak anything. Everybody knows it. For they
themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you
and how you turn to God from idols. to serve the living and
true God, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised
from the dead, even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to
come. That's how people know you received
the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. Makes all the difference
in the world. All right. Lord bless you.