We're going to be reading in
2 Corinthians chapter 8, and we're going to be reading from
verse 16. But just before we begin our
reading, let me just, if I may, have a little bit of a recap,
just to contextualise where we are in this little narrative,
this letter that the Apostle has sent to the Corinthians.
This chapter 8 and also chapter 9 when we get into it contains
direction from the Apostle Paul concerning a promised gift from
the church at Corinth for the support and for the alleviation
of need. amongst the poor believers and
the saints in Jerusalem. And while there's a number of
different subjects touched upon by the Apostle in this letter,
this is a key one also. And we're going to discover actually
that it is a big event both in the mind of the Apostle and also
with respect to the job that a number of men are going to
be asked to do. So it's this gift that is in
the Apostle's mind at the moment. And the gift will be going to
Jerusalem. Paul is going to take that gift
to Jerusalem from a number of churches as they've made gatherings
for the church in Jerusalem. And we have an example here,
I think, just to pause and touch upon it as we're going on, of
the generosity that the apostle wants to show us that brothers
and sisters should have for those in need. And the Apostle is currently
in Philippi in Macedonia and he had travelled there looking
for Titus. He missed him in Troas which
is a little island and then he'd moved on and found him in Macedonia. And we know that Paul had a previous
letter that he had sent to Corinth, and that challenged the church
to act on a case of immorality that was prevalent amongst them.
And Titus was able to tell Paul that the admonitions that he
had given to the Corinthians in that first letter, what we
call First Corinthians, had been received in good heart. and that
they had acted upon what Paul had said and Paul's grateful
for that to the Lord. So he's in Macedonia at the moment. He's made a collection there
in Macedonia, in Thessalonica and in Philippi for the church
in Jerusalem. And now he is going to be traveling
to Corinth to collect a gift from them as well. So Paul plans
to go to Corinth himself. to receive that gift and in this
passage that we're about to read now in chapter 8, 2 Corinthians
chapter 8 and verse 16, we'll discover that the apostle is
going to send three men on ahead, Titus and two other brethren,
and they will carry this letter from Philippi to Corinth, and
they will oversee and manage the collection of the gift there
in that city. And I think that in itself shows
us wisdom as well on Paul's part, both in giving time for this
collection to be made and also involving several reputable men
in its gathering and for accountability. And it teaches us that within
the church and amongst the people of God, Matters of finance and
matters of resources, indeed all our practical and public
responsibilities should be managed with a propriety and with a wisdom
to make sure that there's no occasion for blame arises. either against the Gospel, nor
against the Gospel's representatives here in our communities. So that the Gospel, nor indeed
preachers of the Gospel, are brought into disrepute. And these
verses speak about the men that Paul is sending on ahead of him,
two men together with Titus. The Corinthians already know
Titus. One of the men seems to be Luke,
the gospel writer, and the other one could be Mark, the other
gospel writer whose gospel we're going through at the moment.
But actually, in truth, since neither of those two men's names
are mentioned, we cannot be absolutely certain about either of them.
So let's read the passage together. It's 2 Corinthians chapter 8
and verse 16. But thanks be to God, which put
the same earnest care into the heart of Titus for you. For indeed he accepted the exhortation,
but being more forward of his own accord, he went unto you. And we have sent with him the
brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches. And not that only, but who was
also chosen of the churches to travel with us with this grace. which is administered by us to
the glory of the same Lord and declaration of your ready mind. Avoiding this, that no man should
blame us in this abundance which is administered by us. Providing for honest things,
not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of
men. And we have sent with them our
brother, whom we have oft times proved diligent in many things,
but now much more diligent upon the great confidence which I
have in you. Whether any do inquire of Titus,
he is my partner and fellow helper concerning you, or our brethren
be inquired of. They are the messengers of the
churches and the glory of Christ. Wherefore, show ye to them and
before the churches the proof of your love and of our boasting
on your behalf. Amen. The Lord bless this reading
from his word. There are a couple of interesting
points that I want to just draw from these verses of a kind of
practical nature perhaps. And first of all, it's just to
note the willingness of these men to be engaged in the Lord's
work and in the service of the churches. and as a parallel to
that, the other side of the coin as it were, the way in which
the Lord has equipped them for the tasks that he has given them
to do. And I want, just if I may, to
encourage us all to be active in the things of God and to be
energised to be engaged for the good of the Lord's people. The
scriptures are full of encouragement to the Lord's people, to believers,
to be active in the work of the gospel for the good of those
around about us. There's no place for us to be
spectators in this work. We are called under the yoke
of Christ, which is an easy yoke, a gentle yoke, and yet it is
a yoke, and a yoke has to be pulled upon, and we are to be
workers and co-workers, labourers and fellow labourers in the gospel
together. And so there is an encouragement
I think here in the way in which these men are identified by the
Apostle as going on ahead, an advanced guard as it were, going
on ahead of the Apostle to prepare the way and we are enabled both
by prayer to prepare the way of the gospel, to prepare the
way of the Lord's servants as they preach the gospel, and also
in our support and in our practical encouragements one for another
in these matters. We've been speaking over the
past few weeks particularly about praise and worship, as we've
been thinking about the last few Psalms and in the book of
Psalms. And we've reminded ourselves
that the Lord doesn't need anything from us. He's worshipped, he's honoured
in our service and in our sacrifices for his work and his church and
his gospel and his people and his preachers. But he doesn't
need that. These are for our benefit. We are blessed by the giving. We are blessed by the praising,
by the worship. The Lord himself doesn't gain
anything. For he is perfect in everything. He doesn't gain from what we
give him, and yet he is pleased and willing to use us and employ
us and we should be willing and glad to be thus employed. And here we have three dedicated
men ready and willing to fulfil this task, which in some respects
might seem quite ordinary. This wasn't, you know, standing
in front of a big congregation, this wasn't being a representative
before a king or a power. This wasn't laying down their
lives for the sake of the Lord. This was going and preparing,
carrying a letter and preparing for the collection of a gift. and yet they were willing to
do it. It was a job that was highly recommended by the apostle
because he saw it to be important, and these men are themselves
highly recommended by Paul in their fulfilment of this work. So ask yourself, and I'll ask
myself, is there anything that I can do in the Lord's service
to help and to assist in the work of the gospel? And notice,
too, how highly these men come recommended. Paul uses words
like honest and diligent and confident and partner and fellow
helper to describe their character and their service. The things that are done for
Christ, the things that are done for the sake of the gospel, are
to be done conscientiously. They're to be done carefully.
and there to be done honourably as unto the Lord, because we
serve at Christ's pleasure and we serve in his cause. And the cause of the gospel and
the cause of Jesus Christ, the cause of God and truth is a high
calling and a blessed privilege to be engaged in. And the Lord
equips these brethren I always like to point out that the Apostle,
when he writes about people like this, invariably he says, I thank
the Lord for them. He doesn't thank the individual. Now, I'm not saying that we ought
not to thank one another, and there is a place for that. But
we also remember that none of us would be desirous of these
roles, seeking after the Lord's glory, if it were not for the
fact that the Lord implanted these desires in us. So the first
cause of any service in the church of Jesus Christ is God himself
and the apostle always takes his gratitude back to the proper
source. The qualities that these men
had were not inherent abilities or special virtues that they
possessed but they were gifts and graces supplied by the Lord
who is to be praised for them. There's no glory in the individual,
but the glory is the Lord's. And we should see ourselves as
merely His humble servants, His grateful instruments in the service
of our King. And notice too that these men
understand the gospel. This is a key criteria also. They understand the criterion.
They understand the gospel. Because Paul says of them, whose
praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches. And so these
men were known as men who understood the true gospel. That may indicate
that they were themselves preachers, as Timothy, sorry, Titus obviously
was. And if indeed this was Luke and
John Mark, then they too were gospel preachers. But whether
they were preachers or not, at least, the very least, they were
mature in their understanding of grace and their dedication
to the gospel of salvation. And there's just one final thought
that I'd like to draw to our attention. There's a little phrase
in the passage that speaks about, it's there in verse 23, speaks
about these men being the messengers of the churches and the glory
of Christ. So Paul describes these men as
both messengers of the churches, which is a very appropriate description
given that their immediate task seems to have been to carry a
message between one church and another, but he also describes
them as the glory of Christ. And it's that little phrase,
I think, that I just want to touch on. This was how these
brethren were to be described to anyone who inquired as to
who they were. Here are these three men coming
into the city of Corinth and somebody says, well, who are
these men? Who are these men and what are
they doing here? The answer was to be, these men are the glory
of Christ. It's how they were to be described.
And it's how they were to be received. They were to be received
by the Corinthians as the glory of Christ. Now, it would not be too difficult
for us to grasp that Christ is the glory of his people. especially
when we think about who he is, he's the God-man, he's the Messiah,
in all that he did and all that he accomplished, coming to redeem
and deliver and reconcile and glorify his church, we might
readily say that we glory in him. He's our righteousness,
he's our sanctification, he's our wisdom, he's our redemption,
he's our holiness and our eternal glory. flows from our Saviour
alone. So what does the Apostle mean
when he suggests that here Christ glories in us? Yes, we glory
in Christ. How does Christ glory in us? And if He glories in these men,
would we not be right in saying that He glories in all believers
because none of us have anything but what we've been given by
God's grace. So is Paul suggesting here that
we in some way enhance Christ's glory? Well, we would have to
pause there, I think, and just remind ourselves that it cannot
be in any way that we enhance his essential glory, his glory
in his Godhead. For Christ in his eternal nature
is all glorious and infinitely so. And even in his humanity,
there's nothing added to him by fallen creatures like us. Because elsewhere, the apostle
says how that even in his humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ's glory
was not diminished. He says in two, sorry, Colossians
chapter two and verse nine, in him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. And it's true that we do glorify
the Saviour when we praise Him. We glorify Him amongst ourselves. When we preach Him, we lift up
His name. We lift Him up before men and
women in preaching the Gospel. But in doing so, we don't add
in any way to His glory. We merely make His glory known. The glory that He already possesses. So maybe there is another way
in which the apostles' words can be interpreted here, and
it's that that I just want to finish on. Perhaps there is one
way that the people of God may be said to glory, to be the glory
of Christ. And that is that we are individually,
and as his people collectively in the church, We are the manifestation
of Christ's glory. We're like the dark objects in
space that the light of the sun hits upon, lands upon, and by
which the glory of the sun is revealed and manifested. And we glorify the Lord in this. that we give a manifestation
to the Lord's glory. We're told that it pleases the
Lord to bless his people. It delights him to do us good. It glorifies him to see the fruit
of his labours and the fulfilment of his work. And you and I fulfil
all of those things, not by what we've done, but by His grace
and His mercy. It pleases the Lord to bless
His people. It delights Him to do us good. It glorifies Him to see the fruit
of His labours and the fulfilment of His work. The pleasure of
the Lord prospers in his hand. We prosper and he is pleased. And that's an amazing thought.
We prosper and he is pleased. He sees of the travail of his
soul and he's satisfied. These glorify Christ. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us. Amen.