LAUGH 'N LEARN

An Encouragement Ministry of Verde Valley Christian Church Of Cottonwood Arizona
http://vvchristianchurch.net

Issue # 374 May 17,  2010

LAUGH

LEARN

Jim's Manuscript

May 16, 2010

How To Get Great Grace Mileage

2 Corinthians "True Comfort" Series

Text:  Chapter 6

There are two kinds of people.  One type knows how much gas costs to the penny per gallon, and probably to the tenth of a penny, and they also know how many miles per gallon they are getting in their car, and the other type of person doesn't know, and doesn't care all that much because they have to buy gas anyway.

How many of you are the first type of person?  How many of you are the second type of person?

Today's topic is, "How To Get Great Grace Mileage."

Focus:  Christianity doesn't work without grace, so don't punch holes in its gas tank.

I.  Don't Make God's Grace Ineffectual (6:1)

2 Corinthians 6:1 (NIV) ¹ As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain.

The Greek word "kenos" which is translated "in vain" is the word for "empty".  Some have come to God, been filled with God's grace, received its benefits, then squandered it away, and their tank is empty.  In such a case merely going to God for a fill up won't immediately remedy the situation.  How is that possible?  There are so many gaping holes in the Grace tank that Grace is wasted and ineffectual.  This is the description of some of the Corinthian Christian's lives.  It is ultimately a sinful problem, but it comes in a variety of forms that Paul describes in this chapter. 

Let's read the whole chapter first, and then work on its parts.

2 Corinthians 6:1-18 (NIV) ¹ As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. ² For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation. ³ We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. ⁴ Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; ⁵ in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; ⁶ in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; ⁷ in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; ⁸ through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; ⁹ known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; ¹⁰ sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. ¹¹ We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. ¹² We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. ¹³ As a fair exchange--I speak as to my children--open wide your hearts also. ¹⁴ Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? ¹⁵ What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." ¹⁷ "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." ¹⁸ "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

A.      Don't Squander It

Grace is a free gift, but cooperation is required.  A gift is not yours if it is never received.  It is not really received if it is never utilized.  In squandered grace, we run the engine, but we refuse to pull out of the driveway.  God gives grace with particular results in mind.  Paul is urging us to see to it that we get great grace mileage, the kind of mileage out of grace that God desires.  Grace comes back "empty" (kenos) when we just let grace run through us without making anything of it.  Don't waste it.  Don't squander it.  Some Christians rev their engines, make a lot of noise, but never really go anywhere with the Grace God provides. 

We just came out of the chapter that described us as "ministers of reconciliation" with a job to do (5:18) and we were described as "Christ's Ambassadors" (5:20). 

In chapter 5 we also read about judgment, and last week when we studied this, we read an illustration from 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 of how God's grace was received but with nothing to show for it on judgment day.   This is an example of how squandering grace is possible. 

Paul says As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain.

Don't Squander It.

B.      Don't Short-Circuit It 

Squandering grace is a general way of describing the problem.  Paul has something more specific in mind when he urges them "not to receive God's grace in vain."  We begin to see the specifics toward the latter half of the chapter.  Apparently, not only were the Corinthians squandering grace, as if it was entirely for themselves, but they were short-circuiting grace as well. 

A short-circuit is when power takes a detour on the path of least resistance, rather than the intended path.  The power is derailed so to speak.  With electricity, if you have a short, usually the circuit breaker goes off, and the power is cut off to protect the guilty party.  God also causes this to happen.  Sometimes it is called "grieving the Holy Spirit."  On the flip side, that is why James can say, "the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective" (James 5:16).  There is nothing short -circuiting God's grace.  The man is getting GREAT GRACE MILEAGE.  His prayers are working! 

We make God's Grace ineffectual when the power of his grace is interrupted, or short cycled.  The power to break the wrongful alliances is bypassed in favor of the path of least resistance.  It shorts out.  We shorted it out.  We somehow refused to be reconciled to God by breaking these wrongful alliances. 

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 shows us how Grace is supposed to work, and here, 6:1 begins to show us when something goes wrong.

HOW It Is SUPPOSED TO WORK:

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (NIV) ¹⁴ For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

In the latter half of 2 Corinthians 6, we see that the Corinthians had made alliances with the powers of darkness, because some of the Corinthians have refused to get rid of their idols.  The main power source is as a result, short circuited!  They are following counterfeits.  And something besides grace begins to compel them.  This can be diabolical!  So bad, in fact that Paul uses the name "Belial" (6:15) another name for Satan to wake these Christians who are sitting around just "idoling" their engines!!!  Yes, I spelled idoling, I-D-O-L.  There is no harmony between Christ and Belial!  Only harsh discord!

How does this discord manifest itself?  The GRACE tank is filled punched with holes because we have punched the holes there ourselves, we have given access to Belial, to fill the tank with "sugar" gumming up the engine!  How did we punch the holes there?  We refused to let the Grace empower our lives to drive out of the driveway onto God's HIGHway!  We failed to pursue God's purposes. 

Paul get's very specific with the Corinthians.  He tells them to break their wrongful alliances with the powers of darkness.  Some of the Corinthians refused to get rid of their idols and their lifestyles connected to idolatry.

Idolatry comes in many forms.  To be sure, an idol may be an object of stone with a name of a false god associated with it, but it doesn't have to be called Baal, or Ashteroth, or Zeus, or Artemis.  An idol can be called alcohol, or drugs, or pornography.  An idol is anything causes a wrongful allegiance.  It pulls our hearts from God.  That is why I said, If "Christ's love" doesn't "compel us" (5:14), it is because something else does!  Or, if "Christ's love" doesn't "compel us" (5:14), something else will!  

Satan assigns demonic powers to idols.  He is happy to animate any false faith, to keep you misdirected away from God.  That's why even a "rabbits foot" seems to work.  It is pulling your faith away from the rightful object of your faith!!!

That person that places his faith in an idol is in a very dangerous spot.

God told us we must have no other gods before him.  An idol can also be something that is not bad in itself but because of misplaced priorities, a good thing has gone bad. 

It might be something good like work, but this good thing has been squeezed through misplaced priorities until it becomes the idol of workaholism, and we bow down to this idol and pay homage to it. 

It might be money, that can do good things, but because of misplaced priorities, it becomes the idol of materialism, and we bow down to this idol and pay homage to it. 

God created sex, a good thing, but because of misplaced priorities we bow down to the idol that pulls us away from God given beauty and it gets twisted into illicit sex.  Something that is out of bounds, addictive, and harmful before one knows how it could possibly be harmful.  We bow down and pay homage to this idol when we honor it rather than God who designed sex, and gave instructions for our protection.

There were idols in connection with sexual acts in Corinth.  In Corinth, many idolatrous practices combined sexual expression with their idolatry.  There were temple prostitutes, both male and female, in the idolatrous cults in Corinth.

1 Corinthians 6:15-20 (NIV) ¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶ Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." ¹⁷ But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. ¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. ¹⁹ Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

There are many common idols in our day.  Anything that calls for the devotion of our heart, and pulls that devotion away from the One True God, is a false god, and an idol.  When something besides Christ's love is compelling us, there is an idol in the driver's seat!

1.       Watch Who's In The Driver's Seat? (Philippians 2:3-11)

Who or what is it that you are allowing to drive your life?  It doesn't have to be obviously raunchy to qualify as an idol.  If you don't have time to offer your heart to God, because all your discretionary time is devoted to a hobby, a sport, or to entertainment, or to the internet, or TV shows, or whatever, then something has come between you and God, and something is on the throne of your life that shouldn't be on the throne.  Something other than God is driving your life.  When God is enthroned as Lord, and your life revolves around him, there is order and balance to a life as designed by God.  God is in the driver's seat and when that happens, often in time, whole families are restored.  When anything else takes the throne, there are frequent car wrecks.  You get hurt, others around you get hurt and short changed, and God is not glorified by your life.  There are gaping holes in your gas tank, and you are running on something foreign.  Your life is being poisoned by something. 

Do you know what is the most common idol of all?  Self.  When self is enthroned, we are full of self, and empty of Grace.  When God is enthroned, we are full of grace, and emptying self. 

Many people only think of the "don'ts" when it comes to the idea of sin, you know, the really bad stuff.  You might be a great guy, trying your hardest to be a great guy, but if YOU are in the driver's seat, completely ignoring God, your life is a life that is an OFFENSE to your creator.  He didn't design you to ignore him.  You function best with Grace in your tank, and God in the driver's seat. 

It was like this, even for Jesus, the Son of God.  I want to show you this from the use of the same word we've been looking at, the word, "empty" or "vain".  Paul uses this same word in a positive context when he described Christ's life in Philippians 2.  Philippians 2 describes the Kenosis of Christ, when Christ emptied himself. 

Philippians 2:3-11 (NIV) ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. ⁴ Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵ Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ⁷ but made himself nothing [There it is, "kenosis", he "emptied himself"], taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! ⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

You can't be full of Grace and full of yourself.  That is why a broken and contrite heart is something God is pleased with.  That is why we must start with the awareness of spiritual bankruptcy.  That's the starting point of the kingdom ethics as described in the Sermon on the Mount with the beatitudes.

So, if you want to be like Christ, we must learn how to empty ourselves, and be filled with God's Grace.  When we humble ourselves, God exalts himself in us.  And when God exalts himself in us, we become what God intended us to be--so our true selves are exalted into Christlikeness, which is another word for Godliness. 

Is this making sense to you?  You want' great Grace mileage, watch whose on the driver's seat.

2.       Get Free From Contaminating Alliances (6:14-18)

¹⁴ Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? ¹⁵ What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." ¹⁷ "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." ¹⁸ "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

Something that is "unequally yoked" is something that is mismatched.  Marrying a nonbeliever would be entering into a mismatched marriage.  The two lives have difficulty being one when each live for diametrically opposing goals in life.  This warns against entering such an alliance.  However, keep the balancing teaching in mind that if you are in such a covenant already, and the unbelieving partner wants the believing partner as a spouse, the married partner is to remain committed.  1 Corinthians 7 addresses this scenario.  Often, one spouse becomes a Christian before the other, and the mismatch is sometimes stressful, but Paul urges hanging in there with the hope that both parties will soon be committed to Christ.

An allegiance to a lodge or political party, or a gang, or a peer group,  that asks you to compromise your faith would also be a mismatch.  Be careful not to harness yourself with unbelievers.  Don't be unequally yoked.  A business partnership with an unbeliever may also be dangerous.  Doing business is fine, but a business partnership with a non believer will eventually force you to have to make difficult decisions between mismatched loyalties. 

The Corinthians were urged to walk away from their cultural loyalties.  In our culture, we have traditional cultural loyalties, and we might seem a bit odd to separate ourselves from these, but if it is a contaminating alliance we should do so.  Some believers find themselves feeling pressure to join the work "party" and the social drinking scene.  These cultural scenarios are similar to the Corinthian situation.  There are idols of many kinds.  Many Christians are caught up in cultural morality, rather than morality defined by Christ.  Paul would urge us to step out of any corrupting cultural current even when it makes us look like the odd man out.  

Want great Grace Mileage?

3.       Be An Ambidextrous Warrior (6:3-13)

Paul neither squandered, nor short-circuited God's grace.  In verses 3-13, Paul defended his ministry and described it.  Paul shows how God's power is demonstrated and effective in spite of human weakness.  Even though he describes his own weaknesses, he shows how this thing called ministry is not for the feint of heart.  It is described in terms of warfare and weaponry.  In fact, we are to be ambidextrous warriors (look at 6:7). "...with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left." 

Let's read the context starting at 6:3

³ We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. ⁴ Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; ⁵ in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; ⁶ in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; ⁷ in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; ⁷ in truthful speech and in the power of God;

Perhaps this means as is usually the case with soldiers holding weapons, they have the offensive weapon in their right hand, and the defensive weapon--the shield in their left hand.  Being Christ's Ambassador is not a job for the feint of heart.  Grace is powerful but grace doesn't make everything fluffy and soft and easy.  Grace doesn't take the challenges away, but supports us with everything we need to fortify us (remember "true Comfort", with the word com + Fortis, or strength, like a fort).  So, we need to learn how to be ambidextrous warriors.

There is another interpretive possibility for understanding weapons of the right hand left hand.  Perhaps the list that immediately follows this "right hand" and "left hand" phrase is actually a list that expounds, and explains the weapons on the right hand, then on the other hand.

⁸ through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; ⁹ known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; ¹⁰ sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

God works in mysterious ways, even through the apparent weaknesses.  His weapons can be worked with either hand.

You want great GRACE mileage?

II.  Now Is The Time (6:2)

² For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.

Paul quotes Isaiah, then shows how the fulfillment of Isaiah has come, and it has come now in their day!

In addition to this, the emphasis on "Salvation NOW" contrasts with the possibility of someone's former "acceptance" of grace being VOID, or returning empty, or being ineffectual.  You don't coast on past experience.  You don't merely look ahead.  Now is the time to receive Grace.  

, or banking on his future for some other reason, but as far as his present condition is concerned, he is not walking with the Lord.  Anytime this is the case, these words are appropriate.  Paul urges, "Now is the time of God's favor, and now is the day of salvation."

Today is the day you need to look to God's saving action. 

(C) Jim Hammond

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