2 Corinthians 10:7b-11 ~ 20200927 ~ Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

09/27_2 Corinthians 10:7b-11; Edifying Authority; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20200927_2cor10_7b-11.mp3

2 Corinthians 10:1 I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!— 2 I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete. 7 Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ's, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ's, so also are we. 8 For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed. 9 I do not want to appear to be frightening you with my letters. 10 For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account.” 11 Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present.

Paul asserts his authority to beg the Corinthians to respond to his appeal by letter, so that he does not have to be bold when he returns to visit them. He would rather in humility show the meekness and gentleness of Christ. He is equipped to wage war and ready to put down all disobedience of those who persist in rebellion once the obedience of those who are genuine has shown itself. He is on his way to visit them at last, and he wants them to prepare themselves for that visit. They have been looking at appearances. He wants them not to ‘judge by appearances, but with right judgment’ (Jn.7:24).

Self-Confidence or Gospel Confidence?

You are looking at what is before your eyes.

2 Corinthians 10:7 Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ's, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ's, so also are we.

There is danger in presumptuous self-confidence. There are some who have persuaded themselves, they have confidence in themselves that they are Christ’s.

Paul challenges them to ask the question, ‘How is it that you belong to Christ?’ What persuades you that you are Christ’s? We only come to identify with Jesus and belong to him when we acknowledge our own sin and our need for a rescuer. We belong to Christ because we have been bought by his blood. We belong to him because we were sinners in need of a Savior and Jesus is the only one who can save. ‘While we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ (Rom.5:8). It is ‘not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (1Jn.4:10). This is a reminder of the gospel. Every believer is always only a sinner saved by God’s amazing grace. Jesus pursued Paul and saved him from his open hostility. How did you come to belong to Christ? By your own merits? Is your confidence in yourself or in Jesus?

But what Paul says goes beyond belonging to Christ. The issue at hand is authority. Who had been authorized by Christ to wield Christ’s own authority in the church? There were some in Corinth who were undermining Paul’s authority and seeking to establish themselves as having superior claim to spiritual authority. They were building themselves up by trying to tear Paul down. They pursued power over the church, so Paul asks them ‘how did you come to possess this confident authority over the church?’ Were you called by Christ, commissioned by the resurrected Lord of his church? Did you plant this local church? Where do you get your confidence that you are Christ’s?

Back in 1 Corinthians 3, where Paul addressed the various factions that had developed in Corinth, each lining up behind his favorite preacher, he said:

1 Corinthians 3:5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Paul planted. In the sovereignty of God, Paul was the first to bring the message of Jesus to Corinth. By God’s grace, Paul laid the foundation, the foundation of Jesus Christ and him crucified (1Cor.2:2). Now others are building on that foundation.

Paul is not saying that no one else has any spiritual authority in Corinth. What he is saying is that if anyone else has authority there, they have to acknowledge at least that he too has claim on that authority.

He exhorts his reader to ‘remind himself’; this word points to taking inventory; to reason, conclude, reckon or account. He used it back in verse 2, where he counts on showing boldness to those who count him as walking according to the flesh. He will use it again in verse 11 ‘let such a person understand’ or ‘count on this’. Count on this; just as you are Christ’s, so also are we.

Boasting and Not Ashamed

If those who are now in Corinth are laying claim to authority, the founding apostle also has that same authority.

2 Corinthians 10:8 For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed.

Paul will go on in this section to boast in his own authority. Well over half of the New Testament uses of both the verb and the noun forms of ‘boast’ occur in 2 Corinthians, and the majority of those are here in chapters 10-12. This section is Paul’s boast. He is about to boast abundantly in his authority, and he tells us up front that he will not be ashamed in his excessive boasting.

Back in 1 Corinthians 1 he told them:

1 Corinthians 1:27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

God intentionally orchestrated salvation so that our boasting would be excluded. If we boast at all, we must boast in the Lord. Paul is picking up the teaching of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 9:23 Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”

Don’t boast in yourself; boast only in the Lord. Boast in his character. Boast in his amazing grace toward those who don’t deserve it. Celebrate knowing Jesus by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Eph.2:7-9). Glory only in the cross (Gal.6:14).

Paul sets out here to boast in his own authority, but he prefaces his boasting by the fact that his authority is a gift of God.

2 Corinthians 3:5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, ...

He didn’t earn it. He doesn’t deserve it. He is not sufficient for it. It is all grace. He will boast, but his boast is in the Lord.

Authority for Construction not Demolition

Paul specifies what his authority is for.

2 Corinthians 10:8 For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed.

His authority is for construction not demolition. He just got done saying that he is ready to punish all disobedience, and that he wages spiritual warfare with divine power to demolish strongholds, to demolish arguments and high things raised against the knowledge of God. But his authority is for building up, not tearing down. His ministry is a New Covenant ministry.

Contrast this with Jeremiah’s ministry. When God commissioned Jeremiah, he told him:

Jeremiah 1:10 See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Jeremiah’s ministry was primarily a ministry of demolition, to pluck up, break down, destroy and overthrow. Secondarily it was a ministry to build and to plant. But in Jeremiah 31, where God promises that he will make a New Covenant with his people, he says:

Jeremiah 31:28 And it shall come to pass that as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring harm, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, declares the LORD.

The New Covenant ministry that Paul was entrusted with is a ministry that is primarily to build up.

Jeremiah 31:31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ...33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

There is a necessary aspect of tearing down everything that is raised up against the knowledge of God, to clear the ground for new construction, but the primary focus of Paul’s mission is to build up. Where the primary focus of the Old Covenant was to level the ground for the coming Messiah, to tear down our pride and show us our need, the New Covenant ministry has greater glory because it is a ministry of the Spirit, that gives life, that brings genuine heart transformation.

Paul’s own ministry, and his heart for the church is that we would engage in building up and not tearing down.

Ephesians 4:7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. ...11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

The goal of New Covenant ministry is to build up the church to unity, maturity, until Christ is formed in you (Gal.4:19). There is a necessary demolition aspect to this ministry;

Ephesians 4:14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

But the goal is building up.

Ephesians 4:15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

The Lord gave me this authority for building you up and not for destroying you. There is implied contrast here between the apostle and the false teachers, who are seeking to divide and turn them away from their simple faith in Jesus, which would lead them to destruction.

Consistent Apostolic Ministry

There is a consistency in apostolic ministry.

2 Corinthians 10:9 I do not want to appear to be frightening you with my letters. 10 For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account.” 11 Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present.

Paul has been accused of inconsistency. He had been accused of coming across differently in person than he does in his letters. But his ministry strategy is consistently to use his authority to build them up. He is weighty and strong in his letters so he can exhibit the meekness and gentleness of Christ with them in person. It was to spare them that he refrained from coming again to Corinth (1:23). His kindness and patience and forbearance was meant to lead them to repentance (Rom.2:4).

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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org