Good Friday to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
I wonder how many of you are ‘guardians’ of children or grandchildren, or certain treasures or heirlooms you are guarding for safekeeping? Or perhaps you feel like I do that you are to some degree the guardian of a family name or reputation that you know is held in high regard by many people? Our friend the apostle Paul felt like that and here’s how he expressed the privileged burden that he carried: “This is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Jesus Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”(1 Cor. 4:1-2)
What do you hear Paul telling us about the privilege and burden Paul feels as an apostle of God? “Servant” is a title Paul often used to describe himself. (Romans 1:1; Phil.1:1) “Apostle” is another title Paul used (1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Col. 1:1) and I think Paul used both words describing the unique life calling he had. Jesus had called Paul from oppressor and persecutor of Jesus to a life changing encounter with Jesus, and then Paul’s salvation from his sin, and Paul becoming an impassioned evangelist, proclaiming the HOPE found only in the Gospel of Jesus.
Paul knew he was then personally selected and commissioned, by the Holy Spirit of God, to take the good news of the Gospel to people who’d never heard it before. Some would welcome it, but most would refuse and even violently reject Paul and his Gospel message.
In other words, Paul knew he was called to experience both the great exhilaration of watching people be rescued from their sin bondage and then be transformed by the power of God. But Paul also knew he would, for the rest of his life, experience anger and violence as other people totally rejected Paul and his message. Already in the 20 years or so since Paul had his Damascus Road encounter with Jesus Paul had been run out of town from several cities, arrested, beaten and imprisoned in some cities; stoned and left for dead in Lystra; and thrown out of some Synagogues by Jews refusing to hear him. But Paul had also seen hundreds of people enthusiastically receive the Gospel he proclaimed, repent of their sin, turn to and trust Jesus to be their Savior, and experience the life transformation only God can accomplish in us!
The two words, “apostle” and “servant” both reflected Paul’s deep commitment to live each day in humble obedience to whatever he sensed the Holy Spirit was leading him to do or say, even if it meant he might be shouted down or even arrested, or beaten, or run out of town. Paul was determined to NOT be intimidated, NOT cower in fear, NOT turn away from his assignment from God. In fact, Paul wanted his service, to his calling as an apostle of God, to define his life and shape his legacy! May I ask all of us my friends, do you and I have a similar, deeply rooted, driving purpose in life? Are we passionately living our God given purpose?
Did you notice Paul declared that he was “entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed“? Paul loved the fact that the Gospel of Jesus, which Paul proclaimed all over Central Asia and Eastern Europe, was the mysteries of God which God had promised from ancient times, but which only now, in Paul’s lifetime, were these mysteries revealed.
What mysteries? How about these:
1. The mystery of the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ! Now that is a profound mystery! Can you explain the incarnation?
2. The mystery of the atonement death of Jesus Christ to pay the sin debt of any and every repentant person who longs to be saved by God from their sin bondage and sin condemnation. Can you explain how God came to earth, took on human flesh and died on the cross to pay for your sins and mine, earning God’s forgiveness for us? It’s a spiritual mystery, isn’t it?
3. Or how about the mystery of the Holy Spirit of God accomplishing many of the miracles of salvation in you and me? Miracles like ‘regeneration’, the Holy Spirit birthing in a sin repentant person a new, holy spiritual nature. Can you easily explain that mystery?
4. Or how about the mystery of the Holy Spirit of God living within you and me as followers of Jesus, and that Holy Spirit acting in us, as a Counselor or Teacher of God’s Truth to us? Can you easily explain these four spiritual mysteries, my friends?
So, it’s not difficult for me to see how Paul was overwhelmed with the privilege to both understand these mysteries of God, and then also actually experience many of those mysteries himself! But then Paul was called to even more! Paul was led by the Holy Spirit to write explanations of these mysteries so new Christians could understand them both then and now 2000 years later! Mysteries of God… oh how I love that. Are you a walking evidence of the mysteries of God at work in our world today?
And then Paul’s third statement I’d like us to consider today: “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” If you are the executor of an estate as I am, then you understand just a little of the sacred burden Paul was feeling and describing here. In his case Paul was not overseeing the accurate distribution of the assets of a deceased friend or family member, rather Paul was distributing the Gospel of the deceased and resurrected, and ascended back to heaven, Jesus Christ!
And more, Paul was entrusted, by the Holy Spirit, with a unique understanding of the full Gospel and how this miraculous, mysterious ‘ekklesia’, the church of Jesus, should function! Friends, have you ever considered the burden of responsibility Paul carried each day, to accurately teach through his preaching and writing what the Holy Spirit was teaching Paul? That’s proving faithful to the truths of God entrusted to Paul by the Holy Spirit.
Now friends I’d like to ask you three important questions based on what we’ve seen in Paul’s words, today…
1. First: If you have trusted Jesus Christ to be your Savior, do you consider yourself a ‘servant’ of God? If so, how do you see yourself living out your servanthood to God? If no, why not?
2. Second question: Do you consider yourself commissioned by God to some purpose for your life? What is that purpose and how are you accomplishing it?
3. Third question: What have you been entrusted with, from God, and how are you proving faithful to God as you fulfill His expectations of you with what He has entrusted to you? How about the TIME God has given you, or the TALENTS and ABILITIES God has given you, or the PERSONALITY God has given you?
And finally, what about the work of God in your life and how God is expecting you to be a blessing in our world with what God has done in you?
Now that’s a lot to ponder, isn’t it? So, here’s a great song to help us worship and reflect…
Today’s Scripture is 1 Cor. 4:1,2.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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