This exposition of 2 Corinthians 5:11-15 by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday evening, June 10, 2018.
Intro:
I was never what you might call…swift of foot. When I was in school and they did the 40 yard dash in gym class, they timed me with a calendar!
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In fourth grade during a baseball game against Park I hit a ball across two ball fields and they still threw me out at second base. Not fast. Until one Halloween. A group of us were approaching the Wakefield house over on 27th W. Ave and 46st Street. They really had it fixed up. Weird music playing and as we were going up the steps something stepped out and there was a scream and I stopped 2 blocks away at St. Catherine’s Catholic Church and waited for the others to catch up with me. It’s amazing what you can do when you are motivated. What motivates the missionary heart? What drives a person to give themselves to taking the gospel to unreached peoples? What was it that drove the heart of the apostle Paul to give his life to gospel ministry? What caused him to stay at the task assigned in spite of shipwreck and beatings and a stoning? What enabled him to continue on when his integrity was attacked, his character questioned and his ministry maligned? What enables us to get out of our comfort zone and say, “Yes,” to the will of God? Our text this evening is found in the 5th chapter of 2 Corinthians.
Text: 2 Corinthians 5:11-15
What drove Paul to live and die for the gospel?
What is it that motivates and empowers gospel ministry?
Earlier Paul said, “We have this treasure (the gospel) in jars of clay.”
We are afflicted but not crushed.
We are perplexed but not driven to despair.
We are persecuted but not forsaken.
We are struck down but not destroyed.
In the first part of chapter 5 we learned the secret of godly living. Now he comes to deal with that which motivates his gospel faithfulness.
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As we work our way through this passage we learn that…
Thesis: The missionary heart is motivated and empowered by the paradoxical pairing of love and fear.
Paradoxical because it doesn’t seem possible that love and fear would work together. They seem more like competing ideas rather than complimentary ideas.
There are 2 things I want us to note.
- The missionary heart is driven by an overwhelming sense of Divine accountability. (5:11-13)
- The missionary heart is controlled by love and thus is radically other-centered. (5:14-15)
Conclusion:
Christ’s representative death - Romans 5:12-15
He died for us (we died in him) He was raised (we were raised in him) now we live for Him.
Kent Hughes concludes the energy cell in Paul’s missionary heart was charged with a negative and a positive - the fear of Christ and the love of Christ. The combination was explosive!
May God give fuel us with that same missionary heart!
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