This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - We're in Second Corinthians chapter six this week. This is day
three, verses eight to 10 we're going to look at today. Yesterday we began to look
at how we commend or how we recommend faith to other people through the way that
we live.

And Paul talked about different ways that we do that. We do it in our troubles,
we do it in our character, we do it in our love, we do it in speaking the truth,
we do it with weapons of righteousness. Today he talks at quite length about a
sixth way that you and I commend faith to others.

He says we do it through glory and dishonor. Now let me read what he has to say
in verses eight to 10 and then we'll come back and talk about it. Verse eight,
through glory and dishonor.

Bad report and good report, genuine yet regarded as imposters, known yet
regarded as unknown, dying and yet we live on, beaten and yet not killed,
sorrowful yet always rejoicing, poor yet making many rich, having nothing and
yet possessing everything. As Paul talks in these verses, he's sharing with us
the principle that God is working in your life to show himself for who he is
through both the good and the bad, through glory and dishonor, both the good and
the bad. So if you're going through bad in your life, difficult times, realize
God can show himself there.

You don't have to wait until it gets better, till you feel like oh my life is
really blessed now for God to show himself in your life. He shows himself
through the bad times. If you're going through good times in your life, there's
blessings of God in your life, you don't have to wait for the bad times for God
to show himself.

He can show himself in the good times as well. Now most often in most of our
lives, we're facing both at once. There's some bad things in your life, some
good things in your life, and you're facing them both at once.

And Paul says through both. This is the way that life mixes together. Through
both, God is showing himself for who he is in your life.

Now more than just talking about good and bad here, Paul actually takes it to
the next level. He talks about glory and dishonor. The greatest glory for God
that you could think of, and the greatest dishonor and embarrassment that you
might think of, through both, God is showing himself.

You want to know what he's talking about? You want to understand this more
specifically? Paul gives a very specific list.

Let's just walk through this together because I have a sense that for many of
you, this is a way you've never really thought about the truth of God and how he
wants to work in your life. I certainly don't think this way. I think God is
working when things are going good.

I don't always think that God is working through times of dishonor, but he is.
Paul, through God's spirit, reveals that he is here. What's Paul specifically
talking about?

Let's just go through the list. He's talking about those times when there's a
bad report, but also when there's a good report. When you hear the greatest news
about the work that you're doing for him, you're showing Christ in your life.

But when you hear the worst news about that ministry that you have for him,
you're showing Christ in your life. You have the opportunity to show Christ in
both of those circumstances. The circumstance does not take away your
opportunity to show Christ.

Now, I'd rather have the good report, wouldn't you? Every time, but the bad
report does not take away your opportunity to show Christ. Paul goes on and he
says, "Genuine, yet regarded as imposters.

" When people rejoice in your authenticity, you have an opportunity to show
Christ. When people are threatened by your authenticity and they call you a
fake, you have an opportunity to show Christ. I'd rather have the good, but
through the good and the bad, through the glory and the dishonor, you can keep
showing Christ.

That cannot be taken away from you. Known, Paul says, and yet regarded as
unknown. When people choose their agenda over any loyalty to you, you can be
showing Christ in your life, regarded as unknown.

When people rejoice in their relationship with you and you serving together, you
can show Christ in your life, both/and. Dying, Paul says, and yet we live on.
When you wonder if you can make it one more day, you can keep showing Christ in
your life.

Lord, I wonder if I can make it one more day. I'm trusting you, even as I
struggle with what I'm going through right now. And yet we live on.

When you realize that no matter what happens, as long as you're holding on to
him, you're going to make it not only one more day, but all the way into eternity,
you're showing Christ in your life. Beaten, Paul says, and yet not killed. When
God allows you to continue to go through the hurts of this world, instead of
taking you home to heaven, you can keep showing Christ in your life.

Sorrowful, Paul says, yet always rejoicing. When the sorrow over the sin and the
pain in this world meets head on with the joy of knowing Jesus Christ and a
relationship with him, even in that circumstance, in both, even as you're going
through them both at the same time, you can keep showing Christ in your life.
Poor, Paul says, yet making many rich.

When you don't have, or your ministry doesn't have, all that it wants or needs,
and yet you realize you still have the privilege of sharing the riches of God's
grace every day of your life, you keep showing Christ in your life. Having
nothing, Paul says, yet possessing everything. When you realize that none of it
is really yours on this earth, it's all on loan, and yet you also know that you
have a relationship with Jesus that is eternally worth more than anything that
this world could offer, you're showing Christ in your life.

Paul in these verses is very open with us. He's sharing the reality of life that
many of us face. He's sharing about some things that some of you have been
afraid to ever express to anyone else.

Paul says, no matter how you're feeling, no matter what you're going through,
the ups and downs, the difficulties, the glories, the dishonors, there is
nothing that can steal away from you the opportunity to show Christ in your
life. Nothing that can steal away from you the opportunity to experience his
love in your life. As Paul finishes talking in a very honest way to these
friends in Corinth, he talks to them about how he's just spoken to them in
verses 11 to 13.

He says in verse 11, we have spoken freely to you Corinthians, and open wide our
hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are
withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange, I speak to you as my children,
open wide your hearts also.

I want you to notice in these verses, Paul says we have spoken freely, great
authenticity, because we have great affection for you. How do you speak in that
kind of way? How do I speak in that kind of way?

How do I become more authentic in my life? Do you see what happened with Paul
here? Paul spoke with great authenticity because he spoke with great affection.

Because I have great affection for you, he says, I speak with great authenticity
towards you. True authenticity in your speech comes from genuine affection for
others in your heart. That's the difference, by the way, between the apostle
Paul, all the apostles, and the Pharisees, which Paul was before he became an
apostle.

The apostles shook the world because they spoke from personal experience out of
their love for other people. The Pharisees always spoke in footnotes out of
their education that they'd had. The Pharisees would say, now, Gamaliel says
this, and the rabbis say this.

The apostles came along and said, I once was blind, but now I see. The love of
Christ has exploded into my life. They spoke in a personal way.

As you look at how Paul speaks with others, he was the kind of person who, and
this is the way I want to speak more and more, he was the kind of person who was
able to honestly share his struggles and weaknesses. He just did, we just read
about it. When you share your struggles and weaknesses with other people, that's
opening wide your heart to them, and that allows them to come close to you and
see the reality of who Jesus is.

I know in my own life, when I preach or speak on the reality of the struggle
Chandel and I had waiting for children to come into our lives, there are so many
that are waiting for children also, and they're drawn in that moment to
experience the same thing we were experiencing, to feel the same feelings that
we were feeling. We feel them together. You honestly share not just your
struggles and weaknesses.

Part of being open is honestly share where you're making progress, where you're
growing. We'd all like people to think we came into this world fully grown as a
Christian, but the truth of the matter is, I got a lot of growing to do still,
and you do also. And there's one part of me that hates it when someone comes up
to me and says, I can see you growing, 'cause I think, well, was I so bad
before?

But the truth is, I want people to see me growing. I want to see a difference in
my life. Honestly share where you're making progress.

Also honestly share what you're currently learning. Don't act like you've always
known it all. Oh, I always knew that.

Oh, yeah, I learned that years ago. Pass on the insights that God's teaching you
now. What did you learn in a quiet time today?

What did God surprise you with this week? Paul spoke in these verses very
honestly to us about life because he had this affection for people. As we pray
today, I'd like to pray for a depth of spiritual understanding of this balance
of life that Paul honestly spoke to us about.

Jesus, in this world where there is both glory and dishonor, where we have
sorrow and rejoicing, where we're poor and yet rich, where we have nothing yet
possess everything, where we have both at the same time in this world, where we
know you, but we still live in a world that's filled with sin and struggle and
difficulty and hardships. Lord, help us to live out that balance. Protect us
from the temptation of Satan to think that because something is wrong, it means
we've done something wrong.

Sometimes it does, but not always, Lord. Protect us from that false guilt, and
instead of that, put into our hearts, put into our hearts a conviction that no
matter what the circumstance, no matter what my feelings, I can show Christ in
that circumstance. I can show Christ through that feeling.

I don't have to deny the circumstance. I don't have to deny the feeling. I can
accept it.

I can realize it's there, and I can show you in that place. Jesus, help me to do
that today, I pray. In your name, amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to see together Paul's clear teaching about being yoked
together with an unbeliever.