You might have noticed that our builders are applying insulation on the structure of the new auditorium. Before installing each roofing panel they lay down a double layer of insulation. Another crew is affixing fiberglass-covered sheetrock which also serves as a form of insulation. These guys will place much more on the inside of the building as the project progresses.

              We insulate our building to keep out the cold of winter and the heat of summer. It shields us from the extreme outside temperatures and prevents the escape of conditioned air, thereby keeping us comfortable and reducing energy costs.

              Building insulation serves as an apt analogy for the church. The New Testament teaches that we are to be in the world but not of it (Matt. 5:14; John 8:12; 9:5; 17:15-17; Phil. 2:15; James 4:4; 2 Pet. 1:4; 2:20; 1 John 2:15). We insulate ourselves from the world’s values, but we don’t isolate ourselves from the world's people (1 Cor. 5:9-10). We go into the world with a deliberate mission, to be salt and light. We let Christ live through us in the world and we share the gospel to make disciples.

              We insulate ourselves from the world by living in union with Christ (Rom. 6:11-14). We protect ourselves from the world and the evil one by addressing the flesh (Gal. 5:16, 17). The Devil uses the world in making his appeal to our flesh. When we live as crucified and resurrected believers we insulate ourselves from his appeals (Gal. 5:24).

              As a congregation we insulate ourselves from the world by thinking clearly about the purpose of our gathering. We gather to worship Jesus Christ, to have fellowship with one another, to provide an environment of accountability and availability, and to build up one another in the truth. We don’t confuse our gathering with our going. We gather as the church and we go as individual believers. We don't gather to attract lost people. We don’t gather for “the seeker.” We gather to glorify the One who sought us.

              The elders of Parkway insulate the pulpit. We protect it from legalism, heresy, psychology, entertainment, politics, denominationalism and various other forms of exploitation. We protect God’s glory by letting Him say what He wants to say from His word. We preach the word in season and out of season (in all kinds of cultural weather). 

              Parkway’s elders guard the unity of the flock by keeping an eye out for wolves. They start with holding themselves accountable in what they teach and how they behave (Acts 20:28). The Discovering Parkway class seeks to prevent the planting of tares among the wheat. We do our weeding early with specific application of the Scriptures. We identify and address the spiritual wolves that arise in the culture. We fortify the church body with solid theology to protect the flock from the religious pressures of the day.

              But again, insulation is not isolation. We gather to make disciple-makers but we go to make disciples. Jesus told us to make disciples as we are going. In our going we are deliberately on mission. Though we insulate ourselves from the world, we don’t isolate ourselves in the world. We care about the spiritual condition and eternal destiny of relatives, co-workers, classmates, neighbors and even total strangers. We pray for them, we love them, we minister to them and we share the gospel with them. We allow Christ to live His life through us so that we don’t sabotage the gospel message with our personal behavior.

              Insulation, it serves as a good analogy. Let the church be the church, insulated from the culture and at the same time engaging the culture. If we are to be in the world but not of it, we must think clearly about the distinct purposes of our gathering and our going. Let us maintain our spiritual insulation without defaulting to isolation, and thereby keep the glory of God from departing.

Paul’s anticipation of the judgment seat of Christ motivated him to persuade others. The phrase “knowing the fear of the Lord” (verse 11a) follows “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ”(verse 10) and colors the phrase, “we persuade others” (11b). Paul wanted the Corinthian believers to be ready for the judgment seat of Christ, but he also considered his personal influence a genuine stewardship for which he would someday give an account.

A few weeks ago I visited three copy centers in McKinney getting prices on business cards. While waiting for help, their book displays, presenting best sellers on “success” and “leadership,” grabbed my attention. These paperbacks sell like hotcakes because so many people are hungry to develop the art of persuasion.

The natural desire to influence others presents itself throughout our lives, with varying degrees of sophistication and intensity. We feel either rejected or affirmed based on our success in persuading others. For those in sales, the pain of rejection causes a phenomenon referred to as “call reluctance,” which threatens their source of revenue. For those in the church, it can lead to withdrawal from service, which threatens the strength of the fellowship.

It was the fear of the Lord that motivated Paul to persuade others, and his ministry of persuasion had nothing to do with personal enrichment, advancement or recognition. Knowing the fear of the Lord he persuaded others to be reconciled to God. And if we know the fear of the Lord in light of the judgment seat of Christ, we will focus our attention on Paul’s goal of persuasion. God not only gave him the ministry of reconciliation (5:18) and entrusted to him the message of reconciliation (5:19); but it was God Himself who was making the appeal through Paul (5:20).

Thinking about the ways we seek to persuade others, and considering the dejection we feel when they don’t respond, we should evaluate our motives. We should ask these questions: 1) “What is known of me?” 2) “What is in me?” and 3) “What controls me?”

 I. What is known of me? (5:11b)

 But what we are is known to God and I hope it is known also to your conscience. (5:11b)

When we are insecure, and our insecurity compels us to control others, we often explain our behavior as motivated by love, . . . but God knows. He knows if we are desperate for attention and affirmation. He knows if we are afraid of rejection. God knows us perfectly; God knows us exhaustively.

“What we are is known to God,” says Paul, but our sin nature hides that reality from us. So we must ask ourselves the question, “What does God know of me?”

We don’t have to exonerate ourselves when God is the motivating force behind our passion to persuade others. When God drives us to persuade others we won’t take their non-response as a personal insult, because love for God and neighbor will be the dynamic of our behavior.

 II. What is in me? (5:12-13)

We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. (5:12)

 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. (5:13)

Paul felt very uncomfortable defending his apostleship and integrity to the Corinthian church. But there were some in the congregation who challenged the authority and integrity of his leadership. They criticized him as if they knew exactly what he should or should not be doing. They boasted about outward appearance, not about what is in the heart. When they accused Paul of fanaticism because he made himself personally vulnerable for the sake of the gospel, he responded, “If we are beside ourselves, it is for God.” Paul did not defend himself, but he did fight valiantly to protect the flock, saying, “. . . if we are in our right mind, it is for you.”

When we try to influence or persuade others for the purpose of commending ourselves, we sound a little bit crazy, especially when we depict ourselves as victims of cruel rejection. It happens all the time in the church. That’s why we must ask the question, “What is in me?”

I encourage you to read the story of Naboth’s Vineyard (1 Kings 21). Consider how dejected King Ahab felt when he couldn’t persuade Naboth to make a deal. Think about the great harm and the great evil that came out of his failed attempt to persuade a fellow Israelite.

Passion to control others can become a psychosis; it can be a true obsession. The sin problem that we inherited from Adam is the know-it-all attitude. It’s the mindset that we have become “like God” knowing good and evil (what is advantageous or detrimental). Operating out of the flesh we think we know what everyone around us should be doing, and we become angry or depressed if they don’t let us control them. It’s how we measure the effectiveness our persuasion. It’s how we feel important.

      III. What controls me? (5:14-15)

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all therefore all have died; (5:14)

and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. (5:15)

When we feel melancholy because other believers have not responded to our persuasion, we must ask ourselves the question, “What is controlling me?” Why do I have this great desire; what is the source of this intense compulsion? Why do I passionately want others to do my will? Is it the Spirit or the flesh reigning in my body?

Paul’s solution for this struggle appears in verses 14 and 15. If the love of Christ is to control me, I must experience His death and His resurrection. Jesus died (and we died with Him) that we might no longer live for ourselves. When we live for ourselves we feel terribly insecure and tragically unappreciated. These feelings indicate that we are being controlled by the flesh, not by the Spirit.

 So the next time you feel compelled to persuade others, let God search your heart with these questions:

  • What does God know about me?

  • Am I concerned about outward appearance or inward reality?

  • What is controlling me, the flesh or the Spirit?

- Is God making the appeal through me?

- Does my passion to persuade relate to the ministry and message of reconciliation?

God has recreated us to be His ambassadors, His agents of reconciliation. Knowing the fear of the Lord we persuade men to be reconciled to God. And it is God Himself who makes the appeal for reconciliation through us. We should be passionately motivated to persuade others – but for God’s purposes and by God’s Spirit. Upon this truth depends the unity of Christ’s body.

This past week I stopped by the seminary campus on my way back from Kessler Park Baptist Church in Oak Cliff. I ate lunch in the cafeteria hoping to meet some students. I looked up from my tray and discovered Dr. Merrill walking in. As we took our meal together I asked about his trip and shared with him the news about our inner-city project.

I deeply appreciated my seminary experience. Some of my professors, like Dr. Merrill, were godly mentors. On this day I felt like a kid announcing to him that I still study Hebrew. I presented my last sermon from Isaiah, as if I were giving it to my mother so she could post it on the refrigerator door.

We all loved Dr. Merrill because he understood how we struggled. Some professors knew their subject, but seemed unconcerned about the student. For a reason I can't remember, I ended up with an awfully brilliant professor in the second semester. He was fresh out of Harvard and had exhaustively mastered the finer points of morphology and syntax. Knowing full well that I was about to crash and burn in his class, I dropped out mid-semester and waited for the next opportunity to take Dr. Merrill's class.

A few years ago I listened to a discussion on National Public Radio about what made a good professor. I was surprised to learn that it involved more than the mastery of an academic field. The most effective professor, according to the researcher, is the person who not only knows the material, but who also understands how the student struggles. The best professor is the one who has struggled himself in mastering his field of study.

In the church, pastors and teachers want to know their subject and develop their delivery. Our problem is that we often teach the subject without teaching the student. We feel good about ourselves if we articulately download accurate information. We forget how we once struggled, and we fail to have empathy for those we instruct. We need to ask ourselves why we are doing what we are doing. In other words, “What are we trying to accomplish?”

Today I love studying Hebrew, because Dr. Merrill kept me from being overwhelmed. Learning from him was like getting a drink from a glass rather than from a fire hose. I wanted to hug him. What a wonderfully effective teacher.

God bless you,
Pastor Jerry

Surely Isaiah grieved as he confronted the irony of religious unbelief in what was supposed to be the “Bible belt” of the Promised Land. He must have felt anger and disgust toward those spiritual leaders who personified atheism, and sanctified cynicism.

Motyer says that scoffers “is a wisdom literature term for someone far gone in spiritual cynicism, self-assured (Prov. 1:22), beyond correction (Prov. 21:24) and scorning spiritual realities (Psa. 1:1; Prov. 14:9).  The word expresses an advanced stage of practical atheism: the world has to be run by human common sense—what would God have to do with that?”

Oswalt states that scoffers “is the strongest negative term which the OT uses to describe the wicked. It is the diametric opposite of ‘faithful’ (cf.Psa. 1:1, 2). Not only does this person choose the wrong way, but he mocks the right way. He is not merely misled, he delights to mislead others. So he is the very opposite of the wise man, who understands the order of things correctly (Prov. 15:12; 21:24; 22:10; 29:8; Hos. 7:5). When such persons are in places of authority, as here, their impact is all the more serious. Faith is never easy for human beings and when the highest authorities model the opposite, it is not surprising if faith becomes increasingly rare among the people (Isa. 1:21-23; 3:4, 5, 12-15; 5:22, 23; Jer. 21:11-14; 22:1-5; Hos. 4:1-6).” He bemoans that, “There is no more hardened nor cynical person in the world than a religious leader who has seared his conscience. For them, tender appeals, which would move anyone else, become sources of amusement. They have learned how to debunk everything and to believe nothing (Heb. 10:26-31), all the while speaking loftily of matters of the spirit (Jas. 3:13-18).”

Consider the evil that inspires religious scoffing. 

In the garden, Satan scoffed at God’s word to ensnare the first Adam (Gen. 3:1, 4, 5).

In the wilderness, Satan used God’s word to scoff at the Last Adam (Mat. 4:3, 6).

In America, many religious leaders scoff at living by grace through faith. To them the personal application of our oneness with Christ in death and resurrection makes no sense. Waiting on God, seeking the Holy Spirit's guidance, seems naive and irresponsible. 

We Southern Baptists believe that a man is saved by grace alone—through faith alone—in Christ alone. But in leading the church, we depend on our professional skills and executive strategies. We are ever learning without coming to the knowledge of the truth. The more spiritual ground we lose, the more faith we place in man. Professing ourselves to be wise, we have become fools. 

Our flesh scoffs at faith in God (Gal. 5:17) because the essence of our flesh is confidence in our own wisdom. In Christ our old self has been crucified and buried (Gal. 5:24;Ro. 6:6), and in Christ we have been made alive and raised from the dead (Eph. 2:4-6). But we won't experience resurrection power (in our personal lives or in ministry) unless we believe these things to be true (Ro. 6:11-14). We’ve been saved by grace through faith. Now let’s live that way—by grace alone, through faith alone, in union with the Last Adam alone (Gal. 5:25; Col. 2:6-7).

If we American evangelical leaders go on scoffing at the life of grace (the practical application of our union with Christ), we will continue to teach people, by precept and by practice, how to live religiously--as practical atheists. 

No wonder Jesus asked the question, ". . . when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8).

A grocery store and a clinic, a house and a tavern, a government building and an Orthodox church—these occupy three corners of this doglegged crossroad in the Romanian village. Every year the same old drunk man greeted us, either from the tavern on one side or from the broken down chair on the other. He seemed to migrate from the table to the shade when he had consumed enough alcohol to dull the pain of his memory for a day. From there he sat facing the Orthodox Church without actually looking at it.

“I was priest,” he would tell us, slurring and spraying in broken English. “I was priest . . . Orthodox,” poking his breastbone.

I usually avoid conversations with intoxicated people, but it was hard to get around this man. Whenever I encountered him I listened with feigned patience until he pulled me close with his hand, breathed something emphatically in my face and waved goodbye. Ironically, he was one of the friendliest people in the neighborhood. He was never unkind to us; he was always delighted to see us.

Last summer I dropped my backpack by the fence in front of the clinic and began talking with the villagers. Our inebriated friend spotted us from the tavern and decided to join the conversation. None of the locals desired his company, so they disappeared as soon as he settled into the broken chair. The effect of his presence on our ministry frustrated me. But since there was no one else to talk to, I decided to get personal with him.

“Why are you wasting your life like this, sir?” I asked. “Don’t you know God still has profound purpose for your days on this earth?”  He lowered his eyes, reluctant to give a response.  “What has happened to you?” I probed.

After a little more persuasion, he told me that his wife of many years had left him and that his children had totally rejected him. I talked with him about salvation and about God’s grace for the believer. Then he quoted something from the book of John.

“John, you know John?” he said.  He read to me from a Greek New Testament. He was an educated man.

That evening he entered the Baptist church building where we were holding a service. His clumsy entrance interrupted the proceedings. Most everyone in the room could smell him. I was happy that he would hear the gospel again, but I think we all felt embarrassed, even in this rustic setting. He sat through part of the Bible study then left. That was the last time I ever saw him.

This year, as we walked the village streets, I looked for him. I wanted to talk to him again. I was certain he would show up before we completed our canvassing. On the second day, an elderly couple invited us to enter their courtyard and sit in the shade of the fruit trees. They talked about their health, about their grown children and about their life-long experience in Odobesti. When I shared the gospel they said they were Orthodox. Eventually I asked about the alcoholic priest. My heart sank to learn he had been found dead in his home a couple months back. I felt emotionally ambushed, realizing that somehow this old alcoholic had gained access to my heart.

The old couple spoke of him with tender words. They said he had been a good, compassionate priest, very unlike those presently in power. They glared across the street toward the Orthodox Church building.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

They told us the story of his childhood. When he was very young, a local priest approached his parents, offering personal attention and religious education. His poor father and mother allowed their child to be taken into a stranger’s home. That’s as far as they went. But they did go on to say that the alcoholic priest’s body was taken to another village for burial. I guess he caused embarrassment even in death. Our hosts said that the man’s wife and children came to mourn his passing.

That afternoon we walked back to the Baptist church building where I recounted the story for those in our team who knew this man. Some wept as they listened. We could only imagine what painful experiences might have contributed to his sorrowful life.

Now the broken down chair in front of the clinic seems tragically empty. I’m so happy that we showed some kindness to this man who spoke so kindly to us. I thank God that we got to tell him about Jesus. I wish I could hold his old dirty hand, look into his blurry eyes and listen sincerely to his rambling. I wish I had another opportunity to return his smile. We will not forget this tragic old man who was once a precious child. I can only hope that he came to faith in Christ before he died.

~ Jerry

Beautiful fruit trees, vineyards and vegetable gardens compensate for the drab structures in which the villagers live. At almost any point along the way you can step across a ditch and pick ripe cherries from low-hanging limbs. One such tree shaded the bench where two men and a woman sat waiting for transportation. We approached them to proclaim the gospel.

I looked up into a tree while my translator asked permission to present Jesus. They could tell I didn’t understand the conversation. Picking a handful of cherries I monitored their response with peripheral vision. I was trying not to glare while I waited for their response. When the locals turn down the corners of their mouth and wag their head from side to side, I can’t tell if they are acquiescing or refusing. So I asked Anka what they said. She replied, “He wants to know why this matters so much to you.”

I’ve made at least five trips to Romania, and through translators I’ve had lots of conversations in the city and in villages. It has been my practice to conduct interviews. I want to understand their experience in life so that I can appreciate their opinions and emotions. So I ask them what life is like in Romania, what they like and dislike about Romanian culture, and what they would change if they could. I have found their answers to be honest, their opinions to be dogmatic, and their faith to be confused. But I genuinely enjoy showing them respect by listening.

In all of these conversations I’ve never had anyone ask me the question, “Why does this matter so much to you.” This serious challenge grabbed my attention. Now it was my turn to be interrogated. Now it was my turn to give an honest, thoughtful answer. So why does the gospel itself matter so much to me? Why does its proclamation matter so much to me? What is my concern for the Romanian people? Is it genuine or merely religious? And, do I have a genuine concern for all people?

I turned to make eye contact with the man. I stood before him wearing fresh clean clothes. I was carrying a backpack, bottled water and a good camera. He sat there as a poor farmer in work clothes. My posture, culture and wealth could have made me feel superior. But the question he posed while sitting in the shade made me feel the heat where I stood. Why would we fly ten thousand miles to tell Romanians what they should believe about Christ? Why does this matter so much to me?

My immediate answer went something like this. “This matters to me because the gospel is true. All men are sinners. God’s Son died for our sins. And faith in Jesus is the only way to be saved from our sins. That’s why sharing the gospel is so important to me.”

I was so stunned by the question and preoccupied with the answer, I don’t remember if we received permission to share the gospel. I’m still wondering if I gave a sufficient answer. I think the Apostle Paul would give this answer:

2Cor. 5:14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

2Cor. 5:15 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.