And there is no way we can ever be bondservants of one another, of our fellow man, unless we understand what it means for Christ Jesus to be Lord.
It would be nice if we could just take the foundation for granted. But I remember, a long time ago, a brother in Christ shared this with me. He said, “Never take for granted anything when you share the Word of God, because they will never go out with what you think they know. They will only go out with what you give them.”
And so I have not taken anything for granted. If you hear simple truths, that is what you will hear anyway—simple truths. You have heard them before. Ask God to revive you again and to quicken me. There is nothing new that I am going to share with you all weekend, but I pray God will quicken us to some of the old truths again.
The Apostle Paul had come to this place where Christ Jesus was Lord, and where he was a bondservant of others. There is a process by which the Apostle Paul came to see this.
What I would like to do in the introduction tonight is just sort of feel along, to get to the heart of what is on my heart—the burden I would like to share—and then begin to develop it. Through the weekend, I think you will see very clearly where we are heading.
If I have a burning desire in my heart for some theme, usually I study book studies. I like book studies. I like to study Chronicles and Joshua and Acts. I like whole books. But every now and then, I am inclined to do topics.
One of the things that I always do when I do topics—and since this is sort of topical, I did it this time—is ask these two questions:
It always helps me to have a picture, some historical story that I can follow. God just seems to love to fossilize eternal principles in some of these stories.
So, in terms of this servant message, let me ask those two questions. Has the Holy Spirit given us somewhere in the Bible an example of someone who understood thoroughly what it was to have Christ Jesus as Lord, and themselves bondservants to their fellow men?
I believe He has given us one. Let me be bold for a moment: trust me for it, and I think I will show it to you. I think God has given one such illustration—and only one. I do not think there is more than one illustration of this in the Bible, and I would like to share that one illustration.
Now, at first, if you have a spiritual mind, you might say, “I know right away what that illustration is. It is our Lord Jesus Himself. He is the model. He is the example. He is the illustration.”
Certainly, Jesus knew what it was to have a living, knowing relationship with His Father. Of course, no one else has ever poured out themselves for others like our Lord Jesus.
I think Jesus, in a sense, is a good illustration of the principle; but in another sense, the way He lived disqualified Him for that. In the first place, the Lord Jesus did not live by grace as we are called to live by grace—especially if you take grace to be unmerited favor, undeserved favor. Jesus did not live that way. He did not need God’s undeserved favor.
Secondly, I know He lived in dependence upon His Father. I am not saying He did not exercise faith, but He did not live by faith in the way God has called us to live by faith.
In fact, I think of Galatians 4:4-5:
When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son,
born of a woman, born under the law.
I think the Lord Jesus lived by law. He obeyed God. What you and I get by unmerited favor, He received through perfect obedience. So there is an illustration, but I do not think the Lord Jesus is God’s illustration of that line.
In fact, if Christ were that model, I am sure Satan would tempt us to say it is unattainable. Jesus was the model; He was the God-man, and He lived that way because of who He was. So we could not live that way anyway.
So you go through the Word of God and say, “Many men of God in the Bible, many women of God—certainly somebody must have been that illustration of knowing Christ as Lord and themselves bondservants.”
You can study Moses: he is a great picture of meekness. Study Job: a picture of patience. Study Elijah: learn something about courage. Perhaps Abraham: a picture of faith. Solomon: wisdom. Study the Apostle John: learn something about devotion. Or David: worship. Peter: progressive sanctification.
I think whether you take Bible saints, or whether you take saints after the Bible—Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Whitefield, whatever list you read—you will find that every one of those Bible saints I have mentioned, every one I have not mentioned, and all of those post-Bible saints are incomplete models of the Christian life.
Not one of them is a complete model of the Christian life. I do not think God would have us pattern our lives after any saint that we read about, or any biography we read.
I believe God has put in the Bible one, and only one, complete model of the Christian life. He has given us a picture of the new-covenant life. I think God would have us check all of our Christian experience by that one model.
This one life is a safeguard against all incomplete models of the Christian life. I think you already know who I am referring to.
I am talking about the Apostle Paul. I think the Apostle Paul was selected by God as the only complete model of the victorious Christian life. He alone had it all together.
Now listen to these verses. I have jotted them down to save time. The Apostle knew it too. The Holy Spirit told him He was going to do that with him, and in a sense, he lived under the weight of that.
Acts 9:15-16, spoken to Ananias:
He is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles
and kings and the sons of Israel;
for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.
First Corinthians 4:16:
I exhort you therefore, brethren, be imitators of me.
First Corinthians 11:1 says the same thing:
Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.
Philippians 4:9:
The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things.
First Thessalonians 1:6:
Become imitators of us.
Second Thessalonians 3:7-9:
You yourselves know how you ought to follow our example,
because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you,
nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it,
but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day
so that we might not be a burden to any of you;
not because we do not have the right to this,
but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you,
that you might follow our example.
And then finally, 1 Timothy 1:16-17:
For this reason I found mercy,
in order that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience,
as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.
The Apostle recognized that God had selected him, of all people that ever lived, to be the model—the complete model—of the life that we are going to describe. All through his ministry, he referred to that.
In Hosea 7:8, we read this:
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
That is just another way of saying half-baked—brown on one side and uncooked on the other side.
I believe that many Christians—probably all of them, in some way—are half-baked: burned on one side and raw on the other. We all seem to have our own distinctive emphasis, and we all have our own caricature. We go after one thing or another thing.
I believe only the Apostle Paul was properly cooked on both sides. We are all half-baked, and everybody that we follow, except the Apostle Paul, is going to lead us astray if they are the only ones we follow.
That is what is good about brethren. That is what is good about the body, because we are not left to one individual, and we can see Christ everywhere in all of His people. But if you want one illustration, I think God has given us one in the Apostle Paul.
Jesus was Lord of his life, and Paul was a bondslave—a bondservant—of men.
Outside of the Lord Jesus, the Apostle Paul was the world’s greatest sufferer.
Second Corinthians 7:5 describes, I think, in a summary, his life:
Our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side:
conflicts without, fears within.
Even Job did not suffer like the Apostle. Job had one hundred and forty years after his suffering of blessing. The Apostle Paul suffered right up to the end, right up to the last month.
And so much for the illustration. Yes, God has given us an illustration—all the eggs in one basket, the whole ball of wax. The Apostle Paul is the model and the safeguard against every incomplete model that we would ever see.
That is why the Lord allowed the Apostle Paul to experience everything any Christian would ever go through. When God needed one church to be the model church that would go through everything, He chose Corinth. When He chose one man as His model, He chose the Apostle Paul.
The second question is this: if God has given us that picture, where? Where is it recorded? Where can I find that theme unfolded?
Once again, just as our hearts were tempted to go to the Lord Jesus for the model, we are tempted to go to the book of Acts. That is the Apostle Paul’s story: his conversion, his missionary journeys, his ministry. There we read about his sufferings.
Yet you will find, if you study the book of Acts, that Acts is the outside view of the Apostle Paul. It is Paul all right, but it is the outside view.
Is there an inside view? Is there a passage of Scripture that gives us the inside of the Apostle Paul, so that he can expound as God begins this process of creating that kind of a person?
Again, I would say yes. Obviously, I would not be doing this series if there were not. I am talking about the book of 2 Corinthians—the book of 2 Corinthians.
If you have read 2 Corinthians in one sitting, you will notice what all other commentators have noticed when they have read it: it is very unsystematic, not like some of the other books.
Romans is very systematic, very logical. First Corinthians is very systematic: one, two, three; A, B, C; little a, little b, little c. But in 2 Corinthians, if you read it on the surface, it almost looks like the Apostle Paul is jumping all over the place.
In fact, some commentators suggest that it is so unsystematic that it was not even a letter—that the Apostle did not write it as a letter. Instead, they say, we have discovered his diary. This was his diary, and he just jotted these things down as he went on his travels, every day jotting a little down, and the Holy Spirit preserved it.
This book has been called Paul’s autobiography. One commentary calls it a series of sobs, and certainly it is a tearful letter. Another said, “It is the heartbeat of Paul.” Paul’s testimony in Paul’s words.
You know, when someone has been a blessing in your life, somehow you find yourself gravitating toward that person. You want to get close to that person.
May I suggest, brothers, that you can get close to the Apostle Paul in the study of 2 Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians, Paul just unveils his heart. He just puts himself on paper—deeply personal.
Second Corinthians is not cut and dried, not at all. The Apostle Paul just pours himself out. One man described this as “a quill dipped in tears, written from the anguish of his heart.” Another man calls this Paul’s garden of Gethsemane.
It is his testimony. Here Paul unveils the process by which God taught him what it meant to have Jesus as Lord and what it meant to be a bondservant. He is the perfect model.
At one time, he was the number-one enemy of the Lord Jesus, the greatest legalist that ever lived. Now, somehow, he was transformed into the number-one friend of our Lord Jesus, the greatest minister of the grace of God that ever lived.
All right, you see what we have done so far. We have had two great points. What are we going to look at? Servants. What is the illustration? Paul. Where is it found? Second Corinthians. See how we are moving along?
I would like to show you from 2 Corinthians a couple of principles Paul writes down in testimony form to show how God brought him to that place.
I am going to give you three principles. We are going to look at the first one tonight. Underneath all of the principles, in the background of everything, you can call it the secret of Paul—and this is not the first principle, but you are going to see how it is tied into all the principles—the theme of 2 Corinthians is the all-sufficiency of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That was the secret of everything. The Apostle discovered—or rather, God discovered to the Apostle—that Jesus was enough, that Jesus was adequate, that Jesus was all-sufficient.
That becomes the secret of his life. When the Apostle discovers that, God begins him to write these principles that we are going to look at. We will try to state them very clearly, and we will look at them very simply. Then may God give us light, and may God create us after this model.
Now, we are not studying 2 Corinthians as a book this weekend, but let me suggest a little outline. This is very unsystematic, and it is hard to outline. But I think you will see, if you trace the big sections, that this thing goes through.
In the first seven chapters, the Apostle writes down in testimony form what it means to have Christ all-sufficient in him.
Then, in chapters 8 and 9, he shows what it means to have Christ all-sufficient through him.
Then, in chapters 10 through the rest of the book, Christ is all-sufficient for him, so that he does not have to defend himself in any way. Of course, “all-sufficient through him” is illustrated by those great stewardship chapters. Money just becomes the illustration of the flow of ministry.
Three principles show the process by which God created in Paul this kind of servant. I would ask you to turn, please, to 2 Corinthians 1. We will look at verses 8-11, which gives us our first principle.
We do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia,
that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength,
so that we despaired even of life;
indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves
in order that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God who raises the dead;
who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us,
He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us,
you also joining in helping us through your prayers,
so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf
for the favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many.
All right, let me give you the first principle. I will just state it for you and then try to unfold it a little bit, God helping.
Before Paul could become our model, before Paul could become that blueprint, before he could know Christ as Lord and himself a bondservant, God had to work this in his life. Here is the principle, and it can be summarized in these words:
God had to take Paul beyond Paul and into the all-sufficiency of Jesus.
Before this could happen, God had to take Paul beyond Paul and into the all-sufficiency of the Lord Jesus. Brothers, what was true of the model, what was true of the example, must be true in the lives of anyone who would follow that example.
If you are going to know what it means to have Jesus as Lord and yourself a bondservant, God must take you beyond you and into the all-sufficiency of Jesus.
If I am to know that truth as the Apostle knew it, then God must take me beyond me and into the all-sufficiency of Jesus.
You know, sometimes we have a very shallow view of ministry. We think about our gifts and our talents, and if they are dedicated to the Lord, if they are used for the Lord, then we suppose we are ministering. “I can just dedicate my energy for God, my service for God, my talents,” and so on.
Then I minister when I let God use my voice, when I let God use my heart, when I let God use my notes, and so on. Ministry lies beyond that.
Notice in verses 8 and 9, please. Paul begins to describe what God allowed in his life. I am using the New American Standard, if it reads a little differently. I do not know what version you are using.
But it says, “We were burdened excessively,” and then he adds this: “Beyond our strength.”
Mr. Wuest translates that, “We were weighed down far beyond our power.” If you have the NIV, it says, “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure.”
So much so that verses 8 and 9 say, “We despaired even of life. We had the sentence of death within ourselves.”
Now, he is describing something there in verse 8 that happened to them in Asia. For the moment, it is not important to know what. In fact, commentators cannot settle on it anyway.
Was it Acts 19:23-41, the outcry by Demetrius against Paul? Was it his shipwreck and treading water? Was he talking about some emotional distress caused to him by the state of affairs at Corinth? Did he have some frustrating confrontation with the Judaizers, the legalists? Maybe that was it.
Others would say, “No, it was his bad eyes, or the wild beasts at Ephesus, or his imprisonment, or his thorn in the flesh.” For now, it does not matter what it was. Something God allowed was more than he could bear—beyond his strength.
You have probably heard these expressions; maybe you have used them: pushed to the limit, my wit’s end, the end of my rope, the end of the line, down to the wire, right to the edge.
Brothers, we need to see this because it becomes very important to the principles that follow. The Holy Spirit did not push Paul to the limit. You read it in print: Paul was pressed beyond the limit—not to the limit, beyond the limit. That is what it says.
Anatomists tell us that we all have different limits as to how much we can bear. Doctors call these thresholds. We all have different thresholds.
Now, we all experience pain the same way. We all have millions of little nerve endings called receptors, and when someone kicks you in the ankle, then a little nerve goes up and tells your brain, “Ouch,” and then you respond.
But according to those who claim to know, we all have different thresholds of pain. Some of us can take more than others. When you read some of the tortures inflicted by men on men, it is amazing, really, what the human body can take.
We have thresholds of pain. I do not know how you approach this, but I personally think women have a greater threshold for pain than men. At least my woman does.
Now, what is true of pain is really true of life. If you could only think of your life in terms of this, your life is really made up of limits, and we are all different. We all have different limits, different thresholds, different boundaries.
There are mental thresholds, energy thresholds, personal thresholds, emotional thresholds, and volitional thresholds.
God not only took Paul to the wire, but God took Paul over the line—over the wire. I am suggesting this, and I think we will see it as we go along.
God pressed and pressed and pressed on that man to be the example, to be the model, until he went over all his lines and all his thresholds—until he went beyond his threshold of pain and suffering, beyond his threshold of patience, beyond his threshold of willpower, beyond his threshold of hope.
Paul was driven beyond Paul naturally. He had to go beyond himself. The Holy Spirit pressed him and pressed him. He drove him beyond his strength, beyond his righteousness, beyond his wisdom, beyond his own resources, beyond his friends.
Some people have trouble with this. They say there is a contradiction between that passage and 1 Corinthians 10:13, where God says He will not push us beyond that which we are able.
There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear:
but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able;
but will with the temptation make also the way of escape,
that ye may be able to endure it.
Is that a contradiction, brothers? Is God saying, “I will never drive you beyond your thresholds, beyond your limits”? You know, that is how it is often interpreted: “God will not give me more than I can bear. God knows my limits. God knows my capacities. He knows what I can take.”
“When God sees I have taken all I can take, then He will give me relief or He will take me home.” We have all heard that, or said that, or maybe felt that.
But if we are serious about being God’s bondslaves and having a bondslave’s heart, we need to understand that God must—not only sometimes does, but God must—take us beyond all of our thresholds.
When He says He is not going to give you more than you are able, He was not saying more than you are able in your own strength. He was not saying more than you are able in your flesh, drawing on your own resources.
It is not more than you can bear; it is more than faith can bear. It is more than you, laying hold of God, can bear. That is the context for that.
Verse 9 tells you why God pushed him beyond his limits. God pushed him over every line, and God pushed him beyond every threshold. Very simply, it says, “In order that we should not trust in ourselves.”
See why God has to push you over the line? In order that you should not trust yourself.
Proverbs 28:26 says, “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool.” God knows that already, but we need to know that. We need to know the folly of trusting ourselves.
Unless God pressed the Apostle Paul beyond the line, the Apostle Paul would trust the Apostle Paul. Unless God pushes you over the line, you are going to trust yourself every time. I am going to trust myself.
God had to press Paul beyond Paul, or Paul would trust Paul’s righteousness. God had to press Paul beyond Paul, or Paul would trust Paul’s strength, his own willpower, his own courage, his own patience, his own love, his own gifts, his own ingenuity, his own creativity.
So God pushed, and God pushed; God pressed. Paul said, “I am almost to the limit.” God said, “Good, push again.” “I cannot take much more.” “Good, push again and again.”
Until finally Paul cried out in verse 9, “We had the sentence of death in ourselves.” Finally, Paul cried out, “I am a dead man.”
You know, the principle was there that Paul was saying. He said, “God pushed me beyond Paul. God pushed me beyond my threshold. God pushed me beyond my limits. I cried out, ‘I am a dead man,’ and I finally saw that I could not trust Paul anymore any more than I could trust a corpse.”
Imagine carrying a corpse with you every place you went. Let me ask you this, brother: how many times would you look to that corpse for help, for advice? You are carrying a body with you—a dead body. How many times would you look for counsel from that corpse, or help, or aid, or assistance, or guidance?
Only once. It would take only once, and then you would learn: you cannot trust a corpse. The Apostle kept a secret: you cannot trust a corpse.
Paul said, “Listen, God pushed me so far that I learned that there was no more value in trusting myself than there was in trusting a corpse. God pushed me over the line, and I saw that I was a dead man.”
Now, not much would be gained at this point by going into the infinite variety of ways God has of pushing us over the line, because I think He does it differently in all of our lives. He is going to press you one way; He is going to press me another way.
But, brother, as sure as God is God and this Word is true, if you are serious about knowing Christ Jesus as Lord and about being a bondservant—a bondslave—for others, I guarantee you God is going to push you beyond all your thresholds in order that you would not trust yourself.
But that is only part of it. On the other side of that line, when you cross the line and you are on the other side of you, there is this: “Not trusting ourselves, but God who raises the dead.”
You see, on the other side for Paul was God who raises the dead. According to the testimony—you can read it here—it was not an easy thing for Paul to be pressed beyond his limits, beyond his thresholds. He struggled just like we would.
But I tell you, when he crossed that line, and he stood there, he saw the all-sufficiency of the Lord Jesus.
Paul had to be pressed beyond Paul’s nature and his resources in order that he might know the all-sufficiency of Christ. In order that I might know the all-sufficiency of Christ, I must be pressed beyond myself.
Now, before we leave this principle, I want to illustrate one more thing, and then we are done.
As you know, and I sense again from our fellowship and from the direction of your hearts as you have already expressed them, I would be a dead man if I brought legalism this weekend. I just know it. I can sense that.
You were created to know God, and you were redeemed to know God. You are not left here because you have a job to do. You are left here because you have a God to know.
There are ways that earth reveals Him that Heaven cannot. You need to know God here, and I need to know God here.
Now, I speak as a fool when I say this, but God sort of had a problem on His hands. You know what I mean when I say I speak as a fool. God has no problem.
God’s goal has always been Himself and you—being one, one with Him. But when God found us, and again, I am just putting this in human terms to get the point across, we were terribly alive to this present evil world.
In fact, when God found you, you were so dazzled by the glitter and all the stuff this world offers—the promises, the pleasures, the sensualities, and so on—all of its captivating scenes. It all looked so good, and we were just so held by the principles of this world.
Somehow, if we are going to know God in the ways of God, God is going to have to press us beyond this world. How does He do that? How is He going to get our attention? How is He going to deliver us from the shallowness of this world, to teach us that this world means nothing, money means nothing, land means nothing, success means nothing, pleasure means nothing, and sin means nothing?
Well, the book of Romans opens up how God does that. The answer is that He pours out His mercies. He pours out His mercies almost by contrast.
He shows us the vanity of this life by unveiling the surpassing beauty of the other life. He shows us the foolishness of sin, and He sets us free. He brings into our lives, to replace the children of darkness, the children of light.
He takes away the awful gloom, and He gives us joy and peace and some of His other gifts. He pours on His mercies. I mean, He dumps them on us.
So we begin to experience forgiveness, acceptance with God, joy, liberty, peace, and mercy. We have mercy upon mercy, benefit upon benefit, gift upon gift. God just dumps it on us.
It is sort of like a family that has little children. The father goes into the room, and the child is playing with a knife, with drugs, with a gun, with explosives, and they bring in a truckload of toys. They just do not fit in the room. All of a sudden, the child gets away from the dangerous things and begins playing with the toys.
But the father wants the child to be occupied with himself.
At first, the child was occupied with dangerous things. Then all of a sudden, he is occupied with toys. Still, he is not occupied with the father; still, he is not occupied with the parents.
So God, in order to draw us from the world, pours on His mercy: mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy. Then finally He says, “Now I beseech you, by the mercies of God.”
Because of all that I have given you, all that you have tasted, all that you have experienced—forgiveness, joy, relationship, fellowship, victory, all that—I beseech you.
So God presses and presses and presses and presses, and pretty soon we say, “I do not even want the world.” Praise God, He pressed me beyond the world.
Ah, now watch. God, I said, has a problem on His hands. Now God must move again and press us again.
I really believe with all of my heart that many Christians abort right here. They cannot let go of the toys.
There is no joy in the joy of God; there is only joy in God. There is no peace in the peace of God; there is only peace in the God of peace.
God must now press us until we are willing to be pressed beyond all His mercies.
That was the accusation Satan made to God against Job: that You are not wonderful enough in Yourself to serve apart from Your gifts.