T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 5

"We Faint Not"

The keynote to our occupation at this time is in that second letter to the Corinthians in chapter 2 [4]: "Therefore seeing we have this ministry, even as we obtained mercy, we faint not."

This second letter to the Corinthians is all about the ministry of the church. You'll notice the apostle puts it in the plural, and he is not only speaking about himself and Timothy and other fellow workers separated unto the gospel, but as we shall see, he means himself and the believers whom he is addressing. That comes very clearly from place to place, that it is, in his mind, the ministry of the Lord's people, the ministry of the church, which is just the aggregate of all born-again and Holy Spirit-indwelt people of God. Notice that is what he says in chapter 1 as you read it, "have anointed us with you." It is the church's anointing unto the service of the Lord, and that is what we're going to be occupied with. You'll have to underline that as we go on.

Let me say concerning this particular letter, the Lord has been leading me again into it more deeply than ever recently. It is the richest and the most valuable document in the New Testament on Divine service - I think there is no other book that is so rich in its content on this matter of the service of the people of God. Probably before we are through you will agree with that if you don't already recognise it.

This letter is the testament of Christ's greatest servant as to what the service of the Lord means and did mean in his own case. Paul was a representation of the church in every way, he did not only see the church mentally, doctrinally, the church was himself, in very being, in very life. The truth of the church came out of him as well as into him. It proceeded from his own inner history with God and in that very real sense, he was the embodiment of the church and the truth of the church. And therefore, if the church is the ministering vessel of Christ in this dispensation to the world and in the world, the apostle Paul, in a very full and deep way, embodied the principle of service, of ministry. Later in this letter, he will speak about our being workers together with God, and if ever there was a man who was a worker together with God, it was this man. But, you see, the point is that it was not just Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, in the sense of being a personal unit. It was Paul as the compass of all the meaning of the church's service.

We know and understand that when we see the Lord Jesus - we really see Him - we see God; we see what God is like, we come to the knowledge and understanding of God in Christ. That comes into the letters as we shall see, but when we see His greatest servant, we see what the service of God means, we come to understand what the church's ministry really is. And that is why I said that this letter is, in a peculiar way, the testament of this great or greatest of the servants of the Lord Jesus. That is, it is not a treatise. It is not an argument on doctrine. There's very little doctrine in this letter in a systematic or in a technical sense, there's any amount of doctrine, but it's not called doctrine. It's not talked about as doctrine, it's called: experience. And it was not intended to be a letter, an epistle, or a document setting forth the doctrine of Christ and of Christianity. It was the outpouring of a man's heart from his experience as a servant of God to the Lord's people, with the intent to show the Lord's people what the service of the Lord really is. Do you grasp that? That is the nature of this letter. It is not a treatise at all on some theme of the gospel. It hardly deals with doctrine in that sense. It is so altogether practical from beginning to end, from the very first words (and you will see that in a moment) from the very first words right to the end, it is so practical that if we stay with it, even parts of a sentence, we are challenged. We are challenged, we are faced up with practical issues as to the meaning of our being for Christ in this world; what it means that we, being related to the Lord Jesus, are here on this earth. We're challenged, I say, all the way through on that question, so completely practical is this letter.

Now, before we can proceed into the letter, we must make another note. You will find that this letter is probably - yes, not probably but actually, more autobiographical than any other letter that Paul wrote. There's a lot of autobiography in the letter to the Galatians, but not half so much as in this letter. The man is talking about his own experiences all the way through, either by definite statement or by implication. There are numerous things here, which if we only knew it, are related to what happened to the apostle Paul. Of course there are plenty of things mentioned as such and many others not said exactly to be that, but so clearly, when you come to closely study, so clearly related to his own experience.

So, from the first half sentence to the end of the letter, speaking out of his own experience as a servant of the Lord, he is showing us the way of service: what we may expect, what service really is. I say, he's saying it out from his own heart, what he himself not only had gone through, but was still going through. This is clear if you'll dwell long enough and quietly enough with it from the very first words of the letter. You heard them, look at them again. And this is a specimen of what I'm saying about the whole letter, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, with all the saints which are in the whole of Achaia." You say, "Well, that's his way of introducing his letter. He always had an introduction to his letter, not always in the same form, but this is the one for this particular occasion, this letter, so he just opens up. This is his kind of prelude to the letter." Well, it is that, but it is much more than that, much more than that.

We've got to look at this "prelude" as we may call it, because there are two implications here which are really the introduction to the whole letter. That is, the whole letter is implied in these two things. There's an implication here in a two-fold way: "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God." "Now, you Corinthians hear that? Listen to that, take that. You Corinthians have been saying..." (and this is what you'll find elsewhere) "he's not a true apostle. He never did personally see Jesus Christ. He's a fake apostle, making claims for himself which cannot be supported. He never saw Jesus in the flesh. He was not one of the chosen twelve by the Lord Jesus. He has come into apostleship by the back door!" Oh, these Corinthians had said worse things than that about him, as you'll see presently, that's one of them, one of them. "Paul, no he's not a true apostle. Jesus never called Paul in the flesh. We know Peter and we know John. And we know the others who Jesus called and said, 'Follow Me' but Paul was never one of them!" Of course, we know, we know the rest, don't we? About the Lord meeting him and his meeting the Lord on the way to Damascus. We know, but these Judaizers who had crept into Corinth to try to discredit this man in every possible way, had captured a large and influential group in Corinth who would have Peter, who would have Apollos, but they would not have Paul. "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God."

By the Will of God

You know, dear friends, that might not help you very much where the apostle Paul is concerned, but it's a tremendous strength in principle if we know in our own a hearts with true assurance, that where we are, we are by the will of God. What we are in is by the will of God, our position is because of the will of God, that where we live is the will of God for us, for the time being at any rate. And where we meet with the Lord's people, that is the will of God for us. And what we are doing in this life we know to be God's will for us. You know, that's a tremendous strength.

This man could not have gone through all that he had to meet, not only in Corinth but everywhere, if he had not that inner heart assurance and confidence and certainty that what he was in, what he was doing, was not of his own choice, but by the will of God. It's a tremendous strength, isn't it? And that was the strength of this man. We, as we go on, shall see how that was borne out. Yes, it was of God right enough.

We haven't any difficulty over Paul as to the will of God in that man's life, but here, you see, he is taking up the challenge right at the beginning of the letter, the challenge that's got to be met right through, right through, and answering it on this ground: "I am where I am with the assurance that it is God's doing. I am what I am because God has made me this. It is God who stands behind my life, my ministry". Now, that is the first, you see, the very first thing about workers together with God - workers together with God, the service of the Lord's people. If we are where we are because we know it's the will of God, we've got a great strength for testimony, for life, where we are. They had said otherwise. This is his affirmation which is, through many, many centuries, borne out as true.

But then they had said, "This man is an autocrat. He's a law unto himself. He's seeking to make a name for himself. He's seeking to gather people around him, that he shall be their lord. This man is of an independent nature and disposition." They had said this. His answer? What is it? "And Timothy, the brother, and all the saints which are in Achaia." "No, no, I'm no isolated unit. I'm no independent member. I am not just seeking a name for myself, a following for myself. Timothy, the brother, ask Timothy. All the saints in Achaia - ask them!" And here, another principle of ministry is at once introduced, because remember, all the way along this letter is the letter of ministry, of service, the work of the Lord, and everything here is a principle of that service. And this is: you cannot, you cannot serve the Lord in isolation, in detachment, in independence. You must be a part of the Body of Christ, the church, you must be labouring in fellowship with the Lord's people. You must not be a detached law unto yourself.

This principle of fellowship is essential to effective testimony. That is why the enemy is so concerned to isolate, divide, separate, and cut us off or make us run away and isolate ourselves. This drive is always on us. Perhaps more than once you have felt like the psalmist, "Oh, for the wings of a dove, I'd fly away and be at rest." Would you? You wouldn't, if you have ever really become an organic part of the Body of Christ. You, too, would want to fly back again. And you ask any of those servants of God who by reason of force of circumstances have been cut off, if it is not the deepest longing of their hearts to be brought back again into the fellowship, which now means more to them than ever it did when they had it.