In a society focused on appearances, where does authentic faith fit in?
WATCH
The War With Pride, 2 of 5 from November 9, 2025
“In a world absorbed with manipulating appearances we openly practice faithful love.”
2 Corinthians 11:1-15 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon explores the challenge of remaining faithful to Christ in a culture obsessed with controlling narratives and manipulating appearances. Pastor Michael discusses how Paul defended his ministry in 2 Corinthians against "super apostles" who undermined his work through eloquent speech and self-promotion. Instead of matching their aggression, Paul demonstrated genuine love through self-sacrifice and integrity. The message urges believers to focus on practicing faithful love openly, cautioning against messages that contradict Scripture and emphasizing discernment in recognizing false teachers.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 How open are we to views that contradict what Scripture clearly teaches?
💬 What burdens do we shoulder to make Jesus’ Good News accessible to others?
💬 Whose kingdom and reputation are our lives building?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
📖 Fidelity to Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:1-6)
📖 “Unburdened” Social life (2 Corinthians 11:7-11)
📖 Discerning of Disguises (2 Corinthians 11:12-15)
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Well, good morning, church, and welcome to our neighbors. I'm going to ask you, since we're being a little bit goofy this morning, I'm going to ask you to be courageous, just briefly, for a moment. If there is something in the Bible that. That you feel like you don't really understand very well, I'd like for you to just put your hand up. Just be courageous.
Put your hand up. There's something in the Scriptures that you're like, I don't think I quite get that. Anybody? Anybody? We've got a couple of brave ones.
Okay. If you are somebody who's like, oh, I definitely have my concerns, but I'm not brave enough to raise your hand. What I want you to see is that there are other people in the room who are here and still have questions that, like, as part of us growing together and part of us growing in Christ, isn't that we have all the answers. I don't even have all the answers. The more I learn about Scripture, the more questions I have.
But, like, this is a place where we can kind of share those concerns and we can kind of work through them together. How many of you have thought or you have heard from a neighbor or something like that that the Bible is just full of contradictions? Has anybody heard that? Right. I've heard it, too.
Here's one that is. Oop. Is that already up there? Oh, you got it. Here's one from the Book of Proverbs, chapter 26.
Now, sometimes people are, like, treating the Bible like a basket full of fortune cookies, and they're grabbing verse from here and grabbing verse from there, and they're like, these two things don't match. These verses are right next to each other. Says, answer not, so meaning, do not answer, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. And then the very next verse is, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. So what is it that the Scriptures want us to do?
This seems like a contradiction. Am I supposed to answer him and look like a fool, or am I supposed to not answer him? Or am I supposed to answer him? I can't even get it straight in my head. Am I supposed to not answer him so that you don't.
So that I don't look like a fool? Or am I supposed to give him an answer so that he doesn't get, like, blown up in his head? Which am I supposed to do? Now, this is one of those instances where we can, like, look at the Scripture and be like, Aha. I gotcha.
God, you're the creator of the universe, but I figured out how to pull one over on you. I'm smarter than you. But I wonder if perhaps this apparent contradiction is not a result of the conundrum resulting from a sinful human condition. Like, how many of us have been in an interaction or a situation with somebody where it doesn't matter how you respond, they are going to take it the wrong way? How many of you have had that this week where it doesn't matter whether you are kind and gentle or whether you're like, really, really angry and aggressive?
It's always the wrong answer. And it's not necessarily that you are necessarily being wrong. It's just that they refuse to receive any answer at all. I've got questions, but I'm not taking any answers. And I would call that person.
Perhaps I don't know the person you were thinking of, but I might call that person a fool. And in those kind of situations, we're in a conundrum because there's nothing that can be done. So how do we address this? If you're in this situation, the best thing I got for you is you should probably pray about it. Because God says both correcting and not correcting, answering and not answering are an option.
And either way, you're going to have to bear with a little bit of foolishness. Right. We've been in a series called the War on Pride, and we've been looking at a situation where Paul, this church planter and pastor, is trying to deal with some people who will not accept an answer. No matter what he does, it always ends up being the wrong answer. And so I'm hopeful that as we look at the next piece of the book of Second Corinthians in chapter 11, that we'll be able to have some wisdom at the end of this to know what.
What is it that we're supposed to do with our fools that we love so dearly? Right. Okay. All right. Got a couple of you.
We'll be all right. Let's pray, and maybe we'll get the rest of us on board. It's our habit as neighborhood church to pray. The disciples prayer. And this isn't like a magic spell, like, you're not gonna suddenly have a bunch of money after this.
But, like, what it does is it highlights for us the attitudes that we should have when we come before God. Jesus says when you pray, you should pray like this. He's not saying you have all memorized. You have to say it verbatim. Every time he's saying, it should be like this.
But when we pray as a group, it's helpful to pray the same words. So I put the words on the screen, and so I'm going to ask you if you'd say them with me, but not just say them, pray them in your heart. Okay, so let's take a quick minute, and we'll take a deep breath, and let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and. And the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Amen. Would you navigate with me to the book of Second Corinthians? We're going to be in chapter 11 this morning. And if you've got one of the blue Bibles, they're kind of tucked around the chairs or scattered around. I'm on page 1209 in the blue Bibles.
I use that Bible because the font's big enough to see from space. And if you don't have a. If you don't have a translation of the Scriptures in, like, a modern language and you want to take that one home, just write your name in the front of that, and that one's yours. Now let that be our gift to you. But we're in page 1209 in those blue Bibles there.
Second Corinthians, chapter 11. I'm going to read a couple of verses just to get us started, and then we'll circle back and kind of dig into what's going on here.
Second Corinthians 11, starting in verse one.
I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me, for I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different Gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super apostles.
Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not. So in knowledge, indeed, in every way, we have made this plain to you in all things. I'll pause there. If it sounds like we're just kind of picking up in the middle of a conversation, that is because we are just kind of picking up in the middle of a conversation. So if you want to go back and listen to we talked about Chapter 10 last week.
That's on our website or that's in the app and the sermon archives, you can listen to that or you can read that. This week, as we are kind of looking at this letter, we introduced the three main characters. So on the one side, you've got Paul. He was formerly a persecutor of Christians. He was like a Christian hunter.
And then Jesus met him on the road and was like, why are you hunting me? And he was like, okay, I'll serve you, I guess. And so now he. He is like, actively planting churches for Jesus is a crazy story. You should read it in Acts.
And one of the churches that he starts, he starts in a city called Corinth. Now, Corinth is probably not one that we're familiar with, but it was a port city, it was really, really wealthy, and it had a reputation of being kind of nasty. And so I put a picture up there of some gamblers, because when I think of Corinth, I think of Las Vegas. What happens in Corinth stays in Corinth. Right?
It's just that kind of city. And that's where Paul started a church, a Christian church, in that kind of environment, which I'm assuming was a difficult task to try to convince people. Like, instead, yeah, I'm not going to go into how the Corinthians were, but there's a third party. What Paul here is, in the verses that we read, calls the super apostles. These are.
These are teachers that have come in after Paul goes on to plant another church and start another church somewhere. These are like influencers who come in and try to piggyback off of Paul's success. They see that the church in Corinth is growing. They see that these people are passionate, and they're like, oh, these people are passionate. And this is Las Vegas.
They got money. And so if I can get them to pay me to say things, that's going to be great. Don't worry about Paul. He's not here anymore. In fact, he wasn't even really that good of a talker.
But you should pay me for the ways that I talk, because I'm much more eloquent than him. So that's kind of the situation that Paul is addressing. And he's Trying to address this kind of undermining of his authority without sinking to their level. How many of, like, it's so funny, have you heard the phrase, I'm just trying to match your energy? Okay, a couple of people.
Yeah. So I picked up on this when I was on the landscaping crew. And, like, somebody would come in really, really aggressive, Then you'd get aggressive back because you're just trying to match their energy is, like, the idea. But the way that Paul is. I'm not gonna sink to your level.
You are. These influencers are building themselves up, talking about how great and smart and intelligent they are in order to degrade Paul. He says, I'm not going to degrade you. But really, what are we talking about? He says in chapter 11, I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness.
Do bear with me. Which I think is a great way to start. But he starts, but he leans into the Corinthians. He says, listen, I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. He says, like, as a church planter, as the person who started this faith community, I have a responsibility to you as somebody who is, like, stewarding a betrothal.
He takes it to engagement or, like, wedding terms. Okay. Now, our culture does not seem to have much of a distinction between, like, dating phase and marriage phase. Like, it seems like those things are kind of interchangeable. Well, we were married one day, and now we're not.
And I don't know, blah, blah, blah, blah. For the ancient community, to be betrothed, to be engaged was a legal contract. So if the man had to come to the father and ask permission or get permission to marry the daughter, if he gave permission, that man is now in a legal contract with the father. Father. And the father then has responsibility to take care of the bride to be and to make sure that she doesn't run off with another guy or something.
But it's usually about a year that they were betrothed, that she's living in her father's house, Father's taking care of her, protecting her from other suitors and all that kind of stuff. And Paul says, I'm like the dad. He says, church in Corinth. I betrothed you to another spouse. You're not married to me.
Yes, I started this church, but you don't owe me a loyalty. I didn't ask you to be disciples of me. I asked you to be disciples of Christ. I have betrothed you to another And I feel a divine jealousy for you. I'm concerned that you've been distracted by other things.
And I'm jealous. For the sake of Christ, you should be loyal to him. I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. Fascinating to me.
You might think I'm splitting hairs here, but did you notice he pulls this illustration from the garden where Eve was deceived by the serpent. And then he says, the application of that is I'm concerned that you will be pulled away by your own thoughts. I usually like to think that the temptation is somebody else's responsibility. And he's saying, actually no, he's tempting you to do something that your thoughts already want to do. I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
The pompous attitude of the super apostles is being mimicked by the Church in Corinth. And that seems to indicate to Paul that they have already been compromised. They're already following something other than the commands that Jesus had for them. Now, I think that Paul's goal for the Corinthians was devotion to Jesus. I think that Paul's goal for the Corinthians was fidelity.
I think it was faithfulness to Jesus. I might even be willing to say it was monogamous devotion to Jesus. Paul says, I don't want you to be married to me. I want you to be married to Christ. And we're not there yet.
There's going to come a day where Christ returns and the bridegroom comes and collects his bride. And I want you to be ready for him.
And so in a world absorbed with manipulating appearances, we openly practice faithful love.
The world is just absorbed with making sure that I control the narrative. I want to appear to be a good person. I want our family to appear to be happy. I'm going to curate the perfect half second snapshots that I got of my kids actually smiling at one another and just going to delete all the photos of them trying to kill each other other in the photo shoot. Like we're going to Photoshop that one kid's face in from like three years ago because they smiled one time, right?
The world is obsessed and absorbed with manipulating appearances.
But we openly practice faithful love. If you do what's right, you don't have to convince other people that you do what's right, you just do it. If you do what's wrong and you want people to think you do what's right, you got a lot of work ahead of you. But if you want people to think that you do what's right, the easiest way to make sure that other people think that you do what's right is to do what's right. Then you don't have to lie.
You don't have to cover anything up. You don't have to remember the string of lies. You can just do the right thing. And then if people think that you did something that's wrong, that's on them. They were confused.
Right? And you can sleep good at night. You'll sleep better at night. Okay? So we practice, openly, practice faithful love.
We love Jesus. We love Jesus family and the people that he's brought us into. And we love our neighbors like we want to serve our neighbors. Now, in Corinth, they are tolerant of every message. Did you see that in verse four, he says, if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different Gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
He says, people are coming into town and they're preaching all kinds of stuff, and you're happy to listen to anything else other than what I gave you at first. And so if you're willing, if you're going to be tolerant of all of these messages, why don't you just put up with my message a little bit longer? Let me get one more thing for you to consider. Now, I think that this is interesting because I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but we have instant access to every bad idea in human history.
Instant access to every bad idea in human history.
And we hand this to our children and say, good luck.
If you're tolerant of every other idea, but are running away from the firm foundation that I laid, we can be gracious in our conversations with people who disagree with us and who disagree with the word without adopting every opinion. Paul is clear in verses five and six. He says, I'm not inferior. So he's being clear while also being a little bit ironic. He says, I am, quote, unquote, unskilled in speaking.
As I'm reading about the cultural moment and the ways that people would go around kind of influencing people. It was common for philosophers to all have the same playbook. So these philosophers would come into town, they would start a conversation, they would get a follow up and the followers would support them. That's how they made their living. And when they ran out of followers, they'd go to the next town and start things over again.
So they're like YouTubers, but they have to walk to where they're going to influence people. Right. But the way that they were trained in order to be able to make a living is they were abrasive. They were trained to be as abrasive and audacious as possible. Disrespectful both to high officials and to common people alike in order to attract the attention and the approval of of the court of public opinion.
It's crazy how backwards those people were back then and we don't see any of that today. Isn't it great that we have so moved beyond like the backwards way of people that we don't have folks that get popular by saying audacious things and just trying to get everybody stirred up and make sure that you like and subscribe because I have more crazy things to say tomorrow. Like this is all just ancient dead stuff. Don't like it says the Bible is irrelevant sometimes. So let me just move past that.
Paul does not use the same inflammatory and deceptive attacks in his preaching. Here's what he does. He speaks the mystery of Christ crucified, emphasizing, I want you to understand how crazy this is. And then he trusts the Holy Spirit to convict the people who are opposed to the message of the gospel. He gets up and he says, the God of the universe put a skin body on and became a man.
An infinite almighty creator of the universe allowed himself to be humiliated and executed unjustly in the most disgraceful way possible in order that he might take the sinful, rebellious human beings and make them his children again in restoring a reliable relationship to him. That does not make logical sense. If you wanted to invent a religion, I don't think this is the one that you would make. I would make the one where I can be good enough, that God's happy with me. And the Bible says you can't be good enough.
God had to come and die in order to make it possible for you to be good enough. And it's just borrowed goodness.
So he emphasized knowledge and understanding the mystery. And then he just trusts the Holy Spirit to convict people that don't like get it yet? We saw last week that in a world fighting with arrogance and deceit, we triumph by meekness, strength, under control, and by integrity. So since that's all old dusty stuff that's kind of irrelevant. I just.
What does that look like today? How are we open to views? Or how open are we to views that contradict what Scripture clearly teaches?
How open are we to considering perspectives that just are clearly the opposite of what Scripture is teaching?
Because here's the deal. All beliefs have practices.
You do what you believe. I can say emphatically and confidently, I believe that that chair can hold me up. I believe if I sat in that chair that there would be no problem whatsoever. I believe I could stand up in that chair and jump up and down and my wife would be concerned, but the chair would hold me. But until I step down off the platform and sit in the chair, or stand in the chair or jump in the chair, probably don't believe it.
I actually have less confidence in my knee than I do in the chair. So that's the reason why I'm not doing that. But like, you do what you believe and so don't be ashamed to be unskilled in the cynical sarcasm of our modern media on both sides. Have you noticed both sides are yelling at each other with the same tone? We don't have to do that.
We can be unskilled in being snarky. We can be slow to speak, we can be slow anger, we can be quick to listen.
And I'd encourage you to be as suspicious of alternatives to God's word as you were tempted to be towards God's clear teaching. Those alternatives to God's Word probably are not going to lead you where you want to go. But in a world absorbed with manipulating appearances, we openly practice faithful love. Let's read a little bit more. Verse 7.
He continues on or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone. For the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my needs. So I refrained.
And I will refrain from burdening you in any way, as the truth of Christ is in me. This boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. And why? Because I do not love you. God knows that I do.
So let's start with kind of the easy thing he says. Achaia. Achaia is so if we're looking at a map, we're looking around Europe, kind of below Europe, we're looking at the Mediterranean Sea and you can see the names of different regions in the Roman Empire at this time. But you're going to look up in the top left hand corner of that map, you've got a region of Achaia. I'm going to zoom in on that.
When you zoom in on Achaia, you see that Corinth is a city in the region of Achaia. So what Paul is saying is, it has been my practice to declare that I preach for free to y', all, and I tell everybody in your region that I preach for free when I go to Corinth. I am operating in such a way that nobody can accuse me of going to Corinth because that's where the money is, because I preach for free. And so he asks, did I commit a sin by humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? I didn't ask you for money back.
He says, I robbed other churches. He's kind of ironically exaggerating this idea of robbery. He says, if I robbed somebody, I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone. For the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need.
Just one sec. Did you notice that when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone? You know what that means? The Apostle Paul was financially insecure. There was a time where the check bounced, and rather than go to the people in the city that he was in, he accepted support from Macedonia.
Now, if you don't know, Macedonia was a place where they hated Christians and they persecuted them right out the gate. As soon as somebody trusted Jesus, they had an X on their record. And so the church in Macedonia was actually very, very financially poor. So Paul says, I did not ask you guys for support, although I was in your town when my check bounced, I accepted help from the folks who were financially stressed so that I didn't put a burden on you.
Paul's meager needs would not have been a financial strain on an affluent community like Corinth. But he keeps saying, I didn't want to be a burden to you.
I think the burden that he's talking about is a social burden. One of the things that is different about how the Roman world works. Well, it's not exactly different, but is much more extreme than how our world works, is that if you gave a gift to somebody, that gift always, always, always had strings attached. If I give you a gift, I'm expecting that you will find a way to return something like that gift back to me. And if you cannot financially afford to return that gift, then you better tell everybody about how awesome my gift was.
You better pay me back in honor. And it was an expectation that if you accepted a gift from somebody, you were then going to reciprocate that gift. And so it may be that he did not want to be like Paul, did not want to be beholden. He did not want to have a debt to anybody in Corinth because they were all fighting. There were different factions, they were debating, blah, blah, blah.
It may be that, but he says that he does not want them to be beholden to him. He says, I did not accept a gift from you because I didn't want you to have to be in this relationship where you were required to repay me.
Paul's goal for Corinth is that they have an unburdened social life. I'm here teaching you the word of God so that you can walk with God so that Jesus gospel can go farther.
But these super apostles seem to have twisted this idea to mean that Paul didn't love them. Paul won't take money from y' all because he doesn't really like you very much. He doesn't want to be connected with you. He doesn't want to be a ministry partner with you. He doesn't want to have to put you into the thanks when he writes other churches.
Like, he likes being partners with Philippi. He likes being partners with the churches in Macedonia, but he doesn't want to have to write crazy Corinth on his receipts. So he must not love you. But as these super apostles are claiming, like, a fidelity and a faithfulness to the city of Corinth, in reality, they're just parasites because they're making sure that Paul has a distance from them so that they can suck up the resources that Corinth would prefer to have given to Paul. But Paul is rejected.
Paul has been. Has continually been faithful and will not change, regardless of the accusation. He says, this is what I have done, and this is what I'm going to continue to do regardless of what they say about me or what you think about me. Because in a world absorbed with manipulating appearances, we openly practice faithful love. Paul endeavors to preach the good news of God's free gift of salvation at no cost to anyone who is hearing it.
And that means that he put his hands to work.
Paul on the side, made tents. Tents in the day were made of leather. So Paul is a leather worker, which means that Paul had to go to work to pay his bills. And he did that and worked in Corinth so that he could preach for free. And you're like, wow, that's really nice.
I kind of like that. That's pretty good. In fact, I spent a significant number of years working in what they call a bi vocational ministry where I worked, served at the church for free. And I worked full time out in the community, and then I worked part time in the community. And you guys just keep taking over my life.
More and more supporting himself by means of a trade, though for the people he was preaching to was likely seen as disgraceful. Among the upper class Romans who the super apostles are pandering to now. This was crazy to me because it had never crossed my mind. Like I said, I did buy vocational ministry. This just made sense to me.
But for the Romans, like the wealthy Romans, this was disgraceful. One author says that there were four ways that a traveling philosopher could make ends meet. The first he could do is he could charge for his teaching. That's the preferred method. And in fact, the idea is if you don't charge for your teaching, then your ideas are worthless.
The amount you charge is the value that you put behind what you're saying. He says, if that doesn't work or you can't make that work, then the next thing you do is you kind of enter into the household. You can kind of become a schoolteacher of a household, teaching the sons. So you can be like a private tutor, but you live in the house. That means you've got a home base.
You probably have a room. You get the honor of working for this family. If that doesn't work, then you can beg. You can just go around and ask people, will you please pay for this? Right?
And the last thing on the list, these four things are in order. The last thing on the list is for you to work with your hands to support yourself. From the ancient philosophers, I'm like, that doesn't make sense to me. But that's how they saw working with your hands as somebody who was a teacher. So RF Hawk says that among the philosophers and itinerant preachers of Paul's day, continuing to work at a craft was regarded as the least acceptable way of providing for life's necessities.
That's crazy. I didn't know he was doing that because it didn't compute to me, because Paul never indicates that working with your hands is disgraceful. It's not Paul's attitude. He wouldn't do it if it was disgraceful. He's Emphasizing here that he works with his hands, that he has this trade in order to be able to openly demonstrate his genuine love for the people of Corinth.
He says, I work so that I can show you how much I love you. And if you don't believe it, God knows that I do.
Let's read a couple more verses.
Verse 12.
And what I'm doing, I'll continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission, they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
So Paul's last goal in this paragraph for Corinth is he wants them to be discerning of disguises. He wants them to be faithful to Jesus. He wants them to not have to have social obligations, and he wants them to be discerning of disguises. Paul's going to continue in his ministry regardless of how it's maligned by those who would rob him of it. And although he is limited, kind of in the flesh, his physical ability and what he's able to do, he wants to undermine the arguments of those who are actually are living according to the flesh.
Remember, living in the flesh as opposed to according to the flesh. Driving in the fast lane. As opposed to driving according to the fast lane. Right.
But these super apostles are actually, like, disguised.
They're approachable, they're entertaining, it's kind of fun. They're not doing any harm. But he says they are actually instruments and servants of Satan who disguises himself as an angel of light.
These super apostles, it's interesting. They're building themselves up. They're saying to the people, we are the best apostles. Paul was an apostle, but we are better than Paul. We are the best apostles.
But by saying we're the best apostles, they demonstrate that they're counterfeit. Since. Since the apostles actually like, their job is to build up Jesus. Jesus is the best. None of the apostles are the best.
One commentator puts it this way. Any minister who passes darkness off as light lies as truth or sin as an alternative lifestyle choice must reckon with God's judgment. Like, yeah, preachers don't lie. I get it. And I think that's true.
We should start there. But I just draw you to consider that Scripture says that all those who put their faith in Jesus are ministers of the gospel.
And so anything that we emphasize as an alternative lifestyle choice that's contrary to what the Scripture teaches puts us in danger, judgment. See, God sees all deception and pride and ultimately will deliver or distribute justice accordingly.
So whose kingdom and whose reputation are we building on Tuesday? Whose kingdom and whose reputation are we building on Friday night? Saturday night? Whose kingdom or reputation are we building our lives on?
Because in a world absorbed with manipulating appearances, we openly practice faithful love. Pray together.
Lord, this passage is hard.
It's hard because there's a lot going on in the background. There's a lot of story, there's a lot of trying to fill in the gaps. And so, Lord, I pray that if there's anything that I've said this morning that's just been my own opinion or it's been untrue or distracting from the truth, God, I pray that all of those things would be quickly forgotten. But Lord, if. If your word has been proclaimed this morning, I pray that your spirit would embed it in our souls, that your hooks would get into us and we would not be able to stop thinking about the conviction that you have brought on us.
And Lord, I don't think it would just be conviction of what's wrong or the wrong that we're doing. I think that you also convict of what's right, Father, that you would shore up and that you would encourage those who have made the hard decision to walk away with you in difficult places.
And Lord, I pray that if there's somebody who's hearing my voice right now that has not embraced the mystery that the God of the universe would put on flesh to die for me when I still hated him.
Lord, I pray that today would be the day that they would turn to you and say, I don't think I understand, but I want to trust it.
Thank you for your word. I pray that you would continue to speak. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
