Our Podcast

The Marks of a True Servant of Christ Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Marks of a True Servant of Christ Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 11:7-15.

The more I know the Bible, this becomes the standard that I evaluate everybody from, including Pastor Mike. Everybody has to be measured by the Word of God. And if they do not match up with the Bible, I cannot believe what they are saying.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders, your host with Hope Worth Having, and we are so delighted that you could join us today and be a part of our radio program. We are continuing our study on the marks of a true servant of Christ.

Again, we are in 2 Corinthians 11, verses 7 -19. The Apostle Paul is dealing with those who are questioning his authority, so he lays out for them the characteristics or the marks of a true servant. So I want you to grab your Bible, pen, and paper.

Let’s begin to study together on these true marks of a servant. It elevates people from sin to righteousness. It elevates people from despondency to encouragement. It elevates people from despair to hopefulness.

That’s what the gospel of Jesus Christ does. It takes people who find themselves in turmoil to a place of peace and joy and strength. The power of the gospel is to wash away our sins and to give us new life in the Lord Jesus Christ.

All that the Apostle did was about enriching others so that they could be elevated by the gospel of Christ. Paul says this in verse 8, I robbed other churches. I robbed other churches. I didn’t come to the city of Corinth and charge a fee, but I robbed other churches.

Now don’t think that the Apostle didn’t receive support, no, just the other. As he speaks in hyperbole here. is reminding the believers that it was the churches from Macedonia that supported him because he had already received support from other churches.

He was like a missionary. He didn’t go to Corinth to get money from Corinth. He didn’t go there to enrich himself because he had already had a team of supporters from other churches who were helping him with his needs.

Again, we read in verse 9, when I was present with you and in need, when the Apostle did have a need, did he look to the church at Corinth to meet that need? No, he was, I was a burden to no one. For what I lacked, the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied.

And in everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so I will keep myself. So the Apostle understood that he didn’t have to charge a fee because he had supporters, because he had people standing with him.

And I want you to know what a blessing so many of you are to missionaries around this world, that they do not have to charge a fee to where they are serving. They do not have to require that the church support them and meet their needs, because there are people on the home front.

There are people here in the United States that are standing with them, and giving faithfully to faith promise, and they are making sure that the needs of that individual, the needs of that family, the needs of that missionary are met, and they do not have to charge a fee, the blessing.

And I want to commend you church, because even through all that 2020 brought upon us, but here’s the thing I want you to know is that every one of you stayed faithful to our missionaries. You stayed faithful to this ministry, and we stand here today saying we’re able to continue to support all of our missionaries and not have to drop any of them.

Now some of them the Lord did promote to heaven, some of them did retire, and some of them had change of ministries, but that had nothing to do with a lack of support. It’s just a new direction that the Spirit of God was leading them.

But for each of us, I want to say thank you, because that’s exactly the way it works. The apostle was able to be effective for God because he had a church that was standing with him. He had already taught the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 14, that in the same way the Lord commanded that those who proclaimed the gospel should get there living by the gospel.

It wasn’t that Paul did not receive financial aid, but he received it from other churches. His philosophy was simply this, when the apostle would establish a church, go in, plant it, get it going, get it organized, and then he would go to another man.

metropolitan area and he would plant another church. But whatever church he was planting and getting started, he never ever required them to support him. But he asked other churches who were already established, who were already growing, who already understood and they were maturing and they understood the need that there be a missionary.

They understood that there be a need for someone to plant churches in other cities so that the gospel could go on. They understood that and so he would ask those churches to support his ministry and so when Paul came to Corinth, he already had churches who were supporting him.

He was already receiving financial aid. We can see that in Philippians chapter four. I want you to just back up a little bit in the Bible if you would. Go ahead, open your Bible, get your device out, whatever works for you.

And Philippians chapter four. I just want you to see how this all connects together so that you understand this great system of you say. Sometimes people say, Pastor, why do we do faith promise giving?

Why do we support missionaries? Why can’t the people there that they’re ministering to support them? Because many of them are new believers still learning about giving. Many of them don’t understand the principles of giving.

Many of them are not even established in the faith, rooted in the faith. But God calls us who are to support. So Philippians 4, verse 15, the Bible says, now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving, but you only.

For even in Thessalonica, you sent aid once and again for my necessity. So Paul is commending the church at Philippi because of their faithful support to him. They didn’t back down from it. They didn’t say, well, look, we haven’t seen Paul in quite some time, so let’s just quit giving to him.

But rather just the opposite. They were faithful in every need that he had. They would send financial aid. And this is how it was organized. And this is how it was structured. So when you look at this text and you’re looking for the marks of a true servant, a true servant is humble, particularly in the areas of sacrificing for the cause of the kingdom and certainly in the area of finances.

But would you see just the opposite, the pride? Look at verse 12 of 2 Corinthians chapter 11. But what I do, Paul says, I will also continue to do that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast.

You see the false teachers? They boasted that they were apostles too. They boasted that they had just as much authority as Paul did. But he’s saying no. They don’t. And here was the problem that the false teachers had, that they were exposed because they kept demanding from this new church, these new believers, a fee.

They kept demanding money from them more than they could ever afford, more than the church could ever accomplish. And Paul says to them that I’m gonna continue to do what I’m doing. I’m not gonna charge the church.

He’s putting them in a difficult situation. And so what they did is they tried to flip it and said, well, because he won’t receive money, he’s not really a true apostle. If he was a great apostle, if he was a wonderful apostle, if he truly was from God, then he would demand and require a fee.

Now, you know what’s so bizarre about all that? As you and I are listening to it, we’re smart enough to say, that’s a dumb argument. But yet these Corinthians had become so blinded they bought into it.

And they said, yeah, what’s wrong with that guy? He won’t take a fee. What’s wrong with that guy? He won’t take any money. What’s wrong with him? Paul in his determination says, what I do, I’m going to continue to do it.

That I may cut off the opportunity for those talking about the false teachers to desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things which they boast. So they tried to say Paul was inferior, the false teachers did, but the truth is they had a high opinion of themselves demanding high fees because they thought they were worthy of these high fees, but they had become nothing but financial parasites in the church.

So what I want you to understand is that true servants of God is humility. Every one of us should strive for humility. And here’s the key as we pray that God would give us humbleness because it’s not natural for the heart to be humble, right?

It’s natural for the heart to brag. It’s natural for us to boast. It’s natural for us to lift up ourselves. It’s natural to think about ourselves. Don’t be angry because you have a human nature, but it’s sinful.

And so you have to continue to pray as I do that God would help us to be humble people and that we understand that it is the grace of God that gives us humility. It is the grace of God that keeps us humble.

And sometimes you may stumble in the Christian life. You may struggle in the Christian life and do not become defeated because it may be God simply trying to keep all of us humble, right? I always felt when I was coaching it would be good for the team to lose a few games.

Unfortunately, a lot of my teams lost a lot of games. But I always wanted them to lose a few games. Why? To keep them humble. To keep them hungry. To keep them working hard. That if they thought they were so good, nobody could beat them, that they would slack off.

And you know, that’s what can happen in the Christian life, is that we have so many successes and so many victories, and we’re always seen to be accomplishing this and that. That we can become prideful and think, man, look at me.

Look how wonderful I am in the faith, and how strong I am for God. And then, bam, we get knocked down. God reminds us that we can’t live this Christian life without Him, amen? We need Jesus Christ. The Bible says, I can do all things.

Through who? Christ. Who does what? Strengthens us. Yes, you can do a lot of things. That doesn’t mean you can jump out of an airplane without a parachute. I mean, you could jump out of an airplane, I just recommend parachutes.

But I’m just saying, you can’t do it without a parachute. You will face the consequences. But here’s what the apostle is trying to say. I can do all things, I can live for God. I can be faithful to God.

I can continue to strive forward for God, but it’s gonna have to be through Christ in his strength, not my own. That’s important. The second mark I want you to note if a true servant is truth. So we come down to verse 10 and he says in chapter 11, as the truth of Christ is in me.

No one shall stop me from this boasting in the regions of Achaia. And what he is saying is this, that when he uses the word boast, he’s just talking about bragging about the gospel, bragging about Christ.

No one’s gonna stop the apostle from telling others about Jesus Christ. Why? Because the truth of Christ is in him. And when the apostle uses this word truth, he’s really talking about integrity. And integrity is an important part of the ministry of the apostle.

I want you to back up to chapter seven. There are many other verses that the apostle gives us and help us to understand his importance of integrity. But I want you to see this in verse 14 of chapter seven.

For if in anything I have boasted to him about you, I’m not ashamed, but as we spoke all things to you in truth, even so our boasting to Titus was found true. And what his point is that everything that he has been bragging has always been about Christ and he has worked diligently to keep integrity in the ministry.

Paul sought to maintain integrity in ministry to prevent the gospel from losing its credibility. That’s why integrity is important in each of our lives. That’s why truth is important in all of our lives.

The gospel is dependent upon our integrity. The gospel is only as good as God’s people are truthful. If you walk out of here and you live a duplicit life, you live a double life, you live a life that is hypocritical, you say one thing on Sunday, you say, oh God, I love you.

But on Monday through Saturday, you live like the devil and you’re telling everybody, I love the devil. I love the world, I love myself, I love the flesh. You are undermining the gospel of Jesus Christ.

My integrity affects the advancement of the gospel. You see the Bible that people mainly read as you. There isn’t a lot of people, much less Christians, picking up the Bible and reading it, right? The unchurched world’s not reading the Bible.

The only time they get to read the Bible is how you and I interact with them, how we behave, how we handle things, how we treat them. And that’s why truth is important, integrity is important. And that’s why we need to let God’s truth shape our character, shape who we are within, that as we proclaim the truth, it is in alignment with our own character.

And who we are as believers. Now that was just different from the false teachers. Look at verse 13 of 2 Corinthians. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.

When Paul uses the word false, it is the Greek word pseudo, which you know means fake. We hear a lot of fake things today, but he is saying that these guys, now think about how bold and brash this is for the apostle, but he is not backing down from the truth.

And he is calling them out. And he is saying to the church and to the church leaders that these guys are fake. They are deceitful. They disguise or transform themselves into apostles of Christ. These false teachers portrayed themselves that they were from God.

They portrayed themselves that they were sent by God. But the apostle is saying, look at these guys. They’re demanding these high fees on you. And their life is not in alignment with the truth of God.

Their character, how they live their life is in conflict with what the Bible says. Remember church, as God is trying to help us to be discerning in these days. that false teachers are Satan’s instruments.

They are instruments used by the devil, and they can mislead God’s people. Look at verse 14 of 2 Corinthians. No wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of life. Everything that glistens and glows is not gold, and everything that has the name of heaven and Jesus on it does not come from God.

You know, it just amazes me what people will subject themselves to, the kind of books that they’ll read, and the things that they’ll believe, and the things that they’ll say. And I try to tell them just because this person claims to be a prophet, claims to be an apostle, claims to be a preacher, does not mean that they are from God.

I’m telling you, I get inundated with people. I try not to be too difficult of a person, but you know how hard that is for me. But it’s this, they send me these, they send me these messages, they send me these video clips.

Pastor Mike’s prophet, so and so, has prophesied these things. What do you think about it? And I always wanna say, you really don’t wanna know, because I think they’re false teachers. I think they’re playing on your emotions.

I think they’re taking advantage of you. And I think that they’re more interested in elevating themselves than they are Jesus Christ. That’s what I think about the garbage that comes through social media sometimes.

That’s what I think about these false teachers, that they are really instruments of Satan. And that they appear as angels of light to you. And you do not have the discernment to see that they are not speaking the truth of God.

That’s why I taught you last week, how are we gonna know, how are we gonna know who’s true and who’s not, by growing in our knowledge of the word of God. The more I know the Bible, this becomes the standard that I evaluate everybody from, including Pastor Mike.

Everybody has to be measured by the word of God. And if they do not match up with the Bible, I cannot believe what they are saying the way it is. Jeremiah the prophet said in Jeremiah 14, 14, that the Lord said to me, the prophets prophesy lies in my name.

I have not sent them, commanded them, nor spoken of them. They prophesy to you a false vision, divination, worthless things, and the deceit of their heart. These false teachers that infiltrated Corinth.

They had disguised themselves as angels of light, but their whole ministry was based upon a lie. A lie. I want you to note three things here in this passage that he helped us to see how to distinguish false apostles.

And look at verse 13. He talks about the false apostles in verse 13 of chapter 11. For such are false apostles, deceitful. Then he says in verse 14 that Satan himself transforming or disguising themselves as angels of light.

Then he says in verse 15, they present themselves as ministers of righteousness, but they’re truly not. They try to present themselves. They’re disguised as servants of righteousness. Now how do you know?

Now let me encourage you in your own study. Go back to Matthew chapter 7. and your own personal time with God today. It is the Lord’s day, spend some time with Him, not just in worship with God’s people, but certainly together.

But Jesus says something about false teachers in Matthew seven, verse 20. He said, therefore, by their fruits, you will know them. You see these orchards around our community. How do you know? How do you know that they are true?

You look at the fruit, you look at the fruit, and that’s the way you can look at teachers. That’s how you can discern. How is their life? I see it all the time, I see it all the time. Sometimes people get mad at me because I always tell the music directors and I always tell the music people, and I know they don’t like it, but it doesn’t matter, I don’t care.

But I tell them they can’t sing Hillsong songs. I know that’s a mouthful. Why? Because they’re pastor’s pro choice. He’s for killing babies. Because he was just kicked out of his church because he’s had affairs with several women.

Because they had to hire an outside investigating. This is all up in New York City when the Hillsong, the popular band, Christian band, that everybody wants to be like. And it comes out that the whole culture of the whole church has been promiscuity, adultery, it’s been going on in the church and no one said anything.

How do you know if they’re true or not? You know them by their fruits. Now how can you be so ignorant as a believer and see all this junk going on and still go there and worship God? Not a true temple of worship, it’s a temple of pagans.

There are pretenders who are misleading people through their mouth. music to worship a false God. I’m not trying to be mean, I’m not trying to be harsh, but I’m just trying to illustrate how we are easily led away.

When you see character flaws, when you see things happening in people’s lives that are turning away people from Christ, you know that they are false. False servants of God. False teachers. False churches.

We have to be careful that we are not deceived by what is projected to us as righteous, but in truth behind the scenes they’re acting like the devil. Now the third and final thing, we just got a few minutes, but let me give you this third mark of a true servant of God and that is love.

Look at verse 11 of chapter 11. He says, why? Why is Paul not going to stop bragging about the gospel in the regions? Why is Paul not going to stop working for Christ? Why? Because I do not love you?

God knows. Some translations put, God knows I do. And the point being simply this, it’s obvious. Paul does love the people. The super apostles were trying to say that Paul was not affectionate and that he did not have a love for the people.

Paul may have not have been the softy kind of guy and he may not have been the guy who went around hugging everybody. But he truly loved the church. And that love is seen throughout the scriptures even in this letter.

We don’t have time to go through it all, but go back to verse 2. I think that’s enough. Chapter 11, verse 2, he said, I’m jealous for you with a godly jealousy. Did Paul love the church? Absolutely. You see, people will try to discredit someone’s love and they might try to say the love is not genuine, but it is.

And we need to be alert to that of what is true love. Now, look, true love has to be truthful. True love has to sometimes be tender and true love has to sometimes be tough. And trying to balance all that is difficult, but as we walk in the spirit as believers, we can see that we can show that kind of love at the right time.

There were times the apostle had to confront sin in the life of believers, not because he didn’t care about them, but because he does care about them. Because he does love them. You’ve had to do that as a parent.

You’ve had to step in to save your children from making a dumb mistake. You’ve had to step in and say, They say, wait a minute, you’re going the wrong direction. The bridge is out in that path, and you did it because you loved your children.

And so it is, the apostles sometimes had to be tough, but he was also tender. He cared. He had tremendous compassion. He showed that compassion in many ways. He sacrificed. He was a man of love. But unlike the church, false apostles who were prima donnas, who wanted special treatment, who wanted privileges, who wanted to be elevated, who wanted everybody to put them on this high pedestal and worship them,

who wanted money, who wanted special fees, who always were looking out for what they wanted rather than what the needs of the people of God are. That’s the distinction. Understanding what true love is, understanding it.

Now in each of our hearts, there has to be a desire that God would give us, that we would manifest these marks of a true servant, humility, truth, and love. And that God is calling each of us to once again to be strong in our faith by being firm and committed to be a humble people and truthful people and a loving people.

Remember the scriptures tells us that those unchurched people out there are going to know us by the love that we have for one another. It doesn’t mean that we always agree. It doesn’t mean that we always see every detail eye to eye.

It doesn’t mean that we’re always in the same page, but it does mean that even when we disagree, we’re loving, caring, humble, willing to work with one another, willing to keep helping the gospel to go forward.

This is what God is calling us to do. And who is our example? Who is the most humble among us? Jesus Christ. Who is the most truthful among us? Jesus Christ. Who is the most loving that he would give his life for us?

Who is the most loving among us? Jesus Christ. Church, I call you to be the servant that Christ is. I call you to emulate your Lord and savior by being humble, truthful, and loving. Remember that one of the marks of a true servant is humility.

The apostle reminds us that the place of humiliation is the place of God’s blessings, God’s joy. And so we are called to be humble servants, any teacher out there that is always the hero of their story.

stories or is always bragging about their achievements or always bringing the attention to themselves. Remember, they are not the true servants of God. The true servants of Christ are humble and they say, as John the Baptist said, he must increase and I must decrease.

So I hope that that is your understanding and one of those distinguishing marks that you’ll never forget. I want to make sure that you know that every Sunday we’re streaming live at The Open Door Church.

You can just go to HopeworthHaving .com and we are streaming live. You can jump on our Hopeworth Having channel or streaming live or you can go to our Facebook page and we are streaming live every Sunday.

Take advantage of those opportunities so if for any reason maybe you’re not able to get out to go to church or you’re not feeling well, we encourage you if your church doesn’t provide any kind of teaching or preaching outside of in person.

We are there for you, not to replace your church, not to do away with your church, but to simply supplement God’s teaching into your life to help you to grow in your faith. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.

Recent Podcasts

The Power of God’s Word Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Power of God’s Word Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 19:8-20 I want you to be careful, Church, that you just don’t jump in emotionally and find yourself led astray, fully humiliated, all the way exposed as a part of

Listen Now

The Power of God’s Word Part 1

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Power of God’s Word Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 19:8-20 Too many times as believers we think that somehow we have failed based upon the response of others towards our witnessing. But you have not failed at any moment

Listen Now

What Does it Mean to Receive the Holy Spirit Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Does it Mean to Receive the Holy Spirit Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 19:1-7 You should not pursue those signed gifts. They have been completed because that which is perfect has come, Church. You have everything that God wants

Listen Now