Transcript

Today's Bible Translation

Bible translation used in today's episode: Ch. 6 NIRV; Ch. 7-8 NIV

Lifespring! Family Berean

Phil Colbourn

Podcast Introduction

This is Epistles Sunday, and we’ll read 2 Corinthians 6-8. The title is this episode is “Working Together“. We’ll also have a time of prayer. I’ll give you an update on Kathi’s trip to the City of Hope, and on Mark's skin cancer surgery.

Design: Scott Snider | Photo: Connor Hall on Unsplash

Comments on 2 Corinthians 6

1We work together with God. So we are asking you not to receive God’s grace and then do nothing with it. 

2He says, “When I had mercy on you, I heard you. On the day I saved you, I helped you.” (Isaiah 49:8) I tell you, now is the time God has mercy. Now is the day he saves.

2 Corinthians 6:1-2 NIRV

How marvelous! God calls us to work with Him! As God, He certainly does not need our help. God created the universe without us. Is there any doubt that anything He wants to do can be done without our assistance? Why does He invite us to work with Him? I think He does it for our benefit. 

When my boys were young, I would sometimes ask them to "help" me do work around the house. When they were very young they would "help" mow the lawn. When I would change the oil in the cars, I would ask them to hand me tools. Today, all three of my boys have the confidence to work with their hands to do whatever they decide to tackle. Steven, my middle son, recently thanked me for teaching him this skill. He works as a finance manager at a local car dealership, so working with his hands is not required by his job. He was given a new desk for his office, and instead of waiting for his employer to hire someone to assemble the desk, he put it together himself. His colleagues marveled that he was able to do it on his own! But he needed the desk, so he put it together. In his mind, it was no big deal. But they said, "I could never do that." So he thanked me for teaching him to work with his hands.

In my own life, my dad taught me the same lesson. My dad was a bricklayer. He worked with his hands from a very young age. He could do just about anything. I started helping him on bricklaying jobs when I was about ten years old. I would stack bricks, mix cement, clean his tools, whatever he asked me to do. I did that off and on until high school, when I got a summer job as a lifeguard. When I was about eighteen and needed to earn more money, I got a summer job with the company my dad worked for so that I would have enough money that I would not have to work during the college school year. I paid for my own books, I paid the school fees, I had gas money, and whatever I needed. One day on the job, my dad said to me, "I learned a long time ago that when the boss asks you if you can do something say, 'Yes!', whether you know how to do it or not. You can always figure out how to do it later. Just tell him, 'Yes', and then go figure it out." 

My dad built a very good life for himself using that approach, my business is in it's thirty-third year thanks to that mind-set, and I have passed it along to my boys. 

And now, God has called us to work with Him. You'll remember what Paul said in chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians, verse 20: “So we are Christ’s official messengers. It is as if God were making his appeal through us. Here is what Christ wants us to beg you to do. Come back to God!”  An messenger, or ambassador, is the representative of the one who sends him. His/her entire mission is to fulfill the agenda, the mission of the person or organization or organization for whom he/she is working. Any authority the messenger has is *delegated* to him by his superior. 

And this, as Paul said in verse 20, is the relationship we have been called to. What a privilege and responsibility! We are workers together with God. 

Time to get busy! Are you up to the assignment?

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