Well, good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here with you all, and also to serve on staff here at the church as the director of our college ministry. For those that aren’t familiar with the college ministry of this church, Campus Outreach is a reformed campus ministry underneath the authority of Christ Covenant session of elders and we serve on seven different campuses regionally, at Wingate University, UNC Charlotte, Davidson College, High Point University, UNC Greensboro, North Carolina A&T, and Elon University, in addition to our local ministry here at Christ Covenant Church.
And our team is passionate about sharing Christ with college students, and helping Christians grow in their faith. So if you or a loved one knows of a student at one of these colleges or universities, feel free to contact me. We would love to reach out and see if we can help that student grow in their walk with God.
Now as we turn to God’s Word, would you pray with me one more time.
Heavenly Father, as we look to the Scriptures, we acknowledge that we need Your help. We need You to come and feed us and to guide us and to give us the bread of life. We need you to soften our hearts, Lord, and we need you to help us apply what we learn. We ask, Father, that you would glorify Christ through the preaching of Your Word. And it’s in His name we pray. Amen.
Friends, whether or not you realize it, this morning you have been given a tremendous gift. This morning there are billions and billions of men and women across planet earth who will not receive the gift that you have right here and right now. It’s a gift more precious than gold. What’s that gift? Well, friends, we get to hear from the living God this morning. We get to hear what the infinite and the almighty God says to us. We get to fellowship with His people. We get to sing songs of praise to our Redeemer. Friends, if you are in Christ this morning, you have been given the greatest gift the world could ever imagine. And what we need to realize is that this a gift that not everyone is given. Billions and billions of people across the world have absolutely no access to the Word of God. And we do. All of us in this room.
So this morning I want to ask a question in light of that. In light of this gift, what are we to do with it? What are we to do with this precious gift that God has given us? Mainly the ability to hear from Him. How are we stewarding it? And this morning, I want us to look at how the Apostle Paul stewarded this gift.
So if you have your Bibles, please turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, beginning in verse 11. If you are visiting with us for the first time, let me extend Bernie’s welcome to you, a warm welcome from Christ Covenant Church, and invite you back next week and the week after as Pastor Kevin has been walking us through the gospel of John, seeing the life of Christ lived out in front of us. It’s a great opportunity if you’re here exploring who Jesus Christ is, to learn about His life and what He taught in the Scriptures.
But this morning we’re going to turn our attention to 2 Corinthians, page 969 in your pew Bibles. A bit of context for the book as we jump in. 2 Corinthians is actually the fourth and final letter that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. We only have two of these letters, but in these letters we see that this was a church and this was a group of people that the Apostle Paul cared very deeply about. Paul loved these people, and yet his relationship with them was extremely complicated. The Corinthians were a worldly church that Paul was constantly calling back to repentance in Christ. And he spent a great deal of time and energy helping the Corinthians.
One of the major themes of this letter was the Corinthians were assessing Paul’s ministry. Was Paul’s ministry valid or not? The Corinthian church had believed that maybe Paul had suffered a bit t...
