Raise you up from the evil sleep, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine. What's up, Chester A.R.P. Church devotional podcast. We are in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, first part of chapter 4 this morning. Paul uses the word therefore to get us started in verse 1. I'm Clint Davis. You know what we do, we read the Bible, we discuss it. Verse 1 of chapter 4, 2 Corinthians. Therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God. We do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Lord Jesus Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not of ourselves, but of Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for the sake of the Lord Jesus. For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That is a wonderful, wonderful section of 2 Corinthians. It is powerful and it is beautiful. Paul says, therefore, we have this ministry. What's the ministry? Well, we talked about that last time. It's the idea that the ministry of the New Covenant, the privilege of sharing the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ, that Jesus fulfilled all the promises of the Old Testament people of God, all the Old Testament, Old Covenant promises. He is the perfect sacrifice. He is the priest through whom we have life eternal. He is the king who will sit upon the throne of David, who has an eternal throne. And he is the prophet. He is the one who brings and reveals the word and will of God for our salvation and for our lives in his life. He is the embodiment. of God's Word. So Paul says all of those things in that old covenant have been fulfilled in Jesus and now we have the privilege of living in a new relationship with God, a new covenantal relationship with God, a new promise of God through Jesus Christ that is certainly yes and amen in Jesus Christ. He says, therefore, since we have that ministry, how do we get that ministry? By the mercy of God. I haven't done anything, Paul says, to receive this opportunity, this privilege. It has just been given to us by God's mercy. That's so true for you and me. We have the privilege of ministering the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to men and women and to attempt to see them come to know the Lord Jesus, to pray for them, to build them up, to encourage them, to challenge them, to confront them, et cetera. We have the privilege of ministering the gospel of God's grace, this beautiful new covenant that comes to us through Jesus Christ and his relationship with us in faith, and we haven't done anything to deserve it. It has just been given to us. We get to participate in the mission of God. It's just given to us, this privilege by the mercy of God. And so he says, we don't lose heart. Why would we lose heart? You know, the challenge of what we do, we're persecuted, we're perplexed. He's going to say that in the next section of chapter four, but we don't give up and we don't lose heart. We don't lose hope because we have been given this privilege by the grace and mercy of God. So he says, we've renounced underhanded ways and trying to trick people. We don't practice cunning or tamper with God's word. We don't do those underhanded things to try to trick people or to create environments to make people feel good about themselves or soften the blow of talking about sins so that people have their ears itched and feel good about themselves or we don't try to manipulate the emotions, etc. We don't do any of that stuff. We just simply openly state the truth and we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. We're just speaking the truth in open, in open settings, open air preaching, as it were. Right? The church of the Lord Jesus Christ should do nothing in private. We shouldn't be secretive. There's no secret nature to the society of the church. We should be proclaiming the message of the gospel from the rooftops and do everything in open, speak the truth, and let everything fall where it may. We commend ourselves to everyone's conscience and the sight of God. Listen, I'm not trying to trick you, Paul says. I commend myself to your conscience. But if the gospel is veiled, it's not veiled by us. We're telling it truthfully. The way in which the gospel is veiled in our society, in our world, is not through the proclaimer. It shouldn't be through the proclaimer. I shouldn't be trying to trick people. I should just tell you the unadulterated gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ loved you, gave his life for you, and rose again on the third day. You need to trust him and repent of your sins because you were separated from him. That's the open hope of the gospel. And you'll have eternity with him. The veiling of the gospel happens inside the receiver. And so those who are of the world, who are not followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, have had their minds blinded by the God of this world, by the devil himself. And so sometimes you wonder, how can someone hear the preaching of God's Word regularly? So maybe you know someone who's been involved in the life of a church for years and years and years, and they say, I don't know if that's true. For 30 years they've been hearing the preaching of God's Word. How is that possible? Because the God of this world has blinded their hearts and veiled the gospel. You know, somebody who's been studying the Bible, you know, in my world, I do a lot of reading and studying and preparing for podcasts and for teaching and preaching, etc. And so you'll read these scholars and many of them historic scholars, and they'll study the literature of the Bible, etc. And you're like, how do you read and do all this stuff and not know the Lord Jesus Christ, the God of this world has blinded them? And so what we must do is proclaim openly the truth of the gospel, do it out in the open, recognize that it's a privilege that's given to us by the mercy of God, and we must pray. that God will open the eyes of other people. Because it's only God who can do that, the Spirit who can open the eyes of other people. The glory of the new covenant is found in the reality of the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ. And so the Holy Spirit is the one who opens the eyes of men, women, and children to come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We just proclaim the truth, and we let the light shine in the midst of darkness, and we trust the Holy Spirit to do the work. So we need to be praying and proclaiming the truth of the gospel, praying for people and proclaiming the truth of the gospel openly to them so they may come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which is a privilege that is given to us as a result of God's mercy. You guys take care. God bless you. I'll see you next time.