Vessels of Restoration
There’s a saying, "One man’s trash is another man’s treasure." Growing up, I watched my dad bring home broken stuff that he found in alleys, fix them up, and make them useful again. Once he purchased a used Ford Econoline van which was used as a work vehicle for a refrigeration company. Among other things, the transmission was shot. It looked like a beat-up van to me. However, slowly but surely, he transformed that work van into a conversion van with carpeted flooring, plush seats and a custom paint job.
Some people see things as broken and only good for the garbage heap. Others see beyond the brokenness to what can be. This is especially true of God.
God will bring final judgement to this fallen world. But when God sent Emmanuel into the world the first time, He didn’t come to condemn the world, but came in order that the world might be saved through Him. When God looks upon humanity, He sees more than sin and brokenness. He sees what His rescuing and restoring grace can do in and through the lives of all who believe (2 Corinthians 5:17).
What is true of God ought to be true of all who have been made new by the saving grace of Jesus. All who are saved receive the Holy Spirit not only to be made new, but to take on God’s heart so that we can become vehicles of His restoring grace. As believers who have been restored, we are called to see people not as they appear right now, but for what and who they can become. No one is too broken for God. There is grace potential in everyone. Let’s examine 3 elements that will help us become vessels of restoration.
Worship
After explaining that his intentions to visit them was based on the faithfulness of God, and before explaining in more detail why he decided not to follow through with his plans, Paul wrote: “But I call God to witness against me—it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth” (2 Corinthians 1:23). What made him such a powerful vessel of gospel restoration? He lived his life with a conscious and continual awareness of God. Repeatedly throughout his letter, Paul appealed to the witness of God and his God-informed conscience to emphasize that his words were true—that he was not making things up (2 Corinthians 2:11). At the conclusion of this letter he writes, “Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved” (2 Corinthians 12:19).
What Paul is saying here is that in the same way he lived his life, he also wrote this letter; in the presence of God. Worship is more than an event; it’s a lifestyle. True worshippers see the worth of God and treasure Him above all things. True worshippers live with a conscious and constant awareness of God. True worshipers don’t just say amen on Sunday. They do everything they do for God’s eyes only. True worshipers know a joy and satisfaction in God that is not dependent upon outward circumstances. Because worship is what we were made for, true worshippers are satisfied in God. They don’t need others to serve them or celebrate them to be happy. Rather, they find joy in serving others.
Like Paul, are all your actions, decisions and words that you speak, write, or post done in the presence of God? When I was a kid there were many things that I would do and say in the presence of my friends that I would never do in the presence of my earthly father. But since Jesus came into my heart, the presence that most influences what I do or don’t do, whether in public or in private, is God’s presence. We can’t be true worshippers if who we are in public doesn’t match who we are in private. True worship is more than raising your hands in church. True worship is to live with an awe-inspiring awareness and knowledge of God that more than anything else shapes everything you do and say.
Do you live your life in the presence of God? Does His presence shape your life more than anything else? If God’s presence is not your greatest influence and joy, it could be that you’ve never come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. But it could also mean that you’ve been violating your conscience by acting against it and grieving the Holy Spirit in the process whose primary ministry is to make the presence of God real to us. Like Paul, if we are going to be men and women of integrity, we must live before God with a clear conscience which is continually being informed by the word of God.
Work
After calling on God as a witness against him, who Paul reverenced above all else, he continues in verse 24: “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” Although the Corinthians needed to grow up in their faith, Paul knew that their faith in Jesus was genuine—that they hadn’t lost their faith. Therefore, he decided to write another letter before visiting them to address his detractors and other ungodly attitudes in the church. (2 Corinthians 2:1-3)
Paul didn’t want to go to Corinth and spend all his time correcting and rebuking people that were opposing him or questioning his apostolic authority. He wanted to enjoy mutual fellowship. He labored for their joy. Therefore, he hoped that his previous letter would have restored them back to a place of joyful fellowship with Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:3)
When we know the joy of the Lord, our aim for coming to church won’t be to be served. When we know the joy of the Lord, our aim will be to serve others for their joy. When we worship the One who has rescued and restored us by His grace, we will work hard by His grace so that others can know the joy of fellowship with Jesus.
Weep
Paul continues: “For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you” (2 Corinthians 2:4). Although Paul gives more than one reason for writing this letter, there was an ultimate reason and aim for this letter. He wanted the Corinthians to know that all the hard truth that he was compelled to share with them was motivated by love. It was important to him that the Corinthians understood that when he wrote letters to them, which contained words of comfort and correction, he did so not with anger but with anguish. (Acts 20:31) Paul didn’t care if the church thought he was an eloquent speaker or elegant writer. It was more important to him that they knew not what a great theologian he was, but rather the abundant love that he had for them.
In his recent book tilted, Fan the Flame, Jim Cymbala writes: “One day, many years ago, the Lord awakened me to a passage in Scripture. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul wrote, ‘Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you’ (2:7–8). The image is that of a woman pulling down the top of her dress and tenderly bringing the baby to her breast. In reading this, I felt as though God had shown me a missing element in my own ministry. I knew Paul had preached the gospel. I knew he followed the Holy Spirit’s leading. But now I saw that he also loved people with a profound tenderness and intensity. That’s what helped his preaching and ministry reach deep inside his listeners. The heart, even more than the head, is the key to speaking effectively on Christ’s behalf.”
God used Paul mightily in restoration because he had more than a head full of knowledge; he had a heart full of love for those he ministered to. If God is going to use us in restoration, we must do more than speak words over people, we must also weep over the people that need to receive God’s word.
It’s been said, grief or anguish is the cost of love. Because of his great love for us, Jesus took on a body of flesh so that He might enter into our pain and suffering. Because of His great love, Jesus suffered the pain and agony of the cross so that we might be saved from sin and know the joy of fellowship with God in this life and for all eternity. Paul wrote in Romans 5:5, that “God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” O when we have a heart full of God’s love and not just a head full of knowledge, God will use us in restoration.
How do we come to know more of the love of God? We must seek His face in worship. We must cultivate intimacy with God through prayer through the word and in close community with other believers. We grow to know more of the love of God not by serving ourselves, but by making ourselves available for God to use us to serve others for their joy in Jesus.
Restorers are worshipers. The more we know God and His great love for us through the Spirit the more we will work not for ourselves, but with others for their joy. Serving others for their joy enhances our joy. When we truly worship God and grow in His love, we will not only work for the joy of others, but we will anguish in prayer and serve with tears until we see Christ magnified in their lives. We will see people not for who they are now, but for who they can become. (Galatians 4:19)
O may the love of Christ poured out abundantly into our hearts break us and make us vehicles of God’s restoring grace to the glory of Christ our King.
Pastor Marco David
Some people see things as broken and only good for the garbage heap. Others see beyond the brokenness to what can be. This is especially true of God.
God will bring final judgement to this fallen world. But when God sent Emmanuel into the world the first time, He didn’t come to condemn the world, but came in order that the world might be saved through Him. When God looks upon humanity, He sees more than sin and brokenness. He sees what His rescuing and restoring grace can do in and through the lives of all who believe (2 Corinthians 5:17).
What is true of God ought to be true of all who have been made new by the saving grace of Jesus. All who are saved receive the Holy Spirit not only to be made new, but to take on God’s heart so that we can become vehicles of His restoring grace. As believers who have been restored, we are called to see people not as they appear right now, but for what and who they can become. No one is too broken for God. There is grace potential in everyone. Let’s examine 3 elements that will help us become vessels of restoration.
Worship
After explaining that his intentions to visit them was based on the faithfulness of God, and before explaining in more detail why he decided not to follow through with his plans, Paul wrote: “But I call God to witness against me—it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth” (2 Corinthians 1:23). What made him such a powerful vessel of gospel restoration? He lived his life with a conscious and continual awareness of God. Repeatedly throughout his letter, Paul appealed to the witness of God and his God-informed conscience to emphasize that his words were true—that he was not making things up (2 Corinthians 2:11). At the conclusion of this letter he writes, “Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved” (2 Corinthians 12:19).
What Paul is saying here is that in the same way he lived his life, he also wrote this letter; in the presence of God. Worship is more than an event; it’s a lifestyle. True worshippers see the worth of God and treasure Him above all things. True worshippers live with a conscious and constant awareness of God. True worshipers don’t just say amen on Sunday. They do everything they do for God’s eyes only. True worshipers know a joy and satisfaction in God that is not dependent upon outward circumstances. Because worship is what we were made for, true worshippers are satisfied in God. They don’t need others to serve them or celebrate them to be happy. Rather, they find joy in serving others.
Like Paul, are all your actions, decisions and words that you speak, write, or post done in the presence of God? When I was a kid there were many things that I would do and say in the presence of my friends that I would never do in the presence of my earthly father. But since Jesus came into my heart, the presence that most influences what I do or don’t do, whether in public or in private, is God’s presence. We can’t be true worshippers if who we are in public doesn’t match who we are in private. True worship is more than raising your hands in church. True worship is to live with an awe-inspiring awareness and knowledge of God that more than anything else shapes everything you do and say.
Do you live your life in the presence of God? Does His presence shape your life more than anything else? If God’s presence is not your greatest influence and joy, it could be that you’ve never come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. But it could also mean that you’ve been violating your conscience by acting against it and grieving the Holy Spirit in the process whose primary ministry is to make the presence of God real to us. Like Paul, if we are going to be men and women of integrity, we must live before God with a clear conscience which is continually being informed by the word of God.
Work
After calling on God as a witness against him, who Paul reverenced above all else, he continues in verse 24: “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” Although the Corinthians needed to grow up in their faith, Paul knew that their faith in Jesus was genuine—that they hadn’t lost their faith. Therefore, he decided to write another letter before visiting them to address his detractors and other ungodly attitudes in the church. (2 Corinthians 2:1-3)
Paul didn’t want to go to Corinth and spend all his time correcting and rebuking people that were opposing him or questioning his apostolic authority. He wanted to enjoy mutual fellowship. He labored for their joy. Therefore, he hoped that his previous letter would have restored them back to a place of joyful fellowship with Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:3)
When we know the joy of the Lord, our aim for coming to church won’t be to be served. When we know the joy of the Lord, our aim will be to serve others for their joy. When we worship the One who has rescued and restored us by His grace, we will work hard by His grace so that others can know the joy of fellowship with Jesus.
Weep
Paul continues: “For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you” (2 Corinthians 2:4). Although Paul gives more than one reason for writing this letter, there was an ultimate reason and aim for this letter. He wanted the Corinthians to know that all the hard truth that he was compelled to share with them was motivated by love. It was important to him that the Corinthians understood that when he wrote letters to them, which contained words of comfort and correction, he did so not with anger but with anguish. (Acts 20:31) Paul didn’t care if the church thought he was an eloquent speaker or elegant writer. It was more important to him that they knew not what a great theologian he was, but rather the abundant love that he had for them.
In his recent book tilted, Fan the Flame, Jim Cymbala writes: “One day, many years ago, the Lord awakened me to a passage in Scripture. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul wrote, ‘Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you’ (2:7–8). The image is that of a woman pulling down the top of her dress and tenderly bringing the baby to her breast. In reading this, I felt as though God had shown me a missing element in my own ministry. I knew Paul had preached the gospel. I knew he followed the Holy Spirit’s leading. But now I saw that he also loved people with a profound tenderness and intensity. That’s what helped his preaching and ministry reach deep inside his listeners. The heart, even more than the head, is the key to speaking effectively on Christ’s behalf.”
God used Paul mightily in restoration because he had more than a head full of knowledge; he had a heart full of love for those he ministered to. If God is going to use us in restoration, we must do more than speak words over people, we must also weep over the people that need to receive God’s word.
It’s been said, grief or anguish is the cost of love. Because of his great love for us, Jesus took on a body of flesh so that He might enter into our pain and suffering. Because of His great love, Jesus suffered the pain and agony of the cross so that we might be saved from sin and know the joy of fellowship with God in this life and for all eternity. Paul wrote in Romans 5:5, that “God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” O when we have a heart full of God’s love and not just a head full of knowledge, God will use us in restoration.
How do we come to know more of the love of God? We must seek His face in worship. We must cultivate intimacy with God through prayer through the word and in close community with other believers. We grow to know more of the love of God not by serving ourselves, but by making ourselves available for God to use us to serve others for their joy in Jesus.
Restorers are worshipers. The more we know God and His great love for us through the Spirit the more we will work not for ourselves, but with others for their joy. Serving others for their joy enhances our joy. When we truly worship God and grow in His love, we will not only work for the joy of others, but we will anguish in prayer and serve with tears until we see Christ magnified in their lives. We will see people not for who they are now, but for who they can become. (Galatians 4:19)
O may the love of Christ poured out abundantly into our hearts break us and make us vehicles of God’s restoring grace to the glory of Christ our King.
Pastor Marco David