The Sufficient Servant: Made Adequate by God's Grace

Well we return again this morning to our study in the book of 2 Corinthians. And in our time together last time, as we came to 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 12 to 17, we addressed the issue of battling discouragement in ministry. Inasmuch as every one of us in the body of Christ has been called to ministry, if we are being faithful to our calling to serve the body of Christ and to serve the lost world we have been sent into we will come face to face with genuine discouragement in the ministry. People you've poured yourself into will return to the very sin you labored to help them out of. What you intend as "faithful wounds of a friend" (Prov 27:6) will be received as legalistic judgmentalism, and relationships will be strained. And perhaps worst of all, those whom we have counted among our closest brothers and sisters will fall away from the faith, demonstrating by their going out from us that they were never truly of us (cf. 1 John 2:19)...

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