“Sincerity” || What Makes a Believer? || Week 6

Welcome to Week 6 of “What Makes a Believer?”. This series is about the different characteristics of what a believer is. There are a ton of characteristics to talk about according to my Study Bible. We’re taking the time to talk about seven different characteristics that I feel can be expounded upon. I want to reiterate something:

I DO NOT HAVE A DEGREE IN ANY FORM OF THEOLOGY. I AM NOT A PASTOR. I DO NOT HAVE ANY PREACHING OR THEOLOGICAL LICENSES. I AM JUST A YOUTH AND CHILDREN’S MINISTRY LEADER THAT ENJOYS DIVING DEEPER INTO THE BIBLE. THESE ARE MY OPINIONS BASED OFF MY STUDIES, SCRIPTURES, AND PERSONAL TESTIMONY. 

I say all that even though no one has come to me and questioned what I’ve said, how I’ve said it, or that I’ve taken scripture out of context. I always want to call that out to make people aware of it before we jump into it. It’s a failsafe for me honestly.

Two weeks ago, we discussed how believers are to be “righteous”. This week, we’re talking about how believers are to be “sincere”. Let’s define it! Sincere means “saying what you genuinely feel or believe; not dishonest or hypocritical”. I do want to say something as well. This does NOT give you the right to be brutally honest with someone or tell someone off because of you how you genuinely feel. This is NOT me giving you the okay to do that. Got it? Good! The sincerity of believers should come from a loving place. The words should be constructive, not belittling. That’s how Jesus did most of the time.

Speaking of Jesus’ actions, let’s get into today’s first scripture. Join me in Paul’s 2nd letter to the church in Corinth, or 2 Corinthians as it’s more commonly known.

1st Scripture: 2 Corinthians 1:12

Paul had a very deep connection with this church. Once he left to continue his missionary journey, he heard about immorality and trouble that was consistently happening. There are some lost letters in correspondence between Paul and the church, but 1 Corinthians is about the clarification of some of these issues. They were getting worse and worse though, even to the point where the Corinth audience was attacking Paul’s character. They were getting themselves into false teachings and were convincing others that Paul’s teachings were from the devil and that they were right. Paul saw the desperate need to be there, so he paused his work in Ephesus and returned to Corinth and this is of that 2nd trip.

We’re in 2 Corinthians 1, which is Paul’s introduction to the letter. We’re in the section about Paul explaining his change of plans. Our focal verse is 2 Corinthians 1:12, which says:

  12 We have conducted ourselves with godly sincerity and pure motives in the world, and especially toward you. This is why we are confident, and our conscience confirms this. We didn’t act with human wisdom but we relied on the grace of God.

We see Paul here defending himself from all the critics and attacks that have come to him. Paul shows us the example of how to stand up to our critics: by using his conscience. I mean, this man was accused of being “proud, self-serving, untrustworthy and inconsistent, mentally unbalanced, incompetent, unsophisticated, and an incompetent preacher). This is would be enough for us to snap and start chopping some heads off or to write the situation off and let them self-destruct in their error-like ways. Paul doesn’t do either of that.

Paul’s confidence here shows the legitimacy behind what God has done for him. Paul would often use the word boast in talking about this situation (at least in my ESV study bible), which normally means unnecessary bragging about one’s own merits and achievements. Paul genuinely uses it hear to talk about what God has done for him. He’s boasting in God’s glory.

He’s confident, and his conscience confirms it. Sounds arrogant, right? We just learned that it’s not arrogant at all. Our conscience lets us contemplate our motives and actions, and make a moral evaluation of what’s right and wrong. That sounds like us, right? We take what knowledge we have and decide on what we should do. We analyze our situation, determine what is morally right and what is morally wrong. That’s fine and all, but should that be based on what WE understand. The last time that situation occurred, well…you know the Genesis 3 story. I won’t go into it. We need to set our conscience on a better foundation.

For our conscience to work how God designed it, it needs to be informed to the highest moral and spiritual level and the best standard. This means to submit our conscience to the Holy Spirit through God’s word, which is what Paul did. Look at what Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:5:

  5 The goal of instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

Paul wouldn’t tell Timothy this if he didn’t believe it himself. Timothy was going to be the preacher at Ephesus and Paul’s first letter to him was about how to become an excellent preacher. It’s interesting to be because Paul had to pause his work at Ephesus to go back to Corinth here. I wonder if Paul learned something from the chaos that came out of Corinth after he returned to Ephesus and wanted to let Timothy know what could happen and what he should do. I don’t know the timeline of these letters off the top of my head, but it is food for thought.

Now, this is twice, we’ve seen the wording around “sincere”. Paul says that his crew acted with “godly sincerity” and told Timothy that instruction needs to come from “sincere” faith. We learned earlier that sincere means to say what you genuinely believe or feel. This now connects what I meant when I said you can’t say what you want and call it sincerity. That just ain’t how it works. Paul uses “godly sincerity”. His conscience was built foundationally through the word of God and therefore held him to a higher moral standard than many others. The sincerity would have used would have been like he told Timothy.

From a pure heart, Paul would have expressed how he felt with kindness instead of hostility. Our God is not an angry God contrary to popular belief. He may experience anger just like we do. But in the end, He is a loving God that wants the best for us and a relationship with us. 

With a good conscience, Paul wouldn’t have spoken out of an emotional response. He would have taken the time to assess what’s been said about it, carefully craft his response, and speak it genuinely. Again, Paul’s standards were set higher than most others, so Paul couldn’t respond with anger. He wouldn’t be practicing what he preaches, right? He had to be confident in what he said because he knew his conscience what acting on God’s teaching. With sincere faith, Paul believes that what He has done for them was right. He acted on what God told him to do and went through with it on pure motives. Paul was heavily focused on expanding the kingdom of God not for personal gain, but for a heavenly extension. Paul was sincere in his actions by speaking from the heart. All this rambling leads me to my first point:

1st point: Sincerity comes from the correct foundational conscience. 

Let’s move on to the next scripture. Actually, we don’t have to move too far. We’re staying in the book of 2 Corinthians. We’re reading 2 Corinthians 2:17, which says:

2nd Scripture: 2 Corinthians 2:17

  17 We aren’t like so many people who hustle the word of God to make a profit. We are speaking through Christ in the presence of God, as those who are sincere and as those who are sent from God.

Paul stands up for his actions by claiming to not “hustle the word of God to make a profit”. My ESV study bible uses the word “peddlers” instead of “hustlers”. Peddlers come from the Greek verb that means “to corrupt”. This word refers to the corrupt con men who, by their cleverness and deception, were able to sell as genuine an inferior product that was only a cheap imitation. There’s no sincerity when it came to the false teachers. They were wanting to sell their beliefs, morals, and values to anyone willing to cough up the money. They were so clever and deceitful that they got away with it sadly.

These false teachers in the church were coming with clever, deceptive word choices to offer a degraded, adulterated messaged that mixed paganism and Jewish tradition. They were dishonest men seeking personal profit and prestige at the expense of gospel truth and people’s souls. They didn’t care about anything else other than making money. Money isn’t everything, contrary to what we’re told in everyday life. Money is fine and all, and it’s what we need to get food, water, clothes, shelter, and other necessary things for everyday living, but it’s not the end all be all…and it shouldn’t be. It was actually part of the reason that I work where I do today. For 2 years, I was the assistant Youth Leader at my parent’s church. It was a volunteer situation and I loved every minute of it. Then when I got the offer to have the same position at a different church and get paid for it…it was like a dream come true. With that type of mindset, there’s a sincerity I feel that says: “I’m in this for the betterment of our Youth and the Kingdom of God instead of getting paid for it.”

The use of clever and deception isn’t sincere. It’s almost the opposite. We defined sincerity as “saying what you genuinely feel or believe; not dishonest or hypocritical”. Deception is defined as “causing someone to believe something that is not true, typically to gain some personal advantage.” It’s interesting to me to see the definitions of these two words back-to-back. Both of these involve using our words. Sincerity involves saying what you genuinely feel or believe, while deception involves saying something that isn’t true to get what you want. Sincerity involves the betterment of others, while deception involves personal gain. Be sincere towards others. Don’t use others for personal gain, either via words or actions. It’s not the godly way and Paul knows that. 

Paul speaks through Christ in the presence of God. Paul has always been aware that his entire life was being watched by God. God knew everything he thought, did, and said. Therefore, God knows what we think, do, and say. Our words can speak evil. James says so in James 3:8, which says:

  8 No one came tame the tongue, though. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

Our tongue is always working…and not for the good. Our words have the ability to speak life and death. While the world is full of poisonous, deceitful, and clever words, why not make our words sincere. Why not make our words more like God’s actions? You have a choice. This leads to my final point:

2nd Point: Choose your words sincerely. 

This brings us to the end of today’s message of being sincere. Make sure that your conscience comes from a sincere foundation, which God is the strongest foundation to build on. Make sure that your words are sincere, not deceptive or self-gaining. We will be back next week for the finale of this series, where we talk about wisdom. Stay blessed!