Corinthians chapter 8 verse 9,
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though
he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through
his poverty might become rich. Now in the book of Hebrews, as
the writer of Hebrews is trying to establish the superiority
of the new covenant over the old covenant, he speaks of it
being established on better promises. And those promises are better
for two things. Number one, they're promises
of better things than were promised under the old covenant. The old covenant promised things
pertaining to this life. The new covenant promises things
that pertain to everlasting life. And then secondly, these promises
are better because they're founded on a better foundation. The promises of the old covenant
were based upon the obedience of those to whom the commands
were given. No obedience. No blessing? How would you like to live in
that system? But the promises of the new covenant
of the gospel are based not upon our obedience, but upon the obedience
of Jesus Christ. Now, we're convinced of his complete
obedience, aren't we? He did always those things that
please His Father. In Him is no sin. He knew no
sin. Now, perfect obedience earns
perfect blessing. But our Lord went beyond perfect
obedience in terms of obedience to a set of commandments of righteousness. He went, as we've explained before,
he went beyond righteousness unto goodness. He did more than
he was required. And what he did was not done
for his own sake. It was done for the sake of others.
It was done for the sake of his father. God, the judge of all. He had chosen a people and he
had determined everlasting blessing for them. But he's a just God
and a just judge. He can't bless the wicked. So Jesus Christ came and endured
in himself the punishment that all those marked out for blessing
deserved. And therefore God can say, all
right, justice has been satisfied. I can now show blessing, I can
be just, even as I justify those who believe in Christ, even though
they are sinners. And not just, not righteous.
But what he did, he did for us. He loved the church and gave
himself for her. You who believe, I want you to
think, this morning for just a minute on that wonderful truth.
When Christ died, he did not die for some indiscriminate,
unknown group of people that only time would reveal as to
whether or not they were actually benefited by what Christ did. Like the high priest of the old
covenant who went into the most holy place with a breastplate
and only the names of the tribes of Israel were written on there.
It said nothing about Greece. It said nothing about the Philistines.
It wasn't for them. He did not enter the most holy
place with the blood of atonement for anybody but the house of
Israel. And their names were written
on his hands. So in his heart and on his hands, in his will
and love, and in all his actions, the name of Israel was represented
there in that old covenant sacrifice. And Christ, fulfilling that type
of the high priest, went into the most holy place, not made
with hands, into the very presence of God. And he went there, the
names of all his elect upon him. upon his heart, that means. Think on this and see if this
isn't something amazing to consider. That about 2,000 years ago, our names, every believer here, our names
were on the heart and mind of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our names
were brought before the throne. And all our sins were brought
there. And all those sins were paid
for. And here's the interesting thing.
When the high priest came back out of the temple, that breastplate
was still there. Not one jewel, each one of those
tribes was represented by a separate jewel in that breastplate. Not
one of them was missing. He hadn't lost one of them back
there in that most holy place. He went in there bearing them
and bearing their sins. He went in there with the blood.
He poured it upon the mercy seat or the atonement
cover as it's more strictly translated, but he poured it out in the presence
of God, the judge. God accepted it. And he walked
out and the sin stayed there people came out with the high
priest. And our Lord Jesus Christ went
to the most holy place with our names upon Him and our sins upon
Him. And the only thing He left behind
was our sins. He came out with us. Now that's
better promises because they're established on
a better foundation. The obedience to of Christ even
unto death, the death of the cross. But you know the New Covenant
has better exhortations too. The New Covenant tells us that
all the work of establishing a righteous standing in the sight
of God, that's done. But there are also things that
we should be doing. There is a way that we're supposed
to live. But the way the New Testament
teaches us how to live, and when I say the New Testament, remember
the word New Testament and New Covenant mean exactly the same
thing. But we think of the New Testament as a particular set
of scriptures. So the New Covenant is plainly
revealed in the New Testament scriptures. And how much better
those exhortations are there than the ones we find in the
old covenant. We can't find fault with the
exhortations and commands in the old covenant. There's nothing
wrong with them. It's not as though God didn't have the right
to expect us to act that way, but they were given under threat. This do and live, disobey and
die. Now, that's the way you have
to deal with rebels. You have to give them a commandment, which if it's
broken, it brings a curse. And if it's kept, there is a
blessing. But the new covenant and all
its exhortations, commands, or whatever you want to call it,
They're not addressed to rebels. They're addressed to children,
to sons. They're not given to scare us
into obedience. They're not given to us to once
again have upon us a yoke of bondage, of law, a yoke that
causes us to live in fear of death, because that's satanic
bondage according to Hebrews 2. One of the ways you can detect
within any church whether they rightly understand the grace
of God is this. Do they try to scare the people
into proper conduct? Do the people go away saying,
thank God I am free? Or do they go away and say, oh,
I better straighten up? Listen to these words again. Verse 9, 2 Corinthians 8, for
you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was
rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that you might through
his poverty become rich. Now that's a really nice statement.
And if it were taken clear out of his context, that's preachable. I mean, you don't even need a
context. We know what he's talking about. We know the grace of the
Lord, we know the riches of his existence in eternity, we know
the riches of his existence even on earth, and we know something
of the impoverishment he suffered on the cross. And we know something
of the poverty of our natural condition. And we know at least
a little bit about the great riches, the unsearchable riches
of Christ, which have been given to us. And we rejoice in those
things. But do you know why Paul put
verse nine in here? Well, because in the previous
verses, he was talking about giving. He was talking about And I'm
going to use this word, but really it's not a good word. You know,
since everybody is, you know, natural born, they think under
the old covenant. And so they don't even come up
with words in language to describe the nature of Christian conduct. We have to use the words we know,
have to use the words that exist. And so we might say he's dealing
with the responsibility of giving. Now, once again, responsibility
isn't the right word to describe the believer's relationship to
giving. Because that puts us back under
bondage. If you have a responsibility, you must fulfill it or you'll
suffer for the lack of fulfillment. So it's not responsibility, I
just don't know what word to use. I could say the privilege
of giving, and it is, but that's what he's trying to convince
them of. What a wonderful privilege to be able to give in some fashion,
in order to help others, in order to advance the gospel. That the Corinthian church, which
may have been the wealthiest church, among all the churches
that Paul had helped establish. It was a port city in the Roman
Empire, a very wealthy town. And if there was any of those
churches that had money, it would have been that one. But they were not giving according to the measure
of the blessing that had been given to them. It didn't occur
to them. So Paul's giving them some instruction. And he sets before them the example
of those in Macedonia. In verse one, he says, and now,
brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has
given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial,
their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in
rich generosity. Now, they were generous. There was a collection being
made for the saints in Jerusalem, and I'm sure other parts of the
nation of Israel there. The saints there were suffering.
They were having their property taken from them. A famine had
come. God had sent a famine into that
land. They were suffering. And so the Gentile churches were
taking up an offering. And to take down there to those
people, help them out. Now the churches in Macedonia,
they were poor people too. And yet out of these poor people
came rich generosity. Now how could that be? Well,
out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy, extreme poverty, and the grace
of God all mixed together to make them generous givers. And you know, evidently, Paul had hid from them that an
offering was being taken. He had thought to himself, these
Macedonian believers don't have anything. They're suffering themselves.
You don't ask the suffering to help the other suffering. He
was, as we normally would think, was the right thing to do. He
was going to those who had a surplus and asking them to contribute
for the sake of those who didn't have enough. And lo and behold,
the Macedonians heard about it. News got to them of it. And it
says, they pleaded with us. Verse four, they urgently pleaded
with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the
saints. Now, so often preachers get in
the pulpits and they start begging the people to give. Lo and behold,
in the new covenant, you have a people begging for the privilege
to give. Sounds a little different than
what you read in the old covenant. The old covenant had tithes.
It was a law. You had to give 10%. And why
was such a law necessary? They were selfish. Most of them
did not have the grace of God. They were rebels against God,
they loved their money more than they loved God, and the only
way they were ever gonna give it is if there was a threat of
loss if they didn't. So a law was pressed on them.
No such thing has ever been pressed on the people of God under the
gospel. It's not fear that moves them,
it's grace. Why would these people's severe
trial and extreme poverty, excuse me, severe trial and extreme
poverty, why would that well up in rich generosity? Well,
of course, the grace of God is at the fountain of all of this.
But that grace, no doubt what it means is they knew what it
was like to suffer want. And that made them sympathetic
to their brethren down there in Israel who were suffering. And they thought, you know, I
haven't got much, but I can get by with even less. And anyway, God won't let me
starve. If I give more than is financially
wise, he will supply my need according to his riches in Christ
Jesus, says Paul. And here's another thing. These
people were full of joy. You know, there's a reason they
call stingy people misers. That's the first part of the
word miserable. You find someone who hoards to
himself and will not give. And I'm just talking about it
in a general word. This is just a true thing. You
find someone who, as they say, get all you can and can all you
get. They live like that, that's a miserable life. Even the world understands that
principle, even though they don't live by it much. You've all seen
productions of A Christmas Carol with Ebenezer Scrooge, who kept
all his money and was willing to kicked poor people out of
their houses, they didn't pay the rent, you know, and all that.
He was a miserable man. And yet the poor folks in there
were quite happy. And that's the way it was with
these, but they had this overflowing joy, which is the fruit of the
Spirit. It wasn't just a natural joy. They were joyful because they
not only had grace, They knew they had grace. They knew their sins were gone. And if your sins are gone, there
really can't be anything bad going on. So here you have the grace of
God, severe trial, great joy, overflowing joy. extreme poverty, and out of that
came great generosity. You don't see anything there
of anybody giving more than they wanted to give. I've said before, the old covenant
set a minimum amount to give. The new covenant sets a maximum
amount. The new covenant teaches us we're never to give more than
we can, and we're never to give more than we want to. For the
Lord loves a cheerful giver, doesn't he? He loves someone
who gives, and this isn't just in reference to what you may
put in the offering plate. This is an attitude of heart
and mind that should be in us, not only towards the church of
the Lord Jesus, but really to all. that we find great joy and
satisfaction in giving. And those who do that, he says,
verse three, four, I testify that they gave as much as they
were able and even beyond their ability entirely on their own. No psychological manipulations
at a fundraising luncheon. Nobody's name got written on
the pew because they gave a certain amount of money. These people were loved by God
and they knew it. And they loved their brethren. And because of that, they were
able to give more than any human being would have thought was
possible. No financial advisor would have
said to them, give that much. They would have said, no, you
need to hold some back yourself. You got to lay aside for a rainy
day. They gave and they loved to give
and rejoiced at the privilege to do it. And it goes on to say, and here's
the, so far as our experience in this,
here's the first part of it. He says in verse five, and they
did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to
the Lord, then to us in keeping with God's will. Now some people are quite happy
to give some of their stuff. We can part with some of our
stuff, maybe even a lot of it. These people started by giving
themselves to the Lord. Not that they didn't already
belong to the Lord. Rather, these people, in the
response of love, toward the God of their creation and their
redemption. In response to that, they said,
I'm yours, lock, stock and barrel. Everything about me, me, whatever
I am as a person, Lord, and whatever I have, it's yours. They did that first. And they
meant it. They didn't need to have some
public service where they came down front and showed everybody
that they were giving themselves to Jesus. They just did it. And if in your heart, if from
your heart, You have truly given yourself and all you have, lock,
stock, and barrel. And the reason they, you know
that phrase lock, stock, and barrel, the reason they use that
to mean everything, that's all there is to a gun. There's the
lock, there's the stock, and the barrel, that's all there
is. So you give yourself lock, stock,
and barrel, that means you're not holding anything back. Lord,
it's yours. What do you want me to do with
it? That was their attitude. Now, he says in verse 8, I'm not commanding
you. Now, he's talking to what is
likely the wealthiest church in the group of churches with
which he was familiar. He wants to collect money. He
wants them to give for the relief of some Jewish believers. He's an apostle. He's got a lot
of authority in the hearts and minds of this people. And he
could have walked in there and said, listen, you guys got a
lot. Certainly compared. And I'm an apostle of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And here's what God says, and
this is what you need to do. Every one of you needs to write
a check for 20% of what you got. And they'd have done it. They'd have grumbled about it,
but they'd have done it. He carried that kind of authority among
them. But he said, I'm not going to command you. I'm not gonna
put you under bondage. I'm not going to ask you to do
anything you don't want to do." Oh, what a blessed way of life the
gospel is, the life of faith in Christ. It does not call on us to do
what we do not want to do. It calls on us to do what in
the deepest parts of our heart we really want to do. Now the
flesh often blinds us to that. The flesh talks a lot louder
than our spirits do sometimes. Doesn't it? I mean, you know, if you won
the lottery, and you start, what am I going to do with that money?
Would your first thought be, how many churches and missionaries
you could help. I'm not saying you wouldn't get
there. I'm just saying, let's be honest about what we are as
believers made of spirit and flesh. There's probably some
things we've wanted for a long time that we haven't been able
to get because we didn't have the money for it. Okay. I'm tired of this old pickup. I'm getting a brand new diesel. I saw the prices of diesels. Unless the time comes I can live
in one of those. Knowing what they cost, I don't
have nearly as much sympathy on farmers as I used to when
they would complain about, you know, not making any money. But
I kept seeing them driving new pickup trucks all along, and
you hear one go by, and it's diesel. I'm thinking, well, there's
$70,000 going down the road. I don't think he's hurting too
bad. We're all kind of like that.
We complain we don't have enough. And in America, we all live like
kings compared to the rest of the world. But he says, I'm not commanding
you. And then he gives them some information,
something to think about. And what he gives them to think
about will move them to joyfully contribute
what they think they can and more. to this need of the Jewish
brethren. For you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Now before we speak of the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, let's just for a minute rejoice in
the fact that we know that grace. There's seven billion people
in this world. Two billion of them call themselves
Christians. So that's five billion people
right away we know do not know the grace of the Lord. But how
many of that two billion who profess to be Christians, how
many do you think actually are? Because that includes every cult, that includes the Roman church,
which holds to a way to God completely different than ours. I'm not
saying they're worse people than us. They're not. But all you have to do is compare
what they say they believe and what they do. You compare that
with the scriptures and you can say, okay, that's not Christian.
It's religious. It's moral. It may provide some
benefit to this world in making people act charitably and at
least publicly behave themselves, but their way of eternal life
is not the gospel. And yet they're included in that
2 billion. In fact, I think they're about
half of that 2 billion. And then you got all the denominations. There are some churches now,
they call themselves churches and they brag about churches
and we're like Jesus and all this and the things they're doing,
the things they're saying are so contrary to Christ. You know,
they're not, they don't know the grace of God. You keep whittling
it down and you know what you come up with? What Paul said
has always been the case, even now. There is a remnant according
to the election of grace. And at that point, he was saying
there's a remnant among the Jews. Among those who profess to know
God, there was only a remnant that truly knew him. And in our world of two billion
people that claim they know God according to the Christian religion,
brethren, there's only a remnant of them according to the election
of grace that actually do. And you are among them. You know
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know its doctrine. If someone asked you, What do
you mean by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ? You could
tell them. Now I know some of us stumble
all over ourselves when somebody asks us a question, and that's
just a speaking problem. That's not because you don't
know. You may find it difficult to
communicate, but you know what it is in doctrine. But more than
this, You know what it is in experience. You know what it
is to be dead in trespasses and sins and then be made alive in
Christ. You know what it is to want to
do good, but finding yourselves doing what is wrong and feeling
in yourselves that old condemnation again, because you know it's
what you deserve. And yet the Lord comes back again
with another message of his grace, another testimony of his goodness.
And once again, you feel pure as a driven snow. He has washed
your sins away once again. You know that. You know what
that's like. You know the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And you know how it got to you. That Jesus Christ, who was rich,
oh, how rich he was. He was the maker of heavens and
earth, so he owned all of it. But he had riches of heavenly
glory. He had riches of divine rights and privileges. Riches of joy. Riches of everything. Even in this life as a human
being, he was a rich man. What do you mean? He was, you
know, the carpenter's son, and he didn't have nothing. I'm not
talking about those kind of riches. If that's all the riches you
have, you're very poor indeed. He had riches of favor with God. God said, this is my beloved
son. I'm tickled to death with him.
Why, everything he does makes me smile. Speaking here after
the manner of men. This is my boy, watch him, look
at him. Isn't he wonderful? Now, God
never said that about anybody else. So far as we know, the
Father has spoken audibly only twice and both times he says,
this is my son whom I love and I'm well pleased with him. Riches of favor, riches of joy. It is written, I know he's called
the man of sorrows but think about this, it's written that the fruit of
the Spirit is joy and it's also written that our Lord Jesus had
the Spirit of God without limit. That means all those things mentioned
as the fruit of the Spirit were His in infinite measure. That doesn't mean He didn't experience
sorrow, but you see the joy of the Lord is something that keeps
on going even as we weep, because it's a different kind of joy.
But it's a joy that sustains in the most sorrowful times.
He had it. No man rejoiced in the Lord like
he did. No one found strength in the
time of trouble. No one had that joy of the Lord,
which is the strength of God's people. Nobody had it in the
measure he did. He was a man rich in understanding. But what does it say? You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor. Now Paul in another place says,
now I'm not asking you to give to the point that you become
poor, so that others might be rich. He said, that's not what
I'm asking you to do. But that's exactly what Christ did. He became
poor that we might be made rich. He made himself poor. He gave
it up. He, as it were, wrote a check
for everything he is and had for us. He transferred all of his wealth
to our account. He became poor, poorer than anyone
you and I have ever known. He became poor as those in hell. And I would say to some degree,
poorer. because he paid the full price. He emptied himself, made
himself of no reputation, and then suffered death, even the
death of the cross. And he got to the full end of
death. He perfected death. He accomplished
it. Those in hell have never accomplished
dying. That's why they keep going on.
They're dying forever. They're not dead forever. They're
dying forever and ever. They never come to the full measure
of poverty. This thing about knowing just
how great your sins and miseries are, there's only one person
in all the universe who knows by experience how great the sins
and miseries of a sinner really are, and that's the Lord Jesus
Christ, because he experienced the full measure of it. We know
a little bit of it, and all we need to know of it is enough
to make us run to Christ, that's all. There is no virtue. There are no extra points to
be gained by coming to some special knowledge of how sinful you are.
Because as you well know, and we've said this a lot of times,
I'm not barking at you. Sometimes I sound a little barky,
I know, but I'm really barking against what I perceive to be
a faulty view of things pressed on people to keep them from Christ.
You and I know this. We know that we're sinners and
we may grieve over our sin, but we also know this. We do not
know 1% of 1% of how great a sinner we are. The Lord Jesus Christ does. He knows more about your sin
than you do. And believe me, this is a blessing
to my heart to think of. I learn a little bit more of
my sinfulness and I think, oh, I can't, it can't be that I'm
a believer. My Lord knew the fullness of
my sin far beyond what I know it and saved me anyway. And I haven't done anything yet
to surprise him. I didn't know he was like that.
Yes, I knew he was like that because I bore that in my body
on the tree. He became poor, absolutely destitute,
stripped of everything good, and bore within himself the wrath of God, forsaken of
God. Oh, you've had some hard times,
but God has never forsaken you. You say, how do you know? Well,
you're still breathing. You're still breathing. And when you quit breathing,
he's not gonna forsake you then either. He's gonna be right there
and take you to your next home. Christ was forsaken. He became
poor so that through his poverty, we might become rich. How rich? Put your seatbelt on. Henry used to say, hang on, we're
about to jump a creek. You're as wealthy as he was. Because just as he became poor
with your poverty, we become rich with his riches. And how does Paul measure the
riches of the Lord Jesus Christ. Unsearchable. I don't know who's supposed to
be the richest man in the world, but they can tell you how rich
he is. I mean, an accountant can figure
it out. You add up the accounts and the value of the property
and all that, you add it up. And it may be an astounding amount
and an amount we think to ourselves, well, nobody could ever spend
that in a hundred lifetimes. Well, that may be true, but we
can search out how rich they are. The riches of the Lord Jesus
Christ are unsearchable. We will never exhaust them. Though
we pile sin upon sin, We will never come to the end
to the riches of Christ to pay for them. You say, boy, you tell people
like that, they're going to say, oh, then I just may as well get sinning.
No, it has exactly the opposite effect on God's people. They
suddenly despise their own riches. Whatever is riches in money,
riches in reputation, riches in whatever, we might naturally
count to be riches. We think, you know, that's just
really not riches. I'm not saying I don't enjoy
it. I'm not saying that they can't
be useful, but these are not what I call riches. What I have
in Christ, that's riches. And I'm rich beyond counting
because I am heir to the unsearchable riches of Christ. Now, that lays no responsibility on
us. He did not afterwards say, he
said, here's my advice. Isn't that something? The apostle
with all that authority said, here's my advice, not my command,
my advice. He doesn't shame them. All he did was tell them how
rich they are in the things that really matter. And that naturally worked in
them a generosity. that you never could have gotten
otherwise. Now this just, we've done all
this with just regard to one thing the apostle was dealing
with. But what about forgiving one
another? I've heard people say, and I
understand what they're saying. You know, someone once said,
if you say you'll never forgive, well, then I hope you never sin.
And I know what they're coming from. The Lord says that by whatever
judgment you judge, that's the judgment you'll be judged with.
And the one who won't give mercy won't get it. I understand all
that. You know how Paul urged us to
forgive? Forgive one another. as God in
Christ's sake, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Wow. Boy, I know some awful things
I've done, and I've done them against a glorious person, and
he freely forgave me? It just seems kind of silly of
me to get all upset about what some other unglorious person
did to unglorious me. Not worth mentioning. Love one another. You mean I
have to love? Love, like Christ loved you. Oh yeah, I'm loved. Nothing else matters. I can love people who spitefully
use me. I can seek blessings. for those
who try to curse me. Why? Because all that has been
done for me. Why would I want to live any
other way? You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank
God we know it. Know it in truth. Know it by
experience. Take that truth as fully as you
are able to absorb it. Then you go out there and do
whatever you think's right. And you know what? It'll be the right
thing to do. It will be the good thing to
do. And no one is going to have to stand behind you with a switch and make you do anything. What a blessed, blessed life
we have, brethren. Nothing to be compared with it
in the world. We live in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, James?