If we could find our seats, it's
time to begin. Let's open this morning's service
with a hymn from the hardback hymnal, hymn number 62. Hymn
number 62. And let's all stand together.
Number 62. Crown Him with many crowns, the
Lamb upon His throne. Hark how the heavenly anthem
drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of Him
who died for thee, and hail Him as thy matchless King through
all eternity. ? Crown him the Lord of love ?
Behold his hands and side ? Rich wounds yet visible above ? In
beauty glorified ? No angel in the sky Can fully bear that sight
But downwards bends his wandering eye That mystery's so bright Crown him the Lord of life, who
triumphed o'er the grave, who triumphed victorious to the strife
for those he came to save. His glories now we sing, Who
died and rose on high, Who died eternal life to bring, And lives
that death may die. Crown Him the Lord of heaven,
One with the Father known, One with the Spirit through Him given,
From yonder glorious throne. To Thee be endless praise For
Thou for us hast died Be Thou, O Lord, through endless days
Adored and magnified Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to
continue our study in 2 Corinthians. If you'd like to turn there in
your Bible, 2 Corinthians chapter 1. If you did not receive and would
like to receive a copy of the financial statement that shows
all of our expenses for last year, there are some copies back
there on the, what do you call that, bar? The shelf. in front of the kitchen. Please
help yourself. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we ask that you would cause us to acknowledge the Lord Jesus
Christ crowned Lord of life in our hearts. We confess to you,
Lord, that we are so easily drawn away from Him. We're so easily
distracted. We're so prone to wander and
to leave the God that we love. We ask that in this hour that
you would send your Holy Spirit in power that you would teach
us from thy word, the spirit of thy grace, and cause us, Lord,
to come humbly and yet with confidence, knowing that we have an advocate
with thee, Jesus Christ, the righteous one, who is able to
sympathize with the feelings of our infirmities and who's
seated at thy right hand and who ever lives to make intercession
for us. Lord, our sin is greater than
we can bear. What great hope, encouragement,
and comfort you give us, knowing that we have a sin bearer, one
who suffered the full judgment of thy holy wrath, put away all
the sins of all thy people. O Lord, cause him to be lifted
up. We ask it in his name and for
his glory. Amen. I hope the Lord will enable us
to understand this morning in this first hour something of
the spirit of grace, the spirit of grace. The Lord said, my ways
are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts. As
the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways above yours. There is a way that seems right
unto a man, but in the end, that way leads to death. The Lord
would deliver us from our ways and cause us to bow to His way. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
am the way, the truth and the life. No man can come to the
Father but by me. Those early believers were called
followers of the way. I want to know God's way, don't
you? God's way is the way of grace. God's way is the way of
Christ. And His word is filled, filled
with His glory. And if He's pleased to bless
our hearts with His Spirit, then we'll be drawn to Him. And He
said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. For as the serpent was lifted
up in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
The Lord Jesus Christ was lifted up on Calvary's cross to show
us God's way. Man's way is a way of works. God's way is a way of grace. And this spirit of grace, it
permeates the Word of God. I want to pick up at the last
verse that we dealt with last Sunday, verse 20 of 1 Corinthians
chapter 1. For all the promises of God are
yea... I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians. I think
I said 1 Corinthians, didn't I? Excuse me. 2 Corinthians chapter
1, verse 20. for all the promises of God are
yea and amen in him unto the glory of God by us. We glorify him in knowing that
all the promises that God has made to save a people to redeem
them, to put away their sins, to give them acceptance and the
presence of a holy God are yes and complete. That's what yay
and amen means. Yes, the promises of God are
all yes in Christ. God the Father could never say
anything to the Lord Jesus Christ other than yes. How oftentimes
we pray to the Father for blessings And just like with our children,
oftentimes the Lord has to say to us, no, that's not best for
you right now. And so in faith, we say, if it
be thy will. That was never the case with
the Lord Jesus Christ. Every prayer he's ever offered
to the father, every sacrifice he's ever made was met by the
father with yes. Yes. Father, I pray not. for the world but I pray for
them which thou hast given me out of the world thine they were
thou has given them unto me Lord I pray that you would keep them
and the father said yes yes the Lord prayed to the father that
that he would forgive those who were crucifying him for they
knew not what they did All those for whom the Lord Jesus Christ
bore their sins on Calvary's cross were there. We were there
in our sins, crucifying Him and not knowing what we were doing.
And the Lord Jesus Christ said, Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do. And the Father said, Yes. Yes. And He said, Amen. It's enough. It's complete. It's finished. All that God requires from me
and from you, He finds in His dear Son. And He's satisfied. He's satisfied with Christ. He's
not satisfied with anything that we do. Not satisfied. As a matter
of fact, He's offended. He's offended if we try to add
to or take away from the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
All the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ. Yes and complete to the glory
of God. This is the only message of salvation
that gives to God all the glory. Every other message of salvation
that man has contrived in his own darkened imagination robs
from God his glory and gives man something to be proud of. Either a decision that he's made,
a work that he's performed, a knowledge that he's achieved. Man's going
to pride himself in something. The gospel of God's free grace
gives to God all the glory. All the glory. And so Paul begins
this by saying, all the promises of God in him, in Christ, are
yes, and in him they are complete unto the glory of God by us. We're declaring this gospel message.
How oftentimes the scripture speaks of us. We saw that in
Romans chapter 8, Wednesday night. In almost every verse, for about
seven or eight verses, he speaks of us, us, us. what the Lord
has done he's done for us he's done for his church and whenever
there is an us there must also be a them whenever there's an us there
must also be a them now I want to be a part of the us, don't
you? I don't want to be a part of the them I need for the Lord
to to make me to hear, to cause me to have hope in Christ, that
I could have the confidence of knowing that when He speaks and
what He's done, He did for me. Now He which establishes us with
you in Christ and hath anointed us is God. If we're going to
be established, if we're going to have a place to stand, that's
what that word means. If we're going to stand upon
the rock so that when, whether it be the storms of this life
or whether it be the storms of God's wrath and judgment in the
great and terrible day of the Lord, we'll have a place to stand. And he said, he that establishes
you He that put your feet in that place is the same one that
said to Moses, there is a place near unto me where you can stand. And he took Moses and he put
him in the cleft of the rock. And the only reason that Moses
didn't die on Mount Sinai is because God covered him in that
cleft. Oh, that's what we need. We need
for Him to establish us. Paul says, this spirit of grace,
this message of salvation is of God. It's what Jonah said
from the belly of the great fish, salvation is of the Lord. If we're going to have a place
to stand, if we're going to be established, if we're not going
to fall, then it's going to have to be of God. And look what he
says, not only has he established us, but he's anointed us. He's
blessed us with his Holy Spirit. That's what he goes on to say
in the next verse. Who hath also sealed us and given the earnest
of the Spirit in our hearts. Have you ever put earnest money
on a piece of property or something else? Perhaps you put a down
payment and then you decided, you know, I really don't want
that. You lost your earnest money, didn't you? You lost your earnest
money because that was the promise that you made that you were going
to buy something. And when you changed your mind, you sacrificed
that earnest money. The Lord's telling us that the
Holy Spirit is His earnest to us. It's the down payment. We have the Spirit of God which
enables us to have faith in Christ. And He's not going to take it
back. He's not going to change His
mind. He's not going to lose His earnest. Unlike us, when
He makes an earnest, it is in earnest. Our God with whom it
is impossible for Him to lie, when He makes a commitment to
do something, He doesn't back off of it. And He's telling us
here that this anointing of His Spirit is His earnest to us. And what He's given us in earnest
now, we're going to experience in its fullness one day. One day, when we shed this flesh,
one day when we see Him as He is, one day when we're made like
Him, we're gonna have the fullness. Well, that's what the Scripture
says. That we're gonna be made just like He is. We're gonna
see all the things that we can't see now. We have the Spirit of
God, enabling us to look to Christ, to trust Christ, to believe the
Gospel, without which we would not believe the Gospel. Without
this earnest, without this anointing, we have an unction from God,
the Scripture says, enabling us to look to Christ. Told Nicodemus,
Nicodemus, you've got to be born of the Spirit. You are completely
dependent upon the Spirit of God to open the eyes of your
understanding. There's not a week that goes
by I don't get more amazed of that very truth. All the listening, all the debating,
all the study, all the preparation is of no avail. if the Spirit of God doesn't
anoint the gospel to our hearts. Had someone this week listen
to me preach over 40 times over 40 times heard
me preach and a student of the Bible a student of theology And
he told me, he said, I've heard you preach 40 times, I've never
heard you preach the gospel. Never heard you preach the gospel. And I'm not here to defend myself.
I know that the Lord's taught me the gospel. But it burdened
my soul that someone could be so studious of the things of
the Word of God and conclude after hearing me preach 40 times
that I wasn't preaching the gospel. I take that accusation very seriously.
The same time this individual commended me for being for being
such a good preacher. And I told him, I said, don't
compliment me for being a good preacher if you don't think I'm
preaching the gospel. If I'm not preaching the gospel,
I'm a false prophet. You need to run from me. You
need to get away from me as quick as you can. But it just reminded
me of how completely dependent you and I are for the Lord to
teach us the gospel and to open our ears and our eyes to see
Christ for who He is. Nicodemus, you cannot see the
kingdom of God. Nicodemus was a student of the
Bible. He was a theologian. He was a ruler of the Jews. He
knew more than probably anybody in his day, and yet he knew nothing. He came to the Lord by night,
illustrating how much in darkness he was. Oh, Lord, don't allow
me to be left to myself. Give me the anointing of thy
spirit. That's the spirit of grace. He says, all the promises
of God are in Christ, yea and amen. He has established us in
Christ and has anointed us with his spirit as the earnest, the
earnest. Oh, we've got to be established
in Christ. Paul said that I might be found
in Him. Not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by the
faith of Jesus Christ. Lord, I need to be put in Christ. And I can't get myself there.
You're the only one that can do it. And that's what he's saying. He that does it is God. And the
evidence that you know that you've been put there is that you've
been given the earnest of the Spirit. You're not budding the
gospel, you're not, you're amening the grace of God. You're rejoicing
in Christ Jesus. We are the true circumcision. Not a circumcision that's been
done by the hands of men, but the circumcision of the heart,
which is done by the Holy Spirit. We are the true circumcision.
Are you part of we? Are you part of us? Which worship
God in the Spirit. The Lord told that woman at the
well, they that God seeketh those who worship Him in spirit and
in truth. We worship God in the Spirit
and have no confidence in the flesh. No confidence whatsoever
in the flesh. How do I know that I have the
earnest of the Spirit of God? God has stripped me naked and
caused me to have no confidence in my flesh. He's made me to
understand my complete inability before Him and my total dependence
upon Him. Has He done that for you? Do
you think you still have something that you can do to make what
Jesus did work for you? Is there a prayer you can pray?
Is there a decision you can make? Is there work you can perform?
Is there something you can do? Or are you a mercy beggar? That's
the difference between those who have the earnest of the Spirit.
Lord, I want your Holy Spirit. You say, well, I don't know if
I have the Spirit of God or not. Here's one of those promises
that is yay and amen in Christ. Yes and complete in Christ. If you being evil, that's what
we are. If you being evil know how to
give good gifts unto your children. Who of you who has a son who
asks for a bread would give him a stone or he asks for fish and
give him a scorpion or serpent? You wouldn't do that. Why? Because
you want to do what's necessary and good for your children. If
you being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to
them who ask Him? Oh Lord, give me Thy Spirit. I can't understand the gospel.
I can't believe the gospel. I can't discern the gospel. I
need your spirit. See, this gospel gives him all
the glory, doesn't it? It gives him all the glory. He sealed us. And when God gives
the Holy Spirit, it's not, like I said, this earnest money is
never forfeited and it's never taken back. When he makes an
earnest, that earnest is sealed. And what God seals, well, here's
what the scripture says, what God shuts, no man can open. And what God opens, no man can
shut. So when God opens the heart,
no man can shut it. When God seals us up to Christ,
no man can open it. No one can remove God's people
from the hand of God. This is all of him. It's all
of him. What we're doing is we're declaring
what he's done in order to cause us to quit trying and start trusting. Lord, I can't do it. I can't
save myself. I can't understand the gospel.
I rejoice in believing that salvation is all of you. who hath also sealed us, and
given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." This gospel is a heart issue.
Don't be deceived in thinking that because you can parrot some
doctrinal truths that God's done a work of grace in the heart.
Ask the Lord. to take out the heart of stone.
Ask Him to make this a heart issue for you. If it becomes
a heart issue for you, you'll love Him from your heart and you will... Well, here's
what the Lord said, love not the world. nor the things that
are in the world. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life." Now, what is the lust of the flesh? It's my desire
for pleasure. What is the lust of the eyes?
My desire for popularity, to have other people like me and
look to me. What is the lust of the pride
of life? It's my desire to have power
over my circumstances and power over God. Now God said, love
not the world. And when I read that and hear
that, I'm thinking, I hope what you're thinking right now. I do enjoy the pleasures of the
flesh. I do like for people to like
me. And I'm constantly trying to
manipulate the circumstances of my life and to have power
over myself and my circumstances. So, what is this love not the
world? Let me tell you what it is, in
my experience. If this is your experience, you're
going to say, yep, that's what it is. My hatred for the things of this
world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life, my hatred for it is how much I love it. That's my hatred for it. If you
don't have the earnest of the Holy Spirit, you don't know what
I'm talking about. If you don't have the earnest of the Holy
Spirit, you're either convincing yourself, well I don't have a
lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life. You're
kind of like Job. Job said, I have made a covenant
with my eyes that I would not look upon a maiden lustfully.
Yeah, right, Job. You're a liar, too. But men do
that. Well, I don't do those things
anymore. I've buffeted the flesh. And
power? I don't have a lust for power.
God's all I need and He's all my power. And they're completely
ignorant. of how bound up to the things
in this world they really are. If you have the earnest of the
Spirit of God, what you hate about the world is how much you
love it. Is that your experience? It's my experience. I loathe myself. Paul said in Romans chapter 7,
he said, for we know that the law is spiritual. We know that. But I am carnal,
sold under sin. I can't keep God's law. And that's
what I hate about myself. I want to have a holy thought.
I can't do it. I want to produce something that's
pleasing to God, but I can't do it. I'm completely dependent
upon the Lord Jesus Christ to intercede on my behalf and present
Himself for all my righteousness before God. I can't come up with
anything. And I hate that about myself.
And the earnest of the Spirit of God has caused me to long
for that day when I will not know anything about the lust
of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
This flesh is going to be made perfect, incorruptible. These eyes are going to be focused
on Him. and there'll be nothing but humility
and worship in his presence. No pride of life there. I long
for that day, don't you? Don't you? Do you hate yourself? The unbelievers are going to
listen to this kind of talking and say, well, you know, you all need
to have a better self-esteem. You know, you just need to hold
yourself up better. What is this? They know a person
who doesn't know what I'm talking about right now in their experience. If you don't know what I'm talking
about right now in your experience, then you need to fear whether
or not you've been established by God in Christ and have been
sealed with the earnest of the Holy Spirit of God. Or if he's
done that, this will be your experience. Turn with me back to our text. Moreover, verse 23, Moreover,
I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I
came not as yet unto Corinth." Now Paul's writing a second letter
unto the Corinthians. The first one he had to deal
with some very hard issues, some very difficult things that were
going on in the church. And he dealt with them in a spirit
of grace. And he said, I'm not going to come and chastise you. I'm going to wait and wait for
the Lord to do a work of grace in your hearts, convincing you
that what I told you is true. And that's the spirit of grace.
I hope I'm learning a little bit about what it means to wait
on the Lord. I think I am, just a little,
just a little. many my younger years I was so
quick and impetuous and so so you know controlling over my
and the older you get the more you realize you know what every
time I put my hand it takes a long time to learn this but you you
learn the older you get every time I put my hand to something
it gets worse it just gets worse and that's what Paul's saying
here he's saying you know I I call God for a record upon my soul
that to spare you I came not to Corinth. I didn't want to
come and put my hand to it. God inspired me to write to you
words from God and I sent them and I'm waiting on God to use
his word to convict you and to convert you. And I'm not going
to come on my own and put my hand to it. What a blessing that
God would give us that spirit of grace to wait on him. and to believe that His Spirit
is sufficient, His grace is sufficient, His Word is powerful and sharper
than any two-edged sword and able to divide asunder the soul
from the spirit and the bones from the marrow and expose the
intents of the heart. Do you believe that? That's what
faith, faith just believes God. Oh Lord, I've got such a spirit
of works in my flesh. I've got such a controlling spirit
about me. Give me the spirit of thy grace.
Enable me to wait on you. And don't misunderstand me. I
put my hands to so many things even now. I feel like in many
ways I haven't learned a thing. But I do think that as we grow
in grace and the knowledge of Christ, the Lord gives us some
understanding of what Paul's talking about here. I call God
for a record of my soul. God's my witness that I came
not unto you to put my hand to the Word of God. I sent you God's
word and believed that God would use it and that that would be
sufficient. And it was. It was. Look what he says in
verse 24. Not for that we have dominion
over your faith, but are helpers of your joy, for by faith you
stand. This spirit of grace doesn't
seek to take dominion over one another. You know, there are so many reformed,
Calvinistic churches that are so big on elder rule and church
discipline. You've got to submit to the authorities
of your elders and the elders are meeting on a regular basis
trying to figure out who they can crack the whip on. And that's
what Paul's saying here. I didn't want to come and pretend
to have dominion over you. If you've got to, in any relationship,
if you've got to demand respect, it's because you don't have it. If a man has to demand respect
and submission from his wife, it's because he doesn't have
it. If a father has to provoke his
children to wrath, it's because he hasn't. Convince them by grace,
by the spirit of grace. Fathers, provoke not thy children
to wrath. Don't be hard on them. In Ephesians
chapter 6, the scripture speaks of servants and their obligations
to their masters, serve them as unto the Lord. And then he
says to masters, this is bosses over their employees. This is
actually slave owners to their slaves. So we can translate it
that way as well. Masters do the same thing unto
them forbearing your threatenings. Don't threaten one another. forebear
your threatening. If you feel a need to threaten,
just back off. And that's what Paul said. He was an apostle. He had the
right to go there and crack the whip and he said, not for that
we have dominion over your faith. We don't have dominion over you.
We're not here to try to control you or intimidate you. We're here to preach the gospel.
that God's grace would be sufficient for your every need and that
His grace would cause us to submit one to another and esteem one
another more highly than themselves. If you believe yourself to be
in need of grace more than anyone else, then that doesn't give
you the moral high ground to stand in judgment of anybody,
does it? Galatians chapter 6, if a brother
be overtaken with a fault, you which are spiritual, and that's
every believer. It doesn't mean you which are
living a life of superior spirituality. You which are spiritual, that's
everyone who's been sealed with the earnest of the Holy Spirit.
Restore such a one in a spirit of meekness. considering thyself,
whether thine also fall." We never look at anyone's fallings
and think, well, I couldn't do that. That's not the spirit of
grace. Lord, I'm capable of that and
a whole lot worse. And the truth is that I do those
things in my heart all the time. The person who accused me of
not preaching the gospel. I asked him, he said, he said,
well, well, you don't call men to repentance. And I said, well,
what is repentance? And he says, it's turning from
your sin. And I asked him, I said, I said, well, tell me which sin
in particular you've turned from in your life. He wasn't able to answer me. You see, the natural man thinks
sin is nothing but a behavioral problem. When you have the earnest
of the Spirit of God, you know your own heart. You know the
deceitfulness of it. You know the wickedness of it.
You know how much you love this world, and the lust of the flesh,
lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, and all that's in the
world. And you know you haven't quit anything. Not in your heart. We're not advocating immoral
behavior. Paul deals with that in the next
chapter. We're not advocating that. We're confessing before
God that we're sinners. That we're sinners in need of
God's grace. And Paul said, I didn't come
to rule over you. I didn't come to exercise dominion
over your faith. but are helpers of your joy,
for by faith you stand." What is your joy? What is your joy? Most folks' joy is the absence
of conflict in their life. Well, I'd be happy if this situation
and that situation and the other situation was different, then
I'd have joy. Long as you're looking for that,
for your joy, you're never going to know anything about the joy
that comes from the Lord. Our joy is knowing that all our
sin has been put away. Our joy is Christ. He's our hope. He's our access
to God. And if I've got Him, tedious
and tasteless the hours when Jesus no longer I see. Oh, if
I've got Him, then prisons palaces be." Isn't that what we sing?
Prisons palaces be, if only Jesus were with me. He's my joy. When
Paul and Timothy were in that, Silas were in that dungeon of
a prison in Philippi, they'd been beaten, chained to the wall,
and in the middle of the night, midnight, what are they doing?
Are they weeping and wailing and complaining and crying and,
oh God, why is this happening to us? No, they are singing for
joy. with with open wounds they're
singing for joy spirit of God comes delivers them and and the
very man that caused those wounds that Philippian jailer he mended
them, didn't he? Lord saved them and he dressed
their wounds oh Lord what look what he says But we are helpers
of your joy. How do I help you to have joy? How do you help me to have joy? Tell me about Christ. Tell me
who He is. Tell me what He's done for me.
Somebody else this week said, well, you know, every time I've
listened to him preach, every time he preaches, he just preaches
the same thing. I take that as a compliment. He just preaches
the same thing. This person is looking for me
to give them something to do. If you want to be a helper of
my joy, tell me about the Lord Jesus Christ. Tell me who He
is and tell me what He has accomplished. For by faith in Him, I stand. Whatever God has ordained, if
He gives me faith, I can stand. Oh, the spirit of grace is when
God enables us to help one another in our joy. For me to tell you
about Christ, you to tell me about Christ, us to rejoice together
about Christ. I'm so encouraged with our men.
We have the men get together on Monday nights. We've been
doing it now for a few months every other week or so. And I
just stand amazed that we can have 15, 20, 25 men get together
for three, four hours and 90% of the conversations about Christ. I'm so thankful for that. That's
the spirit of grace. when sinners are able, by the
earnest of the Spirit, to look to Christ and to show one another
who Christ is. All right, let's take a break. exercise. Yeah.