2 Corinthians 9. I apologize to
you for my sudden departure this past week. It was not planned. And thank you to Ben for preaching
Thursday and on such short notice. I'm going to preach this morning
in our lesson on the subject of God's unspeakable gift. God's
unspeakable gift. Now we'll look at some other
verses in this passage, but I want to focus our attention on verses
12 through 15. Verse 12 says, speaking of giving,
he says, the administration of this service not only supplied
the want of the saints, but is abundant also by or with many
thanksgivings unto God. Whilst by the experiment of this
ministration, they glorify God for your professed subjection
unto the gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution
unto them and unto all. And by their prayer for you,
which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you,
thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. Now in this passage, The
Spirit of God is declaring that when God uses you, one of His
saints, to give, to minister to the need of your brethren,
in some temporal need, He's declaring that everything involved is God's
gift to you. When the giver provides the temporal
need of one of God's saints, everything involved is God's
gift to you, the giver. It's sad that false religion
has so corrupted the doctrine of giving that they do it to
all God's Word. But it's God's Word, so we don't
shy away from any doctrine that's in the Word of God. We preach
it. I remember one time, I forget what the doctrine was that he
was dealing with, but somebody accused Brother Don of preaching
what Catholicism preaches, and he said, I don't care if Buddhists
preach it. He said, if it's in the Word of God, it's true, and
I'm to preach it. And that's so. Now to give some
context here, Paul's writing to the churches at Achaia. That's
where Corinth was, in the lower part of Greece. It was a wealthier
area. And they had told Paul a year
before that they wanted to give a gift to the churches, to the
brethren that were in need. And so Paul's writing to them
to tell them to get it collected, get it together, so that when
he comes down, they'll have it. And he had boasted to other churches
about their their willingness to do this, and so he's encouraging
them to get the collection made before he gets there. Now, when
he's speaking or writing to the church at Corinth, he used the
churches at Macedonia to encourage them as an example to them. That
included Philippi, we just went through Philippians, that included
the church of Philippi, the churches at Thessalonica and Berea, And
he used those churches in the northern part of Greece, in Macedonia,
to encourage these brethren at Corinth. God had given them affliction
from their enemies. We saw that with the Thessalonians.
And he had given them poverty. But he also gave them a generous
heart to give to needy brethren in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was much
wealthier. But he gave these brethren in
Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea hearts to provide, and they did
it very generously, very bountifully to provide for the brethren that
had fallen on hard times in Jerusalem. And so Paul used The grace that
God worked in those brethren in Macedonia, he used them as
an example to encourage these brethren at Corinth. Paul said,
I boasted of them to you and to other churches, and then he
used God's grace to the Macedonians and boasted of theirs to the
Corinthians. So that's the backdrop of this.
Now to give you some context on why this message is on my
heart, In the past few months, and most recently this week,
some brethren provided for a need I had. And so this past has been
on my heart for some time. You've done this for me and other
brethren in other places, but anytime, whether it's you or
I hear of a brethren elsewhere that are providing or you provide
for somebody elsewhere, this passage always comes to my heart.
It always comes to my heart. And what they did and what you've
done for me, it causes me to thank God for you, glorify God
on your behalf for what he's done for you, and to pray for
you for God to give you more grace. And that's the gift that
we have in Christ and through Christ and by Christ. That's
this unspeakable gift Paul's talking about. It's all a gift
to us, brethren. Now, first of all, when you've
given to meet the need of one of God's saints, we're just gonna
look at these two things that Paul says here. When you've given
to meet the need of one of God's saints, what greater gift should
you be given than to know that they glorify God for His grace
to you. I mean, that's what all God's
people want. We want God to be glorified. And what greater gift
could you be given than to know they're glorifying God who worked
this in you and they're giving him thanks and gratitude for
it. Let's read it one more time. Let's just get down to verse
13. He says, by the experimenter,
the experiencing this ministration, they glorify God for your professed
subjection unto the gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution
unto them and unto all. When you provide for God's people,
it's really God's gift to you. Everything about it is God's
gift to you. The first thing he mentions here is God's saints are going to glorify
God for what you did. It's because you've provided
for one of Christ's people, and you are multiple, you know, a
church. You've provided for his saints,
and doing that for them, you do it for Christ, because Christ
has made us one with him. He's made his people one with
him. Our brothers and sisters, in this earth are one with God
our Father and with our Lord Jesus Christ. They're one with
Him. It's somebody Christ, it's somebody
the Father chose from eternity and has everlastingly loved.
And then it's somebody Christ laid down His life for. This
is, you're doing this for somebody Christ gave Himself for and justified. And not only that, but when Christ
prayed to the Father, He said, He's made us one in Him. He's
made each of His saints one in Him. You remember He prayed to
the Father, and this is so of every one of His saints in whom
Christ abides. He said, Father, I in them and
thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. And we are,
we are perfect in Christ. with God the Father in Christ
and Christ in you, we're perfect in him. And he said, and that
the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them
as thou hast loved me. On one hand, he's making his
elect all over the world know that as God the Father loved
Christ, so he loves his people. But one day, God's gonna make
this whole world know this. He's gonna make the whole world
know, I love my elect. with the same love that my father
loves me. And he's going to make everybody
know this about you who he's everlastingly loved. Go with
me to Matthew 25. He said, first of all, you provided
for the need for the want of a saint. And doing that is doing
it for Christ. Look here at Matthew 25, 35.
Think of that as a gift to you. You provided for, you did this
to Christ himself by doing it to your brother. Look at this
parable the Lord gave concerning his saints in the last day. In
Matthew 25, 35, he said, I was hungered and you gave me meat. I was thirsty, and you gave me
drink. I was a stranger, and you took
me in. Naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited
me. I was in prison, and you came
unto me. Then shall the righteous answer
him, saying, Lord, when saw we that hungered, and fed thee,
or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger,
and took thee in, or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we
thee sick, or in prison, and came to thee? And the king shall
answer, and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as you
have done it unto one of these, the least of my brethren, you
have done it unto me. You've done it to me. Now that's
a great gift to the giver. Paul began there and he said,
you not only provided for the want of your brethren, you did
that. In doing that, you did that to
Christ. You did that to Christ. But now here's the greatest gift
of all. It's the greatest gift of all. They glorify God for
you. They give God all the glory for
you. for his grace in bringing you
to submit to Christ. Look at that verse 13 in our
text, 2 Corinthians 9, 13. Wise by the experiment of this
ministration, they glorify God for your professed subjection
unto the gospel of Christ. They give God the glory. I didn't
tell you the names of these brethren because they wouldn't want me
to tell you their name. Maybe I should, but... I'm not going to say it over
the internet. I'll tell you privately, but
they wouldn't want me to do that. They want God to be glorified,
and that's what God's people do. They glorify the Lord for
working this. 2 Corinthians 4.15, Paul said,
all things are for your sakes that the abundant grace might
through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. It's how thanksgiving is going
back to God for the things he works through his people. Brethren
are thanking God for that. That couldn't be, you couldn't
receive a greater gift than that, brethren, to know brethren glorify
God and thank God for his grace in bringing you to submit to
Christ. God's saints want God to have all the glory. And we
glorify him because we know everything we have, everything that God's
saints have, he gave it. Everything is from him. That
includes spiritual things and temporal things. Everything is
from God. It's the gift of God freely given
to us in and by his preeminent unspeakable gift, Christ his
son. Everything's a gift to you and me. In Romans 8.35, he said,
who is first given to him, it'll be recompensed to him again.
For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom
be glory and dominion, both now and forever. He, all things,
we know everything that we have received. Leave nothing out. Everything we've received, we've
been freely given by God. God's saints give God the glory
for that reason. We glorify God when brethren
help us, and that's what God's saints want us to do. For God
to have the glory. We saw in Isaiah 45, 25, he said,
in the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall
glory. God's gonna see to it. He gets
all the glory in his people. Thou shalt swear the Lord liveth
in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness. That's what you're
going to confess, the Lord liveth. He liveth in truth, in judgment,
and in righteousness. And the nation shall bless themselves
in him, and in him shall they glory. That's going to be so
of all his people. God gave all to us. Now let's
go back and you think about everything. God chose us freely by His grace.
He gave us grace and eternity before He made anything. Chose
us in Christ. Gave us all spiritual blessings
in Christ. Then God gave us His creation.
He made His creation for His people. strictly for His people,
to glorify Himself in the salvation of His people. He's upheld everything
in creation since He created it by His power. And when you
read that He works all things together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called, and He does it according
to His purpose, that's not just everything in your life right
now, though that is so. It means everything that God
has ever worked from the beginning of time, He has worked them all
together to bring you right to that moment when He's called
you by the gospel. And everything that's happened
since He's called you by the gospel, He's worked everything
good, bad, sorrowful, happy, all of it together for your good
to make you see His glory and give Him the glory. And even
for those he hasn't called yet, he's working everything together
in your life to bring the gospel to them. Maybe they haven't even
been born yet. but he's working everything together
to preserve the gospel and bring them the gospel to save his elect. He's been doing this, he gave
you creation and he's been working everything in history for that
purpose. And then think of this, when you read this book, you
see in this book God has ruled all history. to give us pictures
and types of Christ, to give us pictures and types of God
our Father, to show us how he saves his people through the
blood and righteousness of Christ through this gospel. Everything
in this book from the beginning of time has been showing us how
God does that. And then God recorded it for
us. He gave brethren and recorded it for us to give you the scripture. You have the scriptures. There's
people right now that live in countries where they could die
for reading these scriptures. He puts you in a free country
where you can read these scriptures, and he's given you his word. What a blessing. He's given us
everything. And then the preeminent unspeakable
gift, God gave his only begotten son. For miserable, wretched,
vile sinners like us, God gave His only begotten Son. And this
has manifested the love of God for us. God sent forth His only
Son to put away our sin and to make us righteous and bring in
everlasting righteousness and at one with God. He did that. He gave His Son. Everything about
this salvation is free. It's a gift to us. free justification,
free righteousness, all of the Lord, free eternal life's been
given you. But what a price He had to pay
to give you that. This is what the whole purpose
of it all has been. This is why He made the world,
why He's worked everything in it, why He sent His Son, and
why He sent you the gospel, is to show you God's holy, that's
the purpose, to show you His holy character. We couldn't have
known the invisible God without Him making all these visible
things and then taking flesh and working all this out for
us to see it and to understand it by the things that He's created.
And now we see how holy God is, how He's just to save His people
because He came and established His own law for us. put away
His own sin for us so that He upheld His justice. And now He's
just to be merciful to us. All of this was the price that
Christ paid to bear our sin and bear our curse and give His life.
What a price was paid to give you everything freely. Everything
freely. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became
poor, that you through His poverty might be rich. Do you see how
dishonoring it is to God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ
to tell sinners that God just, He's done everything He can do.
He's just waiting on you and put it in your hands. You see
how dishonoring that is? Christ was rich and He became
poor by coming into this world and bearing the curse of the
cross for His people. And He did it so that He can
be just to freely give us eternal life. And He shall accomplish
all of it so that He gets all the glory. And that's what He's
given to you. And He came and He gave it to
you personally. He gave you spiritual life. He
gave you faith. He gave you repentance. Everything
we have, He gave it to us. Born from above. Born of God. Faith and repentance. All the
gift of God's grace to His people. Let's go to 1 John 4.9. Let's
read a few scriptures on this. 1 John 4.9. And this was manifested, the
love of God. The world is talking about the
love of God, but it's a love that can't save. It's a God that
can't save. Any love that depends on you
to do the providing, that's not love. Any love that passes by,
God has the ability to save. And having that ability, if He
loved you and just passed you by, and didn't save you, when
he had the ability to save you, you'd have to conclude from that,
well God didn't love me personally. Because those he loves, he saves
them. Everlasting love means it never
changes, it never wavers. He doesn't love today and hate
tomorrow. Those He loves He saves and He loves forever. And this
was manifested to love God toward us because God didn't leave anything
in your hand. He sent His Son, His only begotten
Son into the world that we might live through Him. That word might's
not a possibility. That's not what that's conveying.
It's saying we shall live through Him. Everybody He sent His Son
for shall live through Him. That's why He sent His Son. Look
at 1 John 5.11. This is the record. God hath
given to us eternal life. And this life's in His Son. Look
at 1 John 5.20. We were dead in sin. We didn't
understand. We couldn't believe and we wouldn't
believe. But look, we know that the Son of God has come and has
given us an understanding. There's another gift. He gave
it to us. He gave us an understanding that
we might know Him that is true, and we're in Him that is true,
even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. Now go back to our text in 2
Corinthians 9. Because all of this is a gift,
we know this, any good work we do, It's because God gave to
us. God gave us, by his ability,
he gave you the ability, he gave you every grace you needed to
do whatever it was he would ordain for you to do. And we thank God
for our brethren's subjection to the gospel because God gifted
them to know this. Here's what our brethren do for
one another. This is what God has gifted you
to know right here. 2 Corinthians 9.8. God is able
to make all grace abound toward you that you always, having all
sufficiency in all, may abound to every good work. Look at verse
11. Being enriched in everything
to all bountifulness, which causes through us thanksgiving to God. That's what He's made you know.
That's the only way you can do especially when it comes to giving.
This is our livelihood. This is what God's provided for
us to live on. And to give that to somebody
else or to use it to provide something for somebody else,
the only way you can do that is if you are 100% convinced.
that God's gonna provide for me. He will make all grace abound. So I have all sufficiency all
the time. When we read, where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound, that is, sin hath reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ. It means wherever where sin abounded,
God's grace doesn't just, it don't just meet your need. It
don't just arrive to the level you need. It far exceeds, it
abounds over all your trouble and all your sin and all your
death. And it does so in all your temporal needs. God will
make His grace abound toward you. But even more than that,
you have to have it in the heart. You have to have His grace abounding
in you in faith and in love. so that you're willing to do
for Him and do for your brethren. That's what He's able to do.
And when you truly believe God is able and you see that He's
able and you know and you believe it and you trust Him, so much
so that you're willing to try in a little way to do for your
brethren what Christ did for you, to lay down your life for
them, to give up something of yourself for your brethren. When
you're willing to do that, here's what God's child says. You know,
not only is the recipient glorifying God, the one that was able to
do the giving is giving God all the glory too. Here's what David
said. God told David, you're not going
to build my house, David. That's what God's told you and
me, his people. You're not going to build his
house. But he told David, I'm sending my son through your lineage
and he'll build my house. Solomon was the physical son
that built the physical temple, but he pictured Christ who came
through David who built God's spiritual house, you and me as
living stones. And so David, he knew the gospel. He heard the gospel in that.
And he knew his son Solomon was a picture of Christ Jesus the
Lord. So when they were getting ready to build that physical
temple, David provided. I mean, he just went above and
beyond providing in the physical stuff they'd need to build that
temple. And when he got finished, this is what he said. 1 Chronicles
29.14, he said, Who am I? And what is my people? that we
should be able to offer so willingly after this sword. And here's
what he said. This is what all God's people
know. This is so in any good work you do, God's child's not
gonna take the glory. We're not going around patting
ourselves on the back that we did something. And if it comes
to giving, we're not patting ourselves on the back about it.
Because this is what we know. This is what David said. For
all things come of thee, and of thy own have we given back
to you. We just gave you what you first
gave to us. That's what David said. That's
so of everything, brethren. That's so of everything. You're
going to come before God with a perfect righteousness. You
didn't first give that to God. God gave that righteousness to
you by His Son. You're going to come to God with
a perfectly holy heart. You didn't muster that up or
even contribute to making yourself holy. You're going to give to
God what God gave to you. And that's so with any good work
we do, you're just giving to God. And that truly, no matter
what the work is, you're doing it as to the Lord. You're giving
to God what God first gave to you. And so God's, even the giver
says, I didn't, I don't have anything to glory in. I glory
in you, God. Thank you. You gave me everything. And not only do brethren glorify
God for you, they pray for God's grace to continue to be upon
you. Now look at this, this is the third thing. The first thing
is, when you give to God's people, you've provided for the want
of God's saints, and doing it for them, you've done it for
Christ himself. Number two, they glorify God
for you. They're giving God glory and
praising God for working in you, and that's what every believer
wants. We want God to be glorified. And number three, that one that
you gave to, they're praying for you. that God will continue
to bless you by His exceeding grace. He said in 2 Corinthians
9, verse 14, And by their prayer for you, which long after you
for the exceeding grace of God in you. Go over to Ephesians
3. God's grace causes us, when we
see God's grace working in our brethren, Paul told the Thessalonians,
we know our gospel came to you in power. We saw your faith.
We saw your love toward your brethren. You sent the gospel
forth. You bore up under the affliction. You know, things
you could not do if it wasn't for God doing it in you. That's what works of faith are.
And works of faith are trusting. God is able. He's able to raise
from the dead. He's able to provide. And Paul
said, we saw that. We know because of how God drastically
worked in you. We know this was the power of
God. And when you see that in your
brethren, it makes you thank God for them, and it makes you
pray to God to keep blessing them, keep pouring out His grace
on them. This is what Paul did in Ephesians 3.14. He said, For
this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to
be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man,
that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you, being
rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with
all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height,
and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that
you might be filled with all the fullness of God. We went
through Philippians. Paul thanked them, and he prayed
for them, and he encouraged them. He said, but my God shall supply
all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
And he asked God to do that for him. He asked him to. We saw
in Thessalonians, he said, we're bound to thank God always for
you, brethren. We love you, the Lord, because
God had from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit, belief of the truth, where unto he called you
by our gospel. so that you obtain the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And after he thanked God for
the grace worked in them, he turned right around and he prayed
for them and he said, now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and
God, even our Father which has loved us and given us everlasting
consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and
establish you in every good word and work. This is what you not
only provided for your brethren, they're glorifying God for you,
they're thanking God for you, and they're praying to God for
you. That's how he ended our psalm,
2 Corinthians chapter 13. This is Paul's prayer for the
Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 13 verse 14, he said, The grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion
of the Holy Ghost be with you all. That was his prayer for
them. So do you see why Paul, it's like Paul has been going
through this subject of giving and men, you know the only reason
a man would get upset about preaching on the subject of giving is a
covetous heart. That's the only reason because
our gospel is the gospel of God giving everything to us. You can't preach on the subject,
you can't preach the gospel without preaching on the subject of giving
because God gave everything to us. Everything's a gift of God.
And Paul was talking about this and he was talking about how
God even blesses us through this ministration of providing for
one another and it's like he began to think on how Christ
became poor for us and to make us rich, he began to think on
God's grace and everything God worked through this ministry
of giving and how it all redounds back to God's glory and it's
all a gift to us in Christ and it's just like he was overwhelmed
by it and he comes to verse 15 and he says, thanks be unto God
for His unspeakable gift. That's like what David said,
Lord we haven't given anything to you. You gave everything to
us. What an unspeakable gift you've
given to us. That's what this ministry of
giving and providing for one another is. It's God's unspeakable
gift to us in His Son and by His Son and for the sake of His
Son that His Son might get all the glory in the hearts of His
people so that every temporal distraction is taken out of the
way and we're trying to help rather than just focus on Christ
and the gospel and they end up giving Him all the glory and
praise for working it. What an unspeakable gift. Just
an unspeakable gift. That's where my heart's at right
now. That's how I just keep praying
this and thanking God for my brethren, for you and for what
you've done for me, brethren. I can't thank you enough. And
I pray, I glorify God for what he's done in you. I glorify and
thank him for you and for what he's done in you. And that's
so, brethren, everywhere. And I'll tell you this too. I
was thinking of this on the way back. Brother John and his brethren
did this, and I thought, how happy he must be. If you do something
for brethren in some other place, that don't make me jealous, that
don't make me envious that you did something for them. That
makes me thank God. That's why I'm preaching this
gospel to you, is I want to see God's grace work in you. That's
what Paul said to the Philippians. I don't desire a gift from you,
I just want to see fruit that abounds to your count. I want
to see God, His work, His grace in you. And what a blessing to
see that if the folks you minister to do for brethren, do for one
another, and do for other people. What a joy, what a blessing,
what an unspeakable gift God's given us. All right, let's go
to the Lord. Our great God and our Father,
how we do thank you for Your grace to us is just astonishing,
amazing grace. We thank You, Lord, that everything
is of Your hand and that You've made us know that, that You've
given us hearts to want You to have the glory. You've given
us hearts to stop boasting in ourselves and trusting in ourselves
and given us faith to believe You and know that You're able
and shall supply all our needs. Lord, help us to remind each
other of that, and whatever you put in our hand to do, Lord,
we pray you'd give us the grace and the faith to do it, do it
quietly, in simplicity, and know that it's gonna redound to your
glory, and you'll provide. Lord, thank you for brethren,
thank you for The brethren that have provided for us here, we
have this gospel because other brethren sacrificed and gave
to help us and support the work here, and thank you for them. We thank you, Lord, that you
provided brethren that have helped each of us, and we thank you,
Lord, in times you've used us to help them. Everything's of
Your hand. We praise You, we glorify You,
and we thank You, Lord. What an unspeakable gift You've
given us in Your dear Son. Thank You that salvation's all
of grace in Your dear Son. Keep us looking to Him and trusting
Him. We do thank You, Lord. In Christ
Jesus, we ask it. Amen.