I want to bring a message today
on Thanksgiving, and I want to hopefully, by God's grace, bring
to our attention things that are so essential for us as believers. I have a memory verse this week,
and I want to touch on that as sort of an introduction. In Psalm
106, I encourage you to read the whole Psalm. I'm going to turn there myself
now, but I will refer to the verse in our memory verse, which
is verse 47, near the second to the last verse. Psalm 106. If you look at the very first
verse, it says, praise ye the Lord. Oh, give thanks. unto the Lord, for he is good,
for his mercy endureth forever. And that phrase, give thanks
to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever,
if you could search for that in scripture, you'd find it recurring
many times. In Psalm 136, that phrase, for
his mercy endureth forever, is the refrain to every verse in
the Psalm, in Psalm 136. This is why we give thanks to
the Lord, because He is good, because His mercy endureth forever. God does not change. His mercy
endureth forever. His mercy is found in one place
only, in the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the Lord Jesus Christ,
there is no failing of God's mercy. He endures forever as
a merciful God, and that's why we are saved. But in this psalm,
the psalmist speaks as one of us. He speaks on behalf of the
church as one of us believers, but for every one of us. He says
this in verse four, he says, remember me, oh Lord, with the
favor that thou barest unto thy people, oh, visit me with thy
salvation. So he prays that God would visit
him with salvation and to give him the blessings that God gives
to his elect, his chosen. Visit me with the favor that
thou bearest unto thy people. Oh, visit me with thy salvation
that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in
the gladness of thy nation, and that I may glory with thine inheritance. And then the rest of the psalm
until close to the end is recounting It's telling again about all
the shameful disobedience of God's people. And yet in spite
of, in spite of their sin and wickedness, God saves them for
his name's sake. Very, very important principle.
God saves for his name's sake. For the glory of his son. Denise
and I were talking to one of our neighbors the other day.
And our neighbor was talking about what the purpose of life
was. Our ultimate goal in this life
was to know ourselves somehow spiritually. And I told her,
that is not. That is not, let me underline,
that is not the purpose of our life here. Our life here is to
glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, God's only begotten son. That's
God's purpose, to exalt his son in the redemption of his people.
If we understand that, then we'll understand our purpose for being
here and we'll bow in worship, fall on our face to the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's not about you or me personally,
not about our view of life, it's about God's view of things that's
important. And his view is, this is my beloved
son, hear him. And so here we have the prayer
of the psalmist as one of his people, on behalf of his people,
a personal prayer. I, Lord, remember me with the
favor that you bear to your people. Oh, visit me with thy salvation.
It's your salvation, but I need to be saved that I may see the
good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy
nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance. And then he
recounts all the sin. And then he, in the middle of
that, at the conclusion of all their sin, he says, but you saved
them for your namesake. Look at it in verse, and I'll
read verse six through eight to show you this. We have sinned
with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly. See the confession, he just pours
it out. This is the fact, God has shown it to us. It's painful,
it's shameful to admit it, but this is the way things are. This
is our condition. Our fathers understood not thy
wonders in Egypt, they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies.
God showed them all this grace and they did not even remember
it, but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea. They didn't
understand and they didn't remember. That describes us. Nevertheless,
that's the word of grace. He saved them for His name's
sake, that He might make His mighty power to be known. And
you can see this throughout in verse 43. Many times He did deliver
them, but they provoked Him with their counsel and were brought
low for their iniquity. Nevertheless, He regarded their
affliction when He heard their cry. And he remembered for them
his covenant, and he repented according to the multitude of
his mercies. You see? Now look at verse 47. And I want the children to pay
attention here. Notice how clearly God sets forth
what's important to the believer. And God is telling us, He's directing
us to this. This is the way God's grace works.
He directs us, He upholds to us the truth we need to know.
He prays, the psalmist prays, and this should be our prayer,
and may God give us this prayer in our hearts. Save us, O Lord
our God. See how he prays? Save us. That's
our great need, isn't it? To whom do we pray? Our Lord,
O Lord, our God. The Lord Jesus Christ. He's Jehovah
God. And gather us from among the
heathen, because if God doesn't bring us, we won't be brought.
If he doesn't draw us, we won't be drawn. We won't come to Christ.
We'll remain in the blindness of our own self-deception. that
we can do something to make ourselves pleasing to God, or that we can
keep ourselves from our own sin, that we can, you name it, we
try to think that way. But he says, gather us, because
we're gathered to the Lord Jesus Christ, we're gathered as his
body, his people, his sheep. Gather us from among the heathen
to give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise.
To give thanks. Jesus said, my burden is light
and it's easy. Learn of me, I'm meek and lowly
of heart. Take my yoke upon you for my
burden is light and my yoke is easy. How difficult is it for
us to give thanks? It's a light burden, isn't it?
And yet, We cannot and will not do it unless God gives grace
to us. And that's a sad and pitiful
condition, isn't it? We are so dependent on God to
do anything that he has to give us grace to be thankful. In Romans
chapter one it says, this describes, this is the banner over all of
mankind, unthankful. Have you ever seen a little child,
perhaps, and you give them things, and they're just unthankful,
and your indignation rises up within you, and you say, that
little child, so unthankful. How could they be so unthankful? And it becomes, you know, you
see it in others, just go on, so unthankful. And then you realize,
I'm the man. I'm the one. and it disgusts
you to think that you would be unthankful. Here, we're like,
Lord, save us. Gather us so that we might give
thanks to your name and triumph in thy praise. You see, when
we triumph in life, you know why? Because we have our eyes
focused on the one who is worthy, who alone is worthy, who has
saved us from our sins, and we give thanks and praise to him,
the Lord Jesus Christ. All of our hope, all of our salvation
is in him. And if it's not, we won't be
saved. But we see that it's there. God has persuaded us of this
in the gospel. And we say, Lord, let us triumph
in thy praise. Let us give to us this gift of
thanksgiving in our heart and triumph in thy praise. In the
next Psalm, Psalm 107, notice how it opens. Oh, give thanks
unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.
The same thing, it's repeated. You see how often the Spirit
of God by the prophet of the Lord speaking for us actually
of Christ and Christ instructing his church through this. Remember
the words from Psalm 34, 11. Come you children, hearken unto
me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ speaking from the Psalms by the Spirit of God to
all of his people. Come to me, hearken, listen,
I will teach you the fear of the Lord. And here he's telling
us this is what you need to do. Give thanks, give thanks to the
Lord for he is good, his mercy endures forever. Let the redeemed
of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the
enemy. This is our life. Now look at Hebrews chapter 13.
This is what God has given us this privilege. The highest privilege
we have in this life is to know Jesus Christ and know God in
Him and to give thanks to Him and to rejoice and triumph, triumph
over our enemies by this praise we give to God. Notice in Hebrews
chapter 13. In verse 15, he says, by Him,
speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ, by Him, therefore, we
can't do this except by His grace, by Christ in us, Christ for us,
by Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God
continually. Throughout the day, throughout
the days of our life, throughout our life, if God gives us this
privilege, this is the highest privilege we can have, to thank
our Savior for His saving grace, His work, His continuous work
for us. He still is interceding and advocating
for His people. He is able to save them to the
uttermost that come to God by Him. And so what are we to do? Rising up. It says in the psalm,
at midnight, I will give thanks to thee. I will rise up at midnight
and give thanks to thee because of thy righteous judgments. His
judgments in Christ, how he saved us from our sins and justified
us for the righteousness of another, the Lord Jesus. Here he says,
by him, by Christ, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of
praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips. We actually say it. giving thanks
to his name. Thank you, Lord, for Christ. Thank you for Christ. Now I want
to go back, I want to give a biblical illustration of what it means
to give thanks and to triumph in his praise. And then I want
to look at thanksgiving throughout the scripture. I'm going to see
how in these different ways we as God's people give thanks to
God and why. First place I want to go is in
2nd Chronicles. And these are given to us as
Old Testament, not only illustrations, but as a way to understand God's
great grace to his people and how we triumph in his praise
and why we thank him. And these things for me, especially
when I was younger, and even now as I'm older, I find them
extremely endearing. I'm really glad for them. And
this is one of my favorite ones, as you probably already know.
2 Chronicles chapter 20. Here's the situation. The children
of Lot, who were the Ammonites and the Moabites, together with
the children of Esau, who were the Edomites, all these three,
These three were opposed to Israel. When Israel was coming through
the wilderness, they needed food and water. They came through
the land of Ammon and Moab. These were both of the children
of Lot through Lot's two daughters. They came through their lands
and they wanted to just pass through, and so they had to pay
them money for water and food. They offered to do that, they
refused. They came to the land of Edom,
where the children of Esau lived, and they tried to pass through
their land. They said, no, you can't go through here. They were willing
to pay for the food and water. We're not going to take your
land. God has not given us your land. God has given that land
to you. But He has given Canaan to us.
And so they kept going. And so remember that in history.
The Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites, they hated
Israel. They wouldn't even let them drink
water in their land. Had to walk around through the
wilderness to get to the land God had given them, the land
of Canaan. Now here in chapter 20 of 2 Chronicles, these three,
the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites, all gathered
together to do what? To attack Israel in their own
land. Okay, that's far enough. You're
not gonna take God's people's land from them, not their inheritance. The earth has He given to the
children of men, but the heavens and the earth, the new heavens
and the new earth are the Lord's, and He's given that to His people.
So he says here in chapter 20, it came to pass after this also
that the children of Moab and the children of Ammon and with
them other beside the Ammonites came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Jehoshaphat was the king in Judah.
Judah was the land of God's elect people. Then there came some
that told Jehoshaphat saying, there cometh a great multitude
against thee from beyond the sea on this side of Syria. And
behold, they be in Hazazon Tamar, which is in Jedi. And Jehoshaphat
feared, and he set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed
a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves
together to ask help of the Lord. Even out of all the cities of
Judah, they came to seek the Lord." They're in big trouble.
There's a huge number of people coming against them, and they're
strong. The Moabites were known for their lion-like strength,
and the Ammonites too. And so were the Edomites. Verse
5, And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem
in the house of the Lord before the new court, and he said, O
Lord God of our fathers, art thou not God? in heaven, and
rulest not thou over the kingdoms of the heathen? And in thine
hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand
thee? Art not thou our God, who didst
drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel,
and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend forever? You gave us this land because
of Abraham your friend forever. when they dwelt therein, and
have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name, saying, If when
evil come upon us, as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine,
we stand before this house, and in thy presence, for thy name
is in this house, and cry unto thee in our affliction, when
thou wilt hear, and help. God has given us this land. We
established a sanctuary, a tabernacle for Him in this land where we
meet with God, our God, the God of heaven, the holy and true
and almighty God. You drove out, you drove out
these inhabitants. And now, he says in verse 10,
Now behold, the children of Ammon, and Moab, and Mount Seir, Mount
Seir was the place of the Edomites, whom thou wouldst not let Israel
invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned
from them and destroyed them not. The Israelites didn't destroy
these people. Verse 11, Behold, I say, how
they reward us to come to cast us out of thy possession, which
thou hast given us to inherit. There's the text of Scripture.
All of the land of Judah and Jehoshaphat are seeking the Lord,
they're crying out, they're telling Him, Lord, we have no power against
these people. Verse 12, O our God, Jehoshaphat
says in prayer, O our God, wilt thou not judge them, our enemies? Those who are attempting to rob
us of what God has given us, and we know that speaks of our
eternal salvation in Christ and our inheritance in Him. God promised
Abraham to justify his people, to give them his spirit, to know
their justification, and to give them eternal glory because of
the Lord Jesus Christ, because of his substitutionary work.
That was God's promise to Abraham, and he laid hold on it. And they
held this in faith as their inheritance. Oh, our God, wilt thou not judge
them? He justified us for Christ's sake, and now we look to our
enemies, even our sin. And we say, Lord, won't you judge
them, the world, the kingdom of Satan, our sins that rise
up against us and deliver us from our enemies? We have, notice
what he says, we have no might, no strength, no power against
this great company that comes against us. Neither know we what
to do. We don't know what to do. We
have no strength and we are confused. We don't know what to do. We
have no answer. We're looking to you. Our eyes
are upon you. That's what he's saying here.
And all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones.
and their wives and their children. Then, upon Jehaziel, son of Zechariah,
the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mataniah, a
Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the Lord in
the midst of the congregation, now this is God speaking through
this man, and he said, hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants
of Jerusalem, and thou, King Jehoshaphat, thus saith the Lord
to you, be not afraid, nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude,
for the battle is not yours, but God's." What a comfort, isn't it? Could
we fight against our sin? Well, we could try. And you know
how much victory we would have? None. Our sins, we're slaves
to sin in ourselves. We have no power. We can't remove
the guilt of our sins. We can't free ourselves from
the bondage and the dominion of our sin. Our body is dead
because of sin. We're totally captured as captives
to sin until the Lord frees us. But if the Son shall free you,
set you free, then you shall be free indeed. Here, notice.
The battle is not yours, but God's. We need a strong captain. We need a savior, don't we? Verse 16, tomorrow, God said
to them through the prophet, tomorrow go ye down against them. Behold, they come up by the cliff
Ziz, and you shall find them at the end of the brook before
the wilderness of Jeruel. You shall not need to fight in
this battle. Set yourselves, stand still and
see the salvation of the Lord with you. Now this is all of
the, these people of Judah, they had some strength, didn't they?
I mean, they had some swords and spears and rocks and bows
and arrows. They could have tried to pull
them out and fight. The Lord said, no, no. The Edomites,
the Moabites, the Ammonites, these are all children of the
flesh. You, you are the church of the
living God, the children of the spirit of God, purchased by the
redeeming work of Christ, given his spirit, and now by his spirit,
this is what you are to do, stand still and see the salvation of
the Lord. And so, With you, O Judah and
Jerusalem, fear not, nor be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them,
for the Lord will be with you. Now notice, what is the text?
He said, gather us from among the heathen to give thanks to
thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise. And Jehoshaphat
bowed his head with his face to the ground. Here we go, the
crown falling off. We owe all grace, all victory,
all strength, all glory goes to our blessed Savior. Right? He bows with his face to the
ground. The king puts his face in the
dust. The king on earth puts his face
to the dust and owns Christ to be king over all. So he puts
his face to the ground with all Judah and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem. They fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. For
what? His promise of salvation and
total victory. They would do nothing. They had
no power. They didn't know what to do.
God would save them by his power alone. And they would watch.
They would see it. And it would be his salvation.
And the Levites of the children of the Kohathites and of the
children of the Korhites stood up to praise the Lord God of
Israel with a loud voice on high. So now, those who were assigned
to this task, with all this nation, they stood up to do what? To
give thanks to thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise. We're going to look to Christ
and we're going to thank God that through him is all of our
salvation. And that's where we're going
to stand and stay and look and praise and thank him. And they
rose up early in the morning and went forth into the wilderness
of Tekoa. And as they went forth, Jehoshaphat
stood and said, hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem,
believe in the Lord your God. So shall you be established,
believe his prophets, so shall you prosper. We thank God and
praise God because of faith given to us from God. And we ascribe
the victory to him. And when he had consulted with
the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, that they should
praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army,
and to say, Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever. And when they began to sing and
to praise, the Lord sent ambushments against the children of Ammon
and Moab and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah, and
they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and
Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, Lot's children
stood up against the Edomites, utterly to slay and to destroy
them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of
Seir, they destroyed Edom. Everyone helped to destroy the
other. The Moabites and the Ammonites
destroyed each other. When they looked to Christ, God
took care of it. And when Judah came toward the
watchtower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude,
and behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none
escaped." Total victory. And when Jehoshaphat and his
people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among
them an abundance, both riches with the dead bodies and precious
jewels. Why were these army men out there
with all their goods? I don't know what they were doing.
But they brought it all out there, and God's people, after they
were dead, they just took all their spoils. Precious jewels,
which they stripped off them for themselves, more than they
could carry away, and they were there three days, gathering of
the spoil. It was so much. Not only did we have no strength,
didn't know what to do, totally confused in how we're gonna defeat
this enemy. And not only did God say, you
stand still, this is not your fight, it's the Lord's. And overcame their enemies, but
then he gave them everything that was theirs, all their riches,
days to carry it away. This is what he's saying here.
Lord, save us, O Lord our God, gather us from among the heathen
to give thanks to thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise. Remember Hebrews 13, offering
to God the sacrifice of praise, that is the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to his name, thankfulness. That's a heavy burden. Well,
it's heavy, Only when we depend on ourselves to do it. I'm gonna
conjure up this praise to God. I'm gonna drive my car. I remember,
I've told you this before, I was like 16 years old. I came away
from a preaching service, and people were saying, praise the
Lord, praise the Lord. I know I need to do this, so I tried
to say it. And it just sounded like wood, just didn't have any
heart in it. And I thought, what is wrong
with me? A complete heathen. I didn't know it at the time.
But that's the Lord. That's the way the Lord does
it. He proves to us our need. So let's look at this now. Look
at 2 Thessalonians, why we give thanks to the Lord our God. He
has saved us. We know this is true. We saw
it here in 2 Chronicles 20, but in 2 Thessalonians, we see something
about the first spring of this in 2 Thessalonians 2. And verse 13, look at this. Actually, start with verse 13.
Look at verse 11. Second Thessalonians, chapter
two, and I'm gonna read, let's see. Well, let's go ahead and
read from verse 11. It's talking about this great
apostasy that's gonna happen before the Lord Jesus Christ
returns, and how the Antichrist is going to rise up And it will
seem like there's victory, but it won't be victory. He says
in verse 10 that he will have all deceivableness of unrighteousness
in them that perish because they receive not the love of the truth
that they might be saved. All the world lying in their
unsaved state, they've been deceived and they haven't received the
love of the truth. Verse 11, for this cause God
shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie
because they didn't love the truth. That they all might be
damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
That's our condition. That's the end, that's what we
face unless God shows us grace. We're gonna be left in our unbelief
because we didn't receive the love of the truth unless God
gives us the love of the truth. You know, that's what salvation
is. It's a thirst, a hunger. It's
a hunger and thirst for righteousness. to be clothed with salvation
in the righteousness of Christ, to be found in Christ. That's
what we hunger and thirst for, isn't it? Oh, that I might be
found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is my own
obedience, my own personal obedience to the law, but Christ's. The
believer comes to the end of himself quite quickly by God's
grace. And so like Jehoshaphat and all
the people of Judah, Lord, we don't know what to do, we don't
have any strength, we're confused and we're helpless against this
great enemy. So here he says, this is our state. For this cause,
God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie,
that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but
add pleasure and unrighteousness. And this describes our natural
selves. But notice in verse 13, but, here's the nevertheless. Remember Psalm 106? Nevertheless,
he saved them for his namesake. Here, but we are bound to give
thanks always to God for you, brethren, Beloved of the Lord,
the loved of God, the ones loved of the Lord, because God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation, a salvation that
comes to us through sanctification of the Spirit, which leads us
to and belief of the truth. Why do we believe the truth?
Why do we believe Christ? Why have we founded our great
strong persuasion and joy and peace that God has put us in
Christ and received us for his sake? Well, it says here that's
the work of the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God. And that
sanctifying work of the Spirit of God is our salvation, which
is a result of His previous choosing us to salvation before the foundation
of the world. We're bound to give thanks to
God for you always. If a brother or sister believes
Christ, if we're believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are
bound to give thanks to God. Not a man, and it bothers me
sometimes, and I know it's okay to do it. It bothers me sometimes,
and I don't know how else to do it, but people say, thank
you for that message. Okay, that's fine. Thank God. Really, how many times did the
apostles, when they were preaching, people wanted to come and lavish
them with garlands and gifts, and they'd say, no, not for us. Give God the glory. Remember
1 Corinthians 1.30? Of him are you in Christ Jesus,
who was made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption, that him that glorieth, let him glory in the
Lord. Glory in the Lord. Thank God he chose us. That's the reason we're not damned
because we did believe a lie and we would be deceived by our
own love of the lie instead of a love of the truth. But thank
God he chose us to salvation and by the Spirit of God gave
us a love for the truth. That salvation is in Christ alone
and that we're saved to the uttermost only by him. And so we live our
lives that way in faith. Thank God it's because of his
electing love Notice verse 14, the belief of the truth where
unto he called you, again God's grace again, he called you by
our gospel. How does God call us? Through
the gospel. And how do we hear it? Through
the preaching of the gospel. That's the way faith comes, through
hearing. hearing by the word of God, and
that word has to be sent by God himself. He called you. He put his name on you, and then
by his spirit, he called you by the word of God. The words
that I speak unto you, Jesus said, they are spirit, they are
life. God spoke light out of darkness. He speaks to us in
the gospel to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It was the call. Thank God. Thanksgiving, that's what it's
about. Lord, gather us from among the
heathen to give thanks to thy name and to triumph in thy praise. We're called to worship God and
to give him praise and thanks. These two things all go together.
The sacrifice of our lips, giving thanks to his name. Now look
at 2 Corinthians chapter eight. 2 Corinthians chapter eight, we're
called We're sanctified because we were chosen by God the Father
from the beginning, before God ever created anything. He chose
his people in Christ. That's the reason we're saved.
God did it. God be thanked because God had
done it. That's what 2 Corinthians 13
and 14 are talking about. He did it, and he did it through
the Spirit of God, by his own choice first, by the Spirit of
God directing us to Christ. through the gospel of his grace.
2 Corinthians chapter eight. 2 Corinthians chapter eight. And
so what you see here in 2 Corinthians chapter eight, actually, that's not the one,
but this is okay, we'll start here. In 2nd Corinthians, the Corinthians
had been in the 1st Corinthians, the whole book of 1st Corinthians,
the epistle to the Corinthians, that first letter that Paul wrote,
they had all kind of trouble. And you read about the things
that they did, you would be amazed that the apostle Paul would even
dare to call them believers. But he actually opens it up that
way to the saints of God. to you who call upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's who he's writing to. And
then he describes all their problems. It was horrible things they were
doing. One man was living with his father's wife. Terrible things. And they didn't find a problem
with that. And they were getting drunk at the Lord's table. Some
were eating like pigs while the others were going hungry. And
this man, They were speaking in tongues, but they had no regard
to the whole purpose of speaking in tongues was to preach the
gospel. It was just bizarre stuff. And yet, here, notice how the
apostle speaks to them. What had happened is they actually
came up with a contribution to give to the poor saints in Jerusalem. And they sent it to them by the
apostle Paul. And Paul is taking that contribution
to them. It was a gift the Corinthians gave out of their, some of them
out of necessity. They were liberally giving what
they had for the gospel's sake, out of love for Christ and love
for his people. And so in... In chapter 8, he's talking about
this. He says, "...Moreover, brethren,
we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches
of Macedonia, how that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance
of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their
liberality." Even out of their poverty, they were liberal. For
to their power I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they
were willing of themselves, praying us with much entreaty, that we
should receive the gift and take upon us the fellowship of the
ministering to the saints." They wanted, these people of Macedonia,
wanted Paul to take what they could give to them to help in
the gospel. And they did this out of poverty.
And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own
selves to the Lord and unto us by the will of God. They didn't
just do it as sort of a, we're going to pay our money so we
can go live our lives. No, they first gave themselves
to the Lord. Then they gave what they had. Verse six, insomuch
that we desired Titus that as he had begun, so he would also
finish in you the same grace also. So he wants the Corinthians
to show this liberality of giving. Verse seven, therefore, as you
abound in everything, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge,
and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that you
abound in this grace also. I speak not by commandment, but
by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity
of your love. The apostle Paul is saying, this
is part of the love that God has given us to serve one another.
to give ourselves and to give what we have for the sake of
the gospel. Verse nine, now he sets us up
here. He's telling us all this, and
he always does this. He directs us back to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh, that we would always be directed
to the Lord Jesus Christ in every message. Notice, for 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. He emptied himself that you might
be full. He bore our sins that you might
bear them no more. He worked out a perfect righteousness
that we might be clothed in salvation and a perfect righteousness to
present us in the very presence of the glory of God without fault.
with exceeding joy. He did that by giving himself. Not just giving something that
belonged to him, but actually giving himself. Now look over
at chapter nine. At verse one, for as touching
the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write
to you, for I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast
of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year
ago, and your zeal hath provoked very many. So the Corinthians
had a zeal to do this, and it made others also follow them.
Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should
be in vain on this behalf, that, as I said, you may be ready.
Lest happily, if they of Macedonia come with me and find you unprepared,
we, that we say not ye, should be ashamed in this same confident
boasting. We don't want to boast about
you and then find out that our boasting was for nothing. It
wasn't true. Verse five, therefore, I thought
it necessary to exhort the brethren that they would come before unto
you and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof you had noticed
before that the same might be ready as a matter of bounty and
not as of covetousness. But this I say, he which soweth
sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully
shall reap also bountifully. I didn't plant a garden this
year, so I didn't get any vegetables. I didn't sow. If you sow sparingly,
you don't reap anything. You reap sparingly. But if you
just go out there and you just cast the seed out and you really
get the seed in the ground, you're going to get a lot. And so the
Lord says, when you give, of yourself to the Lord, first of
all, and then you give to his people in whatever way God has
given you opportunity to give, then you're gonna reap bountifully.
Verse seven, every man according as he purposes in his heart,
so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves
a cheerful giver. Don't do it because you have
to, do it because you want to. And do it like Jesus said, thy
law is within my heart. I delight in thy law, God. My
will is in, and he goes here. And God is able to make all grace
abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all
things, may abound to every good work. It's God who gives you
this grace. Now look at verse 15. He's talking about giving. Verse 15. Same chapter, 2 Corinthians
9, verse 15. Thanks be unto God. There it
is. For what? For his unspeakable
gift. Again, he brings us back to Christ.
And what does he tell us to do because of what God has done
for us in Christ? Thanks be unto God. Offer the
praises of thanksgiving, the fruit of our lips giving thanks
to his name. God be thanked. He has chosen
you from the beginning. God did this. He sanctified you
by his spirit through the preaching of the gospel so that you believe
the truth and have a love for it. Here we see Christ emptied
himself. He was rich, but he made himself
poor that you might be rich. With his salvation, the riches
of God's saving grace toward you flows to us through Christ. And now he says, thanks be unto
God for his unspeakable gift. And now let me take you to another
reason for thanksgiving. Look at Romans chapter seven.
In Romans chapter seven, we have the mystery of our own life as
believers unfolded to us with great comfort, great comfort. We find ourselves to be an enigma,
a paradox, something we can't explain. How is it that I have
such a desire on the one hand, to be obedient to the Lord, and
on the other hand, fail so utterly, miserably. So much so that I
have to say, it's all my fault. I did it because I wanted to.
Here's the explanation of it. In Romans chapter seven, look
at verse 14. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am
carnal, sold under sin. God's law is right, I'm the problem. And it's not just that I was,
but I am. He says, I am. I'm carnal, sold
under sin. I'm like a slave. I'm like a
man sold to the slave market. Verse 15, for that which I do,
I allow not. I don't want to do it. That which
I would do, I want to do right, that I do not. I have to admit,
by God's law, I don't do what I want to do, and I do do what
I shouldn't do and don't want to do. This is my condition. But what I hate, that do I. And it's a shameful and painful
confession to make, isn't it? It's shameful and painful in
our own closet to admit to God what we did and why we did it
Verse 16, if then I do that, I would not, I consent to the
law. I agree that the law is good. What God said is good. I've joined
alongside of him. I don't want to do this, and
I do it. I do want to do other things, and I don't do them.
Verse 17, now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that
dwelleth in me. Now he's not giving here an excuse. He's just saying, this is me. I have this old nature, this
dead body of sin still strapped to me, weighting me down like
a cold weight. And it's me. It's not someone
else. It's in me. Yes, I have a new
man, a new nature. I've been created in Christ Jesus.
But on the other hand, it's still in this body with this old nature,
both together, like Esau and Jacob in the same womb, struggling
together all the time. Verse 18, for I know that in
me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. There is nothing
I can say about myself that's good. I have no confidence in
the flesh. What did Abraham find according
to the flesh? I can't do what God promised he alone would do. I can't make it happen. I'm like
Jehoshaphat and all the people of Judah. I don't know what to
do. I have no strength. Lord, what
do we do? He says, in me, in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good, I find I don't know
how to do right. Verse 19, for the good that I
would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do.
This is quite a confession. You could use this to put this
man in jail, couldn't you? Now, if I do that, I would not.
Oh, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Because you see the two natures struggling here, the flesh lusting
against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, so that you
cannot do the things that you would, from Galatians 5, 17. I find then a law that when I
would do good, Evil is present with me, for I delight in the
law of God after the inward man." I know that because I have a
desire to walk with Christ, to live upon His righteousness and
not upon my own, I have that desire in me, don't I? But yet
I find myself doubting. I find myself going back, oftentimes
trusting the very things I know won't help. and can't save me,
and having doubts, and I want to walk according to the gospel,
and yet I find this struggle going on. Or on the other hand,
my sinful flesh leads me into temptations of immorality. Both
these things are the fruit of the flesh. What do I do? Notice,
but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my
mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in
my members. Okay, now I'm bound up. Now I've
been attacked by these three forces, Ammon, Moab, and the
Edomites. And I have no strength, no power.
What do I do? He cries out. This is the work
of the law. The law does its work when we
come to the end of ourselves. Oh, wretched man that I am. This is me, that I am. Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death? That's this cry. Every believer says this because
the Spirit of God whelms up within them to recognize that their
own sin is so bad that it deceives them in thinking that they can
somehow get themselves out of this sinful nature and control
of sin. You can't. Try changing your
mind. In Isaiah 55, he says, let the
wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
How can you do that? He goes on, I thank God, there
it is, through Jesus Christ our Lord. What does he say? He's
directed by the Spirit of God to stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. To stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. He looks to Christ and he says, I thank God. I see
that all of my deliverance from sin, all of my ability to trust
Christ and to do the things I know are right, all these things,
that's only gonna happen when the Lord himself does the work. God's gonna have to look upon
his son and find me there. He's gonna have to come to me
and live in me. He himself will have to be my
life. I will live by the faith of the
Son of God who lives in me. No more will I live trying to
produce what I can't produce because I'm a sinner. That's
all I am in myself is a sin, is sin. But when Christ lives
in me, then a new man has come to live. And I thank God. that not only is the guilt of
sin taken care of by my Savior, but the dominion of sin is also
taken care of by my Savior. He's going to do it. He is able
to save them to what? The utter most. Who? Christ. To them that come to
God by him. He sits on the throne of glory
as the high priest, as king and high priest, and making intercession
for his people. And so the gospel of our salvation
by the Spirit of God directs us away from all that we are
to all that Christ is. He directs us away from our temptation
to try to get ourselves out of this pit that we got into. We
sin and what do we do? I gotta fix that, I gotta do
better next time. Well, go ahead, keep hitting
your head against the anvil, right? It won't get any softer. You won't have any victory over
it. Stand still and look to Christ because that's all your hope.
Notice in chapter eight, Romans eight, he deals with the first
problem, our guilt. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation, Jesus said,
he that believes on me shall not come into condemnation but
is already passed from death to life. The one looking to Christ
has already passed from death to life. There is no condemnation. He shall not come under the judgment
of God. He's already been judged in Christ.
Then notice in verse, same chapter, chapter eight, verse two, he
says, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made
me free from the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death,
I'm free from that. Here's how, verse three, for
what the law could not do and that it was weak through the
flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh
and for sin condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the
flesh but after the spirit. The righteousness of the law
is fulfilled by Christ. The result of that fulfillment
is life in me, Christ in me. The result of the life of Christ
in me is that I look to Christ. I walk by the Spirit of God.
Therefore, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in me.
Life is produced because of Christ's righteousness for me. I'm not
condemned. I have fulfilled all righteousness
in my Savior. God's given me His Spirit to
look and believe. That's it. God receives me for
his sake. And then not only that, not only
are we relieved or delivered from the condemnation of sin
and the power of sin because we're enabled by God's grace,
Christ living in me, to look to Christ, and therefore we stand
still and we see the salvation of the Lord and he overcomes
what we can never do. But look at verse 10. And if
Christ be in you, he is, the body is dead because of sin,
but the spirit Spirit of Christ in us is life because of His
righteousness, or just of righteousness. And notice what will eventually
happen, but if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from
the dead dwell in you, and He most certainly does to every
believer because that's the only way we can believe Christ, He
that raised up Christ from the dead shall do what? He shall
quicken your mortal bodies, your dead and dying bodies. When you
die, he will make them alive by his spirit that dwells in
you. He's the God of the living, not
the God of the dead. We are alive because Christ is
in us. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Thank God. I thank God through Jesus Christ,
our Lord. That's what he's saying here.
Christ for me, because Christ is in me, I know Christ for me
is all my salvation. And Christ in me keeps me ever
looking to Christ for me. And so in all these things, and
he goes on in verse 28, and we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that
he, Christ, might be the firstborn among many brethren. There we
have it. Not only did God choose us to
salvation, He predestinated us to be conformed to the image
of His Son. Christ was given for us, Christ is given to us,
and we live now, and everything in our life is ordered by God
in order to bring us to the fullness of that salvation in Christ.
Yes, we have continuous battles. In our flesh there's no good
thing, but by faith we see that all is taken care of for us by
our Savior. He's finished the work. That's
our rest. He sits in glory. He advocates
for us. He answers for us. He pleads
for us. He pleads against our accusers.
He pleads against our sin. He pleads against every enemy
that raises itself up against us. He's our victory, and what
do we do? We give thanks to His holy name,
and we triumph in that praise. Looking to Christ, we triumph.
Let's pray. Lord, we pray that we would be enabled to give you
this thanks, the sacrifice of our lips, giving thanks to your
name, because you have put your spirit within us and given us
this grace to believe Christ and to see our salvation in him
alone. We have no power over our enemies. We don't know what
to do. And yet you've given us this
command to look to the Lord Jesus Christ and find our salvation
in him and to know that in him we're justified with his righteousness.
We will never have any of our own. but what is His. And so
we come to you Lord through Him and we know that you've made
the promise and you have to fulfill it and we trust you to do that
to save us to the uttermost by Jesus Christ. And so we look
and we admire and we thank our God and Savior that you would
be so mighty, so gracious to have chosen us to this salvation
and actually do what you intended. by your determined will, by your
word, and by the work of our Savior. In his name we pray,
amen.