In Grace Abounding

Good Morning

Before we do anything else, lets pray:

Our Father in Heaven, You are holy, righteous, and just; may the whole earth be filled with your glory. Give us all eyes to see it, ears to hear it, and hearts to comprehend the length and width, height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge. You, O God are the king of all creation, the sovereign of the cosmos, and the Lord of the harvest. We are nothing without you, we can to nothing apart from you. Teach our souls to abide in Christ our savior and God our Father. Open the eyes of our hearts that we might know the hope to which you have called us. Help us to remember we are are your ambassadors, sent out to pour forth from the abundance of joy you have given us. Work in our hearts to produce this joy and love for our neighbors. Work also in the hearts of our neighbors that they may come to you in faith. Take away our fear, May your Spirit move that the gospel would flow easily from our lips to the ears of those who need the good news. Then, Father, grant us opportunities to sow seeds of the gospel. Help us also to have a growing heart and concern for the lives of our neighbors. They have other cares and needs, help us to care for them, to see and hear them in their distress, and offer help. I want to pray specifically for:

Kristen Wedmore

Jana Wegner

Sadie Winfrey

Shelly Zeitler (Spelling error)

Jason Andersen

Father, work in them to your glory. If any of them do not yet know you, or have wandered from your fold, I pray you guide them gently to you that they may believe and repent of their sin. Be with us now, inspire us by your Spirit, to do the work of ministry for the building up of the body of Christ and for your glory, honor, and praise on the earth. It is in the holy name of Jesus Christ our Lord I pray, Amen.

If you will turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 9. If you don’t have a Bible, we have some at our welcome desk in the lobby, please feel free to grab one at any time, it is our gift to you.

While you are turning to 2 Corinthians 8. I put the passage, title and main points in the Bulletin for your convenience.

For those using one of our sermon notebooks:

Title: “In Grace Abounding”

Big Idea: God is glorified when we abound in his grace, in love, and good works with a cheerful heart.

I am going to jump right in. We read the text earlier in the service, so I will be working through it. We will read each section as we go.

God is glorified when we abound in his grace, in love, and good works with a cheerful heart.

Abound in love, Abound in the grace of God, May all abound to his glory

First, Abound in love

1 Now it is superfluous for me to write to you about the ministry for the saints, 2 for I know your readiness, of which I boast about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaia has been ready since last year. And your zeal has stirred up most of them. 3 But I am sending the brothers so that our boasting about you may not prove empty in this matter, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be. 4 Otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated—to say nothing of you—for being so confident. 5 So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for the gift you have promised, so that it may be ready as a willing gift, not as an exaction.

I had to look up what superfluous meant. It means more than is needed or necessary. Paul seemed to think it was only slightly necessary to remind them to be ready for the collection. He says it is superfluous, or unnecessary, in verse 1 and necessary in verse 5. So as he is communicating he first deemed it unnecessary and a little later recognized it was better safe than sorry.

Paul was already aware they were getting ready and they had been for a while. In fact, the zeal, the earnestness of the church in Achaia was an inspiration to the other churches, particularly Macedonia. They must have been wowed by their earnest commitment to give, then overflowing with their own joy emulated their sister church.

Paul didn’t think this was really necessary, but he is coming soon and is looking out for them by sending some brothers in advance with this letter so that they aren’t caught off guard by their coming only to find themselves embarrassed by being unprepared. Not only that, but it would be an embarrassment to Paul and his team because they lauded the Corinthian’s earnest desire to give and they boasted in their confidence before the other churches. So Paul, even though he doesn’t really think this is necessary, out of his love is sending a reminder out of an overabundance of caution for them.

Additionally, he wanted to be sure the gift given came out of an overflow of joy and a willingness to give a gift; not given for negative reasons. The word translated as “Exaction” in the ESV, means “the greedy grasping for more at the expense of others.” Paul didn’t want them to give out of obligation or to give because he is pressuring them, especially if this became needlessly burdensome to them. He doesn’t want them to forget, but neither does he want them to give for dishonorable reasons.

This section is a transition between what we discussed last week and what will follow in the next section of this chapter. Because of his love for them and the church in Jerusalem, Paul has been arranging the collection and is now reminding the Corinthians of their honor, as we discussed last week. They earnestly committed to giving for the needs of the saints, and they should follow through. However, and we will get into this further in a moment, they shouldn’t be giving for their own sake, or out of pure obligation, but out of an overflow of grace, joy, and love.

As I read and have considered this section, we can see something peaking through, that is Paul’s abounding, or overflowing, love for the Corinthians. His love and concern for them was for more than just getting them to fulfill their word. He was looking out for them, so that they weren’t embarrassed by being unprepared to give what he knows they want to give. He believed them, and expected they wanted to follow through with their word. Yet, even the most earnest and disciplined person can become distracted or wander off course. In his previous letter to them, Paul said this, 1 Corinthians 13:7 “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” In our passage, Paul seems to demonstrate this. He believed them and has bore with them, and he hopes they will honor their word. Yet he is also understanding that there have had some stuff to crop up which may have distracted them from their original goals, or even made the original commitment harder to keep.

He expresses caution and practical wisdom for them. He is concerned not only for the state of the church in Jerusalem, but also the hearts of the people in the churches contributing. He is concerned for how they are perceived by the other churches that what he has communicated about them is not contradicted by simple lack of preparation. He was confident in them, but didn’t want his confidence to become arrogance. He wanted to help them follow through.

This speaks to the kind of humble and abounding love we ought to have for one another. Do we attempt to look out for one another in this way? Do we want a brother to helps us remember to honor our word or something similar? If someone tried, would you be offended by it? Do you know any of your brothers and sisters well enough to know when to push in a similar way? I imagine Paul knew this church and maybe he knew they needed a push to follow through. This kind of love and knowledge only comes with time and proximity. It requires trust, but we need to spend time with one another, getting to know one another more and more deeply to build it.

God is glorified when we abound in his grace, in love, and good works with a cheerful heart.

First, Abound in love

Second, Abound in the grace of God

6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

Paul says this is the point, with a metaphor. The farmer who sows only a little seed will reap only a little harvest. The farmer who sows a lot of seed reaps a lot of harvest. Something tells me this isn’t strictly and absolutely true. However, it works as a general principle in more than one area. It is closer to the generalized wisdom of a proverb. Paul continues, when the people give toward the collection for Jerusalem, they shouldn’t be doing so out of obligation, under pressure or compulsion. They shouldn’t be giving with a reluctant heart, instead they each ought to decide what he or she wishes to contribute in their hearts and give cheerfully. He says God loves a cheerful giver.

Paul tells us God is able to give us everything we can possibly need to abound in the work he has set before us. He then quotes from Psalm 112: 9, God is the one who brings the bounty for our crops, he saw to the care of the poor among the Israelites as a reflection of his righteousness. He is the one who provides the seed for farmers through the bounty of the harvest, through the same harvest he provided bread for the people to eat and multiplies the bounty and increases the harvest of their righteousness. The Corinthians will be enriched by God that his righteousness will pour out through them in generosity and result in thanksgiving being expressed to God.

As we consider this passage, I have a growing concern for myself and the people of this church. I am concerned we have mistaken doing for being. What do I mean? I think we have adopted the mindset that doing things for God is the same as or equivalent to being with him. I don’t want to argue against being obedient, but it should come out of our love for him and the joy of our salvation, not just rote lifeless obedience.

Our passage tells us something about the character of God and what he wants from us. Even though the situation in Jerusalem, is dire, it wasn’t worth receiving contributions out of obligation. They were to be given cheerfully; from a heart overflowing with joy.

Isaiah 29:13 says, “13 And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,”

Same idea, obedience without knowing and loving the Lord himself.

Jesus had some harsh things to say to the pharisees about this: (Matt 23)

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

On some level, the difficulty in finding the right balance with this makes sense. Ephesians 2 speaks of this tension.

Ephesians 2:8–10 (ESV) 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

One should lead into the other. Our faith should abound in our good works. If our obedience comes from another place, not only is it fruitless, but it could be offensive to Christ, depending on the circumstances. Remember, the problem with the pharisees wasn’t a lack of obedience, their problem was that they did not know God and so as they pursued obedience it became distorted. They did not understand the heart of their God, and as a result became like white-washed tombs, in all appearances were clean and pristine, but inside were full of death and corruption. This is why I included the passage from Isaiah 1 in our Newsletter this week.

The example in our text speaks of giving monetarily, but it isn’t really what this is about. The deeper principle at work is about what motivates us. Our vision as a church is to be for the harvest. In obedience we plant seeds of the gospel, and as people come to faith, we disciple them, all the while we pray to the one to whom the harvest belongs. He is the one who brings the increase. He is the one who transforms hearts. My concern is that we do this, not out of an overflow of joy as we talked several weeks ago, but that we do it because we just should. This is a poor motivation.

We are an SBC church and I have had this growing concern for the SBC as well. Have we abandoned the love we had at first because we are too busy working for him. Have we become so fixated on the mission we have forgotten the one who sent us on mission. Are we abiding in him and coming to know him more and more that we may walk in obedience out of that love, out of that joy? Are we giving cheerfully of our lives and energy, or is it out of compulsion?

Remember, God doesn’t need anything from us, what could we possibly add to the one who spoke all of the galaxies into being with a word? We make programs and plans to serve him and he can transform the world through a few rag-tag fishermen who don’t know anything about the world outside of their village.

So what does that mean for us? It means we can relax, God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. We can trust him. If we abide in Christ there is nothing we cannot do. We can ask for anything in his name and he will give it. We can walk in obedience with joy because we know we are created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in it. Our faith, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus himself as the cornerstone, will produce good works out of an abundance of joy to the glory and praise of Christ.

So, relax and serve with joy. Obedience to Christ matters, when he called us to make disciples it is to teach them to obey all to which he has commanded us, but he we cannot forget that he is with us. It is about him being with him.

So give, give in your abundance. Give in your poverty. Give of your time, of your money, of your energy, of your attention, of your heart and soul. Give sacrificially to the glory and praise of God, but do so only out of a heart of cheer, not out of compulsion. God has made all grace abound to you, so that having everything you could possibly need in him at all times, you may abound in every good work you undertake.

God is glorified when we abound in his grace, in love, and good works with a cheerful heart.

Abound in love, Abound in the grace of God,

Third, May all abound to his glory

11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. 12 For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. 13 By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, 14 while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. 15 Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

By the grace of God as they abounded in every good work, as a result of the overflow of their joy and the righteousness of God pouring out through them. Paul says, the Corinthians would have been enriched in every way so that they are generous in every way. This will result in thanksgiving being expressed to God. The collection, what he calls the ministry of this service, while it is supplying the needs of the saints, it is doing so much more because it overflows in many thanksgivings to God. God is glorified through the saints because they are cared for by their brothers and sisters. This glory finds its origin in the gospel and the saints’ submission to it and their confession of the gospel of Christ. Their generosity comes from this and the surpassing grace of God as displayed in the gospel. It is an inexpressible gift which keeps on giving through the outpouring of joy through the saints.

All of this finds its beginning in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news about what he has done for us. As Christians, it is the source of our confidence, our hope, our joy, our peace, and our love. We can abide in Jesus because we know he already won the most significant battle, that is satisfying the wrath of God for our sin.

We, as human beings, stand guilt before God. This is because we have all sinned and fallen short of his glory. He had created us to be his forever, to know and be known, to love and be loved by him. Yet, when given the opportunity to choose, we chose to betray, abandon, and rebel against him. The result has been a history of intense suffering, death, and destruction. This is true on many levels. There has been literal death, every human being who has ever lived, has died or reasonably expects to die. It is a death we deserve, in fact, it isn’t even enough.

Our sin costs something. We earn something. Like a man who works for his wages expects to be paid. We who have sinned against an infinite, righteous, and perfectly just God, the wages we have earned second and eternal second death. When Satan, the serpent who deceived Eve, rebelled agains the almighty, God created a place for him, Gehenna, Hell. In the last days, he will cast him and all of those who have followed him, into that pit. That is the second death. It is a place of eternal torment, intended for the devil and his angels. However, though we didn’t realize it, human beings are followers of this being, the prince of the power of the air. He is at work in all humanity deceiving us that he might bring as many into damnation as he can, human beings are his captives.

However, the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. When the time was right, God the father sent his son in fulfillment to his promises. He was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, complete and righteous in the sight of God and man. Jesus taught us, then took our punishment on his shoulders. He took the cup of the infinite wrath of God which we deserve, and drank it all on the cross for us. When he did, he died in our place. On the third day after his death, Jesus rose from the dead victorious. He paid our debt in full.

Jesus came to set the captives free. Now, for those who put their faith in Jesus and repent of their sin, there is forgiveness. We need not face the second death because Jesus already did that for us. He bore our debt and offered us riches in return. He completed his task, paid our debt in full, offering us forgiveness and an eternal inheritance. How could we not be filled with joy at the prospect of this sort of grace? We don’t deserve this, but it was given freely to us. We need only give up on what this world has to offer us, which is empty and fleeting, and put our faith in Jesus Christ who will grant us all the things that matter.

This is the beginning of our joy and the source of all our good works, at least it should be. We already talked about the beginning, now I want to talk about the end, the Telos. What is the end, the ultimate purpose and destination of our good works? When Corinth gave for the church in Jerusalem, what was the ultimate end? Glory to God. Honor toward him because he is the one working through us. Gratitude expressed toward him who saved us. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He is the creator and the author of our salvation. He is the one who will bring all things to an end and who brings our salvation to its ultimate fulfillment. He initiated our joy by Christ’s work on the cross and overflows it onto others and it flows back to him as gratitude. All of this spreads the fame of his name to the corners of the earth.

God does not need us, but he is glorified in us as we walk in obedience as an overflow of our joy, and this pours onto others who glorify God because he is the one who gave this inexpressible gift through Jesus Christ our savior.

God is glorified when we abound in his grace, in love, and good works with a cheerful heart.

In Conclusion

Church Abound in the Grace of God. Remember the gospel, preach it to yourself daily. This is the ultimate beginning of our joy. We abide in the one who saved us, we trust him, we abound his grace.

Then we Abound in love for God and for one another. Our love for God should result in our love for our brothers or we do not truly know him. Read 1 John, he makes this painfully clear. When we love God and love one another, the overflow of this is true love for our neighbors.

May all things abound to his glory, honor, and praise through his church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever Amen.

Lets Pray

Our Father, help us with this. Many of us look at this and wonder how. How do we do this? How do we abide in Christ when things have been so chaotic and difficult? How do we trust you when so often we have been hurt? Father teach us all not to lean on our own understanding, but in all our ways trust you, and you will make straight our paths. May the paths we walk bring glory to your name and echo in shouts of gratitude for you wonderful works. AMen