2 Corinthians, 9:8-11
Jim Pool · Mar 20, 2005
2 Corinthians (2004-05), No. 38
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826232242540

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright, we're going to look at 2 Corinthians chapter 9 and we're going to look in verse 8 and down through verse 11 this morning. So if we could just open up there and let's start reading verse 6. Before I read there, you'll see the first two pages that I've given out this morning are at the top there it says a few words about grace. And if you turn to the second page, there it says, it's from Romans, verse by verse, by William Newell. And this verse that we're going to be talking about this morning really centers around the superabounding grace of God which has been given to us as his children in Christ. So, as I was reading through this verse weeks ago, starting to prepare, these few thoughts by William Newell kind of came to mind.

I won't take the time to read them this morning, but you can kind of tuck them away in your library of resources. I just thought they were pretty neat and pretty helpful thoughts there. And if you don't have his commentary, Newell's Commentary on Romans, it's excellent. It's a really good piece. Not that we're anybody that's dependent upon commentaries by any stretch of the imagination, but at times they are good to have. and he has a lot of good things to say.

Let's look at verse 6, chapter 9. Now this I say, he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully. Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you that always having all sufficiency and everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed. As it is written, he scattered abroad, he gave to the poor, his righteousness abides forever. Now 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. You will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God. So, verse 8 is an awesome verse. It's one of my favorites. Everybody probably has their favorite verses, but this is one of my favorite verses, so it's pretty neat to be able to look at it here this morning. Good morning. Did you grab some notes? Let me grab a set of notes back there. Yeah, there we go. Great. Okay, so as we get going this morning, let's ask this question.

Does the principle here of God is able to make all grace abound to you or to us as believers to the Corinthians, that we'd always have all sufficiency in everything, so that we'd have an abundance for every good work, does this only have a specific application to the financial needs in the situation of the Corinthians, or is there a larger universal principle about God that we see represented here? What do you guys think about that? So I kind of read the context a little bit, and then boom, here's his... Well, all speaks to comprehension, doesn't it?

That's right, yeah. being good work may be specific or in fact it says every good work. Sure, that's right. I mean if that's not the view that the believer has that God's grace is sufficient for all things, we're on the wrong track. That's right. The idea that he partitions only a little bit of grace for some circumstances under some occasions is probably not a very good interpretation of the word of God. I mean, if that doesn't have anything to do with our citizenship, what does, right? All grace. All things. That's right. Yeah. All sufficiencies. That's right. I think that it has a...

It's got to really steep you in your heavenly citizenship, doesn't it? I mean, how could that in fact have anything to do with the earthly circumstances? I mean, Hal and I both know a sister of the Lord who, in fact, you know, struggles because this aspect of God's grace is something she can't touch. This is almost meaningless to her right now.

Don't you think that's true of many believers? Sure. Their flesh is still so involved with trying to do it or some other earthly means of trying to help them, whatever it is. You know, Bob and I were talking about this yesterday. A letter from a missionary, right? Right. We got a letter yesterday from a missionary. That I supported for years when I first came to Denver.

Sharon and I were in another church. Every paragraph was, oh, woe is me, and this is going wrong, and that's going wrong, and people are leaving the church, and our Bible study is not going... I mean, you know. And this guy is just steeped in self-pity, and you're sort of going, Where's his dependency on the Lord? There wasn't one place in this entire letter where he talked about the Lord being part of anything he's doing. And we couldn't believe it. So it's easy for people to fall into the trap where it does not seem that God is able to make all grace abound to them. Or it does not feel like God is able. become controlled by their feelings instead of being controlled by the faith and the biblical facts and the circumstance.

Sure. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not that we have it all together. Sure. Sure. That's right. That's right. You have the right view and you have this kind of teaching. Sure. Sure. At least you have something to go back to. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Somebody's... Gail?

If we go back to chapter 3, verses 2 through 5, it talks about being an epistle of the Lord in the 2nd verse, and then it goes on down to Ephesians verse 5, where it says that we're not sufficient for that either. That's right. To be an epistle of the Lord. He's the one that has to do it. That's right. That's right. Yeah. So it's not just application of money. That's right. That's right. Yeah.

I think it does have specific application to the Corinthians, but also has a much broader universal application to all believers in all areas, not just financial, as he was talking about up here. But let's talk for just a moment in the context of the Corinthians. We've come through these chapters here talking about the needs of the saints that were in Jerusalem. They did have this readiness of mind. We talked about that in the past. But yet there was this law. Last week we talked about how it could have been simply because no one was administrating or kind of taking charge of organizing the giving.

So, thinking through why would Paul be specifically telling this verse to them in this setting? What about that? Why would he, at this moment, this verse has broad context, don't get me wrong, like we talked about, but why would he, at this moment, through God's inspiration, say this verse to these people? Do you think that maybe there was some uncertainty on their part? Paul's reminding them of their readiness of mind and reminding them of what they said before. And we think there was some uncertainty. Okay, if I begin to sow bountifully, which is what he's reminding them to do, those who sow bountifully will reap bountifully and give out of cheerfulness. possibly there could have been in the mind of the Corinthians there. Boy, if that happens, practically what's going to happen? What's going to happen in my family financially? What's going to happen in my pocketbook financially? I'm just thinking through the practical questions of the Corinthians.

And so here he comes in with this verse, reminds them, and says, listen guys, God is able to make all grace abound to you so that you will always have all sufficiency in everything, have an abundance for every good work. Don't worry guys. I know you have this readiness of mind. I'm encouraging you to sow bountifully and don't worry about tomorrow in that sense. Because God is able to make all of his grace abound to you so you have all sufficiency in every good work.

We've looked at it in the past. Giving has been looked at in three areas. giving of oneself to God, giving of oneself to the ministry, and giving of oneself financially. And so the God of all grace is able to make them abound in giving themselves to the Lord, and giving themselves to the ministry, and giving themselves financially.

I think Paul is just simply reminding the Corinthians of some of these principles. So there was the law, so God directs them to his grace, for the sufficiency and the enabling power to carry out the collection. Specifically, how does it apply to the Corinthians there who were reading this in the context of what they were going through in their lives and their churches at that particular moment. Any thoughts? I was just going to make the point that in the view of many people in the body of Christ puts this under law, doesn't it? In other words, if I give myself unto God and to the ministry and financially, God's blessing will follow. True. That's right. That's the mindset of many people. That's not true, but it is the mindset of many people. Sure. I think it is, unfortunately, a mindset. Yeah. In fact, that's not what the text says. That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah, I was going to say, we looked back at a couple of chapters back where their acceptance, they were already accepted by God. We talked about that. And their acceptance before the Lord and their acceptance before other people was not to be based on their amount of giving. And I think Hal really drove that home.

There's a purpose in their heart beforehand. What it is that God would have people to to give and it's not based upon becoming acceptable or more acceptable to people or acceptable or more acceptable to God. That would be a law-oriented motive and wrong motive there. So he directs them to their grace, to to carry this out, not to any kind of manipulative scheme or pressure, which is huge. Any other thoughts? Okay. Let's look at slide two. So I thought that to kind of lay the verse out like this might help us to see a little bit of the direction that we're going to go. And maybe we can make some sense of this verse here a little bit.

So God is the one who is able to make all grace abound to us. So that's what we see right there. God, THE God, is what it says in the Greek. THE God is able. He is able to make all grace abound to us. So God, His super abounding grace is coming to us. What do we do to deserve that? Nothing. What do we do to earn that? Nothing.

And some of those comments by Newell, in this few words about grace, really communicates this quite well. I mean, to me, that's a spot worth stopping at. And just trying to, as I was thinking through this, how do we articulate that? communicate that to where we can understand THE God is able and He is making all His grace super bound to us. In the sense that we did nothing to deserve it, we did nothing to earn it, He just did it. I mean, what a humbling, what a humbling thought that that is, that God in His plan has done that for us. So God in His superabounding grace comes to us so that we would superabound unto every good work. Now we kind of left out a little phrase there in the middle of the verse that you might see. Let me just read the verse.

God is able to make all grace abound to you that you may have an abundance for every good deed. That's really the end result, is that we would have an abundance for every good deed. That's what the verse is, I think, driving at here. Now, the means of having an abundance for every good deed is that we will always have all sufficiency in all things.

And, Gail, you pointed it out beautifully, 2 Corinthians 3, verse 5. Now, are we going to have all sufficiency in all things? Yes, we will. But why? not because of our own sufficiency. There's no sufficiency that lies within ourselves, but we'll have all sufficiency in all things because of His sufficiency. Christ in us, the hope of glory, Christ living His life in and through us, therefore, that's where our sufficiency comes from.

This is kind of the way that we're going to go through the verse and break it down in this way, so we keep coming back to and referring to this chart there. You know, Jim, to me it seems like when we doubt that or when we get discouraged or we get depressed about our circumstances, no matter what they are, and we try to get on the track and do it ourselves, it's really such a lack of faith. I mean, that's really what it is, the faith in what he has said. That's right, that's right, yeah.

Because verse 5 there, as Gail pointed out, not that, in chapter 3, not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything that's coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. So when we, and all of us in this room tend to do it. You know, nobody is excluded from this, you know. Even by God's grace, he's showed us the truths that he has, and which we're all thankful for. that we tend to at times try to find adequately see within ourselves.

And we fall back to the trap of, well, I'm adequate, I can do this, you know, this is more of a smaller type thing, I can do this. Well, that's a lack of faith, sure. So then what happens when that happens? Yeah, sure. Most of the time we're going to fail. I don't say all the time, we're going to fail. So, boom, we're walking in the flesh, we're finding our adequacy, we're trying to find our adequacy within ourselves, we think for a moment that we can do this within ourselves, boom, we fail in ourselves.

What does that cause us to do? turns us back to the Lord. Man, I was walking in the flesh. I think I had the sufficiency within myself. Boy, thank you Lord for showing me that I was walking in the flesh. Boom, immediately turns us back to the Lord. Holy Spirit brings things to our remembrance. Boy, adequacy comes from the Lord, not from ourselves. God is the one who is able to make all grace abound.

Then we're back walking by faith and the facts. That's a cycle that we're going to go through until the rapture, or until the day we die. Now, I think the growth process is there, and there will be, as we're growing in the Lord and being conformed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, will be more walking in the Spirit, more dependence upon Him, less walking in our own sufficiency, and less walking in our own adequacy more than him, but there is that process. And it's a daily, moment by moment, walk with the Lord through this thing. I wrote a little note in my Bible, in this verse. I said, thank you, Lord. This is my escape. When the temptation of being overwhelmed by the circumstances in life come in, thank you. Yeah, that's right.

I find a lot of peace and rest and comfort in knowing that God's word has said that the Holy Spirit is going to bring things to remembrance and he's going to guide us into all truth and convict us. I like that because that that's biblical facts of which I can have faith in. So I'm walking through the day, I'm getting up in the morning, I'm depending on that. I'm going to at times want to be sufficient in myself. But the Holy Spirit is going to convict, going to remind, going to bring me back to walking in truth. And boy, I am so thankful for that.

It's a great process. I mean, I'm sure that I'm not the only one that's thinking through in my mind at this moment what it looks like practically in a day-in and day-out process, but it's kind of fun. You guys think it's kind of fun? Fun. I do something, I have my own sufficiency, I'm like, okay. Man, I was of my own sufficiency. Thank you, Lord, boom. It's like that. It's not always fun, but sometimes it's kind of fun to watch it. It's an adventure. There you go. It's never fun to walk in flesh. I wasn't trying to insinuate that at all. The end result is always bad. It can never be good.

Any other thoughts? That's good. Real practical stuff. I like that. I think the wonderful part about it is that The word causes us to understand that, just to have that understanding that it's not of him. That's right. Just to know that. Exactly right. Exactly right. Yep. Yep. Okay, let's go to slide three. Let's kind of take this verse and break it down a little bit.

So God is able. Do not say is a Greek word and it's a verb, present active indicative. and he is actually THE God, I should have put that in, I didn't put that definite article in there, is able, meaning almighty, power, or strong. And it's also used as a verb in 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 3. So there's a fact that we can have faith in, there's a biblical fact that we can have faith in, that THE God is almighty, power, or strong. So boom, there comes a time in our lives when we're feeling like the circumstances are taking us down and nothing is able to help us out.

There it is. The God is almighty powerful and He is able to do it. There's a fact that we can hang on to and we can not let go. Hang on to it for dear life. Do not is a stem and again it's just meaning power. So God is powerful to cause all grace to abound to you So that in everything you will have all sufficiency and you may have an abundance for every good work.

And this is a truth that is not contingent upon how we feel. And that's crucial for us to understand. When it feels like God is able to do this, boy, then we can go to the bank on faith in Him. When it doesn't feel like God is able, then it's much harder to have faith in that biblical fact. Our faith isn't based on feeling. It's based on facts.

So simply put there, God is powerful and He is able to make all grace abound to you. Notice that God's desired location for His grace is for us. It's for all believers. It's personal. God desires and is able to make all grace abound to you personally. And so there again, we can take personal comfort in that, and find peace in the Lord in that, that His grace is coming to us personally in the middle of life's difficult trials and circumstances and struggles.

To make, to abound is all one word in the Greek, and it's a verb, arist, active infinitive, and we're going to look at all these verbs side by side here in a little while. Cause may be a better word than make, that God is able to cause to abound. He's a source. He is the one who has a causative. He's causative for this, not us. He is the one who is able to cause to abound of this grace towards us personally. And every one of us personally, He's causing this grace to abound towards us. Just an incredible thought there. Any added thoughts? Again, how do you take these inspired words by the Holy Spirit and try to put human thoughts and get your arms around it? Hard to do. We need the Holy Spirit to communicate them to us.

So that we will have an abundance. So God is able to make all grace, to make to abound to you all grace, so that you may have an abundance. Now note the second use of the word abundance here. We have the word abundance here, then we have the word to make to abound up there. The second abundance is because of the first abundance. God is able to make to abound to you all grace so that we would have an abundance. So we're able to have an abundance because He has already super-bounded to us.

Does that make sense? Do you see that? Well, I'm just going to try to make a point that I think is correct that in the way we pray often relates to God partitioning his grace to us kind of in spoonfuls. This is kind of like a sea of grace. Yeah, that's right, that's right. In fact, we're on the boat in the sea, right? And we've got all the sufficiency of water there to keep us afloat. It's not a matter of waiting That's right.

So it's all grace. It's all grace. It's always about it. All the time. It's not a matter of... No. I've got to think that. When we pray often, we pray for God's grace to be, you know, it's kind of like, let's see him dish out a little bit more, right? Right. That's right. That's right. For this particular circumstance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, in Hebrews, it says, and I prayed this this morning, okay, about probably what? 25 minutes ago for Larry and Ann.

So in Hebrews it says that we would come boldly before the throne of grace, that we would find grace and mercy to help in time of need. Now that's God's Word as well, inspired, written scripture, but that isn't saying what Bob is saying, and that's a spoonful.

I think that there's a time that we can, knowing that we're in this sea of grace, Knowing that God's grace is super abounding all the time, always, in all sufficiency, in all good works, the inclusiveness of all is there, but I think that for us to be able to come and say, let's be reminded that we can't appropriate this. At times, that's a good thing for us to be reminded of that. More for us, rather. Yeah, more for us than him.

But I just say the Hebrews passage, don't you think in time of need is in fact, you know, continuous? Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. When are we not in need? Yeah. But the needs sometimes they might be, you know, more than others. Sure. Sure. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You know thoughts? That's good. It's good to talk this through. I think what happens is... That's true. They're all piped back there where they're taping them all. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that we may have an abundance. We have an abundance because of His abundance. There's no abundance within ourselves.

And Paul stated it the best, I think, in him. that is in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing." In Romans 7, Paul cried out, you know, I abhor myself. A wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of sin and death? That's a guy that was facing himself in the flesh and the old man, eyeball to eyeball, and came to grips with, in himself, dwells no good thing.

There's no abundance. The abundance only comes from the Lord. We've looked at 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 5. Let's look at John. Chapter 15, I'm sure that this is a familiar passage to us. I am the true vine, in verse 1. So that's Christ, is the vine. And my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it. that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

Abide in me and I in you, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." I think verse 4 and 5 there really drive this point home very well. Abide in me, in verse 4, and I in you, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself.

That's us. He's the vine, we are the branches. There's no sufficiency, there's no abundance for us to bear fruit in and of ourselves. Absolutely not. We get fooled by the flesh, duped into thinking that there is at times, but really there's not. So, unless we are abiding in the vine, abiding in the vine is how we bear fruit. not by trying to produce it in ourselves.

I am the vine, you are the branches, verse 5. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. We all have notes, we're coming through winter time, everybody sees dead tree limbs laying in the yard. Now, how much fruit is that dead tree limb, disconnected from the tree, going to produce? What's it going to do? It's going to lay there, it's going to rot, it's going to get more brittle, and it's going to rot to nothing. That is us if we are not abiding in Christ. That's us if we are not walking by faith. When we are detached from Him by faith, that's us. We're like that branch laying in your yard that's fallen off of the tree. It can do absolutely nothing. But what's going to happen to the branches that are connected to the tree in your yard? Soon, and some are already beginning to, what? I'm seeing some leaves popping out. I like it. It's, you know, the forsythia, the things that are blooming yellow. I'm seeing some come out. Why? Because they're connected.

Same with us. When we're connected, there's going to be the fruit coming out there. But the sufficiency and adequacy is not within ourselves. It's within Him, as we are abiding into His superabounding grace, with which He has given to us. Any thoughts? Okay, page four. Let me throw this up real quick just to show you where we're at. We're back here.

God, super bound in grace, comes to us so that we will superabound because of His sufficiency, not our sufficiency, unto every good work. And we're going to come down to this statement in just a minute. So this is where we're at right here. So God is the one who is causing all of His grace to abound to us for the purpose that we may superabound unto every good work.

Now, at times, when we begin to talk about works, We start walking on eggshells. When one talks about works, it's easy for them to be construed that it's going to come across as a work of man, thus legalistic. Well, we're not talking about good works here in a legalistic context. We just got done talking about the God who is able to make all grace abound to you, so that we're going to have all sufficiency unto every good work.

So, God is doing this so that good works are going to come out. But where are the good works going to come out from? That's right. Exactly right. Exactly right. So, is it okay to talk about good works? I think so, as long as we're talking about them in the proper context. Look over to Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 10. Ephesians 2, let's start in verse 8, again, coming back to the grace of God.

For by grace you have been saved, through faith, that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Because God's grace has been extended to us, we didn't deserve it, we didn't earn it, we didn't do anything to get it. He's extended it to us. Because of that, we are His workmanship. We're in Christ, created in Christ Jesus unto what?

Unto good works. And those works can be, you know, whatever. In the context here at Corinthians, I think, you know, The Corinthian readers, one way they're seeing it is definitely in giving up their finances and help to the poor needy in Jerusalem. It might be older women and older men ministering to younger women and younger men would be a good work. Helping in any way around the church, availing ourselves to the ministry.

The good works, it is endless. but God is able to make all this grace abound to us so that you may have an abundance for every good deed. The means or the reason that we are able to do every good work is that we are always having all sufficiency in everything. Why? Because we do not have the sufficiency within ourselves.

I just wrote down some of the particulars there of the words there, always is a verb, and it's even, even when or at all times, and having is also, I'm sorry, always is an adverb, even when or at all times, having is a verb, present, active, participle, all is an adjective, same as always, two lines above it there, and sufficiency is self-satisfaction or contentment, and everything is all any, every, or the whole. Alright. Now let's look at this and get some of the big pictures here. Page 5. Observe the verbs here. There's four verbs in this verse that we looked at. We went through and mentioned them just quickly.

But here we see that God is able is able as one to make to abound, to abound, we talked about that, cause to abound was one word in the Greek there, that you have in all sufficiency and that you may abound. Now, as I looked at this verse, at first glance, I saw that all these verbs were active. Active, active, active, active. And what that simply means is that the subject is the one who is performing the action, if a verb is in the active sense there. So, as I looked at the verse, I thought, first of all, that God was the subject of all the verbs. I began to study it some more, talked with Hal, we got together, we looked at this verse some more, in a little more depth, and what we saw is that God is the subject of the first two verbs, and that we as the believers are the subject of the second two verbs. So what that meant, and what that means, is that God is active on the first two verbs, and that we are active on the second two verbs. I thought that had huge significance. Now, we're active because of what? And why? Because He's active. See? God is always active.

Faith is always active, and then the believers are always active. Is that a statement that we're okay with? Even in the grace camp? Even those of the positional and the identification truths and the grace and faith, are we okay with that? I'm kind of on eggshells a little bit here, to say that the believers are always active. But always resting. Exactly right. So, that's right. It's exactly right. It's a restful productivity. Why? Because who's producing the works in our lives? It's Christ. But are we actively involved by faith? Absolutely.

Is it one of just complacency, where we're just laying on the sofa? you know, and apathetic, and, you know, God, move me, and, you know, no. No, not at all. But I've seen that other ditch sometimes, and it's, you know, we don't want to be in one ditch or the other.

We want to be balanced right in the middle. So, by seeing this verse in its proper context and proper understanding, I think it presents us with the proper balance. God is the one who is first and always active. But because of His enabling power, because He is super bound in His grace to us, therefore we are also active.

Any thoughts? Okay, and then how Bob, how you were pointing this out earlier, the all-inclusiveness of this verse, it just hits you in the face when you read through it. not see what's going on here. Notice the four alls. All grace and everything or all things having all sufficiency for every or all good work or good deed, depending on the KJV or the NAS. And they're all the same word there in the Greek.

So God never goes just part of the way or most of the way, but all the way. And that's Maybe what, you know, Bob and Hal, you guys were talking about with this young lady that, you know, is God even there, number one? Is God just going halfway or just part of the way? You know, that's sometimes how we think. You know, God's going to go get us this far and then we have to get ourselves the rest of the way. Well, that's not a correct understanding of God's grace.

Wayne? The word that wraps all that together is always. That's right. I mean, there's no time that we don't have that. Yeah. So many times I've heard, well, God's grace protected us through the trip. We didn't have an accident. Well, what if you would have had an accident? Yeah. Right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's interesting stuff to think through.

You know, if there's an accident of some kind, does that mean that God's grace was turned off for five minutes. Well, that can't be true. That goes against all ways. God is the one great coordinator of all circumstances. God is the one great circumstance in which all other circumstances are in. He is the great circumstance which all other ones fall under or fall into. That goes back to the trials and suffering class then. If that happens, God's grace is alive and well.

If this happens, we've got a trial, what's going on? We'll get the tapes of the class from last year. Okay, I don't even know if we did that verse justice. It's such a powerful verse, there's so much there. You know, it's a verse, as all scripture, that we can study for the rest of our lives and always be learning. And then it will be nice when we can sit at the feet of Christ and get Him to teach us more about it.

So, verse 9, As it is written, He scattered abroad, He gave to the poor, His righteousness abides forever. This is a quote coming out of Psalm 112. in verse 9. So, the question is, who is he referring to? I initially thought it was the Lord. It would kind of make sense that, you know, here's God is able to make all grace abound to you, and so then it comes into this. But as I looked at Psalm 112, in verse 9, it's simply, it's referring to a man. It's not referring to the Lord. If we go back there, Just real quickly to Psalm 112 in verse 9.

Praise the Lord. How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. That's obviously a man. Blessed is the man who delights in his commandments. That's talking about a real human person. His descendants will be mighty on the earth. The generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Light arises in the darkness for the upright. He is gracious and compassionate and righteous. It is well with the man who is gracious and lends.

He will maintain his cause and judgment, for he will never be shaken. The righteous will be remembered forever. He will not fear evil tidings. His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is upheld. He will not fear until he looks with satisfaction on his adversaries. Here's the verse. He has given freely to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. His horn will be exalted in honor. And horn there in Hebrew simply means strength. His strength will be exalted in honor. So that's talking about a person, a righteous person. Old Testament. saying that's being referred to there.

So, I believe this is describing a person who is appropriating the truths of verse 8. I think Paul in Corinthians is simply saying the person who is going to be appropriating verse 8. If verse 8 is a reality in a person's life, he's going to be scattering abroad, he's going to be giving abroad, he's going to be helping the poor, And his righteousness abides forever, or his righteous works, the fruit of his good works, are going to be abiding forever. That's some thought there. You know, maybe you might see it a little bit differently, but that's kind of the conclusion I came to there, he, in verse 9. So I think in verse 10, now 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.

I think that again is just referring to a man. It's a literal person that is being referred to here. This person who is appropriate in verse 8, He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing. So he's giving help. He's giving aid, physical aid to the needy saints in Jerusalem here.

He gives seed to the person and that person can plant crops and gives food. Now this person who gives the seed will multiply the seed of the person that he is giving it to because when you sow you always receive back more seed than you sow. So he's He's multiplying His seed by giving the seed to the person. And this will increase the fruits or harvests of their righteousness. Any thoughts?

Why is He capitalized in verse 10? You know, He was capitalized in verse 9 as well. And He was capitalized on and off back in Psalms 112 verse 9. So if you looked at the he in Psalm 112 verse 9, it was kind of back and forth of the he and the he and capitalized, uncapitalized.

So I didn't come away with conclusive evidence that he was talking about God. New Internationalist, what I have in verse 10, instead of, you have their righteousness, and mine says your righteousness. Well, if I give seed to you, you go and you plant and the crop comes up, you're going to receive back more seed than what you planted, right? But in a sense, aren't I receiving more seed because I was the originator of giving you the seed? It's all kind of inter-working together. And if I'm helping you by faith, Christ is living his life in and through me, I'm helping you. I'm going to be receiving, ultimately before the Lord, I will receive a reward. Not that rewards are the ultimate motivator for Christian living, But I will. So in a sense, my seed is being multiplied because your seed is being multiplied.

What if Bob leads a young man to the Lord? And that young man, in turn, leads ten people to the Lord. Those ten people, in turn, lead ten people to the Lord. Is Bob's ministry and Christ's living through Bob, in a sense, being multiplied? Because all these people are coming to the Lord because God used Bob to lead one person to the Lord?

That's kind of the way I saw it working. Well, you know, so much of Psalms is prophetic, and you have to think about it, in terms of the text that preceded this, the idea is that it's God's grace that abounds in all circumstances. Sure. I mean, so this He is the Lord Jesus Christ working through the believers. Sure. Absolutely.

In a sense, I think we can be too narrow in our view. Is it me, or is it the Lord? I mean, it's both. That's right. But yet it's His righteousness and His ministry and His grace that gets poured out through the life of a believer by faith. Absolutely. So, in a sense we can try to distinguish this, but it's all wrapped up in the same truth, right? Right. That is the Lord Himself working through. Absolutely. That's right.

Any other thoughts? We've got to close here. We've got to wrap this up. So, Bob, you're on next week? Do you want to hit verse 11? Good. Let's pray. That'll work out great. Lord, thank you for this morning. Thanks for our time. And we do just thank you for your super bounding grace in our lives. And we did nothing to earn it or to deserve it. So thank you for just bestowing it upon us. In your name we pray. Amen.