Second Corinthians 8:1 to 9:15 Superabounding Thanksgiving to God

today. We've spent the last, let's see, I think there's been, Mike had three messages on chapter eight, I've had three on nine. So six messages on giving, which, you know, it's been good. And there's a lot of neat things that we've covered. So today I'm going to backtrack just a little bit. So I've kind of labeled this super, super abounding, great, super abounding Thanksgiving to God. So let's look at, this is the outline for our brother Hal. And so I just want to, okay, so just kind of point out a few things. So I'm not going to cover too much of what Mike did. I couldn't do that, but anyway. What I wanted to point out, like last week, we talked about a couple of different areas.

In verse 6, we talked about sowing sparingly and sowing bountifully. And the fact that God loves a cheerful giver, He wants us to be Bountiful in our giving and so we think about that we say well. I don't have a bountiful a bountiful amount of income I have a small amount of income, but I think it's almost like a mindset Because you're going to see as we go through here God God blesses you in in Amazing ways as you give of your material goods as you give yourself first, and then you give him material goods He blesses you in in marvelous ways. We're going to see that as we go through then secondly the fact of Deciding the decision for for how you give and how much you give he he allows the believer to be Part of that and he talks about in verse 7 each one must do as he's purposed in his heart And not giving grudgingly or out of out of pain or it's not to be a painful experience God loves a hilarious giver one who is excited about giving because he realizes that God will use it for his purposes Okay with that in mind So let's go back. We'll backtrack to 8 and 9 and go through it a little bit.

This is really, I think, a really cool section on just the marvelous grace of God. You know, we talk about God has given us every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Well, this is kind of another aspect of this. This is another aspect. He's given us His grace. in providing for other believers, providing for whoever we might be giving to, or what ministry we give. He provides for that. His grace is sufficient in that too. So I tried to picture this. So the verse starts off, we're going to talk about God is able. God is able to do the following.

And there are five statements about, or five actually alls, which is this word pas in the Greek. It means all with nothing excluded. God is able to make all grace abound to you. so always having all sufficiency in everything and actually that's in the Greek all those all's are always all and everything are right together in the text one Greek word after another and that's from Macaulay and you can verify it for yourself if you have an interlinear Bible you may have an abundance for every good deed and then Paul backs it up by quoting a verse from the Old Testament he says he who scatters His righteousness endures forever. He scattered abroad for the first aspect. He scattered abroad.

He gave of what he had He gave to the poor his righteousness endures forever Okay, so now let's get into the the text here So God is able is just a that's a lot to be said about that the ability of God in and everything so eight and nine talk about that and So I have three verses that I liked and I mentioned these last week first one is Ephesians 3.20, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we can ask or think according to the power that works within us. Then secondly in Timothy, for I know whom I have believed and I'm convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.

And then lastly kind of talking about our salvation, therefore He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. So this is describing God's mighty power, His ability, more than any man can even ask or think. He has ability beyond what we can imagine, and these verses describe part of that.

So now we're going to look at the context of giving here, His ability, And he starts off with, in the interlinear it says, He caused to abound, God is able to cause to abound all grace to you. So to cause to abound is this idea to make to abound, to make a person richly in abundance. And the goal is, and this is a fact, it's a past point fact, there is tense, the point here is he wants to use that Aboundingness if you will to for every good deed whatever good deed that that he's led us into it And we're supporting he wants to that Causing to abound is to result in in if you will he's he's funding if you think about this God He look there at Ephesians. He you know in time past he What's the verse where he? talks about the fact that For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for every good work Which God has prepared prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. I just love that verse says God God has prepared our good works, right?

We don't have to thank them up as we walk by faith with him. Well, this is this is like them. Well, how does he How does He do that? And this is an aspect of which He does that. He provides the sufficiency for us to do that within ourselves as walking with Him and also in material ways. Okay.

He says, to cause to abound all grace to you. So all, this is this word pas, all grace to you. All of His grace, and the Greek word is ais, into you as a believer. So it's a fact. He's done that on your behalf. So that, so he has a purpose. And the purpose is going to follow in the context of this verse. So let's look at the purpose next.

So here's where he says, here's where you have these three statements, always abounding to you, always having all sufficiency in everything. Kind of a mouthful. Well, kind of the core part of that is, and those three words are all connected with the core word pas.

He's interested in sufficiency. Sufficiency is the idea, and we'll see it here. It's based upon Christ's sufficiency. We have sufficiency because Christ is sufficient. And even more to the point, He's providing sufficiency for whatever ministry that you're supporting, so to speak.

It's His sufficiency, not ours. And in Philippians it talks about, not that I speak from want, For I have learned to be content, and that's our word, sufficient, in whatever circumstances I am. So there's an example of how it's used other places. And then here's another situation, earlier in Corinthians. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. So we have adequacy and sufficiency, not in ourselves, but from God. This sufficiency in this context is in our Christian giving. And there's a little footnote there for PAS. All those three, always, all, and everything are all derivatives of PAS.

So then the last part of all this, He made all grace abound to us that you may have an abundance. So He wants us to have an abundance And I kind of try to map it out. He made us to abound so that we have an abundance. Present tense, continuous action. We always need to remember that God is a one from whom everything we have comes. That's from Constable. We have an abundance because of His abundance.

And again, and here's the end result of all this. You track through this entire verse, these wonderful statements about God's sufficiency in every and all thing the bottom line is for every good deed and Then I quoted this verse a little bit ahead of it ahead of this and it's all connected with Good works or good deeds that we would do that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them That's that's his whole focus here in this section so it goes on so now he's going to give an example and The example is from Psalms 112, verse 9. And Kosovo says this really points that God will provide grace, divine amulet, to givers. And so the person spoken of here in this is a person, a righteous or godly man.

So the verse reads, as it is written, he scattered abroad, he gave to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. So the first part, he scatters, is the idea that he sowed bountifully, like we saw back in verse 6. And then we have, he gave to the poor. So I thought about the, we're studying in 1 John, 1 John 3, 17. That's a negative thing.

He sees his brother in need and hopefully he responds. He gives the needs of the poor. His righteousness endures forever. This reminded me of this verse in Philippians. having been filled with the fullness of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

Okay, so that's verse 9. So now we move on to 10. So 10 is going to give us some additional information here. And this is going to talk about, this is basically reinforcing what 8 said, God is able. So now it's going to give us some more details. And it's going to look at the picture You know, where to sow bountifully? Well, where does the seed, where does the funds or where does the emphasis come? And he's going to say that God is going to provide that, which he does. So it says, the one God supplying seed to the sowing. So he's the one that's providing the seed for our sowing.

And there's three aspects that are talked about in this verse. Let's just define supplying first of all to supply fully abundantly you notice that God doesn't do anything halfway He isn't so I'm going to give you just a little bit. It's up to you to stretch that out He says no I'm going to give to you abundantly beyond what you can ask or think and it applies to the to the the giving world to it and I would have to admit that I don't I I haven't quite entered into really understanding how God uses giving.

Some people have. There are some people that have, and actually it's one of the fruits of the Spirit, being generous in your giving. That's one of the fruits of the Spirit. So I think that's, you know, I find myself not totally wrapping my head around it. I read these verses and they're so marvelous and I say, Where are all these funds coming from, Lord?

I mean, I look at the practical, but he's saying they're there, they're available. So I have to trust his word. Okay, so three aspects here. And so these aspects are, in terms of the seed, are giving. So first of all, God's going to provide for you. God will supply bread for food. This is literal bread. This is the necessity of life. Future tense. This is a promise for the future. He will multiply the seed to you, so he'll give you the resources to bless others. And then he gets down, and I found this is the hardest of the three, which I mentioned last week, God will increase the fruits of your righteousness.

So I kind of, fruits are the idea metaphorically of righteous ministration to the needy, that kind of thing. But I kind of went back to basics. Well, let's say basically in our position, actually in our condition, as we walk by the Spirit, we have the fruits of the Spirit, right? Singular fruit, but nine aspects, love, joy, peace, patience, and so on. But in this case, and I listened to Merriman when he said about this, this is more focused on a righteous acts and its fruits. Like when you give of your resources, that grace giving has some fruits. It produces the fruits of your giving, helping whoever you might be. And we're going to see that the fruits extend to thanksgiving to God as well. And I kind of thought as we spend more time walking by the spirit, God can provide an increase. He can provide more benefit for that.

Then I kind of went back to the verse I quoted earlier. And having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ. Okay, so now on to verse 11. And verse 11 is kind of a transition here. The first part is going to kind of finish up his topic here about being generous.

You will be enriched in everything for all liberality. So in a linear hazard, you're being enriched in everything And I like the liberality. I keep thinking of liberals. I'm sorry I'm off topic here. But anyway, he means being generous. That's that's the sense here Being enriched that's in the passive voice to be enriched richly supplied so being so being enriched and everything to all generosity, so the the phrase here is being enriched in everything and Every way in every way and everything to all generosity Okay, so and this is what really kind of This is this is common as you go through and you study this out.

This really kind of spoke to me a lot because we're talking about He is being enriched and he's going to talk about how the believer has been enriched in two other areas besides this generosity here and we find that in first Corinthians 1 verse 4 I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus that in everything you were enriched in him and here's how you were enriched in all speech and in all knowledge and that's a fact he did that on your behalf so now we find in this verse So now the believer has been enriched to all generosity. So that's to be the life of Christ that we demonstrate. It's a generous life, because we've been enriched.

Now the last part kind of switches, and I think as it was read in the last 12-15, we really find that the focus changes, and it changes right here in this verse. Now we're changing to look at thanksgiving to God as a result of this giving. And it says, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God. So I kind of said this a little bit ahead. Starting with the last part of this verse, Paul will now focus on how grace giving is producing thanksgiving to God. As we sow bountifully, thanksgiving will be given to God.

So our gift results in God being praised, not us. This also brings a glory to God, not the giver. And I was thinking about God's eternal purpose that our brother Hal taught for many years. And remember the last part, you know, it goes through the steps in God's eternal purpose to declare His glory, to reveal His glory, to share His glory. And the last part of that is to glorify God. And what we're going to see in the remaining verses in this chapter, this giving of the saints, at God's direction will bring great praise and glory to God. And that kind of fit with God's eternal purpose.

Okay, so now finally we get to today's verses. Actually not only a few verses, but pretty interesting. Especially the last one is one of my favorite ones. In fact, the last one I've used for the Lord's Table If you keep track of verses, Mike and I use, that's one of my, I've used the Lord's Table. I couldn't find my notes, though, for that, so I had to start from scratch, which was pretty easy. That's a pretty incredible verse.

So actually, let me just read it again. For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but, see here, in addition, but it is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God. there's our word thanksgivings because of the proof given by this ministry they will glorify God for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ and for the liberality of your contribution to them to all while they also so also it affects prayer life too this is another part so it's not they're giving thanksgiving to God and what are they doing they're praying they're praying for the people that gave them the funds And by prayer on your behalf, and also yearning for us because of the surpassing grace of God in you. And then my last part, this is the gift of all gifts, right? Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. Okay.

So let's start. For the ministry of this service, so this is this word spoken of alms or public collection. I was going to attempt to pronounce it, but sometimes I try, sometimes I don't. The tour guide. That's my that's my attempt. So this is collection. So once again, you know, you find this.

About collection as he traveled around his missionary. I showed you a chart. He traveled his missionary journeys He went north up into Macedonia and it came down to Achaia to the Corinthians Well all through that he's collecting for the poor saints in Jerusalem. So that provides so whenever you see the ministry It almost always seems to point back to that particular thing collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem so so that provided such a wealth of of Information in scripture about how we're to give because he uses that so much So so this collection for this ministry of this service is doing is doing two things present tense Fully supplying filling up the needs of the Saints so that that's the intended purpose you think well, I could stop right there Why does he have to go? So I gave I gave by God's grace. I gave money to support these four Saints isn't at the end of the story. No, it's not I The needs of the Saint are present and being filled up. And so actually here, this is kind of a digression for a second, but actually, we actually can finally see the collection for those four saints, especially for the Corinthians, which was kind of in doubt there for a while, or Paul was really concerned it wouldn't be finally collected, it finally gets there.

In Romans 15.25, Paul says, But now I go to Jerusalem, ministering to the saints, for Macedonia and Achaia have been well pleased to make a certain contribution for the poor saints who are in Jerusalem. So the funds got there. Remember, Achaia was a broader term for the region where the Corinthians lived. So the funds finally got there.

OK, so part two of this, so that we provided fully supplying the needs of the saints, but also overflowing or abounding through many thanksgivings. So part two of that was many thanksgivings went to God for the funds that were collected. Overflowing here, this is where I got the title for the message. This is the word for superabounding, exceeding a certain number or measure. Speaking of this gift, the effect of these gifts also bring an overflowing of thanksgiving to God.

Then Kostel says, Paul viewed the benefit of their gift as spilling over onto others who also praise God for the Corinthians' generosity. So we're going to see later in a verse, it affected the Corinthians were the givers in his discussion. The poor saints in Jerusalem received the gift, right? Other people heard about that and they praised God that the The Corinthians were part of giving to this work for the poor saints, and they praised God too. So it spread, right? The good news spread about this wonderful giving. So the effect of giving reaches far beyond what you might think.

So now it kind of keeps going because of the proof of this ministry, referring back to this prime example of the Jerusalem Saints. The core word is Documento, Genuineness, Trustworthiness. So here's the usage of that word. But you know of this proven worth, that he served me in the firmness of the gospel, like a child serving his father. So this is a proven worth of this ministry, if you will. This collection for the Saints is the specific proof of how God was being glorified. The Jerusalem saints, the Jerusalem believers and others who heard about the Corinthians gift will glorify God because it demonstrated the validity of the donor's faith. So it's just amazing how this gift, the outreach of the gift.

So it continues on, on the basis of your submission or obedience. So the submission here or obedience is either to line up under. That in lining up under their head Jesus Christ So first of all the confession of the gospel And this is the homily gale to confess is to say the same thing the acknowledgement of truth But this case, you know, it's it says to the gospel of Christ and you think well, that's just sounds like just the gospel message well, this is the kind of the whole package it deal once people respond to the gospel message and Things change in their lives and they learn to love their brother and their sister and they learn to walk as Christ walks. So it has a moral effect. That's what the confession here I think means. And the gospel kind of points that out too. All who confess the gospel imply that they follow the teachings of Jesus and his apostles who taught us to love the brethren.

So then lastly, of the generosity of the contribution of them to them and to all men. So two parts here, to the saints in Jerusalem and to all men. The Corinthian obedience to Christ resulted in their generosity to the Jerusalem saints. It also impacted other believers, or all men he says here, So another reason these onlookers would thank God was that the Corinthians had been sacrificially generous.

And that's that particular word for that. And I was going to try to pronounce that one too, but I should practice these more. So and she's here and what's cool is and this is what kind of a cool thing I kind of came across it I mentioned it earlier that being at being generous or liberal and you're giving liberality Shows up in the gifts of the Spirit So since we have we have gifts the gifts of the Spirit that differ according to the grace given to us and so it so I had a partial list of If service in his serving, he who teaches in his teaching, he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with liberality. And that's our word for generosity, aplotes. Okay, so let's move on here. Okay,

14. While they also by prayer on your behalf yearning for you because of the surpassing grace of God to you. So the Jerusalem Saints, by supplication or prayer, this tells us that the Jerusalem Saints were praying for the Corinthians. Isn't that neat? They were receiving the benefit and they were also praying for the ones who provided that benefit.

Having great affection to long for. So here's the part where they were longing for, longing after. It reminded me of this verse in Philippians. For my God I'm sorry. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affections of Christ. For you Corinthians, so Paul foresaw that those who received it, the collection, the gift, the collection gift, and heard about it would reciprocate by interceding for the Corinthians. So two parts I mentioned before, it affected the recipients as well as those who heard about it.

Alright. So, in the very last part, because of the surpassing grace of God, so this is all based upon the surpassing grace of God, they were praying for them, they were praying for the ones who provided them the funds, and they had great affection for them, and this all resulted in the surpassing, hyperbolo, grace of God.

The word bolo is a word for ball, overwhelming, overthrowing, grace of God. overwhelming grace of God surpassing okay so now for my final thought I thought I would final thought I thought for the final thought I thought I'd just do the last verse I think it's you know you couldn't end a better way and be as supplied here thanks be to God for his indescribable gift so this verse is a statement of the overwhelming gratitude for God his son So indescribable is this word that is, I like actually, unspeakable, inexpressible.

We can't really, we can't put it into words, and I have a bold, and it's a gift, freely given, without cost. We didn't, you know, he gave his son without cost. Nothing can approximate what God has given. It is an unalterable gift. You cannot find words for it.

The cross is a supreme example of grace giving. And how appropriate that he would end with that. And actually how appropriate we're going to celebrate the Lord's table today too. Just a marvelous thing. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift, unspeakable gift. So let's just close in prayer. We thank you Father. We thank you for your marvelous Words Lord that describe what your son is accomplished in our behalf and we thank you for for these weeks of teaching about grace giving we thank you for your how careful you are about instructing us and how Beneficial it is to both the giver and the receiver and those who witness your grace through giving in Christ's name Amen