January 23, 2022 - Sunday Service Live Stream

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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at Psalm 102, and the benefit of us having a Psalm of the Month is we are now singing one of the

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Psalms of the Month previously for our psalm today, Psalm 102. Alyssa's gonna play through it one time for you to be reminded of it, and we'll jump in the second time.

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Psalm 102 has come to pass in our lives today.

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These were written long ago, and we are those who are singing their praise, and yet, generations yet to be born to us, children to be born in your family, they too will sing the praises of our

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God. Incredible psalm to consider. Brother, please come and lead us in the reading of Isaiah 63.

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Who is this who comes from Edom with dyed garments from Basra? This one who's glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength.

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I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Why is your apparel red, and your garments like one who treads in the winepress?

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I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me, for I have trodden them in my anger, and trampled them in my fury.

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Their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my robes, for the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come.

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I looked, but there was none to help, and I wondered that there was no one to uphold.

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Therefore, my own arm brought salvation for me, and my own fury, it sustained me.

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I have trodden down the peoples in my anger, made them drunk in my fury, and brought down their strength to the earth.

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I will mention the loving kindness of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the

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Lord has bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he has bestowed on them according to his mercies, according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.

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For he said, surely they are my people, children who will not lie.

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So he became their savior, and all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them.

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In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them, and he bore them and carried them all the days of old.

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But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned himself against them as an enemy, and he fought against them.

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Then he remembered the days of old, Moses and his people saying, where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock?

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Where is he who put his Holy Spirit within them, who led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them to make for himself an everlasting name, who led them through the deep as a horse in the wilderness that they might not stumble as a beast goes down into the valley, and the spirit of the

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Lord causes him to rest. So you lead your people to make yourself a glorious name.

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Look down from heaven and see your habitation, holy and glorious. Where are your zeal and your strength, the yearning of your heart and your mercies towards me?

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Are they restrained? Doubtless you are our father, though Abraham was ignorant of us, and Israel does not acknowledge us.

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You, O Lord, are our father, are redeemed from everlastingness your name.

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O Lord, why have you made us stray from your ways and hardened our heart from your fear?

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Return for your servants' sake, the tribes of your inheritance. Your holy people have possessed it but a little while.

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Our adversaries have trodden down your sanctuary. We have become like those of old over whom you never ruled, those who were never called by your name.

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This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us now confess our faith by singing the

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Apostles' Creed. ♪ If I did have the right thing ♪

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We are singing holy, holy. And this song is very familiar to us, but I would like you to apprehend the holiness of God as you sing it, and this will inspire you to greater heights in worship.

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So don't just sing along. See the Lord high, exalted, and lift it up as holy as you sing, okay?

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After this manner, therefore, pray ye. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

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Amen. Pray that we may glorify God in all that we do as we live and work in the creation that displays his power.

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And be pleased to dispose all things to his own glory. Lord, hear our prayers.

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The gifts that you give us to live, gift of food and drink and shelter, and we thank you for the blessing it is to come together corporately to worship you on this

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Lord's day. Father, I pray that as we live and as we do our work, that you have called us to do on this earth, we pray that you would glorify you, your church, your kingdom would spread throughout the earth and that multitudes would be saved.

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And I pray that you would just display your awesome power through your church, through your people.

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Pray that Satan's kingdom may be destroyed and that the kingdom of grace advanced.

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Ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it, and the kingdom of glory hastened.

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Lord, hear our prayers. Your blessed son,

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Jesus Christ, crushed the head of the serpent. And as your servant St. Paul said, that you will soon crush

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Satan under our feet. And we just thank you so much that you, by your spirit, have empowered us through the word of God to put

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Satan to death in every area of life as Christ's dominion spreads all over by loving our wives and our husbands, our children, by working well, by worshiping you.

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I pray, Lord, that you would use us, your creatures, to accomplish this. For Christ's sake, amen.

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Pray that God, for Christ's sake, would freely pardon all our sins. And we are encouraged to ask this because by his grace, we are able from the heart to forgive others.

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Lord, hear our prayers. Dear Heavenly Father, far too often do we dishonor, offend, and sin against you.

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I pray, Lord, that you would convict us of our sin, discipline us, that we may repent and turn away from our sins, that you may refine us, that you may,

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Lord, have mercy on us, purge us and cleanse us from our sins.

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We may praise you and in turn.

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Pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin or support and deliver us when we are tempted.

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Lord, hear our prayers. Our Father, taking encouragement and prayer from you alone, in our prayers, we praise you, ascribing kingdom, power, and glory to you.

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And to testify of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say together.

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Amen. Amen. Please take up the bulletin and find

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Psalm 103. It is the January Psalm of the month. We have two more occasions to sing it together and we all know it pretty well now.

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So let us sing it heartily together to the Lord. ♪ Blessed is he who shall make the

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Jews whole ♪

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Second Corinthians chapter eight. Second Corinthians eight. Going to begin reading in verse eight.

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And this is God's holy and infallible word.

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Second Corinthians eight, eight. I speak not by commandment, but I am testing the sincerity of your love by the diligence of others.

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For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that through his poverty might become rich.

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And in this I give advice. It is to your advantage not only to be doing what you began and were desiring to do a year ago, but now you also must complete the doing of it, that as there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have.

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For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has and not according to what he does not have.

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For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but by an equality that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack, that there may be equality.

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As it is written, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.

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But thanks be to God who puts the same earnest care for you into the heart of Titus.

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For he not only accepted the exhortation, but becoming more diligent, he went to you of his own accord.

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And we have sent with him the brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches. And not only that, but was also chosen by the churches to travel with us with this gift, which is administered by us to the glory of the

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Lord himself and to show your ready mind, avoiding this, that anyone should blame us in this lavish gift, which is administered by us, providing honorable things, not only in the sight of the

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Lord, but also in the sight of men. And we have sent with them our brother, whom we have often proved diligent in many things, but now much more diligent because of the great confidence which we have in you.

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If anyone inquires about Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker concerning you.

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Or if our brethren are inquired about, they are messengers of the churches, the glory of Christ.

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Therefore show to them and before the churches the proof of your love and of our boasting on your behalf.

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Please pray with me. Oh, Holy Spirit, we pray that you would take your holy word and that you would set it ablaze in our hearts that we might see again something of the glory of Christ, something of the love that we are to have and to share with the churches and with the brethren.

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And I pray, oh Lord, that our hearts would be tuned not only to sing thy praise and grace, but to obey you, to serve you, to minister in your name.

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And we ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Please be seated.

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We have been talking about Paul's admonition to the Corinthian brethren about providing an offering, taking up a gift for the church in Judea, which is suffering under a famine.

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And as you remember, the Macedonian churches were held up as an example, that in the great trial of affliction and the abundance of their joy and in the midst of their deep poverty, they abounded in the riches of their liberality and they gave even beyond their ability.

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So I was thinking about the message for today. I thought this is one of the texts that you come across in your

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Bible reading plan and you go over it really quickly. We've been talking about, we're gonna talk about for a couple more weeks, it's been a couple of weeks, it's gonna be a couple of weeks more into chapter nine, about this taking up of this offering to the saints at Macedonia.

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And it made me think that we take some displeasure in ordinary verses.

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We say, well, this isn't really as exciting as maybe 2 Corinthians 5 is. I want to remind you, as I say every

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Sunday, this is God's holy and infallible word. It is of equal value to your favorite mountaintop verses.

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It's the word of God. When you're reading in numbers and reading genealogies, you might say, why do I have to read all this?

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There's gold in there that has to be mine. You see something of the genealogy of Christ and how

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God has worked in history through families. And so too today, we have, on first glance, a text that doesn't seem as exciting, but there is riches there.

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I have four headings I'd like you to consider when we talk about this section, stretching from verse 12 through 24.

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First, and this applied first to the Corinthians and now to you, number one, your abundance may supply their lack.

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That's taken from our text in verse 14.

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Your abundance may supply their lack. Second, a surprise to me in the text today, and the second point, which will have some value for us,

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I hope, is the plurality of gospel workers. That's number two, the plurality of gospel workers.

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And you might want to put it in parentheses. It's not just Paul, the plurality of gospel workers.

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Number three, towards the end of the section, verse 22, Paul's great confidence.

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Paul's great confidence. And finally, the fourth point, show the proof of your love.

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The title of the message, proof of your love. Number four, show the proof of your love.

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I'm gonna go through that one more time really quickly. I may not systematically do it again during the message.

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Number one, your abundance may supply their lack. Number two, the plurality of gospel workers.

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It's not just Paul. And number three, Paul's great confidence.

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And number four, show the proof of your love. Let's look at our text, beginning in verse 12.

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We've already seen in verse 10 and 11 that the Corinthian church had a desire to relieve the

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Judean saints suffering the famine. And we see in our own lives, we start well with our new plan, whatever it may be.

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Some of you may have done some kind of New Year's resolution and maybe you've already faltered in that plan for the new year.

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But if you have set out to do something for the Lord, I urge you today to see it all the way to completion.

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If you've set out to raise godly children, you continue to raise those godly children.

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If you've purposed to be a godly wife, every day you wake up again and you resolve again and anew to be a godly wife, be a godly husband, be a faithful Christian, to read your

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Bible every day, to pray, to lead your family, to give attention to the public worship, to be actively engaged in the life and the body of the body of the church.

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There's something about starting a thing. Everybody can start and few finish.

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Paul is urging the Corinthians to go through all the way to the end, to persevere to the end, to take up the offering, to take up the collection, and to do what they purposed to do back in 1

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Corinthians, to relieve the burden of the Judean saints.

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Now, one of the things that happens here I think is interesting. Look again at verse 14.

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I'll start in verse 13 again. For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened.

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The Judean saints are starving in Palestine. Paul is not saying

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I want you to have it hard so that they could have an easier life. I want you to give and I want you to sacrifice so that your brethren can live.

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There are real pressing needs in the life of the body. The Judean church is suffering.

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You guys are pretty well off. The Lord has prospered you. Please give and help them in their time of trouble.

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Now, usually a pastor will turn and twist this into a tithing message for the benefit of the church coffers.

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But really what's happening here is Paul is trying to get back to the heart of the people who have seen and tasted the grace of God, and they've experienced all of these wonderful blessings of knowing

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Christ and repenting of their sins and growing in godliness.

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There's been quite a transformation in the Corinthian church and their sanctification from first Corinthians to second

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Corinthians. He wants them to, out of a love for God and response to the grace of God, and this should be a motivation for all of us, whatever we do, if you give money to the church today, do it because you love

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Jesus. If you're gonna serve the church, do it not that you might get some accolades or some honor, do it because you love

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Jesus. If you're gonna be a godly husband, don't love your wife vigorously so that you might hear the praises of people.

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What a great husband you are. Love her with all of your heart and might for the glory of Christ.

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And here in our text, Paul is urging the Corinthians to participate in this great work of supplying the need of Judean churches.

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Elsewhere, and I'm not gonna quote the places, it pops up a few times in Paul's writing. In this case, the

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Judeans are lacking. There's a want in them materially.

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We know in several of the places, in nearly all the places that Paul has planted churches and supported the work of church planting there, there have been

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Jews there. And the Jews have been an important resource for the Gentile Christians coming in because they memorized the law of God.

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They knew the Old Testament. They said, this is how Jesus came to be the

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Messiah. And they give, no doubt, from Genesis to the New Testament, an explanation of the history of Israel and God's dealing with his people.

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Filling in the gaps that the Gentiles were just unaware of out of ignorance and not being part of the covenant.

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Strangers to the promises. Now they've been brought in and the Jews in their kindness and mercy have instructed the

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Gentiles in the ways of the Lord and given them a fuller or expression of what it means to be the people of God.

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And this has been very important in the life and health of the churches. So the

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Gentiles need to share their material blessings with the Jews who have shared their spiritual blessings.

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And today their abundance will supply the lack of the

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Judean saints, but there may be a time in the future where they need to be on the receiving end of some help.

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I was listening to an old sermon from a guy who's been dead for a good long time now.

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And I sometimes listen to him because he's completely different than the kind of preaching that I do.

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He's a very different style. And one of the reasons I listened to him is to get a better sense of my own deficiencies in the way that I do things.

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And one of the things that was impressive to me about his message on this section,

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I listened to it earlier in the week, was this idea that the idea of giving is in God's eyes more about motivations.

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We like to think about tithes and percentages and things like that, but this is more about a heart for God, which leads to a heart for others.

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So I would encourage you when you're embarking on service, whether it be giving or serving, ministering to the saints, that you recalibrate your thinking and adjust your motivations to do it for the

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Lord. And I think if you do it that way, you might find greater energy and you might enjoy the work of service more.

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Sometimes our service is drudgery because our motivations are impure.

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Now I'd like to turn to the reference that's cited in our text. Turn, if you will, to Exodus chapter 16.

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This is verse 15. It says, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.

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Turn to Exodus 16. One of the questions that could be asked is how did

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God feed two million people in the wilderness?

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For 40 years. How did he do it? Let's begin reading in verse nine of Exodus 16.

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Moses spoke to Aaron, say to all the congregation of the children of Israel, come near before the

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Lord, for he has heard your complaints. They are hungry. They haven't had meat.

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They are struggling. They are waning in their faith. Verse 10, it came to pass, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness and behold, the glory of the

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Lord appeared in the cloud. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying,

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I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them saying, at twilight you shall eat meat.

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And in the morning you shall be filled with bread and you shall know that I am the

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Lord, your God. Now, I want to stop here because I think in my immaturity as a young Christian, I would think about God with a poof in the cloud, the quail showing up.

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As I began to think about it, how many quail are there that 2 million people could eat?

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It's a lot of quail, quail are really small. I don't know if you know, I mean, really small, not much meat per bird.

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So how does all of the cubbies of the quail, how do they arrive on the scene?

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But it's impressive to think that in the ordinary way that God does things, sometime prior to that, there was a great proliferation of quail in this region.

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And they have been prepared for the Lord, not on this day as a poof in the clouds, but God before this had a millions upon millions of quail that he had been cultivating and reserving for this very purpose.

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It's amazing to think about, isn't it? All these little natural things, all intertwined and woven into these decorative, special revelation acts of God.

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God has cubbies of quail to feed his people. It says at twilight, you're gonna eat meat.

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They haven't had meat. It's gonna be really good, really satisfying. But in the morning, they're going to start eating bread and they're gonna eat this bread every day.

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Verse 13, so it was that quail came up at evening and covered the camp.

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And in the morning, the dew lay all around the camp. And when the day layer of dew lifted, there was on the surface of the wilderness, there was a small round substance as fine as frost on the ground.

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So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it? For they did not know what it was.

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And that's where that word manna comes from. Every day eating something that you don't know what it is.

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Moses said to him, this is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is the thing which the

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Lord has commanded. Let every man gather it each according to his own need, one

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Omer for each person, according to the number of persons. Let every man take for those who are in his tent.

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And the children of Israel did so and gathered some more, some less. So when they measured it by Omer's, he who gathered much had nothing left over.

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And he who gathered little had no lack. Every man had gathered according to each one's need.

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And Moses said, let none of you leave any of it till morning. Notwithstanding, they did not heed

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Moses, but some of them left part of it until morning and it bred worms and stank.

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Moses was angry with them. So they gathered it every morning, every man according to his need.

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And when the sun became hot, it melted. I want you to picture the scene, children.

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God himself is feeding his people bread from heaven. I hope you see some application to what's going on here on the table.

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And every day enterprising Jews gathered up a little bit more because they wanted to save it up and be responsible and have more for tomorrow.

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But when they did that, it rotted and it began to stink. And there were some who were not quite as diligent to cover and get all this manna from the ground.

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And when they found themselves time to eat, because of the ample supply given to the body corporately, each one had enough to eat.

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God has been providing for his people from the very beginning. He who had little had no lack.

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He who had a lot had nothing left over. And I thought about this and I was thinking about us, what we really need.

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And Paul says, and Jesus says to us through his servants, let us be content with our raiment, our covering, our house and our daily food.

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And if you think about that, that's really all that we ever get. Some of you live in nicer houses, but the same thing happens.

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You are under a roof and you're shielded from the elements and you're secure and safe there. Some of you eat steak and lobster and some of you eat hamburgers.

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The same provision really covers all of it. Some of you have wonderful chariots that you drive and some of you have donkeys that you ride in on, but God provided for you in both cases.

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So if you think about it, the entirety of our lives is chasing after food and clothing and houses.

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And sometimes we get distorted in our thinking and we think that we need to have these lavish things in order to be happy when the

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Lord provides for all of us. It's an amazing thing to consider. We chase after things by degrees.

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Do you have clothing on? Well, you're not naked and subject to the cold elements in Central Florida today. Will your belly be filled?

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If you didn't have anything to eat today, come to the fellowship meal. Someone has brought an abundant supply or we'll go get more and bring it and you will be able to eat today.

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Such is the ways of the Lord. Now let's go back to our text in 2

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Corinthians 8. I think you also hear appeals to reason.

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Very simply, you are amply supplied now. You may be the one in want later.

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Since you have been people of God in ascension today have been lavished with such a great provision in Christ.

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You have salvation. You have been reconciled to God. You have peace with God. You have been loved by God.

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It should follow that your love for the brethren would be demonstrable in your joyful provision for their need.

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Gospel grace leads to joyful duties. Now, the amazing thing to consider that for 40 years,

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God fed his people with his own hand and what we realize is God has been feeding people by his own hand since the garden.

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All of the provision has been from him. We thought it was because of our ability to cultivate the fields.

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We thought it was because we were good at animal husbandry, that we were shrewd in our investments, that we made wise decisions, but we realized

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God himself has been providing for his people. It follows then that I should have an open handedness with my possessions that I might help someone who's truly in need.

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Investments are good. The wise man sets up an inheritance for his grandchildren. That's a godly, righteous man, but he's also setting up his grandchildren to provide for the material needs of those who would be in need.

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The same principle is in play, even in being a wise investor of your money. Very powerful to think about.

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Well, the second thing, in the interest of time, I've got to consider Titus. Now, when

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I was thinking about the plurality of gospel workers in this section, it's probably not something that would be highlighted normally in the preaching of this section, but it really stood out to me and struck me about this mention of Titus, this real considerable commendation of who

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Titus was and what he needed. I thought, I don't really know much about Titus. Titus, in our section, is the one whom

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God put the earnest desire of care for, the Corinthians, and the brethren, generally, into his heart.

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Titus is a Gentile, and he has a great desire and passion to meet the needs of the

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Judean saints. Galatians 2 tells us that Titus was a Gentile.

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Titus 1 says that he was led to Christ by Paul. As he's described as a co -laborer in the gospel, there's significant evidence to suggest that he accompanied

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Paul and Barnabas from Antioch to Jerusalem. Do you remember, and I cited this a couple weeks ago, the first collection for the

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Judean saints was initiated by the church at Antioch. Many scholars believe that he was one of the other believers who arrives with Paul at the

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Jerusalem council in Acts 15. And the power of this moment is significant because you'll remember, there's this problem of the

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Judaizers, and what about circumcision? How are the Gentiles brought in? And Paul would bring a living, breathing example, a tangible example of a

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Gentile Christian. And his testimony has been, oh yeah, that's Titus.

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He brought the offering to relieve the Judean saints. Later, Titus traveled with Paul to Crete.

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We learn in Titus in the Pastoral Epistles that Titus was left there to continue and strengthen the work.

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He was an important administrator in the church. Titus 1 .5 says he was to straighten out what was left unfinished and takes on a role of a bishop, it seems, and to appoint elders in every town.

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This next session was a little bit exciting for me. I have family from this part of the world, and it was exciting to think about this.

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The last biblical mention of Titus is found in 2 Timothy 4.

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And there he was sent to evangelize Dalmatia, which later became known as Yugoslavia, as now

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Serbia and Montenegro. In the time of Paul, Titus is blessing the church at Antioch, the church at Corinth, the church in Jerusalem, relieving their need.

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He goes and strengthens the church in Crete, and he evangelizes and takes the gospel to central

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Europe and starts a thriving work there, right there in the first century, the gospel flourishing in the center of Europe.

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What a great God to do great work and using ordinary men. It's also important to consider that Titus would have been an effective apologist of the faith against the

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Judaizers. And that was one of the things you read Titus, you get the sense that Titus is going to be a great defender of the faith.

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In fact, let's go there really quickly. I'm gonna give you a demonstration of the doctrine that Titus was entrusted with and that he effectively ministered to the churches there.

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Turn to Titus. I'm gonna skip over the pastoral section that you normally think of with Titus and go down to the end of chapter two,

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Titus chapter two. I want you to have your children, your gospel ears at attention to listen to this doctrine being handed down from Paul to Titus, Titus 2 .11.

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For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

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And it really has power when you think about where Titus has been and where he's going. Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age.

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Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works.

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Speak these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one despise you.

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Chapter three, verse one. Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work.

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To speak evil of no one. I tell my children, don't speak ill of any man.

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Scripture commands us not to speak ill of anyone. I think we would do well to heed this truth. We like to speak ill of people,

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Christians for whom Christ has died. We'd be careful to speak ill of anyone. To be peaceable, to be gentle, showing our humility to all men.

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For we ourselves were also once foolish. Is that your testimony?

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Weren't you once foolish? Weren't you once disobedient, deceived, serving your lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another?

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But when the kindness and the love of our God and Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the

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Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our

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Savior, that having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works.

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These things are good and profitable to them. And avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless.

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Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped in sinning, being self -condemned.

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When I send Artemis to you, or Tychicus, be diligent to come to me at Nicopolis.

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Artemis and Tychicus are gonna take over the work and responsibility in Crete, freeing up Titus to go do this in Dalmatia.

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Send Zenos, the lawyer, and Apollos on their journey with haste that they may lack nothing.

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Now listen carefully. And let our people also learn to maintain good works, to meet urgent needs, that they may not be untruthful.

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All who are with me, greet you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all, amen.

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Now, what struck me about all this, there's some wonderful, rich doctrine. Of course, the pastoral section's very important.

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The older women's section, teaching the younger, all very important. What struck me about this is

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Titus cut his teeth in Antioch, giving to the saints at Jerusalem, in Judea.

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It characterizes his work in ministry throughout the Corinthian letters here.

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He's important, he delivers the letter of 2 Corinthians to the saints there. And Paul still urges him to teach the people to meet urgent needs, that they may not be unfruitful.

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This was, as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, powerful testimony to the Jewish church, the sincerity of the

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Gentiles' conversion to Christ. So I'd like to post something very practical to you now.

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I think if you have any need, or any prayer, or anything that's going on in your life,

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I think you should post it to the church. If you need someone to come watch your kids, you can go to Bible study, you post that on our website.

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If you need a new stroller, post that on the website. If your pantry is empty, post it.

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Give us the privilege of meeting urgent needs. Let us participate in the work of blessing you and what you're struggling with, and maybe this would be a testimony to the community around us.

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Those people really love Jesus, they are ready to meet the urgent needs of people. I'm not gonna send you on a vacation to Hawaii, but if you're hungry, call me, and I will bring something over.

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If your car's broken down, I'll send Jameson, and he'll fix it. That's not gonna fix everything, I don't know how he does everything.

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I think we need to be more active in our asking, and more ready and willing to jump in.

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When people have prayer requests, we shouldn't be saying, I'm gonna throw up a prayer asking

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God to relieve you, we should do that, but then the next question we should say is, what can I do to meet the need of this person who's put out this prayer request?

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This seems to characterize a very powerful ministry of a very effective co -laborer of Paul, Titus, and apparently the

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Lord was pleased to use it dramatically in the world. Now let's go back to our text.

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We're learning this awkward little section has maybe some gold in there. There's something for us to consider that is maybe deeper than a first glance would give.

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There's another man whom we don't know, maybe we could speculate, maybe today in the back porch we could try to figure out who this other brother is who is, whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches.

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He was chosen by the Macedonians to deliver the gift to the Judeans, and minister to them, and no doubt report back to them the successful application of that gift to the need in Judea.

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We get this other very powerful and important consideration. All of this has been done to bring glory to the

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Lord himself, and this is really what we should be aiming for.

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You're doing a lot of things for a lot of different reasons. Wipe away all of the reasons and put the glory of Christ first, and let all those other things take care of themselves.

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Whether you eat, whether you drink, when you wake up in the morning, when you smoke a cigar, when you exercise, when you work, whatever it is, whatever you do, do it to the glory of God.

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Preeminence of Christ over all things in your life, that's the goal that we're shooting for. There's no stone left unturned.

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I meet the material needs of the brethren who are in trouble. I visit the sick,

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I go help the widow and the orphan. I go preach the gospel to the lost. I contend for the faith against those who are assaulting the church.

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We have to be great practitioners of the Christian faith to be effective, and part of what the church has to do is to equip you and help you to become more effective in your service, and I hope to provide some more information about helping you with that in the coming days.

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Well, finally, we get to number three, and it's

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Paul's great confidence. These men were trustworthy men.

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They had only the glory of Christ and the relief of the brethren in mind.

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It says in verse 22, we have sent with them our brother, whom we have often proved diligent in many things, but now much more diligent because of the great confidence which we have in you.

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Paul was confident in the church at Corinth. Now, if you remember back to our time studying 1

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Corinthians, it's been a while now, the church was a mess. Had a lot of things wrong, but Paul so trusted and relied upon Christ and the power of the

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Holy Spirit to work, and we have evidence here in 2 Corinthians that it happened.

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The Corinthian church, which was a disaster, tolerating immorality, had a sectarian spirit, all these things that were going wrong in Corinth, but now they've grown in righteousness, and now

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Paul has great confidence in them, and I would say to you, it really gives me joy to look upon you in the congregation today.

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I have absolute confidence that the people here gathered and their families that follow after them will utterly transform this world for the glory of Christ.

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Not a sermon accentuator, the reality. I believe wholeheartedly, have such confidence in the power of the

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Holy Spirit, the liveliness of your genuine, sincere faith that the world is gonna be irrevocably altered, gloriously so, to the glory of Christ by the people who have gathered here today at Ascension.

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I understand Paul's great confidence. He saw the Corinthians' growth in godliness and the increase of maturity that they had in the faith, and I say to you,

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I see it in you. Well, it brings us to point four.

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Rhetoric is great. It's exciting to be hopeful, thinking about a victorious future, the triumph of the gospel in our lives and the lives of our children, our grandchildren, our community, but we've gotta follow through with it.

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The Corinthian church needed to prove their love, and that proof was found in their obedience, collecting the offering and finishing the work they had started out to do.

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So I say to you again, what is it that you have embarked on in this Christian life? If you have no grand spiritual goals for yourself or your family, today may be a day to start formulating those.

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And don't do it with pie in the sky, blue sky images only. Do it with a purpose to bring it to completion.

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I'm praying that one of my sons will preach the gospel after me, that one other preacher will come out of the family.

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We might have one, it might be a little one, it might be that guy. What are the goals that you have?

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What's the hope you have for the future? Labor today for the days that you will not see.

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Follow through on all those things that you started. Well, the time is long or short.

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I have a few words of application and we'll close here. Give attention to application.

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You have been given a lavish provision of salvation in Christ. Remember last week, acreage filled with diamonds and rubies has been given to you.

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It's already yours, just go get it. He has supplied you with gifts and talents which are to be employed in his service.

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And men, let's carry the message back from our Tuesday evening study. We are a slothful people.

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We have been given many spiritual gifts and many material gifts. And we've been lazy in our distribution of those.

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Let's be diligent to whatever we have and however feeble we see them. Let's fully employ ourselves in the service of Christ and that's spiritual and material.

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He's lavished his love on you. You have all that you need in Christ, therefore now go and use those gifts and talents in his service.

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Number two, relieve the brethren who are in need.

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Some of you need to build and forge closer personal relationships with the people in the congregation that they might call upon you, not only in a material need, but if they're struggling in some other area that you would be available to help them in their time.

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Ask the Lord today to reveal to you the ways you can meet the needs of the brethren.

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This was touched on a few times in different ways in the message. Your motivation for giving and serving is

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Christ, his gospel, his grace, his love.

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Let those things all attached to Christ be your motivation for service.

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And finally, I have such confidence in you because you have a vital role to play in the life of this local church and for the advance of the kingdom.

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Today, rejoice and be glad, be thankful, be filled with joy that the

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Lord has given you that privilege. Persevere to the end and finish the work that he has given you to do.

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Not bad message from a passed over section of 2 Corinthians chapter eight.

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Let's pray together. Oh Lord, we forget how wealthy we are, how abundantly supplied we are.

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We see lack and want when we have everything in Christ. Oh Lord, I pray that you would cause us to love your ways and to relish the prospect of being servants in your kingdom.

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Let us set aside all of those things that entangle us and ensnare us, our sin and our selfishness and our idolatry that we might serve

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Christ. Oh Lord, help us to make grand changes in our personal lives and the lives of our family, our commitment to the church that would tend toward this end.

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Oh Lord, I thank you for these forgotten heroes of the faith, people like Titus, utterly transforming the world with the gospel, defending the faith and meeting the urgent needs of Christians everywhere.

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Oh Lord, thank you for your servant Titus and may we be more like him and Paul and Barnabas when we ask all these things in Jesus' name.

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Let's continue our time of worship with the giving of offerings.

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Please stand and let's join together in the singing of the Gloria Patri. My friends, we have gathered in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We've confessed our sins. We've been assured of our pardon.

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We've heard something from his word. Let us now respond by giving God the glory for these things.

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With you, lift up your hearts.

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Lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord. It is good and right so to do.

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It is right and a good and joyful thing that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to you, oh

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Holy Lord, Father Almighty, Everlasting God. Because you sent your beloved son to redeem us from sin and death and to make us heirs in him of everlasting life, that when he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing.

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Therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we praise and magnify your glorious name evermore praising you and singing.

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Almighty God, you, our Heavenly Father, who out of your tender mercy gave your only son,

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Jesus Christ, to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption, who made there a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, a satisfaction for the sins of the world, and there did institute and in his holy gospel command us to continue a perpetual memory of that, his precious death, until he comes again.

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Hear us now, oh merciful Father, we beseech you. Grant that we, receiving these, your creatures of bread and wine, according to your

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Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ's holy institution, a remembrance of his death and passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood, amen.

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Our Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread, blessed, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, take, eat, this is my body.

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Likewise, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

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Drink from it, all of you, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the

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Lord's death until he comes. Therefore, we proclaim the faith. Christ has died,

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Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Let's approach the table now by praying together in unison.

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We do not presume to come to this, your table, oh merciful

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Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies.

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We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same

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Lord who always shows mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear son,

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Jesus Christ, and to drink of his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us, amen.

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Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast.

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These wonderful gifts of God for you, the people of God. Thanks be to the

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Lord. ♪

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Has washed us in the time and sight ♪ ♪

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No touch of hell, his holy shirts running afloat ♪

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God's own hand. Let's now make this commitment together. Almighty and ever -living

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God, we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of your

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Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the body of your

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Son, and heirs of your eternal kingdom. And, oh Lord, grant us this other benefit, that you will never allow us to forget these things, but having them imprinted on our hearts, may we grow and increase daily in the faith which is at work in every good deed.

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And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our

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Lord. To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit, we honor and glory now and forever.

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Amen. Please stand. Now may the

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God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well -pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.

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Amen. Amen. Amen.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.