Sunday Sermon: The God Who Says "Yes!" (2 Corinthians 1:12-2:4)

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You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabrielle Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

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New Testament book. On Thursday is our Old Testament study, and then we answer questions from listeners on Friday.

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Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the letters to the

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Corinthians. This is the sermon that was preached last week from our pulpit. Here's Pastor Gabe.

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Second Corinthians chapter one, as we continue in the series that we have been in through this first chapter of second

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Corinthians, we're going to cover a significant chunk today. It's actually going to go through chapter two, verse four.

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So second Corinthians one, 12, through chapter two, verse four, and if you would please stand in honor of the word of the

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King. Second Corinthians one and beginning in verse 12.

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For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom, but by the grace of God and supremely so toward you.

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For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand, and I hope you will fully understand, just as you did partially understand us, that on the day of our

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Lord Jesus, you will boast of us as we will boast of you. Because I was sure of this,

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I wanted to come to you first so that you might have a second experience of grace.

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I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea.

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Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say yes, yes, and no, no at the same time?

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As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been yes and no.

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For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not yes and no, but in Him it is always yes.

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For all the promises of God find their yes in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our amen to God for His glory.

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And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us and who has also put

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His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

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But I call God to witness against me. It was to spare you that I refrain from coming again to Corinth.

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Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.

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For I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you. For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom

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I have pained? And I wrote as I did so that when I came, I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice.

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For I felt sure of all of you that my joy would be the joy of you all.

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For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

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Let's pray. Our Lord Christ, as we come to this text this morning, we pray that Your Spirit would illuminate these things to us.

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That it is by Your Spirit we can understand spiritual things, deep truths of God's Word.

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As a church, Lord, we so desire to grow up from drinking milk as infants drink milk, but that we may even get to the meat and potatoes of Your Word.

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Strong solid food for the mature, that we might grow all the more into Christ, who is the head, who is our salvation, who is our strength and our song, who is the one whom we desire to know and we as Christians desire to be like.

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And so we want more of God's Word revealed to us, that we might become more and more like Christ.

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I pray that You'll be with my words this morning, that as I lead this procession in desiring to hear the

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Word of the King proclaimed, that I would be so anointed to be able to speak the

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Word of God in a way that is so praising of this

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Word and holds it in high regard. That Your people may know it is not my

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Word, but it is Your Word that is proclaimed. That we together as a church can proclaim, thus saith the

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Lord. Because we have been washed by this Word, and it is by this

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Word that we have been brought to salvation, it is by this Word that we've been made sons and daughters of God.

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We mourn the fact that we are not all together this morning, but there are some that have been taken from us because the military has taken them another place, or because illness has afflicted them and they can't be with this congregation today, or because of age and infirmities and other things, that they cannot get out of the home as readily as they used to be able to.

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Or in the case of Joy Smith, You have called her to the mission field, and we remember those who cannot be with us here in church, and yet we pray for them and lift them up, and our hearts are burdened for them, that we might weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.

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Bless this congregation, Lord, that we may grow all the more mature in Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray, and as Paul said here, the reason why we pray in this name is because He is the name above all names, and all

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God's people said, Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. So in the last couple of weeks, we talked two weeks ago about how

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God is the God of all comfort. Last week, we considered how God is the

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God who raises the dead. Today, the subject of my sermon is the

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God who says yes, kind of wrapping up a trilogy for us of beholding the awesomeness of God and the affections that He has for us as His children.

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When we went through verses three and four, talking about how God is the God of all comfort, one of the verses that I said came to mind for me as I was repeating those verses over and over to myself leading up to that sermon,

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I was reminded of James chapter one, verses two and three, where James says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

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This has been a particularly tough week for Becky and I, and it's not because of any person or any group of people that has afflicted us in any way, it's just been because of circumstances.

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I've already mentioned to you the illness that I've had the last few days and the sickness that Becky has today, that she can't be with us in church this morning.

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And I know she wants to be here, it always is a struggle for her whenever she can't come to church. Church is such a part of my family's life that we don't really have to twist our kids' arms in order to get here to church.

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You can see even two of my middle children came because they wanted to this morning, they wanted to be in church today.

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So it is always our desire as a family to want to be here with our church body. But as we were going through some of the things that we did this week, and it wasn't just with illness, but there were other circumstances, we've been doing some renovations on the house.

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Praise God, Uncle Sam was good to us this year, so we're using some of that tax return to make some renovations on our home.

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And one of those renovations was the girl's room, repainted the entire room. I'm currently working on bunk beds for the girls.

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That project has been stalled because of illness, but I'm almost done with that. What I thought was going to be a weekend project has turned into a week -long project.

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But nonetheless, those girls will be in those new bunk beds. They're excited to see what they look like, they just haven't had the chance to sleep in them yet.

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But while I've been working on the construction aspects of the renovations of that room, Becky has been doing the painting and the redecorating.

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And on one of those days, our week has kind of jumbled together now, I can't even remember which day this was, but she was working in the closet of the girls' room, and she wanted to do some touch -ups on some of the trim.

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So she had bought a can of stained varnish, and she set it on one of the shelves.

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Had not opened this can yet, it was still a newly sealed can, but somewhere in there, and she tried to relay the sequence of events,

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I just couldn't picture it in my mind, but somewhere in there, she bumped the shelf, the can came off the shelf, hit the floor, and burst open, and spilled well more than three -quarters of the can of stained varnish into the carpet.

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Two of my kids ran into the garage where I was working on bunk beds, and said, Daddy, Daddy, you need to come fast,

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Mom needs you right now. And this sounded like a level of panic that was not the usual Zeej hit -me -in -the -head -with -a -baseball -bat sort of thing.

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So I ran upstairs, and Becky is kneeling down in the closet, weeping, as she's holding on to clothes to keep them from toppling into this puddle of stained varnish that is continuing to spread.

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And so I grabbed what clothes I could, and we threw them out on the floor, we figured out which ones had stain on them, and which ones did not.

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And through blubbering tears, she's trying to tell me what it was that happened, I cradled her face in my hands,

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I kissed her cheeks, I said, Sweetheart, it was an accident. Don't worry, we'll get it cleaned up, it was just an accident.

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And you know, I gotta be honest, I have to be honest, James, one, two, and three came into my mind as we were cleaning all of this up, but it would not have been a good time for me as a husband to go,

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Sweetheart, count it all joy. It was not the right circumstance.

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I would have been eating that paintbrush, I think, if I had said that. Fortunately, it didn't have stained varnish on it.

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But there were, nonetheless, other circumstances over the course of the week where, you know, like as I got sick, and I lost my voice, and I was down and out for the count, and I didn't want to be,

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I wanted to get back out to the garage and finish the beds. I had a podcast that I was late on Friday because I couldn't talk.

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And with all these frustrations, I got, I started getting real short with the kids. And I think it was Friday in particular was my worst day, was really barking at my children.

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And if you had been in my house on that day and had known that I had just preached on count it all joy when you face trials of various kinds, you probably would have said,

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Pastor, you need to be practicing what you preach, and you probably would have been in the right to rebuke me in that way.

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So I had occasions myself in which I was reflecting upon that once again, and needing to cling to the

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God of all comfort and the Father of all mercies who needed to forgive me for my attitude, and ask myself again what this verse means when we read, count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds.

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Because you see, this passage of Scripture is not a suggestion, it's a command to count it all joy.

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Paul says it also in Philippians 4 .4 when he says, Rejoice in the Lord always, and I will say it again, rejoice.

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So whenever we hit those tough circumstances where our first response isn't to rejoice, instead we might react with tears, or we might react with anger.

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Are we sinning in those circumstances? Isn't it just a natural human reaction that we might respond that way instead of spilling a can of paint on the floor and saying, well, praise

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God! Or getting sick and saying, praise the Lord! How do we properly obey that, to count it all joy?

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So as I came back to that passage again, convicted of my own attitude and thinking upon the things that I had studied and even preached about in recent weeks, to count it all joy means to consider this occasion, this circumstance, as yet another opportunity to praise

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God for all the good things that He gives us. How can you look at the circumstance that you are in, whatever that might be, and praise

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God for that circumstance? When we count it all joy, we consider it another chance to praise

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God. And this grows us all the more into His image. Because didn't our

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Lord Christ do all things for the glory of God, as it says in Philippians 2 .11?

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But our Lord Christ Himself cried tears. Today being

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Palm Sunday, the day of triumphal entry, this was an occasion that we read about in the book of Luke, where after riding in and hearing the praises of the people say,

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Hosanna, Hosanna, Jesus then leaves the city and He goes up on a hillside and He's overlooking

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Jerusalem and He weeps. And He says, how I long to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks.

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But you were not willing. There were many that sang praises and said

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Hosanna, but many, many others that denied Him as King of kings and Lord of lords.

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Jesus truly knew their hearts and He wept for their hearts. And we might say that that was a circumstance in which

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Christ did not have joy in His heart. But yet we read in Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, that the joy that was set before Him in the

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Lord was why He endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

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The joy that He had may not have been something that was reflected in a kind of a happy attitude in the circumstance, but it was a hope and an anticipation of what

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He knew would be fulfilled in God. And that was the joy of Christ.

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And that is the joy that each and every one of us should have as well. Though our circumstances might seem dire right now, though you might feel pain in your body right now, do you consider this yet another opportunity where you might rejoice in God, knowing that He will deliver you from this circumstance?

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And that's what we talked about last week. That God is the God who raises the dead. He has delivered us before and He will deliver us again.

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So what if today or sometime later this week, what if you get that diagnosis from the doctor that you have cancer?

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What if you get that phone call later today that a close friend or a relative has died?

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What if your flight gets delayed due to weather when you just wanted to get home? What if we find out this week that we're going to war with another country?

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What if your child gets sick, can't keep any fluids down, and you have to spend a night in the emergency room?

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What if you come home to a messy house and nobody wants to help you clean it? What if your spouse just doesn't love you?

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What if your children rebel? Speaking of which, Zeej, take a seat.

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Thanks, buddy. That wasn't planned. What if a major appliance in your house totally fails, neither

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Jim nor Don nor Charlie can fix it, and you need to find money in your budget to replace it? What if Congress passes a 2 ,232 -page, $1 .3

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trillion omnibus spending bill that no one has read into law while you were sleeping? What if no one in your family wants to listen to you talk about Jesus?

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What if you drop a can of paint on the floor? What if you burn dinner?

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What if you stub your toe or jam your finger or step on a

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Lego? What if somebody rearranges all the nursery rooms in the church and didn't tell you about it?

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These are yet occasions and yet opportunities where you have a chance to rejoice in the

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Lord always. And I will say it again, rejoice. It's not an option.

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Galatians chapter 5 tells us that joy is among the fruit of the Spirit. You have to have joy.

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But it is perfectly right and natural that as human beings we mourn over our circumstances so long as you know that our hope is not in this circumstance to go my way.

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It's in Christ Jesus who raises the dead. And that brings us to the portion of 2

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Corinthians chapter 1 that we're looking at today in which we come to know God as the

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God of yes. He is the God who says yes, that all of the promises that we have are given to us in Christ Jesus.

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So let's come again to the text in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 beginning in verse 12. Paul says to the church in Corinth, our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God and supremely toward you.

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Now this verse, verse 12, is a little bit of foreshadowing into something else that's going to come a little bit later on in the letter.

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Because some of the Corinthians, though many of them did repent after Paul's previous letter, which was 1

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Corinthians, though many of them did repent from some of the things that he had to rebuke them for, there were still some other

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Corinthians that did not consider Paul a legit apostle. There were some other guys that said that they were even greater apostles than Paul.

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The reality was they weren't actually apostles at all. We will get to this later on in the letter once we get to about chapters 10 and 11.

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These men, they kind of have all of the doodads and baubles that you would expect of a great

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Greek speaker. They have great booming voices. They're good -looking guys.

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They're probably tall. They wear fine garments. They use big words.

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They speak new philosophies that haven't yet been uttered, as well as mixing in a little bit of Christian -ese.

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And so these guys sound much better than the apostle Paul, who is a very meek speaker.

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He talks about that in chapter 10, verse 10. And so Paul, later on in this letter, is going to authenticate himself, defend his position or his appointment as an apostle to these

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Corinthians. And he says it's madness that he even has to do this. He does not boast in himself the way that these other super apostles boast in themselves.

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And so this verse is kind of foreshadowing some of those things that he's going to end up talking about. He says that here's our boast.

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Our boast is that we were simple. We didn't come decked out or showy or with booming voices or worldly wisdom.

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That's not how we came to you. We came to you simple. We didn't ask anything from you.

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We didn't demand that you give us money for the gospel that we delivered to you. In fact, we dealt very humbly and sincerely with you.

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That's our boast. Not by earthly wisdom, but by the grace of God.

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And then he says, and supremely so toward you. Paul's saying we showed you grace when we were with you, and I show you grace even now as I write this letter to you.

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Verse 13, for we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand, and I hope that you will fully understand, just as you did partially understand us.

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In other words, some of them have understood what Paul has said, but some of them still need to grow up in this a little bit.

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That on the day of our Lord Jesus, you will boast of us as we will boast of you.

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We all arrived together before the judgment seat of God, and those Corinthians able to say,

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I'm here because the gospel was preached to me by the Apostle Paul. And Paul is able to say,

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I receive my crown of glory because I preach the gospel to these who are saved.

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And we all rejoice together in glory. Paul goes on in verse 15 to say,

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I was sure of this. I wanted to come to you first so that you might have a second experience of grace.

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I've already talked about the grace that he's shown the Corinthians before. He says, we wanted to give you grace yet again, and the grace that he's talking about here is just very simply, we wanted to edify you more in the teachings of Christ.

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We wanted to encourage and admonish you. Some of you still need to turn from sin.

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We wanted to be gracious toward you that you might know the grace of God, that you might repent of this sin and walk in holiness.

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We wanted to have a second experience of doing this again. Remember, as I mentioned last week,

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Paul had already come to visit them once between these two letters. He tried to come to them a second time, but it didn't work out.

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That second occasion where he didn't make it to them, that's what he's talking about here. I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia.

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I wanted to come there, to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea.

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Was I vacillating? In other words, was I wishy -washy? Was I saying, well, I want to go, but I also want to go do this?

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Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh?

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Ready to say yes, yes, and no, no at the same time? As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been yes and no.

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For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not yes and no, but in Him it is always yes.

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And now verse 20, one of the most abused verses in Scripture, but we'll talk about this. For all the promises of God find their yes in Him.

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So this is the defense that Paul is presenting to the Corinthians.

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I wanted to come to you, and Paul had probably even said on his last visit,

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I'm coming back to you. But then when Paul was back through that region, he didn't stop in Corinth.

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The Corinthians knew that. So if he wanted to come back to us, why didn't he stop and stay?

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Why wasn't he with us? And so some of them might even be ready to doubt now that Paul is a legitimate apostle, because if he cannot keep his word that he has given to these

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Corinthians, how can we know that the word that he has spoken in terms of the gospel is true?

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His character is in suspect, so is the gospel he's proclaiming suspect as well?

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And Paul is saying to the Corinthians essentially this, even as we go on to the verses that follow this, he's saying to the

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Corinthians, the reason why I didn't come back to you is because it was God's will that I didn't come back to you.

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I had a desire in my heart to come to you, but the Lord had desired that I go in this other place instead, and I am following the

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Lord's will. But this is not to say that it wasn't a desire for me to come to you.

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I wanted to be there. And it wasn't insincere of me to express to you before that I wanted to come to you.

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I haven't made it because the Lord has had business with me elsewhere. I am still as sincere, and the gospel is still as true, for all the promises of God find their yes in Him.

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In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to let your yes be yes and your no be no, and anything else is of the devil.

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That's what Jesus said. So you tell a person yes because you want them to feel good about the thing that it is that you say, but in your heart you're actually going, if something better comes along,

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I'm going to take that opportunity instead. That's satanic. According to Christ, that's not of God.

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It lacks integrity. It isn't honest. It isn't true that you would say to a person,

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I want to do this for you, but in your heart you actually don't have any desire to whatsoever. You're trying to earn their favor.

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You're trying to make them feel good, whatever your motivations might be. It's of your flesh instead of being of God. What Paul is defending here is that it was not of his flesh that he said to them,

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I want to come back to you. It was sincerely from his heart, a desire from the Lord that he would be with them.

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But God had something else for him to do, and so he was obedient to the Lord's will.

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And this is the reason why he didn't come back to the Corinthians. Furthermore, Paul says, it's wise that we didn't come back to you because it would have been another painful visit.

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Chapter 2, verse 1, I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you.

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For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained?

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In other words, the one who is pained because of the rebuke that I bring and then repents and then that's the only joy that I have.

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But rather than come to you again with yet another painful visit, Paul decided wisely to let the rebuke that he had levied to them last time have its full effect, do its work in their hearts, and that this letter would further that process of repentance and walking in righteousness that had already begun with the first letter.

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So, Paul defending his reason for not coming back to them again. And in this defense, we have such a wonderful promise that's given to us there in verses 19 and 20.

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For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, the gospel that was preached by Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not yes and no.

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In Christ, it is always yes. For all the promises of God find their yes in Him.

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And I ask you this morning, is that good news for you? Do you come to church knowing,

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I am going to hear of the promises of God today and I'm going to rejoice in them, walking away from having heard the word of the

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Lord proclaimed, knowing that I have received all the promises of God in Christ. What a wonderful day to get to church and be reminded once again of all of the treasures that I have in Christ Jesus.

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Is that exciting to you? Or do you come to church with a little bit of trepidation, maybe a little drag in your feet, a little heaviness in your rump as you sit in your chair, and what you hear proclaimed is not all that great news.

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In fact, you don't hear, yes, yes, what you hear is no, no. You can't do this.

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You can't do that. You can't be this way and call yourself a

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Christian. And that's what you hear when you hear the word of God proclaimed.

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Not all of the wonderful blessings that we've received in Christ, but all of the awful restrictions that you can't have here in this world.

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There was a time in my life where that's what the Christian walk was for me. It was just a bunch of no's.

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All the stuff that I can't have and can't do, and all the fun that I can't be having because I'm a

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Christian and good Christians don't do those kinds of things. Sincerely, I used to believe that God just stood up there in his heaven and he looked down at me and he said, behold,

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Gabrielith huseth, haseth, funneth. That's the way that legalistic

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God talks in the King James, right? Gabrielithus haveth and funneth.

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No! That was my feeling of my faith.

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Just preventing me from having all the things all my other friends were having, all the fun they were enjoying.

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It wasn't until the Lord showed me my sin and how truly fallen from the glory of God I was, how undeserving of the love of God I was, that I realized all the things that I thought

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I needed to make me happy just made me a miserable wretch and I had nothing at all if I didn't have

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Christ. So on more than one occasion,

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I found myself weeping on the floor, weeping in my bed, asking

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God to forgive me of my sin so that I would not see this walk with Christ as something that was holding me back, but something that was delivering me into something even greater.

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And it's only when you know Christ as being everything and above all things that you understand what this means when we read, for all the promises of God find their yes in him.

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I tell you folks, because I'm a person with the Holy Spirit of God in my heart who hates his sin, now when

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I read the scriptures, I don't see, don't do this, don't do that. I see you have this, you have that, you are a fellow heir with Christ in his eternal kingdom.

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Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice. All the promises of God find their yes in him.

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There are plenty of people that you interact with on a regular basis who do not think of Jesus Christ as a

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God of yes. They think of Jesus Christ as a God of no. I see some of you already nodding your heads.

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You know who's popping into your head as I mention it. Vladimir Putin is in the news again.

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He's in the headlines because just a week ago he won an unprecedented fourth six -year term in office as the president of Russia.

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Now even though he won an election and was elected president of Russia once again,

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Russia doesn't have a democracy as we understand democracy in the United States. Putin is an autocrat.

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That means he has absolute control and full authority over his country. I was reading an article in the

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New York Times earlier this week. I cannot remember the columnist's name now, but one of the things that he pointed out in that article is that this is the kind of leader

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Russians actually want. They want a man to be feared because if they fear their president, the rest of the world will fear their president.

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Even though Putin is one of those dictators right now that is in the headlines and in the news and you mention his name and people will recognize it,

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I promise you that people at your workplace are not afraid of Vladimir Putin.

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When you mention his name, they're not going home and shuttering up their windows. They're not getting off the internet because who knows what big brother

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Vladimir is looking at me on my emails and through my webcam and stuff like that.

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There was a defector to the United Kingdom that was just recently attacked and it is believed that the nerve agent that they were attacked with came from Russian intelligence, can't prove it, but all the signs seem to point there.

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But yet your coworkers don't believe that Vladimir is going to send one of his KGB agents to the

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United States to hit them with a nerve agent. Yeah, it's somebody who in conversation we might say, oh that Vladimir, what a horrible man, but your coworkers are not afraid of Vladimir Putin.

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However, mention the name of Jesus Christ and you'll see a completely different reaction.

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We don't want to hear that. I don't want to talk about him. I don't want to hear about Christ.

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You keep your religion to yourself. I don't want to have anything to do with it.

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Why? Why is it that nobody wants to talk about Jesus Christ? Probably see if you wanted to talk about Buddha or Hare Krishna, yeah sure, we can talk about him.

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Or maybe if you bring up Jesus Christ, they're fine with that as long as you let them have their opinions about Christ.

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But don't tell me about the Christ of the Bible. Why is it that people are so intimidated by that name?

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Because in our heart of hearts we know that he is King of kings and Lord of lords and judge of all.

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The one who is going to come back to judge the living and the dead. The one who searches the hearts of man and knows every thought that we think and every sin that we commit.

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There is nothing that can be hidden from Jesus Christ. And though they will not want to admit that, that is exactly why they don't want to talk about Christ.

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I was listening to a sermon series from Vodie Bauckham recently in which he's been talking about heaven and hell.

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And in one of the sermons that I was listening to, which I was listening to in the garage as I was building a bunk bed.

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I've got the radio up loud enough, I hope it's been blessing my neighbors too. But one of the things that he mentioned in one of those sermons is there is no such thing as an atheist.

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There's absolutely no such thing as an atheist. They'll tell you they don't believe in God, but they know. And Romans 1 verses 18 through 20 tells us that they know.

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They suppress the truth with unrighteousness, but they know in all that has been made, this has to come from somewhere.

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Our only experience with anything is that it was made by somebody. No one in their right mind believes that this building just gathered itself up in a heap and became this place where we come to worship regularly on Sunday.

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Nobody thinks that way, but yet they'll try to say that's exactly the way the universe came into existence.

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They know it didn't come into existence that way. But as it says in Romans 1 verse 18, they suppress the truth with their unrighteousness because they would rather have their sin than worship

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Christ. When they hear about Christ, when they hear the words of Christ proclaimed from the

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Bible, what they hear is a God of no, no, no, instead of a

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God of yes. A God who says to us, yes, your sins are forgiven.

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Yes, you are my child. Yes, I will raise you from the dead.

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Yes, I still love you, even though you barked at your kids this week.

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Even though you didn't rejoice at your job like you should have, but I still love you.

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Yes, even though you had that impure thought, I still love you.

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I'm still growing you in these experiences that you're going through in your life. Yes, I am still with you, even though it feels like everyone else has abandoned you.

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I'm still there. Yes, you are still saved. You're still forgiven.

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Your inheritance is still in heaven with me. This is the

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God of yes that we worship, who has saved us and keeps us close to his never -ending love.

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There's a whole world that does not know this God or thinks of him as a

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God of no. And there will come a day where standing before the judgment seat of Christ, if they have not repented of their sin and come to follow

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Christ, that's exactly what they will hear. They will hear no. You don't get to come in here and spend eternity with me.

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Depart from me. I never knew you. Amen.

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But for those of us who know Christ, we get to hear, well done, good and faithful servant.

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Now great is your reward. There's something Jared C. Wilson said a few years back. I've never forgotten it because in the weak parts of my faith, it just had the right way of filling in those crevices.

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He said that on that day that we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, you will never have perfectly repented of all of your sins, and yet Christ is going to receive you anyway because he's just that gracious and he's just that merciful.

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Remember, once again, we worship the Father of all mercies and the

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God of all comfort. And our hearts are comforted when we think of God and know him as the

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God of yes. But as I said a few minutes ago, that verse is also incredibly abused.

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For all the promises of God find their yes in him. There are some that will try to say to you that this means that you can sin and do whatever you want and God's going to give you permission to do it because his grace is just going to cover over those sins.

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But Paul rebukes that concept, a doctrine that is called antinomianism, head -on in Romans chapter 6 where he says no, because if you're still walking in that sin, you're not actually walking in the grace of Christ.

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So you're still following in the no -no instead of clinging to and rejoicing in the yes -yes.

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Instead of having been freed of the bondage of sin, you're still enslaved to it if you are walking in the sins that you once walked in rather than walking in the righteousness of Christ which we've been given by his blood, by his grace.

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So that's one way that that verse is abused. Another way that verse is abused is this way.

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If you just proclaim yes to the thing that you want, then God will give it to you because God is a

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God of yes and all the promises of God find their yes in him. So you just have to name it and claim it and it will be yours.

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Just a couple of days ago, Charisma magazine posted an article entitled

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Declaration Healing is for Today. And here is what the author of that article said toward the end.

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This was how the article wrapped up. It's time to take a good hard look in the mirror of God's word and speak the truth so that you and others can be free from the bondage of sickness and disease.

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Be honest with yourself and with others. Your faith is not or was not strong enough to trust

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God for your healing. And then move forward without condemnation and develop your faith to believe for your healing.

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Remember, it is your faith that heals and makes you whole.

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So in other words, according to this author, the reason why I'm sick this week and the reason why my wife is sick today and half of my family is out with this cold crud is because we didn't have enough faith.

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That's what the author is saying. Your faith is not or was not strong enough to trust

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God for your healing. If your faith had been strong enough to trust God for your healing, you wouldn't be sick. And this is one way that these faith healers and these name -it -and -claim -it persons will abuse a passage just like this.

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Or other places in scripture where it says, if you ask for it in my name, as Jesus says, ask for it in my name and it will be given to you.

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And a person says, all you got to do is say, I want that car and it will be yours. I want that house and it will be yours.

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I want healing and you will have it. In context, we understand that we will, if we are in Christ, only ask for those things that are pleasing to God.

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Because we want what's pleasing to God. And if we desire that which pleases the

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Lord, we are assured in scripture, He will give it to us. Because our

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God is a God of yes. Please, please don't be led astray by these false teachers in this world who say that you just need to have enough faith and it will be yours.

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For they abuse passages that are not meant to be understood that way. Not meant to be understood as like a mind over matter sort of a thing.

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Or power in your words. As long as you say it, it will be yours. Reason why you got sick is because you said, oh,

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I'm going to get sick. If you hadn't said that, then you wouldn't be getting sick. It's not the way germs work.

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They don't know English real well. But even in the sickness that you are going through right now, we have yet another opportunity to praise

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God. We are reminded that, yeah, this world is fallen.

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It's awful. It's terrible. There's evil and sickness and disease and calamity and all of this going on all around us all the time.

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Furthermore, I'm tempted in my flesh and sometimes I want to give in to that temptation. I hate it. I don't want to sin anymore.

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I want to be incorruptible. And as we struggle through those things and those circumstances, here's the opportunity for us to say, praise

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God, that a day is coming in which I won't have to deal with these things anymore. We are promised and we are assured that Christ is going to deliver us.

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He's delivered us before. You were raised from the dead when you came to faith in Christ, for you were dead in your sins and your trespasses in which you once walked.

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But by faith in Christ and by the mercy of God, you've been raised from death to life in Jesus Christ.

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Jesus said in John 10, 10, the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy.

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I have come that they may have life and have it more, a greater life than anything else we could experience on our own.

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This is yet another opportunity for us to rejoice in Christ today.

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I want to conclude with this poem from Thomas Brooks, 17th century American Puritan.

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He wrote a poem called, And Will You Murmur? Here's what Brooks wrote. Is not

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Christ your treasure? Is not heaven your inheritance? And will you murmur?

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Have you not much in hand and more in hope?

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Have you not much in possession, but much more reserved in heaven?

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And will you murmur? Has not God given you a changed heart, a renewed nature, and a sanctified soul?

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And will you murmur? Has he not given you himself to satisfy you, his son to save you, his spirit to lead you, his grace to adorn you, his covenant to assure you, his mercy to pardon you, his righteousness to clothe you?

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And will you murmur? Has he not made you a friend, a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, a bride, an heir?

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And will you murmur? Has not God often turned your water into wine, your brass into silver, and your silver into gold?

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And will you murmur? When you were dead, did he not quicken you?

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When you were lost, did not he seek you? When you were wounded, did not he heal you?

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When you were falling, did not he support you? When you were down, did not he raise you?

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When you were staggering, did not he establish you?

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When you were erring, did he not correct you? When you were tempted, did not he support you?

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And when you went into dangers, did not he deliver you?

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And will you murmur? What? You who are so highly advanced and exalted above many thousands in the world, murmuring suits none so badly as saints.

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Can't remember who it was that said this, but I know I've heard R .C. Sproul say it.

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Christians should be the happiest people on earth. We have the joy of the

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Lord in Christ Jesus in whom we have been given the promises of God, an eternal heaven, a new earth where we will reign forever with him in glory.

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My brothers and sisters, I pray that you go from here today knowing that God is a

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God of yes. ♪ Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

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For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

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On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.