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My view of preaching is that the preacher’s job is to obtain from God a phrase via Scripture, maintain it up earlier than God’s folks, level them to it, and say, “Look!” He then opens it with connections to Scripture and life, and exults over it in such a approach that, by God’s grace, the hearers can be drawn into the enjoyment of it and obedience to it, in order that the infinite greatness and sweetness and value of Christ is perhaps manifest in our lives. If a preacher just isn’t exulting over the realities revealed in his textual content, he’s not preaching.
Subsequently, preaching is a cheerful enterprise. As a result of even when the textual content is a tough phrase that devastates the hearers (and my textual content just isn’t a tough phrase), the preacher connects the laborious phrase with the gracious phrase and the hopeful phrase, and he catches them as they fall. So, in the long run, all preaching is a cheerful enterprise. Typically it’s a toe-tapping glad enterprise, and generally it’s a tearful glad enterprise. We preach excellent news. We preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. Whether or not laborious or comfy, we herald excellent news, and we do it by exulting over the goodness of the excellent news. If there isn’t any expository exultation, there isn’t any preaching.
All of that’s partially to say thanks. I owe you a debt of thanks for giving me the privilege of exulting over this phrase with you. A lot of the pleasure of expository exultation is owing to the greatness of the excellent news. However a few of it’s owing to the sweetness of the fellowship. There may be pleasure within the exultation. There may be extra pleasure within the shared exultation. And my expertise has been that to evangelise among the many folks of Sovereign Grace offers an unusually candy fellowship of exultation. So, thanks, Bob, and all of you for inviting me.
My glad assigned theme is “Union with Christ and the Guarantees of God,” and my textual content is 2 Corinthians 1:20, which says, “For all the guarantees of God discover their Sure in him.”
There you’ve all three items of my theme: “all the guarantees of God,” “in him” (union with Christ), and each are related with “Sure.” In Christ, all the guarantees of God are affirmed, not denied. It’s sure, not no. In Christ, all the guarantees of God are secured, assured. For all of you who’re in Christ, each promise of God will come true. That’s our textual content. And it’s, as you possibly can see, spectacular.
Journey Plans and the Guarantees of God
Earlier than we dig in, there may be one noncentral commentary from the context that I don’t need you to overlook as a result of it’s so pastorally vital. Paul explains his scenario beginning in 2 Corinthians 1:15. He says, “I wished to come back to you first,” that means journey over from Ephesus to Corinth throughout the Aegean Sea, “so that you simply might need a second expertise of grace,” that means the grace of a second go to when he comes again from Macedonia, the place he intends to go after he visits them. He explains now in 2 Corinthians 1:16, “I wished to go to you on my technique to Macedonia [probably Philippi or Thessalonica], and to come back again to you from Macedonia and have you ever ship me on my technique to Judea.”
Now, that didn’t occur. He explains why in 2 Corinthians 1:23: “It was to spare you that I shunned coming once more to Corinth.” However Paul’s adversaries at Corinth, in all probability the “false apostles” that he refers to in 2 Corinthians 11:13, who have been difficult his authority, have been throughout this. They usually have been accusing him of vacillating. They have been saying, “He’s fickle. He’s unreliable. He’s a hypocrite. He speaks out of either side of his mouth. He says one factor and does one other factor. He says he’s planning to come back — he’s not planning to come back. He says sure, however beneath it’s a no. And this is the one you need to comply with as an apostle?”
Paul responds to this criticism in 2 Corinthians 1:17–18:
Was I vacillating after I wished to do that? Do I make my plans in line with the flesh, able to say “Sure, sure” and “No, no” on the similar time? As absolutely as God is trustworthy, our phrase to you has not been Sure and No.
In different phrases, “I’m not a hypocrite. I imply what I say. I don’t tamper with the reality like that.” Now, right here is the superb factor. Up via 2 Corinthians 1:18, Paul is coping with an peculiar form of scenario. He informed them his journey plans. A brand new scenario arose, and it brought on a change. Individuals who don’t like him are making it right into a failure of integrity, and Paul is responding to this sort of criticism. That’s simply an on a regular basis scenario that all of us take care of now and again.
However then in 2 Corinthians 1:19–20, Paul attaches that peculiar scenario to a cluster of probably the most profound theological realities. Right here’s what he says:
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed amongst you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Sure and No, however in him it’s at all times Sure. For all the guarantees of God discover their Sure in him. That’s the reason it’s via him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.
Now, if I did that in my pastoral ministry, right here’s what would occur. Somebody would say, “Good grief, Piper. Loosen up. We’re speaking about journey plans and some cranks within the church, and there you go speaking in regards to the Son of God, all the guarantees of God, union with Christ, and the glory of God. My goodness. That is overkill.” Now, my pastoral counsel is that you simply patiently ignore these folks and graciously proceed to root your ministry, your journey plans, and all of the peculiar issues of life in probably the most superb realities within the universe. There aren’t too many individuals on the earth who dwell this fashion and suppose this fashion.
That’s the one commentary I wished you to see from the context. Be identified in your church as the one that is so God-besotted, so Bible-saturated, so Spirit-filled that individuals anticipate you to attach peculiar life to superb realities — to God, Christ, cross, Spirit, guarantees, and glory.
Photos of an Inexhaustible Union
Now let’s go to 2 Corinthians 1:20. It says, “For all the guarantees of God discover their Sure in him.” What does “in him” imply? The best way I might say it’s this. Beneath all our biblical efforts to conceptualize or image what this attachment to Jesus is like, there’s a actuality, a union, that’s unfathomable and inexpressible, which we’ll by no means exhaust with phrases or doctrines, however which the Bible offers expression to in some ways. Meaning there’s at all times extra beneath, however the revelations, the photographs, and the conceptions that the Bible does give of this actuality are indispensable and superb.
For instance, think about simply briefly 5 such methods of expressing this inexhaustible union.
1. Referred to as into Fellowship
First, 1 Corinthians 1:9 says, “God is trustworthy, by whom you have been known as into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The purpose the place the union occurs is the effectual name of God. “These whom he predestined he additionally known as, and people whom he known as he additionally justified” (Romans 8:30). There’s a sovereign name that’s predestined and efficient in bringing into being a brand new actuality. We name it new start. We name it new creation. It’s the creation of non secular life the place there was deadness, non secular sight the place there was blindness, and religion the place there was riot. All of it occurs as a result of concurrently there comes into being a union with Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 1:9, the decision of God is described as a name into the koinōnian (“fellowship”) of his Son. It’s coming into participation within the Son, a sharing of life within the Son, a oneness with the Son.
2. Union of Life
Second, that union known as a union of life. Colossians 3:4 says, “When Christ who’s your life seems, then you definitely additionally will seem with him in glory.” The union is such that Christ is my life. In Galatians 2:20, Paul stated, “I’ve been crucified with Christ. It’s not I who dwell, however Christ who lives in me.” The uniting is so profound that there’s a form of “not I, however Christ.” But the verse goes on to say, “The life I now dwell within the flesh I dwell by religion within the Son of God, who liked me and gave himself for me.” The “I” that’s Christ is the “I” who trusts Christ. That’s our aware expertise of the unconscious, unfathomable “not I, however Christ.” So, this can be a union of life. He’s my life on this union.
3. Members of His Physique
Third, there may be the image of every Christian being one with Christ as members of his one physique. First Corinthians 12:12–13 says,
Simply because the physique is one and has many members, and all of the members of the physique, although many, are one physique, so it’s with Christ. For in a single Spirit we have been all baptized into one physique — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all have been made to drink of 1 Spirit.
Christ just isn’t head of the physique right here. He’s the physique. And the physique is one — and each Christian an appendage. The hand is within the physique, and the physique is Christ. The foot is within the physique, and the physique is Christ. “The physique is one.” So, it’s a union of members in a physique, who’s Christ.
4. Members of His Household
Fourth, in adoption and new start, God brings us right into a household union the place we’re fellow heirs and have a single non secular DNA. Romans 8:16–17 says, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we’re kids of God, and if kids, then heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” The household union is such that we’re coheirs with the Son of God.
Peter explains in 1 Peter 1:23, “You might have been born once more, not of perishable seed [DNA] however of imperishable, via the residing and abiding phrase of God.” Paul concurs along with his reference in Galatians 4:29 to those that are “born in line with the Spirit.” The Spirit turns into the DNA that makes us not solely legally a part of the household by adoption, but additionally, by some unfathomable supernatural genetics, we’re one with Christ by the brand new start, with the identical non secular DNA because the Son of God. So, this can be a union of household id.
5. Counted Righteous
Fifth, I’ll point out another image of this inexhaustible union — specifically, the judicial expertise of union with Christ. The union turns into our righteousness. Philippians 3:8–9: “that I’ll . . . be discovered in him, not having a righteousness of my very own that comes from the legislation, however that which comes via religion in Christ, the righteousness from God that is dependent upon religion.” In union with Christ, a righteousness not our personal is ours.
In abstract, being in Christ means we’re known as into his fellowship. In that friendship, Christ is our life. We’re one with him as members of his physique and one with him as members of his household. And in him we’re counted righteous along with his righteousness. All of this ends in 2 Corinthians 1:20: all the guarantees of God are sure for us in Christ. In his fellowship, in his life, in his physique, in his household, in his righteousness, the whole lot he has and ever could have is ours.
Each Promise Secured in Christ
“All the guarantees” means each good that God can conceive of is ours in Christ. First Corinthians 3:21–23 says, “So let nobody boast in males. For all issues are yours, whether or not Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or loss of life or the current or the longer term — all are yours, and you might be Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” That’s the identical as saying, “All the guarantees are Sure in him.” Romans 8:32 ties all the guarantees to Christ’s loss of life as the best way he secured them for all who’re in Christ: “He who didn’t spare his personal Son however gave him up for us all, how will he not additionally with him graciously give us all issues?” “Graciously give us all issues” is identical as saying, “All the guarantees are Sure in him.”
- No good factor does he withhold from those that are in Christ (Psalm 84:11).
- He’ll put his Spirit inside you and trigger you to stroll in his statutes in Christ (Ezekiel 36:27).
- Goodness and mercy will comply with you all the times of your life in Christ (Psalm 23:6).
- Every thing will work collectively on your good in Christ (Romans 8:28).
- He won’t ever go away you nor forsake you in Christ (Hebrews 13:5).
- He’ll strengthen you, he’ll aid you, and he’ll uphold you along with his righteous proper hand in Christ (Isaiah 41:10).
- He’ll end the work he started in you in Christ (Philippians 1:6).
- Nobody will have the ability to snatch you out of his hand in Christ (John 10:27–29).
- He’ll increase you from the lifeless in Christ (Revelation 2:10).
- He’ll divulge to you the trail of life so that you simply discover your technique to God, in whose presence is fullness of pleasure and at whose proper hand there are pleasures without end in Christ (Psalm 16:11).
Why did Paul declare such a lavish fact in 2 Corinthians 1:20? As a result of he was combating for his apostolic life and their religion, pleasure, and love, which he would defend via his personal religion, pleasure, love. His protection started in 2 Corinthians 1:18. Paul is saying, “It’s this faithfulness of God, this assure of the Holy Spirit, this union with Christ, and this success of all the guarantees that permits me to maintain on rejoicing via affliction in order that the overflow of my pleasure can be your pleasure. That’s how I like you. That’s how I pour out my life for you. I don’t manipulate, I don’t deceive, I don’t exploit you. I like you.”
Paul isn’t just defending himself; he’s inviting the Corinthians, and us, into this life within the guarantees of God — sustaining pleasure in affliction, overflowing in love for others. He says, “As absolutely as God is trustworthy, our phrase to you has not been Sure and No” (2 Corinthians 1:18). My life is constructed on the faithfulness of God to all his guarantees. He continues his protection in 2 Corinthians 1:22: “[He] put his seal on us and [gave] us his Spirit in our hearts as a assure.” He’s saying, “My life is constructed on God’s Holy Spirit seal that his guarantees stand.” Subsequently, 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “All the guarantees of God discover their Sure in him.”
Pleasure in Affliction, Overflowing in Love
Let’s flip to see how Paul in the remainder of this letter strikes towards pleasure in affliction — sustained by guarantees, overflowing in love. He sounds the be aware instantly in 2 Corinthians 1:4 that that is the place he’s going: “[God] comforts us in all our affliction, in order that we could possibly consolation those that are in any affliction, with the consolation with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” That is consolation in affliction — pleasure in affliction — for the sake of affection.
Then there may be this superb assertion in 2 Corinthians 7:4: “I’m stuffed with consolation. In all our affliction, I’m overflowing with pleasure.” Lest we go by the phrase affliction too flippantly, take heed to his record of afflictions in 2 Corinthians 11:
Labors . . . imprisonments . . . numerous beatings, and infrequently close to loss of life. 5 occasions I obtained by the hands of the Jews the forty lashes much less one. 3 times I used to be overwhelmed with rods. As soon as I used to be stoned. 3 times I used to be shipwrecked; an evening and a day I used to be adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in peril from rivers, hazard from robbers, hazard from my very own folks, hazard from Gentiles, hazard within the metropolis, hazard within the wilderness, hazard at sea, hazard from false brothers; in toil and hardship, via many a sleepless evening, in starvation and thirst, usually with out meals, in chilly and publicity. (2 Corinthians 11:23–27)
Now, listed below are his phrases once more from 2 Corinthians 7:4: “I’m stuffed with consolation. In all our affliction, I’m overflowing with pleasure.”
He says it once more in 2 Corinthians 12:9–10. The Lord refused to remove his thorn within the flesh.
However he stated to me, “My grace is adequate for you, for my energy is made excellent in weak spot.” Subsequently I’ll boast all of the extra gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the facility of Christ could relaxation upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I’m content material with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I’m weak, then I’m sturdy.
Gladness in calamities? Right here it’s once more in 2 Corinthians 12:15: “I’ll most gladly spend and be spent on your souls. If I like you extra, am I to be liked much less?” That is gladness in affliction, overflowing with love.
“In union with Christ, a righteousness not our personal is ours.”
Right here is another textual content on this level. Second Corinthians 13:9 says, “We’re glad after we are weak and you might be sturdy. Your restoration is what we pray for.” It’s gladness in weak spot, overflowing in love. How on the earth did Paul preserve such a lifetime of struggling with pleasure for many years? The reply is that this: “All the guarantees of God are Sure in Christ.” Right here’s the best way he expressed it in 2 Corinthians 4:16–18. How does he not lose coronary heart?
So we don’t lose coronary heart. Although our outer self is losing away, our interior self is being renewed daily. For this mild momentary affliction is making ready for us an everlasting weight of glory past all comparability [that is a promise that is Yes in Christ Jesus], as we glance to not the issues which can be seen however to the issues which can be unseen. For the issues which can be seen are transient, however the issues which can be unseen are everlasting.
By religion, he appears to be like to the unseen and banks his life on the promise that each one the afflictions taking place on this world will not be meaningless however are making ready for him an everlasting weight of glory past all comparability. By this, he not solely survives however rejoices in all his affliction. Second Corinthians 7:4: “In all our affliction, I’m overflowing with pleasure.”
Our Glad Amen
With another clear, indeniable demonstration, he reveals that this promise-sustained pleasure is the supply of affection. In 2 Corinthians 8:1–2, he describes how the Macedonians grew to become a mannequin of generosity for the Corinthians. Paul was amassing cash for the poor in Jerusalem. Right here’s what occurred in Macedonia. In 2 Corinthians 8:8 he calls it “love.” This is likely one of the most superb texts within the Bible on the spring and energy of affection:
We wish you to know, brothers, in regards to the grace of God that has been given among the many church buildings of Macedonia, for in a extreme check of affliction, their abundance of pleasure and their excessive poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their half. (2 Corinthians 8:1–2)
The place did this wealth of generosity (this love) come from? He says it’s the overflow of their abundance of pleasure. And how much pleasure was this? What have been they so glad about? It wasn’t the absence of affliction. It wasn’t the absence of poverty. Contextually, one reply is left from 2 Corinthians 8:1 — “the grace of God.” Paul says, “We wish you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the many church buildings of Macedonia” (2 Corinthians 8:1). That is the grace that claims to sinners, “Imagine on the Lord Jesus Christ, and all the guarantees of God are sure for you in Christ Jesus.” They believed, and regardless of affliction and poverty, their pleasure was so ample that it overflowed in like to the poor whom they didn’t even know.
Within the second half of two Corinthians 1:20, Paul brings all of it to a climax with these phrases: “That’s the reason [namely, because all the promises of God are Yes in Christ] it’s via him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” Amen is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew expression for sure. Amen! Actually! Certainly! Sure!
So, what’s Paul saying? He’s saying, “The response of my life (2 Corinthians 1:20) is not going to be a grumbling No to God’s guarantees. My life is not going to be a self-pitying, reclusive No to God’s guarantees. My life is not going to be a loveless No to God’s guarantees. My life, in all its afflictions, can be a radiant Sure to the guarantees of God. When God says Sure to me with all his guarantees, my response is Sure to him. I say, ‘Amen! Sure, they’re true. Sure, they’re sufficient. Sure, I’m content material. Sure, I’m glad to spend and be spent on your souls.’”
And from such a life — promise-sustained, overflowing in pleasure, poured out in love — Paul says God will get nice glory (2 Corinthians 1:20).
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