2 Corinthians 9:15 ~ 20191201 ~ Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

12/01_2 Corinthians 9:15; Speak of God’s Unspeakable Gift; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20191201_2cor9_15.mp3

What are you frustrated with? Are there some things you'd like to change? What needs to be different? What needs to be fixed? What circumstances would you change if you could? Would you like to issue a complaint?

Complain

Deanna asked me if I could run to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things she had forgotten for thanksgiving. I had barely returned home, when she came up with something else we needed. Back to Wal-Mart, the lines were long, and I was in a hurry, so I decided to try one of the scan-and-go self check out lines. I never use self-check out. I'd much rather have a real human to talk to. Somebody who knows what they are doing. But I was in a hurry, so I thought I'd give it a try. There was a guy with only two items in a line, so I figured that would be pretty quick. But since he was buying a case of beer, someone had to come over and check his ID before he could complete his purchase. When I got up to the check out, there was an error message on the display. So the supervisor had to come over and clear that. The check-out wasn't cooperating, so it took her a few tries to clear the error, and then I got to scan my first item. Of course you have to find where they hide the UPC label, but that went OK. Then I went to scan the second item, and it didn't read it. So I tried again, and then it showed up twice. Supervisor to the rescue. She cleared the duplicate item for me. I was buying 8 of the last item, so while she was there, I asked if there was an easier way than to scan all 8 individually. She tried to scan one and enter a multiple of 7 more, but it didn't work. She tried again, still no luck. So I just scanned the remaining 7 and I was on my way. But only after the machine tried to reject my card 3 times. Supervisor? Finally it worked. I was almost out the door, when I glanced at the receipt, only to find that I had been charged for that last item once, then 7 times, then 7 times again, then seven more times individually. So I went back to the supervisor, waited until she was done helping the next unsuspecting victim who was trying to use that self-check station, and showed her my receipt. She sent me off to the customer service desk, where they looked over my receipt and refunded my money. As I waited there, I commented to the workers that I never use the self check and won't use it again. She responded 'they're going to make you. They've already reduced the number of cashiers working a regular check-out line, and they are going to continue until self-check out is your only option.' I asked who I could call or write to to complain.

So often life doesn't go our way. We can always find something to complain about. I think the lady with two shopping carts overflowing with thanksgiving fixings in the regular check-out line with a real human cashier made it out of the store ahead of me.

It is easy to find fault. Do you read the product reviews when you shop online? I'm looking at a product that has 4.5 out of 5 stars, and I start scrolling through the customer reviews, and I start reading this didn't work and I didn't get what was pictured, and it worked great for a month until it was just out of warranty and then it stopped working and it's junk and don't waste your money and buyer beware and this company doesn't stand behind their product and you get what you pay for. Complain, complain, complain. We live in a culture of complaining.

Re-Frame

Now, I could look at my trip(s) to Wal-Mart through a different lens. I could count my blessings. When I got there, they had all 8 of what I needed right there on the shelf, in stock, plus some things I didn't really need that I decided I wanted. The supervisor was friendly and was right there to help me when I needed help. Multiple times. Instead of just talking to one cashier, I got to talk to the supervisor, multiple times, plus the two workers at the customer service desk. And because I was delayed a few minutes, I was able to avoid all the traffic congestion when I picked up my daughter from middle school.

In fact I drove to the store. In a car. With enough gas to get there and get home again. The car didn’t break down. Of course, I could have walked. I am able, and I live close enough. I have a body that is capable of walking to the store. I had enough money to make the purchase(s). I have an amazing wife that happens to be an amazing cook and she (with the help of my amazing daughters) prepared some exceptionally tasty dishes for our thanksgiving meal.

I could look at my circumstances and inconveniences and complain, or I could look at my circumstances in a positive light and count my blessings. But there is nothing overtly Christian about just being positive rather than negative. And some of us have real legitimate things to complain about. Many people are positive, not just believers, some nauseatingly so. I think that it is better to be positive than to be negative and complaining, but we as followers of Jesus are called to something more, something higher than simply having a positive outlook.

Grace and Thanksgiving

Paul gives us something outside ourselves, beyond our circumstances to be thankful for. Paul writes two chapters encouraging us to generosity, to single-hearted openness, love for God and neighbor, and he concludes by saying:

2 Corinthians 9:15 Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift. This is the 10^th time he uses the word ‘grace’ in these two chapters, an undeserved, freely given gift. In 8:1 he pointed them to God’s grace given in the churches of Macedonia. In 8:4 they responded by begging for the grace and fellowship of service to the saints. In 8:6 Titus is urged to complete this act of grace among the Corinthians. 8:7 exhorts them that as they excel in so many of God’s gifts, they abound in this grace also. 8:9 centers us on the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in giving himself for us. 8:16 uses the word grace like it is here in 9:15 in the sense of thanksgiving; grace or gratitude back to God for what he has freely given. 8:19 describes the collection for the saints as a grace. 9:8 points us back to God as the source of all grace that enables us to overflow in good works. In 9:14 the Jerusalem saints will give thanks for the exceeding grace of God shown to the Corinthians. Grace to God for his inexpressible gift!

This word grace is the root of the word for thanksgiving in 9:11-12.

2 Corinthians 9:11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. 12 For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.

We see the combination of these words back at 4:15

2 Corinthians 4:15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

God’s gracious giving produces thanksgiving. As we experience God’s undeserved grace in our own lives, we extend grace to others, and God is glorified. Grace overflows into gratitude. Chapter 8 began with the grace of God given to the churches of Macedonia. Chapter 9 concludes with God being glorified and receiving thanks because of his surpassing grace given to the Corinthians.

God the Ultimate Giver

2 Corinthians 9:15 Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

The one who gives the gift deserves the thanks. In a section exhorting believers toward generosity to those in need, God gets the thanks because God is the ultimate giver. Although Christians are giving to other Christians, it is God who gets the thanks, because God is the source of all things. He is the one who supplies and multiplies seed for the sower and bread for food (9:10). He is the one who is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all, always, having all sufficiency, you may abound in all good work (9:8). Your abundance is God given, and it is meant for supplying the lack in others (8:14).

When on Christmas morning Ebenezer Scrooge shouted from his window and hired a boy to run and buy the prize turkey, and have it delivered to Bob Cratchit’s, it would not have been right for Bob to thank only the one who delivered the enormous bird. He was only the delivery boy. It would be right for him to try to find out who sent the most generous gift. It would be even more right for Bob Cratchit to thank the Lord for changing the heart of Scrooge. God is the ultimate giver. God loves a cheerful giver, because God is a cheerful giver. All thanksgiving belongs to God.

Gift Inexpressible

2 Corinthians 9:15 Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

Inexpressible gift. This word to our knowledge is found nowhere else in Greek literature until Paul, and only found here. It is a compound that Paul probably made up to express his thought here. Unspeakable, inexpressible, indescribable; it is unable to be thoroughly told. God’s gift is beyond our capacity to comprehend, much less describe. Paul in Ephesians 3 prays for the believers to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in their inner being, that they would have strength to comprehend the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. We need supernatural help to comprehend the love of God for us.

Here is irony. The gift of God is inexpressible, and Paul writes to tell us about it. Language fails, so he makes up new words to attempt to communicate the inexpressible. The fact that God’s gift is unable to be fully told does not stop Paul and the other biblical authors from preaching and declaring and writing to communicate God’s gift. In fact, the truth that God’s gift is inexpressible mandates that we talk about it and keep talking about it, keep pursuing creative new ways to communicate the truth and wonder of the gospel.

Paul expressed the inexpressible back in 8:9

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

Inexpressible grace! Inexpressible gift! That our Lord Jesus Christ, being eternally rich in relationship with his Father throughout all eternity, who being equal with his Father, existing in the very form of God (Phil.2:6). He didn’t cling to his equality with his Father, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. He was born in the likeness of men. ‘He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross’ (Phil.2:8). Being rich, for your sake he became poor.

The gift that can’t be fully expressed, must be expressed. That which is beyond words must be put into words. The Word who was with God and who was God became flesh and set up his tent among us (Jn.1:1, 14). This is too wonderful for words, yet we must use words to communicate it.

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

Eternal God became man for my sake, for my good; that you by his poverty might become rich. He humbled himself to make me eternally blessed. He came to rescue me from sin and death and hell forever. He came to rescue me from myself. He came to give me the gift I don’t deserve. Forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation. He came to take what was broken and make it whole. He came to restore, to make all things new. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. He came for me, for my sake. He came for sinners.

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

We are called to wonder. God intends for us to stop and look, to put our hand over our mouth and be amazed. To be in awe. To be stunned and staggered by the sheer magnitude of God’s goodness and grace. Be still and know that I am God (Ps.46:10).

We are to be like the demon possessed man who was still, seated at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, eager to be with Jesus. Jesus told him:

Mark 5:19 ...“Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

We are meant to experience the indescribable grace of God to us, to marvel. And then to express the inexpressible to others so that they can marvel with us.

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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org