[0:00] Pleasure to be in your company, to sing praises to our God with you, and to continue our study in the book of 2 Corinthians. But before we start there, I would ask that you turn with me to Psalm 23.
[0:18] You'll find Psalm 23, a psalm of David, on page 852 in the Pew Bible. Well, the passage we'll study today in 2 Corinthians is about the security that we have in Christ.
[0:35] That we are safe and sound, that we are protected and held up by God. And when I was studying these truths in preparation for you this week, my heart was struck by them.
[0:50] And I thought that the words of Psalm 23 were the words of my heart when I felt secure and safe by God.
[1:02] So let's read this in preparation to understand what a heart that feels safe and secure in our God, what it says and what it prays back to God.
[1:16] Psalm 23, a psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures.
[1:31] He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
[1:42] Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me.
[1:54] Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil.
[2:09] My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
[2:19] And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen. This is where we will begin the sermon with this psalm.
[2:32] And we will actually be ending with this. It will be the bookends. And I hope that by the grace of God, the words here today will make you love this psalm more at the end of the sermon than you did in the beginning.
[2:46] This is the psalm of a man who knows that what matters in life is not where he is or how things are going.
[2:58] But what matters is who is guiding him. And that is God. He walks in the valley of the shadow of death.
[3:08] Yet he had no fear. Like you're in darkness. The darkness of the threats of death. And you have no fear.
[3:20] Because he knows who is guiding him. So let us turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. So that we can learn about the shepherd of our souls.
[3:33] Who guides us. So that we can say, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear. You'll find 2 Corinthians chapter 1 on page 1775 of your pew Bibles.
[3:50] We'll be picking up where we left off last week. We'll be starting in verse 20 and going all the way through to 22. For all the promises of God in him are yes and in him.
[4:07] Amen. To the glory of God through us. Now he who establishes us with you in Christ has anointed us is God.
[4:21] Who has also sealed us and given us the spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. Last week I had a day off.
[4:33] And I used that to get some work done at my house. We needed to put up some fencing around the property. And so we took a trip down to Home Depot with the trailer attached to the Jeep.
[4:49] We went down and bought a few fence pieces. And brought them over and laid them in the trailer. But we couldn't have just left at that point.
[5:01] We needed to tie them down first. If you try to drive off without that, it's going to blow back. And it might hit someone. And when that happens, people tend to take a fence.
[5:18] A fence. A fence. Alright, so we knew we had to tie them down. So we put one strap across the middle of it.
[5:31] And then one strap diagonally across it one way. And another strap diagonally across the fence pieces another way. And that fencing was strapped down tight and secure to the trailer.
[5:46] At that point I said what every man must say at this point. That ain't going anywhere. And that is similar to our life and to this passage.
[6:00] If we aren't tied down and secure, we are going to get blown around and damaged. We will fall off course and be battered and bruised.
[6:13] The high winds and high speeds of life will throw you off course and into the paths of danger. So we, just like the fence, need to be strapped down and secured.
[6:28] So that even when difficulties come our way, we will be safe and secure. So that even when we are pushed strongly by winds and gusts, we will be safe.
[6:43] And our three straps are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are triply secure.
[6:56] Our God is three persons in one being. We believe in one God who is three different people. Jesus the Son, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit.
[7:10] And the amazing truth that this passage shows us is that each one of those persons takes a special interest in securing us.
[7:21] That we might be safe from all harm and difficulty. That nothing which is ultimately bad for us will happen. But that everything that comes to pass in our life comes through the secure gate of a God who loves us.
[7:40] So if we rest in God, if we rest in this God, we ain't going anywhere. So let us look at how each member of the Trinity secures us.
[7:57] Each member, each person of the God we worship takes their part in our safety. Point one, yes in Christ.
[8:08] For all the promises of God in Him are yes. In Christ, every last promise of God is answered with a yes for you.
[8:22] Yes, it is yours. You know how when we're talking about our future, if it looks particularly good, we'll say it's promising.
[8:33] That our hope is so secure that it's like a promise made by a friend. We can count on it. We can be happy now because we have a promising future.
[8:49] Like a relationship. You might say that this relationship looks promising if it's going well. Or a career might have promise.
[9:00] Or a young prodigy has a promising future in front of them. These are all ways of saying that good things are coming. And this is the same as what we're talking about in this passage.
[9:13] That for the believer, we have a promising future in Christ. That is that everything that could look good going forward is ours in Jesus.
[9:30] But we don't just have a promising future. We have the most promising future. It says that all, all the promises of God in Him are yes.
[9:45] Everything that would make our future the best possible is yes in Christ. Even the suffering that comes your way is part of the promise of God to teach you good things and lead you to good places.
[10:03] Everything that is good for us is ours in Christ. As I was thinking about this, I tried to think of every category of promise that God makes in the Bible.
[10:22] I tried to think of what are every type of promise that God makes to us. So that we could think of every type of promise that is yes in Christ.
[10:34] And here's the list that I came up with. And just let it sink in and cause you to realize just how amazing this is.
[10:44] God promises us land, comfort, favor, forgiveness, offspring, glory, love, freedom, life, light, peace, knowledge, safety, unity, hope, joy, wisdom, eternity.
[11:11] God Himself, health, newness, sonship, victory, resurrection, justice, holiness, community, fellowship with God, fellowship with man, a great inheritance, rich treasures, and everything.
[11:38] Amen. What a list. This book is full of promises that God has written.
[11:52] And this passage tells us that in Christ, every one of them is yours. You can't be more safe or secure than that. If all of those things are promised to you and secured by Christ for you, then you have no need to worry.
[12:16] No difficulty can truly touch you. If I win the lottery, if I win the lottery, making millions of dollars and I go out to find a flat tire, I'm not going to be that broken hearted.
[12:31] What can a flat tire do to me? I just won millions. I've got so much money that such a small thing could never touch it.
[12:42] This is what you have in Christ. You have so much of the riches of God in Jesus that no trouble should truly be able to shake you.
[12:56] Why would you let the worries of this life get you down? If you have everything that is good in Christ.
[13:07] You are secure and you are secure in Jesus. We are wrapped up into Christ. They have these big plastic balls that you can inflate and climb inside and roll around and bounce into other people in.
[13:26] And there's a cushion of air that protects you from getting hurt by anything. You can charge into someone else and bounce right off of them and you're fine.
[13:37] This is what it's like to be in Christ. That you, you being wrapped up in Jesus, all the troubles of this world bounce off.
[13:50] They can't stick. If God is for us, who can be against us? All the promises are yes in him because he died on the cross for you.
[14:02] When Jesus on the cross cries out, it is finished. That is God saying yes to every promise for you. And when he is raised from the dead, it says that no evil, no death, no pain could ever prevent God from doing good to his people.
[14:24] We deserve the promise of hell. But instead we get the promises of God in Christ. God is a good judge and he would never, never let the wicked be blessed for all eternity.
[14:44] And we are wicked. So our only hope, the reason why we have the promises of God is not because we're righteous enough to earn them.
[14:55] But because God punished Christ for our sins. So that we, though wicked, could receive the blessings of God. If Christ has paid for your sins on the cross and you have trusted in him, every last promise of God is yours by faith in Jesus.
[15:18] Point number two, made safe by God the Father. In the passage it says, now he who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God.
[15:37] A lot of times when the Bible uses the name God by itself, it's referring to God the Father. And that's what's going on here. The one who establishes you and anoints you is God the Father.
[16:00] God establishes you. That is like a house being built up. It protects you from danger. And God is the one who, through this establishment, through this house, he thought to make it.
[16:17] He planned its construction. And he oversaw it as it is in process, even now. The house of God, your safe dwelling place, has been built up to protect you from life-threatening difficulties.
[16:39] Our homes protect us. They guard us. They make our lives secure. Having a lot of good things without a house is useless.
[16:52] If you imagine having a nice TV, nice clothes. Me, I love books. Having piles of books. A computer, guitars, or whatever else.
[17:04] But instead of putting it in a house, it's just sitting out in the dirt and the rain. What good is that? You start to see how without a home, all the blessings of life are made harder to enjoy.
[17:23] It all gets damaged or stolen. Or while you're trying to enjoy it, it's too hot or too cold.
[17:37] But we don't lack a home to enjoy our blessings in. God establishes us. The Father is our home. And He has built for us a safe, secure place.
[17:50] That if we rest in Christ and trust in the Father, we suddenly become protected from real difficulties. So that we might start to enjoy all the promises of God.
[18:06] I love what Psalm 90 verse 1 says. Lord, you have been our dwelling place, our home in all generations.
[18:18] Moses here is praying that God is his home. That his secure place, his safe space that he runs to, that gets him through the day, the sweet place of comfort and rest, is his Father in heaven.
[18:39] And we look forward to moving into that home one fateful day in the future. Jesus speaks of this establishment of God in John 14 too.
[18:54] In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would not have told you that. I go to prepare a place for you.
[19:04] There is a home in heaven that we enjoy a little bit of now. And we will one day enjoy in heaven with our Savior.
[19:18] He goes to prepare that place for us. God is establishing you, protecting you with his home even now. The Father is also the one who has put us into Christ.
[19:35] It says, he who establishes us with you in Christ. It is God who calls the saints out of the world and puts us into his Son.
[19:50] He gives the Son all of his sheep. God has married you to Christ, like a father marrying his daughter to a faithful husband.
[20:05] The reason you have the Savior, the one who cleanses you from your sins, is because the Father sent the Savior to you and married you to Christ.
[20:18] He is like a father who finds a good husband for his daughter. God has found us the perfect husband, Jesus, and he has secured our marriage to him.
[20:36] The Father does even more than this. He gives us the Holy Spirit. Do you want comfort? Do you want a comforter to ease your sorrows?
[20:52] Do you want a teacher to make you wise? Do you want to be freed from your sin so that you might pursue what is good? Do you want love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control?
[21:11] Do you want to be freed from your son? Then you need the Holy Spirit. He's all of those things. And the Father is the one who sent him to us. The verse that we read talks about the God who has anointed us.
[21:27] That anointing is a picture of like perfume and oil, like dripping down the head and covering him. And that is a picture of the Holy Spirit covering us.
[21:42] I don't know if you've ever let your sponges get really dry and they shrivel up and like curl up and they're hard. And instead of being soft and squishy, they're really rigid.
[21:55] They're useless to clean things at that point. You try wiping something off and it just does nothing useful. And that's kind of like us. It doesn't work too well to wash things with that dry sponge.
[22:10] But the Holy Spirit is poured out on us like an anointing and fills us like a sponge. And suddenly, we're ready to be useful.
[22:24] That dry sponge soaks up all the water. And now, when you start to wipe it over things, what squeezes out? That water. we get filled with the Holy Spirit and we're equipped to do ministry so that when you go out and go to other people, the Holy Spirit starts to squeeze out.
[22:45] And sometimes, it squeezes out in the hardest moments. Like that sponge when it's crushed and it just lets all the water out to soak everything around it. That's what believers should be like with the Holy Spirit that the Father has anointed us with, has filled us with.
[23:06] God sends us that Spirit and He pours it over us to keep us secure and joyful till the end. Point number three, the Spirit's guarantee.
[23:22] It says, the Spirit and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. Perhaps you can think of a time where you struggled to feel safe and secure.
[23:42] And even when you thought of the promises of God, it was hard to believe that He wanted good for you. Maybe in the midst of your difficulties, all of the promises and security of God seemed far off and hard to believe and feel.
[24:03] I personally have felt like that a lot of times in difficulties. I knew the truth, but it was hard to believe. It was hard to be comforted by.
[24:15] But God hasn't left you with nothing in those moments. He hasn't left you only trusting in distant promises, but He has given you something right here and now to comfort you in those moments.
[24:33] He has given you a taste of all of His promises and He has given you a down payment to help you believe even in the darkest places.
[24:48] The Holy Spirit is our proof that we are secure and that God loves us. The Holy Spirit is our down payment on all of the promises of God.
[25:04] That's what it means when it says that the Spirit has been given in our hearts as a guarantee. It's like a down payment. The Holy Spirit being with you should help you be confident and feel secure in all the promises of God's goodness.
[25:24] It is like a down payment on a house. When you buy a house usually you give the bank 20% of the house's cost as a down payment.
[25:39] This helps to prove that you plan on giving the bank the rest of the money over time. Because it would be crazy for me to give a bank $40,000 if I was planning on skipping out on paying the rest of it because at the end I'd be $40,000 down and I'd get kicked out of the house.
[26:03] And so the down payment helps prove that I'm planning on staying here for the long run. The Holy Spirit is your down payment.
[26:15] He proves to you that God is committed to every promise he's made. The more valuable a down payment the more secure the deposit the more trustworthy.
[26:31] No one puts a down payment of $20 on a house. So God sent himself as a down payment the Holy Spirit to be with you.
[26:44] So your promises are safe and secure. So if you have the Holy Spirit in your life you should feel guaranteed that God will deliver on everything.
[26:58] And so in the times of difficulty look to the Spirit's work in your life. Look to evidences that God has made His Spirit to change who you are.
[27:09] When the Holy Spirit comes into your heart as a believer He makes you a new creation. You are born again. your life should be different.
[27:20] It should be transformed from what it was before you had the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel 36 26 which we read earlier says and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.
[27:39] I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. If you slap down a heart of stone and a heart of flesh I would have no trouble telling the difference between them.
[27:55] It's obvious. if the Spirit's in your heart if He has given you a heart of flesh I should be able to tell that when I look at you.
[28:07] And you should be able to tell that when you look in your own lives. And if by the grace of God you see that that is part of your guarantee.
[28:18] That is part of the promise that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. He's your guarantee the Spirit's work in your life.
[28:31] John 3 verses 5 through 8 Jesus is talking to Nicodemus and He says truly truly I say to you unless one is born of water and the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God so if you do not have the spirit you do not have the promise that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit do not marvel that I said to you you must be born again the wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes so it is with everyone who is born of the spirit that is that the spirit makes a real difference in your life and that real difference is to help assure help make you confident help make you feel safe and secure that God is doing something in you and that he has beautiful plans to fulfill every promise for you in
[29:36] Christ once more first second Corinthians 5 17 if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation the old has passed away it's dead behold the new has come if you have seen that change in your life you can be confident that God is for you and you are in Christ and every promise is yes for you briefly point number four our response the passage rendered the translation puts it this way for all the promises of God are yes and in him amen to the glory of God through us that second part in him amen to the glory of God through us makes it hard to understand what the passage is actually talking about there so I'm going to rephrase it for you to try to help make it clear think of it this way and we who are in
[30:45] Christ say amen and glorify God when we hear that all the promises of God are yes in Christ for us we also being in Christ proclaim a hearty amen that means that we say that these things are good and that we believe them and that we want them to come to pass that's what amen means amen is a word of praise and agreement so our response to the wonderful things of God to his safe security is that our heart should overflow amen all of the promises of God are yes for me oh amen how good and notice that amen is a word meant to be spoken aloud so others can hear it when others look at you when they hear you they should hear you amen in
[31:58] God for all of his goodness other believers we should be able to see you rejoicing in God and being glad at the great promises and people in the world that you deal with should be able to see in you rejoicing amening the beautiful promises and security you have in God what things do you rejoice in instead of this do you rejoice in a comfortable day an easy life something goes your way and is real convenient no traffic on the highway the right temperature oh I'm so glad this mugginess is gone you know when that finally happens you're willing to sing the praises of the weather but will you sing the praises of your savior we must rejoice so so that all can hear about this great
[33:03] God let us briefly turn back to psalm 23 in closing please please think of these words as a prayer that you should pray back to God as you sit safe and secure in all of his promises and after I finish reading it I would ask you to to amen the good things of this God the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want he makes me lie down in green pastures he leads me beside the still waters he restores my soul he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me your rod and your staff they comfort me you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies you anoint my head with oil my cup runs over surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and
[34:26] I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and all the people of God said Amen Amen Thank you