The Security Of Recognizing God’s Sovereign Hand In My Life From Paul’s Introduction To 2 Corinthians
2 Corinthians 1:1-2
(Children’s Sheet for Sermon Interaction is at bottom. Notes for young children to answer are throughout sermon)Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church
Please turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. This morning, we start a sermon series through 2 Corinthians. We finished 1 Corinthians last month, so I wanted to go ahead and do this one next. As you turn there, I’m going to give some background information. When we look at the record in Acts 18:11, we know that Paul first came to the city of Corinth in the Spring of AD 50. Immediately, God used Paul to lead people to Christ and to establish the Corinthian church. While Paul was there, he spent time discipling the new Christians in the essentials of the faith. He did this for about a year and a half. After that year and a half, Paul went across the ocean to Ephesus with Aquila and Priscilla. In Acts 18:18-22, we see that Paul left Aquila and Priscilla in Ephesus while he went over to Antioch. While remaining in Ephesus, Aquila and Priscilla met a man named Apollos. Apollos had been teaching about Christ in the local synagogues. Aquila and Priscilla recognized that Apollos had zeal for Christ coupled with talented speaking abilities, but they also knew that Apollos needed more discipleship; so they taught Apollos the way of God more accurately. Afterward, Aquila and Priscilla sent Apollos over to Corinth to continue to minister in Paul’s absence, Acts 18:24-19:1. Paul then traveled through the Galatian region, and returned to Ephesus in AD 52. He stayed in Ephesus for about three years, Acts 20:31. 1 Corinthians 5:9 indicates that Paul wrote a previous letter to the Corinthian church sometime in that first year while he was back in Ephesus. As far as we know, there are no surviving copies of Paul’s first letter to Corinth which indicates that God did not want it to become Holy Scripture. It was Holy Scripture at the time, as Peter explains in 2 Peter 3, but now it is no longer preserved as such. After Paul got some information from Chloe’s people according to 1 Corinthians 1:11, and received a reply letter from the Corinthians according to 1 Corinthians 7:1 which was probably expounded upon by the delegation of Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus who delivered the letter to Paul, Paul wrote back to the Corinthians again. We need to think of it as his second letter to them. It is preserved holy Scripture. It is what we know as 1 Corinthians. Paul wrote that letter to address a list of concerns from all the sources of information he had received. Evidently, there was tension in Corinth which Paul pointed out in 1 Corinthians. Paul had hoped to bring the problems under the control of the Spirit in true godliness, love, humbleness, and unity in his teachings in the 1 Corinthians epistle. Paul was led by the Spirit to be strong in 1 Corinthians in rebuke, correction, and teaching concerning their divisive ways and sinful practices, including the sin of some who were trying to demote Paul’s important apostleship according to their fleshly standards. This was a particularly troublesome problem Paul had with the Corinthians. It led him to defend his apostleship on more than one occasion. Paul taught that the higher way of love and consideration of the rest of the body is the way God wants us to act in doing all for His glory. Paul probably wrote 1 Corinthians sometime in the Spring of AD 54. But evidently, even though they got the letter, and should have heeded what Paul had written, there were still tensions and carnal attitudes in Corinth. In fact, Paul’s epistle of 1 Corinthians stirred up the unrepentant to manifest their selfish sinfulness even more. The details indicate that Paul had heard about this reaction to 1 Corinthians from Timothy. The report convinced Paul that he needed to get back to Corinth quickly. So, a little later in the same year of 54, Paul went back to Corinth as he said he planned to do according to 1 Corinthians 16:6. But Paul bypassed his previous plan to go to Macedonia so that he could get to Corinth first. Apparently Paul thought that a short visit to try to connect with everyone in nurture, was immediately necessary. According to this 2 Corinthians epistle we are studying, Paul wanted that visit to be an edifying time of unity, love, and stabilization. But Paul’s hopes turned to sorrow. It was hurtful for Paul because of a Christian man who had done some things which disturbed the body of Christ (of which Paul seems to have been a main target). Those things the man did were offenses which brought punishment upon the guy that was inflicted by the majority later on according to 2 Corinthians 2:5-11. But at the time, that visit was particularly troublesome for Paul. He discovered that the strong doubts about his qualification as an apostle were still present and growing among certain factionizing people. This was shameful for those people, but it also humiliated Paul. Further, it grieved the Holy Spirit. Paul did not spend the winter of 54 with the Corinthians. He left Corinth and went back to Ephesus in the fall. Because of that sorrowful visit that Paul had in Corinth, he wrote them another letter which was his third letter to them. It was a very severe letter in which he wrote in deep grief as he wept according to 2 Corinthians 2:3-4. In fact, that emotionally charged letter was so convicting that it caused the Corinthians sorrow too, but it was godly sorrow that led to repentance and vindication concerning the particular wrong-doer who had sinned against the body (and Paul). That third letter was sent around the Spring of 55. Interestingly, like the very first letter mentioned, that third letter is also a letter that was sovereignly lost in history. But Corinth was not the center of Paul’s world, or ministry. Paul was an apostle ordained and sent by God to do arduous and dangerous missionary work throughout the Roman empire. So Paul continued on with what God had called Paul to do. He left Ephesus in the Spring of 55. He went back up to Macedonia and stopped in Troas on the way. He wanted to meet Titus in Troas but could not find Titus, so Paul sailed to Macedonia hoping to meet Titus there, 2 Corinthians 2:12-13. Paul and Titus found each other in Macedonia. It was there that Titus gave Paul some comforting news concerning the Corinthians. Essentially the Corinthian church in general had embraced the apostolic authority of Paul in a greater way than Paul realized. Further, most of them were truly growing in the Lord through listening to Paul. The result was that they demonstrated their maturing process. They had that true godly sorrow that led them to repentance, 2 Corinthians 7:6-16. This was when Paul wrote to them another time. It is the fourth epistle, and it survives. It is our epistle under study, which is 2 Corinthians. More than likely, Paul wrote it around the fall of the year 55. Finally, in that same winter, Paul went back over to Corinth according to Acts 20:3 and 2 Corinthians 12:14. He spent three months in Greece with much of that time being in Corinth before leaving for Jerusalem with a gift from the Corinthians. With this little bit of background out of the way, let’s read Paul’s 2 Corinthians introduction in 1:1-2. Remember, 2 Corinthians is the fourth letter that Paul wrote. Paul says,
“1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the determination of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church [called out and gathered] of God which is at Corinth with all the set apart ones [saints] who are throughout Achaia: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 1:1-2
Please prepare your heart to learn along with me in this sermon with the theme:
The Security Of Recognizing God’s Sovereign Hand In My Life From Paul’s Introduction To 2 Corinthians
[prayer]
Over the years, I have done various sermons from the introductory comments of the writers of New Testament epistles. I like to teach God’s revelation to us from introductions for a lot of reasons. Part of it has to do with the fact that introductions typically get skipped over in cursory readings. There is a sense in which they can seem like mere formalities. Usually when we think of “Dear sir” or “To whom it may concern” or something like that, we are thinking of a formality. In our time, it is actually becoming more and more common to simply drop formalities altogether, like in e-mails and text messages and so forth. My point is that thinking of the introductions as a mere formality can color our reading of God’s word. So when we go to God’s word, it is easy to think of the introduction as a kind of formal and lowly launching pad for the more exciting, and some may even say, “the more relevant” rocket of the following verses. My point is that the supposed rocket of the rest of the epistle, usually gets all the attention. But God’s revelation concerning God’s revelation is that His Scriptures are inspired by Himself. What this means is that what can be seen as the launching pad, is really part of the rocket.
/1/
This has to do with the first principle I want us to glean out of Paul’s introduction. God’s revelation concerning God’s revelation is that His Scriptures are sovereignly inspired by Himself. Part of God’s Scripture that He has inspired is the corpus of Paul’s preserved epistles that we have in our Bibles. This sovereign process amounts to security for our lives. This is what Paul meant when he explained to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16,
“16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;” 2 Timothy 3:16
All of it is God’s way of ministering important truth to us. As we think about the miraculous nature of this process, we need to recognize that men wrote in prophetic revelation as they were moved along by the Spirit. The apostle Peter, by the same kind of revelation, explained it this way in 2 Peter 1:20-21.
“20 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” 2 Peter 1:20-21
@1 All Scripture is _________________ by God by men ______________ by the Holy Spirit. 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21 (inspired, moved)
Think about this. This means that even when Peter wrote that statement, he was moved by God to do so. But then in the next chapter in 3:15-16, Peter references Paul’s writings, as Holy Scripture inspired by God of which Paul was moved by the Holy Spirit, when Peter wrote,
“15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures,” 2 Peter 3:15-16
Notice that Peter wrote Scripture which explains that Paul’s wisdom was given to Him to write Scripture that is just as inspired as “the rest of the Scriptures” verse 16. Peter did not say that Paul generated his own wisdom and then gave Paul’s own wisdom to others in writing. Peter acknowledges that Paul was actually “given” the wisdom that he had in His revelatory writings. Being given something means that there is a giver. Who gave Paul this wisdom? It was given by sovereign God. Paul was moved by the Holy Spirit when Paul spoke and wrote. And notice that Peter does not say that this wisdom was confined to one epistle of the canon of Scripture. Peter says, “in all his [Paul’s] letters” in verse 3:16. Peter was talking about the letters that Paul had sent out for doctrinal instruction which was the wisdom of God being imparted. For us, Peter is talking about the epistles that were meant to be for us. Those are the ones that God sovereignly preserved. These things are important for understanding the miraculous nature of the Holy Scriptures. But we must be careful. When we speak of the Scriptures being God-breathed, and we discuss men moved by the Holy Spirit speaking from God, we are not talking about something like auto-dictation. It is not what is called the “dictation theory” either. Instead, it is a miraculous process in which God used the personalities and thinking processes of the men who wrote as He inspired them with the revelation to record and teach. In the process, God elected His prophetic scribes to use figures of speech, poetry, their own personalities, their unique contexts, their own research of details and so forth, to record what we call God's word. Theologians call this process concursus. But we must also be careful with terms. Describing God’s work as concursus does not imply that the process was naturalistic either. God’s elect teachers really did receive revelation from God in which the whole process is truly miraculous, and is truly spiritual. This is why I think a better term is spiritual-concursus. The spiritual-concursus process reflects that all Scripture is inspired by God, 2 Timothy 3:16. Spiritual-concursus reflects the fact that it was written by men moved by the Holy Spirit as they spoke from God, 2 Peter 1:20-21. Spiritual-concursus is as Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 2,
“‘1 And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, [human wisdom] proclaiming to you the testimony of God. ... 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 6 Yet we do speak wisdom ... 7 but we speak God's wisdom ... 10 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; ... 12 ... we have received ... the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words." 1 Corinthians 2:12-13
@2 The apostles spoke God’s wisdom which was taught by the ____________. 1 Corinthians 2:12-13 (Spirit)
So this is the first principle we must embrace as part of our foundation. God’s revelation concerning God’s revelation is that His Scriptures are inspired by Himself. Part of God’s Scripture is the corpus of Paul’s surviving epistles that we have in our Bibles. So as we recognize God’s sovereign hand in our lives from the introduction to 2 Corinthians, we must embrace the security we have been given by God. There is security in knowing that God sovereignly recorded and preserved this Scripture for us to learn from. We have the information that we need to understand and live out our faith. God not only preserved it through the pens of those men whom he chose to be the scribes to write it down, God also preserved it through history as what we know as the canon. It is meant for us to store. It is meant for us to retrieve. It is meant for us to consult. It is meant for us to preach. It is meant for us to live.
/2/
This leads to the next thing we can glean from the text in recognizing God’s sovereign hand in our lives. It has to do with God’s sovereign determination in inducting Paul into ministry. It has to do with the fact that God sovereignly creates people to be his ministers, and it has to do with the fact that God gifts and empowers each of His ministers to accomplish their task. Paul is our immediate example of this. Notice that Paul says,
“1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the determination of God, ...” 2 Corinthians 1:1-2
Paul recognized that he did not become an apostle according to his own determination. The word “apostle” here is a word that literally means “one who is sent out.” Paul means that he is one who is sent forth by the crucified and resurrected Christ Jesus Himself. When we think about Paul’s credentials, we need to be considering how they demonstrate a miracle that was sovereignly arranged by God for His own glory. Remember Paul’s past. Before God miraculously made Paul into an apostle, Paul was, in a sense, another man altogether. Likewise, we were all different before being saved. You were lost in your sins--dead spiritually; so was I. So was Paul. Paul was once an anti-Christ. Before salvation, Paul's name was Saul--Saul of Tarsus. He was born an Israelite. And he was very religious. But Saul was like many devout people that we see today. He may be like someone you know. He may be like you used to be. He may be like you are now. Such people are religious, but in their religion, they reject salvation that comes through Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone in His finished work alone. They are religious, but they are religiously lost. And Saul was a Pharisee. The Pharisees were one of the strictest, and most zealous Law keeping sects of the Jews. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:6, that he was found blameless concerning the type of outward-righteousness which is derived from keeping the law codes of the Old Covenant. But Saul was not spiritually saved. Saul’s unregenerate heart was dark with sin. Again, all of us started out like Paul. And though Saul did all kinds of good deeds, his dead heart was manifested in the fact that he rejected God’s Messiah. Essentially your good deeds mean nothing unless you are spiritually saved. But Saul was also a Christian killer. He was there at the execution of Stephen after Stephen preached Christ. After salvation, Paul referred to those hate filled-days of sin against God in Acts 22:4 when he said,
"4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons." Acts 22:4
Like all religious but lost people, in the midst of his anti-Christ activity, Saul thought he was doing God a favor. In reality, Paul was against God. But God is sovereign. That’s what this sermon is about. God is sovereign and God had a sovereign plan for Saul. He has a sovereign plan for you and me. Before Paul became another man in the miracle of regeneration, the old Saul had to die in a certain sense. He had to experience what he finally did experience. Paul explained it in Galatians 2:20,
"20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I [Paul] who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I [Paul] now live in the flesh I [Paul] live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." Galatians 2:20
This same thing has to happen to you too, to attain salvation. The question is; When did this happen to Saul? In God's sovereign determination, God intervened. By His sovereign hand, God saved Saul while he was on his way to Damascus. On the road to Damascus is where we first see God's sovereign determination concerning Paul's election and calling being made manifest. In Acts 9 we witness that unique kind of crucifixion of the old man Saul that preceded His transformation into the new man in Christ. We read in Acts 9:1,
"1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's students. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, [the Way, is "the church," as we find it referenced in Acts 8:1] whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?'" Acts 9:1-4
This is when God in His sovereign determination lovingly forced Himself on Saul against Saul's so-called free will. Some people philosophically assert that God does not, and can not, force His will (His determination) upon anyone. They say that God holds something they philosophically call "man's free will" up as sacred, and so they think that somehow God must respect this sacred thing [sic] and not move it or change it. They say this as if the theory is a verse or concept in the Bible somewhere; but it is not. They even go so far as to say that a loving God is not free to force His own will upon anyone. Some have actually had the arrogance to assert that for Yahweh to do so is paramount to “cosmic rape.” They make that statement too as if it is also a verse, or concept in the Bible somewhere; but of course, it is not. It makes me wonder what the same people say about the impregnation of the virgin Mary when the angel informed her that she will necessarily be with child by the Spirit according to God’s determination. Would they say that Mary was cosmically raped? But when it comes to Paul, instead of a cosmic rape, the reality is that Paul experienced what?
A cosmic rescue!
It was a cosmic rescue in a cosmic regeneration as a miracle intervention of God. This is what Paul means when he said,
“1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the determination of God, ...” 2 Corinthians 1:1
It is so important to recognize that the sovereign conversion experience of Saul of Tarsus is sovereignly tied to His apostleship. In Acts 26, we see the details. We read that Christ also said to Saul in that moment of the Damascus road rescue,
"Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads." Acts 26:14
Goads are pointed sticks used to direct animals. When you want a cow to go somewhere, you poke it in the rear with a goad. When you do that against its will, it suddenly does something it did not previously want to do--it moves according to your determination. Messiah, as God in His sovereignty, goaded Saul with the effectual divine goad against Saul’s so-called personal integrity. God in His sovereignty, goaded Saul against Saul’s so called free agency. God in His sovereignty, goaded Saul against Saul’s so called rights to be left to his own free choices. Saul kicked back against God when he was standing tall and stiff-necked as a rejector of the true Messiah. But something else happened to Saul. On that day, God decided to goad Saul in a more forceful and miraculous way. What does this mean?
It means that God hurt Saul into salvation. Yes, God hurt Saul against Saul’s will.
God literally, and physically blinded Saul’s physical eyes against Saul’s will. And at the same time God removed the veil from Saul’s dead heart and poured the Light of His glorious life inside. It was also at this same time that the Lord of lords and King of kings enrolled Saul in a class against Saul’s will. Class was in session. The Lord taught Saul how it is to try and resist His sovereign determination. Listen to me--We should all be thankful that this is what God did with us too in bringing us to saving faith in Christ. What God taught Saul is what Saul quickly understood,
"It is hard for you to kick against the goads." Acts 26:14
Jesus wanted His newly enrolled student to think about the difficulty and futility of this kicking. This is the type of thinking process that God orchestrates for convicting us--for bringing about repentance in us, and for changing us by the power of His holy Spirit through His word. Saul, who was blinded by God while blinded in the bondage of sin, asked,
"'Who are you, Lord?"
Jesus answered, and when Jesus did, He told Saul what Saul must definitely be told what Saul definitely must do. The Lord ordained that Saul would be told it, and the Lord ordained that Saul will do it whether Saul liked it at that moment or not. He said,]
'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,' He replied. 'Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.'" Acts 26:15-16
The operative words are “will” and “must.” Why? Because Saul must do what Christ had predestined for him to do. Saul is already getting some important revelation which comes only by the Spirit; even at this point. Saul even knows enough to call Jesus "Lord" in his question. Up to this point, Saul never thought he was persecuting the Lord. Saul thought he was persecuting the followers of a dead rebel. But the risen Christ asks,
"... why are you persecuting me?"
@3 In attacking the church, Saul was _________________ the resurrected Lord. Acts 26:14-16 (persecuting)
At that very moment, Christ revealed a mysterious identification that He has with His church. All Christians; you, me, and every spiritually saved person everywhere, have this mystery identification by the sovereign determination of God. It’s part of the miracle of your individual salvation experience. Saul was experiencing it himself. Later, he would be the one who preached details of the revelation of this mystery to the church. In Colossians 1:18 Paul explained the mystery body-connection of Christ with the New Covenant, saying that Christ,
"18 ... is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead," Colossians 1:18
Paul goes on and makes an amazing statement
"24 ... I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church,"
Paul continues with more amazing revelation,
"25 Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me 26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His set apart ones, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Colossians 1:25-27
This is the mysterious transformation that happened to Saul the day his life was changed by the Lord. This is what happens to anyone who is saved. This is what has happened to you if you are indeed saved. This revealed mystery is that Christ is in you spiritually and covenantally as part of God’s saving work. Christ's righteousness and blessing is appropriated to you in salvation. This is why we are referred to as the body of Christ, God’s church. This is why Paul says in Colossians 3:15,
"... you were called in one body." Colossians 3:15
He says in his parallel epistle to the Ephesians in 4:4,
"There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;" Ephesians 4:4
So, when Jesus told Saul that he was persecuting the risen Christ--(rather than saying that Paul was persecuting "the church" as Luke says Paul was doing in Acts 8:3, and that he was, as Luke says, persecuting the "Lord's students" in Acts 9:1; and that he was persecuting the "Way" in Acts 9:2; and that he was persecuting those who called on Christ, in Acts 9:14; who are also referred to as those "who believed in Christ" in Acts 22:19, and are called "set apart ones" in Acts 9:13 and 26:10)--then we recognize that when people persecute Christians, they are persecuting the church, and when people persecute the church, they are persecuting the body of Christ and "Christ in you the hope of glory!"
Now all of these amazing facts are important because they help us to understand Paul’s amazing apostleship. In Acts 26:15 and 16, we hear the Lord sovereignly determining Saul's great commission where Christ said;
"... 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 'But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you,
[Remember, Paul’s spiritual salvation is tied to His ministry commission. You can not divorce the two from each other. It was God’s sovereign predestination, and accomplishment concerning the defeated goad-kicker Saul. So God orders Saul,]
“get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a servant and a witness not only to,
[A.]
"the things which you have seen,"
[pay special attention to that. And,]
[B.]
"but also to the things I will show you later;" Acts 26:15-16
Now think about what Paul had seen. The first thing that Saul had been a witness to at that moment was the blinding light of the glory of the Lord he was persecuting. Paul had also been a witness concerning his own zealousness in persecuting the way, the church, the Christians, which is the body of Christ. Paul had also been a witness of the reality of the body of Christ. Paul had also witnessed God’s sovereignty in salvation. Paul proclaimed these life altering truths the rest of his life as an apostle. The things that Paul had been shown later by the Lord are too numerous to mention. But continuing in Acts 9:7, we read that after everyone in Paul’s caravan stood back up,
"7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything." Acts 9:7
I just want to point out that religious Saul was intimidated and awestruck by the sovereign risen Lord who was manifested in His shining glory. And after this experience, Saul did what the typical religious Pharisee would do in a situation like this--he fasted. At about the same time that all of this was going on, God manifested His sovereign determination in orchestrating more miraculous events as we read on in Acts 9:10-12,
"10 In Damascus there was a student named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, 'Ananias!' 'Yes, Lord,' he answered. 11 The Lord told him, 'Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. 12 In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.'
Now verse 13,
"13 'Lord,' Ananias answered, 'I have heard many reports about this man [Saul] and all the harm he has done to your set apart ones in Jerusalem. 14 And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.' 15 But the Lord said to Ananias, 'Go!'" Acts 9:13-15
Notice how Ananias tried to argue with God. We think about Ananias, and we think,
“Man, why didn’t you just keep your mouth shut?”
“Why didn’t you just do what God told you to do in the first place?”
But I think we all have a little bit of Ananias in us. Sometimes everything looks so overwhelming in our lives that we waiver concerning God’s sovereign determination. What God wants us to do is walk by faith in His sovereignty in the midst of the doubt that keeps knocking at our door. Everything is a faith issue. It’s all about trusting God, which means trusting what? It means trusting the truth of what he says in His word which means to trust His sovereignty over life’s events. But I want us to notice something else. Immediately after commanding Ananias to "Go" against Ananias’ will, the Lord demonstrates the important principle of His electing determination again. Take notice as Jesus says in verse 15,
"This man [Paul] is the instrument I elected to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." Acts 9:15-16
When the Lord said that He elected Saul to be a tool for carrying His name, and that Saul "must" suffer, the Lord was demonstrating His predestinating sovereignty in action in recreating Saul into a Christian to be saved, but concurrently in the same plan, to also be an apostolic instrument in the hands of the Lord. What this means is that God had a predetermined plan. And then God implemented it at the ordained time. Paul recognized this principle in a stark way. Paul knew that God had preplanned this. Paul knew what we all need to know about God’s work in our lives. Paul had been taught the vital lesson which was that God knew all of it was going to happen even while Saul was lost in His sins. In fact Paul pushes it back to when he came into the world as a baby. Way back then while Paul was lost, God had already started the process. Notice how Paul asserts it in Galatians 1:15-16,
"But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb
[God is the one who set Saul apart from his mother’s womb. It was not a physician. It was not a nurse maid or a midwife. In Paul’s point, it was God who had set Paul apart even from his mother’s womb, and then Paul says,]
and called me
[which is literally to be called out--not just called--but to be called out; and Paul continues,]
through His unmerited favor,
[Why? Because it is all a pure grace action according to God’s sovereign determination--that’s why. And Paul continues the point,]
was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles,
[Right there is the regeneration in which Christ is in Paul as Paul’s hope of glory, and it is also the same glory that Paul preached among the Gentiles. It was all a spiritually enacted and accomplished process, so therefor Paul says,]
I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood," Galatians 1:15-16
The point is that Paul knew that there was an appointed time that God was pleased to reveal His Son in Paul as the hope of glory. On the road to Damascus is where God's sovereign predetermination for Paul came to light. God sovereignly called Paul out from the lost world and set Paul apart in Christ Jesus. God adopted Paul to be His son as a joint heir with Christ. And this is the way it is with all of us whom God saves. God was sovereign in the whole process of your initial salvation, and His sovereignty continues as you serve Him, and it continues in your security in His Son, which leads to the last principle.
/3/
The last principle concerning the security of recognizing God’s sovereign hand in my life from the introduction to 2 Corinthians, is that in salvation, God adopts us to be His children in Christ. This makes us into the true family of God. This adoption takes place as God miraculously and effectually calls people out from the lostness of the world and sets them apart in Christ Jesus to be part of all He gathers together as His family. Notice the terms that Paul uses for the Christians he is writing to,
“1 Paul, ... and Timothy our brother,
[This is our family language. Timothy is your brother too. All of us who are in Christ, are the true spiritual family of God. Certainly everyone in the world is originated from God. In that sense, God is like the fathering-creator of physical humanity starting with Adam, the first man. But everyone is born spiritually dead and lost in sin because of that same Adam. In this state, everyone is estranged from God like wayward children. To be reconciled with God, there must be a spiritual change. There must be a spiritual regeneration. It is not in the flesh. It is in the Spirit. In this spiritual regeneration, there is reconciliation with God in which adoption takes place. It is as Paul says in Romans 8:15,
“8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, [that right there is the hope of glory] though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies [bodies which die] through His Spirit who dwells in you. ...
@4 Christ is in all spiritually saved people in which their bodies are dead, but their spirits are _______________ because of the righteousness of Christ. Romans 8:10 (alive)
15 ... you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ,” Romans 8:15-17
This is a sovereign action that God predestined according to Ephesians 1:5,
“5 He [God] predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His determination” Ephesians 1:5
@5 God _________________ us spiritually saved people to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His determination. Ephesians 1:5 (predestined)
Notice that God determined to do this through Jesus Christ. This is the only way to be reconciled to God; and it is security. Your eternal security is seen in the fact that in adoption, God came to you and rescued you with the plan of never disowning you. He is the one who sought you out in the great orphanage of humanity. He is the one who regenerated you into His family. He put His own Spirit within you and makes you a fellow heir with the firstborn Son, Christ Jesus. In Him, because He is the true Son of God, whether you are male or female, you are recognized as a true Son of God too. He is your life, and He gives you a new identity in the family of God. Then Paul says,]
To the church of God which is at Corinth
[The church of God is His called out and gathered ones. This is what the word, church (ekklesia in Greek) means in respect to its semantic development and use by Paul to describe the expansive body of Christ. It means the same thing in respect to local biblically defined fellowships of believers. This is what we are here now. We are Christ’s church; and you are a part of it. Theologically, the New Testament writers used the word to refer to all who are called out and gathered in the Lord by the Lord. The called out and gathered ones are those whom God called out from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of His dear Son There is security in this. Think about being called out of lostness to be saved. This is what God did with Paul. This is what God does with you and me, and all who embrace Christ Jesus by grace through faith. In respect to gathering all Christians, God gathers every single one of His adopted children together into the kingdom of His dear Son, Colossians 1:13. His kingdom is where we have our spiritual citizenship. This is salvation. At the local level, whenever Christians gather as the church fellowship, they manifest their spiritual unity of their familyness and commonality in the Spirit. We manifest that we are all Kingdom people of a heavenly kingdom as we pass through this world together. We gather together as the body of Christ which is His church that has come out of the world. In doing so, we build one another up in fellowship, faith, and encouragement from the word. We practice our gifts together and grow together as a local church body. We send out missionaries and ministers to spread God’s word throughout the world. This happens from generation to generation, and we are part of it, and it is security. Then notice that Paul says,]
with all the set apart ones [saints] who are throughout Achaia:” 2 Corinthians 1:1-2
The word saint means one who is set apart. The New Testament writers used the word to describe all who are made holy, sanctified, sacred, or consecrated by God in His separating work. Whenever you think of yourself in Christ, you should think,
“I am a sanctified one.”
“I am holy.”
“Right now I am set apart.”
“I have been set apart by God in Christ.”
“I am the righteousness of God in Him.”
“I am a member of the body of Christ--designed and ordained to be that way.”
And it is all God’s work by His Spirit. Because of this work of God, you are enabled to work for God. In other words, you are able to set yourself apart from all ungodliness. This is important because we do not set ourselves apart by our own power. You did not set yourself apart to God in becoming saved. We do not set ourselves apart to maintain keeping our salvation secure. And after spiritual regeneration, we do not set ourselves apart from the world by our own strength either. We set ourselves apart because we were set apart already. It is our security. In other words, you were set apart in Christ who is your peace, Ephesians 2:14. He is your Sabbath rest according to Hebrews 4:3, Matthew 11:28-29, 5:17. So we must rest in the security of being separated in Him while we run for Christ in separating ourselves from ungodliness in the daily marathon of Christian living. Part of the resting as we run means that we need to embrace our security by recognizing God’s sovereign hand in our life from the introduction to 2 Corinthians and throughout the rest of God’s word.
Let’s recap all we covered; We have been looking at the introduction to 2 Corinthians to glean principles concerning the security of recognizing God’s sovereign hand in our lives. We saw that Paul wrote four letters to Corinth which are mentioned in the historic record. The second letter was 1 Corinthians. Then Paul wrote a third letter in tears out of sorrow at the state of affairs the he discovered in Corinth--especially in respect to one particular trouble maker. Finally Paul wrote 2 Corinthians. God sovereignly determined to preserve it as holy Scripture. Then we also examined Paul’s conversion. We looked into Paul’s statement of being an apostle of Jesus Christ solely by the determination of God. The revelation that God sovereignly determined to induct Paul into ministry is a principle expression of the fact that God sovereignly recreates people in salvation while concurrently, creating them to be His servants to serve Christ the Lord. This brings a whole new depth to the recognition that Christ Jesus is both Savior and Lord as His inherent state of being for the elect. In all of this, God gifts and empowers each of us to accomplish the task He has for us. Finally I encourage you to be mindful of the fact that there is God-ordained security in recognizing His sovereign hand in your life. There is God ordained security in adopting us to be His children in Christ. It makes us into the true family of God. The adoption process is a miracle process. God is the one who gathered you from out of the world to be His child. God effectually calls us out from the lostness of the world. God set you apart in Christ Jesus to be part of all He gathers together as His family.
@1 All Scripture is _________________ by God by men ______________ by the Holy Spirit. 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21 (inspired, moved)
@2 The apostles spoke God’s wisdom which was taught by the ____________. 1 Corinthians 2:12-13 (Spirit)
@3 In attacking the church, Saul was _________________ the resurrected Lord. Acts 26:14-16 (persecuting)
@4 Christ is in all spiritually saved people in which their bodies are dead, but their spirits are _______________ because of the righteousness of Christ. Romans 8:10 (alive)
@5 God _________________ us spiritually saved people to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His determination. Ephesians 1:5 (predestined)
