Second Corinthians chapter nine is the portion of God's word that we read this evening. Second Corinthians chapter nine. The text for the sermon tonight is the brief 15th verse, the last verse of the chapter. This is God's word in second Corinthians chapter nine. For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you. For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago, and your zeal hath provoked very many. Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf, that, as I said, ye may be ready. Lest haply, if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we, that we say not ye, should be ashamed in this same confident boasting. Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren that they would go before unto you and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had noticed before that the same might be ready as a matter of bounty and not as of covetousness. But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound towards you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. As it is written, he hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor, his righteousness remaineth forever. Now he that ministereth seed to the sower, both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness, being enriched in everything to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God. For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God. Whilst by the experiment of this ministration, they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution unto them and unto all men. And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. May God bless the reading of His word to us this evening. As I said, I call your attention to this last verse in 2 Corinthians chapter 9. This is God's word to us tonight that we hear proclaimed. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, every single day, you and I are the recipients of the greatest gift that could ever be given. Every single day, as you and I by faith believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God declares to our consciences and souls that we are forgiven on the basis of the blood of Jesus Christ. Every single day as we live by faith in Jesus Christ, God works in our life the gift of our sanctification, so that we walk truly a thankful, obedient life before Him. Every single week, we spend time right here where we are tonight in the house of God, where we hear with our ears and we believe with our hearts the glorious gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. And every single day until that final day, when God is pleased to take us home to glory, we are the recipients of that same great gift. Tonight we consider that gift, the gift of Jesus Christ and our salvation in Him, the gift as it is described in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 15 as the unspeakable gift. That's the main idea of the text that we consider tonight, the unspeakable gift. And I call your attention to just two points in the sermon this evening. Let's consider in the first place the meaning of that. And then in the second place, let's consider the response that we have to being the recipients of that unspeakable gift. The unspeakable gift, the meaning, and then the response. In 2 Corinthians 9, the Apostle Paul is instructing the church in Corinth concerning the main subject of giving, the giving of physical gifts to those who have needs in the church of Jesus Christ. At the beginning of 2 Corinthians 9, the apostle commends the church for their faithfulness in this respect. They were, in fact, a church that demonstrated themselves to be godly in this part of their lives. They gave, and they gave willingly. Paul goes on in 2 Corinthians 9 to further exhort the church in this respect. And that shouldn't surprise us. Even in the areas of our lives in which we are walking faithfully, we still need to hear the exhortations from God to continue in the way in which we are walking. That's why we hear every Sunday, no matter how we are living, the Ten Commandments read to us in the morning. And then the Apostle Paul goes on in 2 Corinthians 9 to further instruct the church in this subject of giving. There's some very classic passages in 2 Corinthians 9 regarding the subject of giving. One that's very familiar to us is verse 7. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. The entire chapter is dedicated to a treatment of the subject of the giving of physical gifts to others in the church. And then Paul comes to the 15th verse in the chapter and he does something very striking. After spending 14 verses focusing on us, focusing on our lives in relationship to one another, in relationship to other churches of Jesus Christ, He comes to the 15th verse, and He, as it were, puts His hand underneath the chin of the readers of the epistle, and He lifts it up. And He directs those who are reading the epistle to take their eyes off of each other, to take their eyes off of themselves, and direct their eyes up to God. And He does that by means of this very brief but very profound doxology. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift. We're going to come back later in the sermon to the context of 2 Corinthians 9, what I just briefly described. But now, let's do what I just said. Let's set our eyes upon God. as he is revealed to us in his work in this text. The main point of the text is that the gift that we receive from God is unspeakable. But before we get to that main idea of it being unspeakable, I want to make four points regarding some particulars regarding other aspects of the text. In the first place, let's take note of a very striking point and that is the fact that the Apostle Paul does not identify explicitly what is the content of the gift of 2 Corinthians 9.15. That's striking. You can read before verse 15 and you're not going to find anything. You can go to chapter 10. And he doesn't say at the end of chapter 9, thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift. And then go to chapter 10 and say, now let me explain to you what this unspeakable gift is. He assumes that the readers of his epistle know the content of the unspeakable gift. And that the church throughout the ages Having received this as the inspired word of God, know what the unspeakable gift is. And by the grace of God tonight, we do too. We know the content of this gift, not because we are of a superior intellect to other Christians, We know the content of this unspeakable gift not because there is some renowned interpreter of the Bible who has the ability to unlock the very hard passages in the Word of God. We know the content of this gift. Because our eyes have been opened. Our ears have been opened. Our eyes have been illuminated. So that when we read v. 15 of 2 Corinthians 9, in the context of understanding what all of the Scriptures are about, we know what this gift is. The gift of v. 15 in this chapter, very simply, beloved, is the gift of Jesus Christ. and the gift of the life that we have with God as it is found in the person and in the work of Jesus. That's the gift described in the text as unspeakable. In the second place, take note in the text that This is a gift. Let's focus on that word gift for a little bit. In that word gift, you really have encapsulated the entirety of the manner with which God works with His people. The words associated with the gospel of Jesus Christ are free, gracious, unmerited, unearned, undeserved. That is to say, a gift. And this stands in contrast to what Paul describes in Galatians as another gospel. A false gospel. And all of the false gospels have this in common, that they use words that are antithetical to the words that I just described to explain what we receive from God. It's earned. It's merited. It's deserved. What Paul says in this text is that what we receive from God is a gift. And in fact, the word used in the text itself emphasizes the free nature of what God gives to us. It's a word that's used in other places in the New Testament to describe other aspects of the gift that we receive from God, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of righteousness, But there are a couple of passages that emphasize the free nature of what God does for us. For example, Romans 5 verse 15 is one of those passages. Just listen carefully to me read this. But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many." It's a free gift. That's what a gift is by virtue of it being a gift. It's free and unmerited. What's also very interesting is that this word translated gift in our text is sometimes used as an adverb. And when it's used as an adverb it's used In such a way that it's translated freely, emphasizing the free nature of what God gives to us. Romans 3.24 is an example of that. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And beloved, it can't be any other way. If we are to receive anything from the hand of God, it can be nothing other than a gift. That's true very simply because we are creatures. And God is a Creator. We can very quickly get on to the fact that we're sinners, and I'm going to say something about that in a moment. But even before that, there's even a more basic reason that if we are to receive anything from the hand of God, it has to be a nature of a gift. Here we are, finite creatures of the dust. The only reason we are here is because there is a sovereign, eternal Creator who determined that He would create us. And as we stand here as creatures, if we are to ever receive anything from the hand of God, we can do nothing by virtue of being creatures to deserve it, to merit it, to earn it from the hand of God. If He gives us anything, it has to be a gift, simply. Because of the fact that we are creatures. And then on top of that, we add that fact that we all know so well, and that is that we are sinners. And that just one sin committed against God makes us worthy of eternal death and damnation. How are we going to receive anything from the hand of God? It is only because He gives it to us freely, graciously, undeserved. That is, He grants to us a gift. In the third place, take note of the fact that Paul in the text emphasizes the source of this gift. Whose gift it is. He says that in two ways in the text. Thanks be unto, number one, God. For, number two, His unspeakable gift. Obviously, we know this to be the case. That our reception of Jesus Christ and the life that we have with Him comes from the hand of God alone. I think there's something very important implied in this part of the text. And that is the fact that the Apostle Paul says these words as one who himself knows this God. And as one who himself has received this gift. And he's writing to a church who knows this God and who has received this gift. So that we're not talking tonight in the terms of the hypothetical or the abstract. And when we get to the real and tangible, we're not talking tonight about what is true for someone outside of these walls at a different location tonight. We're talking tonight about what is true for us. that when we take on our lips these words, thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift, we say them to the very God whom we know, the God with whom we have a relationship, the God who has given to us so that we know it and experience it, the gift of which the text speaks. It's from the hand of God. The praise is directed to God, because we know the God who gives us this gift. And then in the fourth place, take note of the fact that in the text, he identifies the gift as a gift in the singular. It's not, thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gifts, but it's thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift. Now it certainly is the case that in the scriptures the Bible talks about gifts in the plural. And that's certainly a proper way to talk about what we receive from the hand of God. We receive many gifts from the hand of God. But by using the singular in this particular text, Paul is emphasizing a particular aspect of the gift that we receive from God. And what he's emphasizing is the fact that there is a unity to it. That there is a central, unified way in which we are able to think about the gift. To use an illustration, we can think about this in terms of a diamond. A man gives a woman a diamond. An engagement ring. A wedding ring. And that diamond is one. That diamond is a gift. is beautiful. The diamond as a whole radiates, shines, and is glorious. But as we know with a diamond, a diamond is multifaceted. And each of those facets of the diamond in and of themselves is bright, beautiful, and radiating. But then when you put each of the facets together to make the one whole diamond, they each in their own way contribute to the beauty of the whole diamond itself. And that's a good way to think about the gift that we receive from God. It's one. It's unified. It's Christ and our life with Him. But then there's so many facets that make up that one diamond. You can look at Jesus Himself and see who He is and what He has done. His incarnation. His cross. His resurrection. His ascension. His sitting at God's right hand. You can look at all of the blessings that He gives us as each of a facet of the diamond. Our regeneration. Calling. Faith. Justification. Sanctification. Preservation. And our future glorification. Pull out one facet, study it, and see its glory and beauty. But then plug it into the diamond as a whole and it adds to the glory and the shining radiance of the whole thing. We have a gift. It's one. With many facets that make up the glory of what God has given to us. Those four points are particulars of the text that we can draw out. But this leads us to what is the main point of the text. What is it that sets this text apart from other texts that talk about the gift we receive from God? It is the fact that he describes in the passage the gift as unspeakable. One of the difficulties in interpreting this passage is the fact that this is the only place in the New Testament scriptures where the word translated unspeakable is found. That makes it difficult because one of the principles by which we interpret the Bible is to compare and contrast the different places a particular word is used. So you see how a word is used in this context, and in this context, and in this context, and from that together you pull out the main ideas of the word itself. You can't do that with a word like this because it's the only place that it's found in the New Testament. That doesn't mean that we can't interpret it and explain it. The fact is that the interpretation or rather the translation found in our text is a very good one. Unspeakable. Synonyms that we could use are indescribable or inexpressible. The idea of the gift being unspeakable is that so great, so deep, so profound, is the gift that we receive from God in Jesus Christ that we cannot with our human finite minds and human finite words be able to explain and grasp the wonder of it all. The idea is not that we cannot talk about or speak about the gift of Jesus Christ. We can, and not only can we, we must. I'm a preacher of the gospel. I must speak about the gift of God in Jesus Christ. You as Christians are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. You are witnesses of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You must take on your lips the words of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Look at all the children here and the young people here. They need to hear out of our mouths as adults, as a preacher, parents, and office bearers, the words concerning Jesus Christ. The idea is not that we cannot or must not speak about the gift of Jesus. That would be absolutely true if God did not give us the Scriptures. If God did not reveal Christ to us in the 66 books of the Bible, the 1,189 chapters of the Scriptures in which Christ is found in every chapter. If He did not give that to us, then it would be impossible for man to speak about the gift of Christ. But He has revealed Himself to us so that we most definitely can and we most definitely must talk about this gift. The idea, rather, is that it's so amazing, so profound, and so deep that we cannot with our human finite minds fully grasp the wonder of it all. To use an illustration, it's like the sea that has no shore, and the sea that has no bottom. You start diving down, and you just keep going, and going, and going, and going, and you'll never get to the end. Or you start swimming, and you just keep swimming, and swimming, and swimming, and swimming, and you'll never get to the shore. And this is why for 2,000 years since the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, God has called preachers to mine out of the Scriptures old things and new. This is why for 2,000 years, God calls a church that can meditate upon the things of God's Word and pull out of the Scriptures the glorious riches of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and never get to the point where you say, That's enough. I'm done. I've fully exhausted my understanding of Jesus Christ and my life with Him. There's nothing, beloved, In all of the world that is like that. Take any other subject and you can study it your whole life, and at some point you would say, it's done. I'm done studying it. I don't need to study it anymore. I get it. But no Christian comes to a point in their life where they say, put the Bible away. No need to come to church anymore. I got it. And I got it fully. And I got it completely. It's finished. struck me again just this morning. I preached Lord's Day 52 of the Heidelberg Catechism. And now I'm relatively young, so this is only my third and a half time through the Heidelberg Catechism. So that next week Sunday, start again, Lord's Day 1. And I'm reflecting on that and thinking, okay, here we go again. Plumb the depths of the Heidelberg Catechism and the Scriptures that it's based on. And then I think about the older saints in the church who sat through not just Heidelberg Catechism preaching, but all preaching for 50, 60, 70, 80 years. And you come to church every Sunday, and you see anew the riches of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Absolutely astounding. when you consider the nature of this gift. But beloved, that's not even the most complete statement of the truth. It's not just looking back 2,000 years, and let's say he continues to call a church and preachers for another 1,000 years, hypothetically speaking, before he returns, not making any claims there, but just hypothetically he continues to do this, pull old things and new out of the Scriptures. That's not even complete. Beloved, think about eternity. Think about the nature of eternity. The wonder of eternity, in part, will be that we never, so to speak, get bored with what we are doing in heaven and in the new creation. We don't become omniscient in heaven. We don't all of a sudden know everything in heaven, we're still finite. And part of the glory of heaven is that we will have revealed to us throughout all of eternity, more and more, in a deeper and more profound and rich way, what we see in the face of Jesus Christ, which is the glorious God and our life with Him in heaven. We'll never get to the point where we say, I've had enough of what we're doing here in heaven. But into all eternity, so rich and so deep and so amazing is the gospel, that eternity will not exhaust the wonder of it all. It's amazing. Not so long ago, I preached a series of sermons on the attributes of God. topical series on each of the attributes of God. And I understand fully that when one preaches, it's always doing what Isaiah said, behold your God. But there's something about the attributes of God that I was struck with. You pull out a text that teaches a particular attribute, You write a sermon on that text, you preach that sermon, you hear that sermon with the people of God and you walk away and you think about that and you say with respect to it, when you really ponder it, we just scratched the surface. As that attribute is revealed to us in the scriptures and in the Lord Jesus Christ. In a certain sense, you put up your hands and you say, what do you say in response to this truth? And one of the things that you can say is exactly what the Apostle Paul said in a couple of passages in the Word of God. One of them is Romans 11, verse 33. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments! and his ways past finding out. Or Ephesians 3, verse 8, Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. It doesn't take very long to understand that this is the nature of what we have with God in Christ. Consider with me just a few of the facets of the diamond of Christ and our life with Him. Consider the love of God, that in eternity, the triune, eternal, sovereign, glorious God of heaven and earth, determined to set His love on me. And each of us say that personally. Me. A finite speck of dust and a sinner beside. Me. God in eternity said, I love, I love with a profound saving love in Jesus. this man, this woman, to make up this body that is the church. Ponder the love of God and you say after you ponder it, I cannot with words fully describe the wonder of God's love. Consider the incarnation of Jesus. That the second person of the Trinity for all of eternity enjoyed perfect, sweet fellowship with the Father through the Holy Spirit. And that second person of the Trinity, out of love for His bride, emptied Himself and became a man. And He did so by means of the Holy Spirit conceiving Him in the womb of a virgin. so that He comes forth from the Virgin just like you and just like me, and doesn't just come forth as a man, but He comes forth as a man with your sin and your guilt upon His shoulders, taking that to the cross of Calvary. Ponder the Incarnation, and you say in response to that, I cannot with words fully describe the depth and the wonder of it all. Consider the cross. Ponder the cross. That that Lord Jesus Christ for three hours endured the essence of hell itself. The wrath of God for the sins not just of one man, but for His entire bride chosen in eternity. Endured it in such a way that he truly cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But endured it in such a way that he cried out after that, It is finished. So that compressed in those three hours of darkness, sustained by his divine nature, but suffering in his human nature, because he had to be a man just like us. He fully satisfied the justice and wrath of God. You ponder the cross and you say in response to it, I cannot with words fully describe the wonder of what happened on Calvary. And then go to the tomb and remember that He was a man just like us. That that body that hung on that cross and that was taken off that cross was a body just like yours and a body just like mine. So that when He was brought to that tomb, He was brought there in the exact same way that we see our loved ones in the caskets being brought to the graveyards. We see those dead bodies. And we place them in the grave in the exact same way that the dead body of Jesus was placed in that tomb. But that dead body, just like all of the dead bodies of our loved ones, which we have placed in the grave, that very same body. by the power of Himself as the Son of God and His Father in heaven, arose and didn't just come back to life, but came back with a glorified, resurrected life. Think about it. Ponder it. Meditate upon it. And you understand the unspeakable nature of that facet of the diamond, which is the gift of Christ. You see what I'm doing here. I can keep going and going and going with every aspect of that diamond and do the exact same thing. Let me do it just two more times. Consider right now the work of our salvation in light of God reigning through all things through the Lord Jesus Christ as He sits at God's right hand. By faith we believe that tonight. We believe that in heaven right now is Jesus. He sits at God's right hand so that through Christ, Christ is reigning and ruling and directing all things in this world. Think big picture. Everything that you read about in the news. All of the events of our government. All of the natural disasters. All of the relationship between nations and wars and rumors of wars. All of that. Sovereignly, perfectly, for the good of the church, is directed by the hand of King Jesus. And then think about your life. Last week. Every little detail. Even the hair that falls to the ground from our heads. Think about this week. Everything that's going to take place. When it's done, you can say, that was King Jesus ruling over my life. And not just ruling randomly, but ruling in such a way that He's shaping, He's directing, He's molding for that time when His time for Him to bring us home comes. And we take our place in the Father's house of many mansions. I can't, with words, fully describe the wonder of that part of our salvation. And then think of what's to come. And here is where it really rings true. That one day Jesus will come from the clouds of glory, miraculously so all men will see Him. Go to all the graves and by that same power of His Word that brought all things into existence and worked life in our hearts, He'll bring forth our dead bodies into a resurrected body. Execute the final judgment so that every man, woman, and child will get on their knees and say, Jesus is Lord. and then not start over because that's not what Christ does. He redeems and He renews. He takes this present earth and by means of fire renews it into a glorious new heaven and new earth. A place where there will be no more sin, no more suffering, no more pain, no more death, no more sorrow. Ponder. what is to come, and you say with respect to it, it's unspeakable. When we understand that this is the nature of what God does for us, we must respond in a certain way. Before I explain what that response is, I want to make one point that I think is very important in this respect. One point that we need to be on guard against in our lives. And especially for the young people. We as Christians must never let our familiarity with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the doctrines of grace to lead us to a point in our lives where we lose a sense of the wonder, the amazing nature of what God does for us. I think that's a temptation for all Christians. Certainly that's a temptation for us. We know well the doctrines of grace. We know well the truth of the Gospel. We've been born and raised, many and most of us, in the church of Jesus Christ so that we've never experienced anything but life in the church. And you go on in your life losing a sense of just how amazing and wondrous this all is. Especially for you young people, listen up. Do you understand As a 14-year-old, a 15-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old, do you understand how amazing it is right now that you're here at 10 after 6 on a Sunday night, here in the house of God, and not out there where you deserve to be, and I deserve to be. And out there, I mean outside of the church of Jesus Christ, do you understand how astounding it is that God in His grace has saved you from what you deserve, which is what we all deserve, and that is death and damnation, so that here you are, as a 14-year-old, a 15-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old, going all the way up for all of us in the church, 70, 80 years old, in the church of Jesus Christ. Let us not ever let our familiarity with the doctrines of grace and the gospel of Jesus Christ lead us to not understand and grasp just how amazing it is. And we won't. When every single day we wake up and we say with the Apostle Paul, Oh wretched man that I am. We won't. When every single day we say with the Apostle Paul, I am the chief of sinners. We won't. When every single day we wake up and say in the morning what the publican said in the temple, God be merciful to me. Not a, but the sinner. What keeps us and keeps our minds in such a way that we're enthralled day by day with the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ? It's to wake up every single day and know that I, on account of one sin, that I've already committed since I've been waking up. One sin makes me worthy of eternal death and damnation. But that God has forgiven me of all of my sins and given me the hope of life everlasting. And beloved, very deliberately I say, in the morning. There's a reason the psalmist says, in the morning, noon, and evening I pray unto Thee. There's a reason that we start our day with God. Because when we start our day with God on our knees, either figuratively or literally, and bring to God the greatness of our sin which drives us to Jesus Christ, we have at the beginning of the day, the great Gospel staring us in the face. So that we go throughout our day conscious of how we started it. conscious of who this God is and the amazing grace that He has bestowed upon us in the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we guard against that danger? It's to know every day the greatness of our sin and misery. Not just to say it. It's so easy to just say it. But truly to know it in such a way that it drives us to Jesus. and having received the grace of God and Jesus daily, to go forth living in the consciousness of the wonder of the Gospel of Jesus. Then, then in our lives we will respond. We will respond by our lips, and we will respond by our lives. Let's not lose sight of the form of the text. The form of the text is a doxology. Paul, in the text, is extolling God. Thanks be unto Him for His unspeakable gift. By saying those words, that is the expression of praise and devotion to God. You haven't said these words tonight. I have. As the one called by God to preach the Gospel to you, I trust that in your hearts tonight you've been saying the words of this doxology. And let this particular word shape your words that you offer to God in this week. Let this particular word shape the prayers that you make to God so that you actually take on your lips these words in devotion and praise to God. Our lips respond to this unspeakable gift with words of praise all our life long. We offer to God by our lips praises to His name. I just preached this morning, Lord's Day 52, the last two questions and answers, which are a treatment of the doxology of the Lord's Prayer. And that's what that's all about in the Lord's Prayer. It's not just a ground for our confidence that everything we pray, God will hear and according to His will, will answer. But that doxology is the expression of praise to God for everything He is and everything He has done for us. And I think very quickly at times we can forget that in our prayers. So focused on ourselves and what we need. And rightfully so, we bring all of our needs before God. But let us in our lips, in our praise, in our prayers, in our songs, in our homes, in our private, our family, our public worship, understanding the unspeakable gift, praise and worship God. With our lips, we respond in praise, but also with our lives. And here, Literally, you can take the application a hundred different ways, but let's let the context determine just one application for us tonight. As I said at the beginning of the sermon, the context in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 is all about giving. It's all about the giving of physical gifts to those who have needs in the church of Jesus Christ. And Paul does something very interesting at the end. He spends 14 verses talking about that main subject. And then without any distinct connection, he simply says the words of verse 15, our text, now thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. He doesn't lay out explicitly what the relationship is. But we can very quickly and easily determine what that relationship is. Why would the apostle spend 14 verses talking about our calling to give to those who have needs in the church of Jesus Christ, and then end that with this doxology that addresses what God has given to us? The relationship is clear. Paul knows that by directing the eyes of those who are reading this epistle by putting his hand underneath their chins and directing them up to see the unspeakable gift God has given to them. That that knowledge of the unspeakable gift that they have received is going to radically affect how they then give gifts to those who have needs in the church of Jesus Christ. Very practically, beloved, the point is this, as you consider the needs in the church, benevolent fund, general fund for the ministry of the gospel, and I think we can rightfully broaden this out to all of the needs that are present in the church of Jesus Christ and the causes of God's kingdom, as you think about those, what do you look at first? What you look at first is not my bank account. What you look at first is not my assets. What you look at first is not even the causes to which you must be giving. What you look at first is Christ. What you look at first is the amazing gift that God has given to us in Jesus. so that we see Christ and the wonder of our salvation in Christ and we peer through the cross to the bank account and to the assets and to the needs so that we look at all of those and with sanctified wisdom determine how we are going to give not independent from the cross but as we see it through the cross for then That shapes everything. Then when I understand what God has done for me, I want to give. Then when I understand the greatness of the gift in Jesus, I don't only want to give, but I want to give freely and liberally. Then, I give out of my love for God. That's the application tonight. And I'm not going to take it any further than that. I trust that the Holy Spirit will work in your hearts as you ponder this personally. And with sanctified wisdom, determine what this means for you personally in your life of giving as you respond to being a recipient of the unspeakable gift. It's even more beautiful than that. Because not only is God praised in that giving, That's the expression of our praise to Him in response. But He's also praised in the receiving. I'm not going to explain this in detail, but just look at verses 11-13. Being enriched in everything to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God. For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgiving unto God. whilst by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution unto them and unto all men." They glorify God. for their liberal distribution to them. The point is, not only is God praised in the giving, but in the receiving as well. And that's instructive for us tonight too. Some may be on the receiving end, and that is okay. God has a diaconate in the church. God has loving saints in the church that give to those who have needs. There are those who have needs and that's okay. Not only is that okay, that's right. According to the plan of God so that this might be true. So that those in the church always have the opportunity to give in response to receiving the unspeakable gift. And so that those in the church always have the opportunity to receive. And to receive in the right way. Not with bitterness. Not with shame. But to receive in the right way. Receiving those gifts as you see them come through the cross of Jesus Christ. What will keep us? from feeling ashamed that this is my lot in life, from being frustrated that this is my lot in life and that I must receive from the hand of others. It's the exact same thing that keeps the other side from giving in the wrong way. You see it all in light of the unspeakable gift of Jesus Christ. Then God is glorified, both in the giving and in the receiving. People of God, every day, every week, until the very end of our lives when God takes us home, we are the recipients of this greatest gift ever. We only scratch the surface to understand it. May God work in our hearts tonight an understanding of just how amazing it is And may our understanding of just how amazing it is be reflected very clearly in the lives that we live in this week. So that with our lips, we praise God. And in our lives, we praise Him too. Amen. Our Father which art in heaven, we thank Thee for the gospel of Jesus Christ. What a glorious gospel it is. Thou art good to us, undeserved, And we pray that thy spirit may penetrate deeply into our hearts this evening so that we believe the word which was preached and so that we live rightly in response to it. Dismiss us in this evening with thy blessing and care for us in this week to come. For Jesus' sake, amen. Let's do the very thing that I just concluded with and that is a doxology with our lips by singing to God. Let's sing Psalter number 305. Psalter number 305. Let's sing Let's sing all six stanzas, all six of 305. and blessings all their days shall fill. The Holy Ghost shall bless his home, his righteousness His heart is steadfast on this way, for he shall see We'll save New York! The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide with you all. Amen.