The Thing About This Series

The Thing About "This": 2 Corinthians 4:15 (6-15)

I want us to take a look at our theme verse and see if we can find the key word to unlocking the meaning and power in it tonight.

I hope to be brief.

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

What a tremendous verse. It got me to thinking. That's getting harder to do, it seems.

What is the biggest word in the Bible.

Look at Isaiah 8:1: "Then the LORD said to me, "Take a large tablet and write on it in common characters, 'Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.' "

18 letters. That has to be a contender.

Look at Psalms 56:1, it begins with: "To the choirmaster: according to The Dove on Far-off Terebinths.

Some of your translations say "To the chief Musician upon Jonath-elem-recho-kim", another 18 letter word.

I believe I can find a bigger word. But apparently there are some who do not agree with me.

"if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. " 2 Chronicles 7:14.

One writer said, ""IF" is the biggest word God uses to remind all of us that our futures are not written in stone, that our daily choices mean everything when it comes to shaping our lives."

Another wrote "The word “If” in the bible is a huge and powerful word that singlehandedly ruins our ability to put God in a box. It’s a word that gives a dimension of infinite depth and limitless possibilities to the word of God and the applications of scripture."

He goes on to say, " “If” imparts power. The bible is the very word of God. The word brings life. I can bring life by letting His word find a home in me and be spoken from my lips. “If” empowers me to shape history."

I think you get the point. I just think there is a bigger two letter word.

I understand there are 1522 "ifs" in the Bible. But most of those "Ifs" are man-ward.

I have found a bigger two-letter word that is more God-ward.

John 3:16. How much does God love the world? How much does He love us?

I think I can demonstrate that the word "so" is immeasurable, without end, so no word can be bigger.

About now you are wondering if I chose to read the text and then just preach what I wanted to anyway.

Actually, look at the text.

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

Not the biggest, not the most important, but what is the key word to this verse?

Because of the weight of words, our eyes are drawn to the word "grace".

We understand that grace is immeasurable and limitless..

Ephesians 2:7 talks about the "unmeasurable riches of His grace."

And then our eyes go to the "glory of God."

There is nothing to compete with that. We know it is immeasurable.

If anythings are larger than creation, as big as God Himself, they are His love, grace and glory.

However, because of grammatical construction of this verse, the key to understanding is the word "It".

King James translate the Greek word "pas" as "These things". NIV translates it as "this".

Whatever "It", or "this" is, it points to something previously said.

Whatever "This" is, it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

Let's take a few minutes to look at the big thing about what "this" is.

To do that, we will back up in the passage and draw some lessons from it.

2Co 4:6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

In refuting claims of using underhanded and deceptive practices, Paul was saying those are not needed when you are operating under the light of God.

He draws back to an Old Testament picture passage of Gideon and his small army.

You will remember, that is the passage that teaches us, it is not the size of our army, but the power of God that wins the battle.

In Judges 7, God whittled the Israelite army from 32,000 to 300.