Introduction:
A. The story is told of a groom who approached the minister during the wedding rehearsal with an unusual offer.
1. “Look,” the groom said, “I'll give you $100 if you'll change the wedding vows. When you get to the part where I'm supposed to promise to 'love, honor and be faithful to her forever,' I'd appreciate it if you'd just leave that out.”
2. He passed the minister a $100 bill and walked away satisfied.
3. The next day, in the middle of the wedding ceremony, when it came time for the groom's vows, the preacher looked the young man in the eye and said: “Will you promise to obey her every command, serve her breakfast in bed every morning, and swear eternally before God and your lovely wife that you will not ever even look at another woman, as long as you both shall live?”
4. The groom gulped and looked around, and said in a tiny voice, “Yes,” then leaned toward the minister and hissed: “I thought we had an agreement.”
5. The minister slipped $100 bill into the groom's hand and whispered: “Your bride made me a better offer.”
B. Promises, promises, promises – so easy to make, so hard to keep.
1. We hear promises all the time…
a. “I’m not trying to sell you anything.”
b. “With our product, you will lose 20 pounds in 20 days.”
c. “This will only take a moment of your time.”
d. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
e. “There is no risk or obligation.”
f. “If I’m elected, I promise to…”
g. “Read my lips…no new taxes!”
C. Whether it be politics, business, sports or ministry, it seems that at every turn our trust is not merely being violated, it is being shattered.
1. We are becoming conditioned to disbelieve everything and everybody.
2. We are becoming so skeptical and jaded.
3. Is there anyone who is trustworthy? Is there anyone who will keep his or her word?
4. Sometimes, we wonder.
D. In our text this morning from 2 Corinthians, we see Paul trying to repair his relationship with the Corinthians.
1. We see him addressing some of the accusations about him and his ministry.
2. But in the end, we see Paul pointing the Corinthians attention toward God and toward the trustworthiness of God’s promises.
3. So let’s work our way through today’s text and learn the lessons God would want us to apply to ourselves.
I. Understanding the Word
A. Look again at 2 Corinthians 1:12-14: Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God's grace. 13For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, 14as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.
1. In these verses, we begin to catch the undertones of the accusations that the Corinthians were leveling against Paul.
2. They must have been saying that there was more in Paul’s conduct than met the eye.
3. Paul’s answer to that was that he had lived with holiness.
4. Paul declared that there were no hidden actions in his life and that his conscience was clear.
5. We might well add a new beatitude to the our list – “Blessed is the person who has nothing to hide.”
6. The word that Paul used for “holiness” described something which can bear the test of being held up to the light of the sun and the heat of the sun.
7. Paul believed that he had conducted himself in the world and in relation to them in a way that could stand up under intense scrutiny.
B. There must also have been those who were attributing hidden motives to Paul.
1. His answer was that his whole conduct was directed by sincerity and according to God’s grace.
2. There were no hidden motives in Paul’s life.
3. Paul was called and commissioned by God. In many respects there was nothing he could do, except obey God and carry out his calling – kind of like Jonah.
4. If we are honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that we seldom do anything with absolutely unmixed motives.
5. Even when we do something good and fine, it is usually entangled with some little bit of selfish motive.
6. Someone has said that “purity of action may be difficult, but purity of motive is even more difficult.”
7. Such purity can come to us only when we too, like Paul, can say that our old self has died and Christ lives in us.
8. You remember Paul’s words in Gal. 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
9. That’s a tall order, but with God’s help, Paul was living a life with no hidden motives.
C. We also can conclude that there were those in Corinth who were saying that Paul didn’t mean what he said.
1. Paul’s response was that there were no hidden meanings in his words.
2. Words are interesting, aren’t they?
3. A person can use their words to reveal their thoughts and feelings, or they can just as easily use words to hide them.
4. Few of us can honestly say that we mean every word we say.
5. Sometimes we say things because they are the right thing to say.
6. Other times we might say something to be agreeable or to avoid trouble.
7. James, who wrote about the dangers of the tongue more than anyone said, “If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” (Jas. 3:2)
8. Paul was striving to do so.
9. He said that he didn’t write anything to them that they could not understand, and he believed that God would help them to understand everything fully.
10. And when they did understand, they would be just as pleased and proud of him, as he would be of them.
11. So, in Paul’s life there were no hidden actions, no hidden motives, and no hidden meanings.
D. In the next paragraph, verses 15-17, we see how the accusation about Paul’s words took a specific form – they must have been saying that Paul makes promises he doesn’t keep.
1. Look again at those verses: Because I was confident of this, I planned to visit you first so that you might benefit twice. 16I planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea. 17When I planned this, did I do it lightly? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say, “Yes, yes” and “No, no”?
2. Paul had said that he would visit the Corinthians, but the situation had become so bitter that he postponed his visit.
3. Paul’s enemies had promptly accused him of being the kind of man who made frivolous promises with a fickle intention and could not be pinned down to a definite yes or no.
4. So the Corinthian church was clearly upset by Paul changing his plans.
5. Getting from Ephesus to Corinth by sea was not that difficult.
a. It was about 250 miles due west and traders made the journey all the time.
b. Paul had obviously done it not long before, when he made the quick and painful visit.
6. Paul had originally thought that he would go that route again.
a. He planned on coming to Corinth, then go up by land to Macedonia, and then come back to Corinth before setting off for Judea.
b. But something happened to make him change his mind and now he planned on coming the long way around by the land route.
c. He probably wanted to come that way to give the Corinthians more time to prepare for his visit.
d. He didn’t want to have another painful visit like the previous one.
7. Nevertheless, even though Paul had good reasons for his change of plans, the Corinthians concluded that he was vacillating, unable to make up his mind, or was deliberately sending mixed signals.
a. Like the person who says “yes, yes,” out of one side of the mouth and “no, no” out of the other.
b. Of course, we should also keep in mind the challenges of communication at the time – Paul didn’t have telephone or email to be able to send them a quick message about changes to his itinerary.
8. Paul answered their accusations saying that he doesn’t take his planning lightly.
9. He didn’t do so in a worldly manner and certainly didn’t say yes and no at the same time.
E. The powerful and beautiful thing that Paul did in the next section was to point their attention toward God.
1. Look again at verses 18-22: But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” 19For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.” 20For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. 21Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
2. The God who loves us so much that He gave us His Son is quite certain to fulfill every promise that He has ever made.
3. Jesus Christ is the personal guarantee of God that the greatest and the least of his promises are all true.
4. And it is through Jesus that we say “Amen” to the promises of God.
a. “Amen” is one of the few Hebrew words spoken around the world today.
b. When someone says a prayer, and other people want to associate themselves with it, they say “Amen.”
c. When someone is preaching and someone wants to declare that they agree with what is being said, they say, “Amen.”
d. It is very encouraging to hear some “amens” when I’m preaching.
e. “Amen” means “So let it be” and “Yes, I agree.”
f. This is an expression of truth and not just a formality or ritual that follows our prayers and our preaching.
g. We believe and should regularly declare our faith through our “amens.”
5. Paul made one final point about trusting in God’s promises and that is that we have a guarantee.
a. God has anointed us and set His seal of ownership upon us – He has done so by giving us a deposit of His Spirit.
b. When we make large purchases, we are required to put down a large deposit of money and that guarantees that we will pay off the rest in due time.
c. The gift of the Holy Spirit is God’s token and pledge of still greater things to come.
II. Applying the Word
A. There are two lessons I would encourage us to take to heart today.
B. The first lesson I would encourage us to take to heart is that we should strive to be people who keep our word.
1. Here’s a little riddle for you: “What is one thing you can give and still keep?” Answer: “Your word.”
2. Promises should never be lightly given for they may well be as lightly broken.
3. Before we give a promise, we should count the cost of keeping it and make sure we are able to follow through.
4. One thing that should characterize us as Christians is our ability to be faithful to our commitments.
5. If we say we are going to be somewhere, or if we say we are going to do something, then we should keep our word.
6. It is very discouraging, sometimes, to see how easily some people excuse themselves from their commitments – to God, to their mate, to their family, and to their church family.
7. Psalm 15:1 asks the question: “LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?” Verse 4 gives one of the answers: “He who…keeps his oath even when it hurts.”
8. Booker T. Washington described meeting an ex-slave from Virginia in his book Up From Slavery.
a. “I found that this man had made a contract with his master, two or three years previous to the Emancipation Proclamation, to the effect that the slave was to be permitted to buy himself, by paying so much per year for his body; and while he was paying for himself, he was to be permitted to labor where and for whom he pleased.”
b. "Finding that he could secure better wages in Ohio, he went there. When freedom came, he was still in debt to his master some three hundred dollars. Notwithstanding that the Emancipation Proclamation freed him from any obligation to his master, this black man walked the greater portion of the distance back to where his old master lived in Virginia, and placed the last dollar, with interest, in his hands.”
c. “In talking to me about this, the man told me that he knew that he did not have to pay his debt, but that he had given his word to his master, and his word he had never broken. He felt that he could not enjoy his freedom till he had fulfilled his promise.”
9. Let’s do our best to live with a clear conscience. To live with holiness and sincerity. And to let our “yes” be “yes” and our “no, no.”
C. The second lesson I would encourage us to take to heart is that even if people are unfaithful, God is always faithful.
1. People, in spite of their best intentions, will fail us, but God never will.
2. Jesus Christ is God’s great “Yes!”
3. Because of Jesus we can trust God fully, without reservation.
4. Jesus Christ came and died for us, rose again, and placed His Holy Spirit within us as down payment and guarantee – literally investing Himself in us.
5. Our God does not make bad investments.
a. He knows our true worth and He esteems us of great value. He sees us as His precious children.
6. Jesus Christ is our Savior, Redeemer, Helper and Friend.
7. He is not only God with us, but God for us. And if God is for us, then who can be against us? (Rom. 8:31)
8. God can be trusted. There is no need for fine print or disclaimers.
9. Whatever the promises of God are, in Jesus Christ they are Yes! And Amen!
D. Which promises of God do we need to be reminded to hold on to?
1. Do we need to be reminded about God’s promises about our past?
a. God promises to forgive all the sins of our past.
b. Psalm 103:2-3, Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases…
c. Psalm 103:12, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
d. Ephesians 1:7-8, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
e. God has promised to forgive our sins, and for that reason we can live without guilt; at peace with God – what a blessing!!
2. Do we need to be reminded about God’s promises about our present?
a. God promises to be with us and to help us, no matter what we face.
b. Look at Isaiah 43:1-3, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
c. Hebrews 13:5-6, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.”
d. How wonderful to know that God has promised to be with us always, and to help us, so that we need not be afraid of anything!
3. Do we need to be reminded about God’s promises about our future?
a. In Revelation 22:12, Jesus said, “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me…”
b. In John 14, Jesus promised: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
c. How’s that for a promise!! We will be with the Lord in a place He has especially prepared for us.
E. Promises, promises, promises…God makes them and God keeps them!
1. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ! AMEN!! AMEN!!
Resources:
Paul for Everyone, 2 Corinthians, Tom Wright, Westminster John Knox Press, 2003
2 Corinthians, The NIV Application Commentary, Scott J. Hafemann, Zondervan, 2000
2 Corinthians, John MacArthur, Nelson Impact, 2007
The Letters to the Corinthians, William Barclay, The Westminster Press, 1975
Be Encouraged, The Bible Exposition Commentary, Warren Wiersbe, Victor Books, 1989
Yes! And Amen!! Sermon By Phil Hohulin, SermonCentral.com
