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Worthy of Thanksgiving · Stornoway Free Church of Scotland - Sermons

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Well, we can turn back to our reading in 2 Corinthians chapter 9.
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We're going to look at the section, verse 6, down to the end of the chapter.
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But just take with you these words of verse 15.
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Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.
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Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.
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Coming away from a blessed communion weekend, it's always maybe in many ways strange going into the week after it.
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And there's so many different emotions involved maybe in coming away from it.
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We can come away with a sense of rejoicing in the Lord's goodness to us in so many different ways.
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But we can maybe also come away from it with a sense of regret.
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There can be maybe some of us who feel a sense of regret and maybe not coming to the Lord's table.
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And not doing maybe as we were maybe feeling that we should.
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So there can be a real sense of mixed emotions coming away from the Lord's table, from the Lord's communion as we have enjoyed last weekend.
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But as we come away and as we go forward, I want us to go on just thinking the Lord has been good to us.
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Whatever situation, whatever circumstances we're finding ourselves in, we can remember the Lord has been good to us.
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And to come away with that sense of thanksgiving.
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We're going to look this morning at that sense of thanksgiving, that he is worthy of our thanksgiving.
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And then this evening, God willing, we're going to look at the Lord in the sense of worthy to be praised.
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So the Lord is worthy of thanksgiving and worthy to be praised is going to be our theme for the day today.
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This morning with that sense of thanksgiving.
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Now when you think of communion, we think of a communion weekend, there are other events and maybe the church calendar that we remember as well.
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Things like Christmas and Easter.
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We're in between the two just now.
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We'll shortly be coming up to Easter time.
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We also have a time of the year when there's a special focus on thanksgiving.
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So there are certain things in our calendar, communion, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving.
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What do you think of when you hear these things mentioned?
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For some people, it might be we think of special services that take place in the church with a particular focus.
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But for others, when they hear these words mentioned, it can mean holiday.
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Because very often these things coincide with a holiday time.
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Christmas is a time of holiday.
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Easter, we have the Easter holidays.
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Thanksgiving so often falls on a holiday weekend.
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And even last weekend, our communion weekend, it fell on a holiday weekend as well.
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And so for some people, we can think of these occasions as significant church services.
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Or for others, they maybe think holidays.
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Actually, the two are true.
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They are a time of holiday.
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And they are a time of special focus.
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For example, when we think of Christmas time, some people try and put that away now.
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The word Christmas or even Easter.
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Try and take the religious aspect out of it and just say, we'll call it a holiday time.
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And they say, happy holiday.
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But maybe they don't realize just how close they are to the real sense of the meaning behind it all.
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Do you feel today here that you are on holiday?
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We are all on holiday here today.
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Because when you look at the word holiday, where does it come from?
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It comes from holy days.
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That's where the word holiday came from.
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Holy days.
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Days set apart for us to focus on God.
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And so that is what we have here today.
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We have a holiday.
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We have a holy day.
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A day set apart to focus on God.
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Now when we think of holiday, we think of maybe rest.
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And that's important.
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But when we think of the holy days that we have.
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And not just the days when we have a communion or a Christmas service, Easter service or Thanksgiving.
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But we think of it in the sense of every Lord's day.
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That we have that holy day.
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A day set apart.
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It reminds us that it is to come and see that our rest is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And that is what Paul is reminding the church at Corinth of here.
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Reminding them of what they have in Christ.
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That they are a holy people.
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God's people are a holy people.
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They are set apart for God.
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And that in their service to him, they have holy days.
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Days when they are set apart to worship God and to show their love towards him.
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When we think of the church in Corinth, it was a place, Corinth, that had many different issues.
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Many different problems.
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Immorality, idolatry, false teaching.
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All of these things were there in Corinth back in the day.
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Just as they are in our world today.
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But Corinth was maybe a particular place in that sense.
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It was a vast city with many different kinds of people coming into it and passing through.
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And a whole variety of teaching.
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But for God's people who were there, yes, they were maybe pulled in different directions.
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They were under pressure in many different ways.
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But it would be wrong of us just to criticize them.
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Because given the opportunity and given encouragement, they were a generous and a thankful people.
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And we see that in chapter 9 here as we're going to look at it.
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Paul here is sending the brothers, as they're called.
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The others who went ahead of him to meet with them in Corinth.
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To stir them up, to encourage them.
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To be thankful to God and to continue in their service to God.
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And to be encouraged to keep this going.
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And so there is this sense of thanksgiving in this chapter.
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And especially as we look at verse 15.
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Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.
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But to get to that verse, we have to go through verse 6.
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Beginning there down to verse 15.
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And here we see just why they should be so thankful.
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And what they have to be thankful for.
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And we're going to focus on verse 6 to 15 and see three things here.
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First of all, we see a generous heart.
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A generous heart among the people.
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Then we see a godly blessing.
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A God who is able to give them more than they can even imagine.
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And then we see that inexpressible thanks that they finish on in verse 15.
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So first of all, we see a generous heart.
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And the people in Corinth were a generous people.
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They had stirred up others in other areas in their giving.
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The church of Macedonia is mentioned here as being encouraged through the giving of the church at Corinth.
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But we often associate giving thanks with receiving something.
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So that the church in Macedonia would have been thankful having received the gifts of the church from Corinth.
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But the Corinthians had given.
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And that's where the thanksgiving begins.
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It begins with giving.
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And we see that in verse 6 here as Paul takes that image of the farmer who sows the seed.
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And he uses this as the basis of where their thanksgiving begins.
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Because it leads them to see how gracious God is as we give generously to him and to his cause.
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So you have in verse 6, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.
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And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
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So it's the image of the farmer here who goes out to sow his seed.
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And there's two different ways that he can do it.
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He's saying, well, one goes out and sows sparingly.
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And when he does that, he reaps sparingly.
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But the one who goes out and sows bountifully reaps bountifully.
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So that if he freely gives his seed, he freely receives.
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It's a farmer who has nothing left in his hands.
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And it almost seems like everything that he has has gone.
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But when the harvest comes, his barns will overflow.
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It will soon be time to start planting vegetables again.
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And many of you will be doing that, I'm sure.
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But how do you sow the seeds?
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I mean, some of the seeds you get now, for example, for carrots, they're tiny little things.
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So how would you sow it?
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You would maybe make the little trench in the soil.
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But would you just put one seed at a time?
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Is that the way you would sow the seed?
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If you did, you're going to get little in return.
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It requires a sprinkling.
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It requires a giving of all the seeds that are in the pack.
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If you want to reap, you've got to sow bountifully, as it says here.
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So it's literally scattering, as we have.
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In his commentary, John Calvin puts it like this, looking at the comparison between giving and sowing, he says,
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In sowing, the seed is cast forth by hand, is scattered upon the ground.
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On this side and that is harrowed and at length rots.
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And thus it seems as good as lost.
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The case is similar in giving.
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What goes from you to some other quarter seems as if it were diminishing of what you have.
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But the season of harvest will come when the fruit will be gathered.
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And so there's this encouragement there to give bountifully.
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And what's interesting here is when you look at verse 6, that word bountifully, it can be translated blessing.
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So whoever sows blessingly, we could say, will reap blessingly.
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That's what's behind this word.
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And so are we a people who are sowing blessingly.
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Seeking God's blessing in the work that we are involved in.
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Giving to that work blessingly, bountifully.
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Seeing that we would see a harvest in return for it.
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We can all ask ourselves.
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I can ask.
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You can ask.
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Are we a people who are sowing blessingly?
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Or could we do more?
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And this isn't to stir up some kind of guilt trip.
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It's not what it's about at all.
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But God's word is just there before us to help us to understand how we are to live in light of God's blessings to us.
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How we are to live.
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And what he says here is as we sow blessingly, we are to give it as a cheerful giver.
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Each one, it says in verse 7, must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion.
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For God loves a cheerful giver.
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This is how we are to be.
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This is to be our attitude.
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A cheerful giver.
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And again, you go back to what the word means.
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A cheerful giver.
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The word there is hilaros.
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And there's an English word that we can take from that Greek word.
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Hilaros.
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You can almost hear it as I'm saying it.
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Hilarious is the word that's there.
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Hilarious is the English word that we have.
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So there's that sense of the hilarity of giving.
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The joy of giving.
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The sense of almost laughter as we're giving.
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God has given us, we can give him with that sense of joy.
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With thankfulness assured that in doing so, God has great desires towards us as well.
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And so a grateful heart is something that we have in thanksgiving.
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A grateful heart in giving ourselves to God and giving all that we are to God.
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And so as we come away from a communion season, we think we might have regrets.
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We might have a sense of rejoicing.
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But let us always have that sense of thanksgiving.
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And that thanksgiving be full of bountiful, blessingly sowing for the Lord.
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And cheerfully, hilariously giving to the Lord.
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The second thing we see here is a godly blessing.
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Paul then goes on to describe the generosity of God in every aspect of life.
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You look at verse 8.
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God is able to make all grace abound to you.
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So that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
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Does God hold back?
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Well, we might have an attitude, if I give, I'm going to have so much less for myself.
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But that's doubting God.
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That's doubting a God who we see in so many parts of Scripture.
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This is just one of them.
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The God who is able to make all grace abound to you.
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The word abound is used a few times here.
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And at all times, you may abound in every good work.
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The Lord is able to bless.
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And we are to have faith in him who is able to bless.
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God is able.
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You will abound.
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So there's the promise of getting from God here as well.
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When we think of that word, bountifully sowing, blessingly sowing, we are reminded here that God gives back blessings as we give as a matter of blessing from ourselves.
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And this is not a prosperity gospel message.
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This is not a plea for your money and saying the Lord will then bless you with riches beyond your wildest dreams.
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That's not what it is.
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We know that and we should know that.
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But God will reward.
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That is the promise.
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But the rewards we look for, they're not material.
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We don't look for wealth as we give to God.
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We look for him to pour out his spiritual blessings on us.
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His grace, his mercy, his love towards us that he has an abundance to give to us.
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And God, as it says here, make all grace abound to you.
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That his grace will be poured out to you and to me again and again.
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God gives us that promise as we bountifully, blessingly so that he is able to blessingly reward us well.
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When we step out in faith, the Lord is able to bless.
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When you think of Isaiah and back in chapter 6 of Isaiah, that great passage, it says there in verse 8,
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And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us?
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Then I said, Here am I, send me.
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I say I was placing himself into the Lord's hands.
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And you see it with Samuel, you see it with so many throughout the Old Testament.
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When the Lord is calling, we place ourselves into his hands.
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The God who is able to make grace abound to you.
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You put yourself, I put myself into his hands.
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And when you look at your life and your lifetime, whether it's personally or even as a congregation,
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and all that we have received from the Lord,
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isn't that a reminder to us that as we are faithful to him, he is faithful to us?
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That as we seek to show his grace, sow his grace in every aspect of the congregation work that we're involved in,
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that he is able to make us abound in grace going forward as well.
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We see encouragements.
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We don't take them for granted, but we see the Lord is able to bless.
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When we see people coming to church, when we see the Sunday school thrive,
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when we see the creche grow, when we see people being engaged with in different ways with the gospel,
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and a hunger for the gospel.
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Where does it come from?
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It comes from a people who are blessingly sowing,
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and looking to a God who is able to abound in grace to us, and favor to us.
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And so we have so much to give thanks for.
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And we're reminded again and again of how God can supply.
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Philippians 4, 19,
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My God will supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
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So we have godly blessings that follow a generous heart.
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We have received much, and let us be ever thankful for that.
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But then that leads us then to that inexpressible thanks.
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Verse 15, as Paul summarizes things here,
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Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.
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As we see a spirit of giving, as we see a vision of what we are receiving,
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where does that make us go?
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In some ways we could look at each other and say,
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Well done to one another.
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And there's a great encouragement in that.
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But that's not the main place we are to go.
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Verse 15 just reminds us of that.
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Thanks be to God.
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That is the source of all that we have.
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And the source of all our thanksgiving is to look to him.
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Our thanks is in God.
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But sometimes thank you seems so feeble.
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To give thanks to God is a good thing to do,
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but sometimes it just seems so little to do.
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And there's a sense of that in the way Paul writes here in verse 15.
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He just doesn't have the words.
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Thanks be to God for what?
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What could he say here?
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What word could he use?
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Well, he actually came up with a brand new word.
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It was the first time this word was used.
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The Greek word was used that's here inexpressible.
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Because there just wasn't a word for it.
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Every year, usually at the end of the year,
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we have some place that gives,
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what was the word of the year for 2025?
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When you look it up,
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you find that there were maybe a couple of new words
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that were introduced or used in a different way.
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2025 was rage bait.
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It was that kind of idea of online
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where you're putting out thoughts or ideas
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that are there to entice people
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to throw a bit of rage and anger
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against something that's being said.
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Rage bait was the word of the year.
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Well, this word in Paul's day
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would have been the word of the year.
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Inexpressible gift.
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There's just no word for it.
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So he makes up a new word.
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Because how do we describe God's gift to us?
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There are no words.
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It's a gift that's described partly in chapter 8, verse 9.
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For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
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that though he was rich,
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yet for your sakes he became poor,
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so that you through his poverty might become rich.
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How do you describe it?
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Well, Paul concludes here
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with that inexpressible joy and thanksgiving that there is.
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When you think of that verse
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we were mentioning to the children earlier,
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John 3, 16,
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For God so loved the world
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that he gave his only Son
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that inexpressible gift.
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How can we give thanks to God for that?
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And when you consider what we have in Jesus
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and the reasons that we have to praise God,
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you could go through a whole list of things.
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Forgiveness of sin.
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We have a Redeemer.
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We have the promise of everlasting life.
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We have that adoption that he speaks about,
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that we are made into the children of God.
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That we have a place in heaven
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as we put our trust in him
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because Jesus says,
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I will go and prepare a place for you.
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We have his abiding presence.
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We have his numerous promises.
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We have his everlasting love,
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his amazing grace.
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The list just goes on.
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We have the promise of his Holy Spirit.
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We have his precious word given to us.
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We have all of these things.
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And so it's no wonder
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that Paul just couldn't find a word
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and had to come up with a new word.
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Inexpressible.
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Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.
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And so what do we make of all of these things?
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If we can't describe it
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because it's inexpressible,
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what are we to do with it?
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Just like we were saying to the young ones,
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we can't measure it in any way.
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So what do we do with it?
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We trust it.
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We put our trust in this gift of God.
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This gift of a redeemer.
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And we recognize how much we have to be thankful for.
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Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.
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A farmer once went to church one Sunday morning
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and listened to a sermon.
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The sermon was in Isaiah 1, verse 3.
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And it says this,
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What was the verse saying?
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It's saying, well, even the animals recognize something.
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But Israel says the people of God didn't.
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And the next day,
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as the farmer was feeding his cattle,
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one of the cows,
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to show its thanks,
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licked the farmer's hand.
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And at that moment,
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that farmer,
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who was not a committed Christian,
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he was convicted in his heart.
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And he actually burst into tears
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and said,
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it's all true.
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How wonderful is the word of God.
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Because he recognized that that cow
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was more thankful to him
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than he was to God.
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And yet he said,
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I am in debt to him for everything.
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What a sinner I am.
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And it was that lesson
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that led him to see his need of Christ
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and brought him to Christ.
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Sometimes the world around us
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says to us more than we recognize
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of who God is.
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The simple little things can remind us.
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So even as you sow a seed
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and you think,
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well, where does the increase come from?
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It comes through sowing blessingly.
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But it is God who gives the increase.
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And so it is with our faith.
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As we cast ourselves on the Lord.
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As we give ourselves
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with that sense of cheerful giving.
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Recognizing God who is able to bless.
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May he help us to find ourselves
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with that sense of thanksgiving.
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for that inexpressible gift.
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The gift that there are no words for.
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But that can be known through faith
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in the Lord Jesus.
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May the Lord bless these words to us.
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Let us pray.
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Lord, our gracious God,
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we thank you that everything that we have
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is from above.
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Every good and perfect gift
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is from you,
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the one who does not change.
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And we find ourselves
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just looking at these words before us
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and recognizing that we too feel like Paul.
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That there is that inexpressible nature
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of the gifts that you have given to us.
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How can we describe them?
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How can we possibly give thanks for them?
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But yet, O Lord,
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you encourage us in our hearts
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to come,
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to simply come,
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and come and rest in you.
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To find in these holidays,
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as it were,
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the holy days that we enjoy.
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The days that are set apart for you.
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To find in there the words of faith,
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the words of love,
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and grace that abounds.
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And to know what it is
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to put our trust in you.
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And to find there that we have a rest.
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And a word,
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and words that are inexpressible.
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That peace that passes understanding,
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as Peter says.
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And may we know it for ourselves.
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Lord, receive our thanks.
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And may we continue in much thanksgiving
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and praise to you.
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And in our service for you.
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As we ask all in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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We'll conclude by singing to God's praise
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in Psalm 106,
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the Scottish Psalter version,
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page 378.
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Psalm 106,
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we'll sing from verse 1 to verse 5.
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Page 378.
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Give praise and thanks unto the Lord,
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for bountiful is he.
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His tender mercy doth endure
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unto eternity.
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God's mighty works who can express
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or show forth all his praise.
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Blessed are they that judgment keep,
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and justly do always.
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We'll sing from verse 1 to 5.
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We stand to sing to God's praise.
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praise and thanks to the Lord,
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for bountiful is he.
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His tender mercy doth endure.
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This tender mercy doth endure unto eternity.
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God's mighty works who can express
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the mighty works who can express
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our show for the Lord,
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God's mighty works who can express
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our show for the honest grace.
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for all his grace.
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Blessed are he
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that judgment keep
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and justly do always.
29:42
Remember me
29:47
Lord with the love
29:51
which thou to thine
29:56
dost bear
29:59
with thy salvation
30:04
O my God
30:09
to this it be
30:14
drawn near
30:16
that I thy chosen
30:23
good miss thee
30:27
and in their joy
30:32
rejoice
30:34
and live with thine
30:40
in their hands
30:44
thy mouth with cheerful voice
30:53
after the benediction
30:55
I'll go to the main door
30:56
we'll close with the benediction
30:57
now may grace
30:59
mercy and peace
31:00
from God
31:01
Father
31:01
Son
31:02
and Holy Spirit
31:03
rest upon
31:04
and abide with you all
31:06
now and forevermore
31:07
Amen
31:08
God desde
31:17
God
31:20
Thank you.
31:50
Thank you.