I'll just begin reading in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, we'll read verses 1 to 15. Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us by the will of God.

So we urge Titus that as he had begun, so he would also complete this grace in you as well. But as you abound in everything, in faith and speech and knowledge, in all diligence and in your love for us, see that you abound in this grace also. I speak not by commandment, but I am testing the sincerity of your love by the diligence of others. For, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.

And in this, I give advice. It is your advantage not only to be doing what you began and were desiring to do a year ago, but now you also must complete the doing of it. But as there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have. For if there is at first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has and not according to what he does not have.

I do not mean that others should be eased a new burden. but by an equality that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack that their abundance also may supply your lack that there may be equality as it is written. He who gathered much had nothing left over and he gathered little had no lack. Amen.

Introduction

The gospel, as we have considered often, is the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's explained in various places in the New Testament. Obviously, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John record the life and the ministry and the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul explains the gospel very clearly in First Corinthians, chapter 15.

The gospel is not simply a message that we believe once. in order to be saved. We do believe we believe what the Bible says concerning Jesus Christ and then we are saved. We are declared just by God or righteous by God, not for any words in us, but for what Christ has accomplished. But we ought to look to the gospel each and every day.

And in this context, one that seems a bit mundane or seems a bit very physical or earthly or tied to tangible need. Paul sets the cross right in the midst of the Corinthians as a motive or as a reason why they ought to give liberally to the churches and to the Christians in Judea. Again, he uses the example of the generosity of the Macedonian churches in verses one to six. And then in verse nine, he uses this statement or uses this example.

He says, for you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. What's he saying there? In light of what Jesus has accomplished at the cross, in light of what Jesus has done in terms of history and in terms of redemption, are you going to hoard your money? Are you going to keep your money when there are people that are suffering in Judea?

Paul uses this example as a pattern for the Christian church so that they will give liberally to those who are suffering. Later on, he writes the epistle to the Romans and Romans 15. He alludes to the general generosity of the churches of Macedonia and Achaia, which would have included the Corinthians. So, by the grace of God, for the glory of God, they responded favorably to Paul's instruction in this section of 2nd Corinthians.

But, of course, 2 Corinthians 8-9 sets forth something of the glory of Jesus Christ that I think is very fitting for our meditation this morning prior to participation in the Lord's table. Paul speaks of the riches of Christ. He speaks of the poverty of Christ. And then he speaks of the blessings that Christ secures for his people.

The Riches of Christ: Three Points

Those are the three observations will make on the tax notice.

The Pre-Incarnate Riches of Christ

First of all, he speaks of the riches. He says, for you know that you know that grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich. This is a reference to Christ prior to his incarnation. The incarnation means when Jesus came into this world, when he was born or he was conceived in his mother's womb, he was born of a virgin.

He lived a life of holiness and righteousness and obedience to God. But the riches of Christ here speak to his pre-incarnate glory, to what he had with the father prior to his coming in the world. It's an amazing reality. He left that glory, he left that majesty, he left that beauty and perfection to come into a cesspool of sin and depravity and wickedness.

He left those riches, he took on poverty, and he did this so that sinners could be rich in him.

Glory, Worship, and Creative Power

That pre-incarnate glory is referred to by Jesus in his high priestly prayer in John 17 and verse five. He says, and now, oh, father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. And of course, that pre-incarnate glory speaks of his communion with the father. Is that what he says there?

Oh, father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you. Jesus delights in his father and he left those riches and he took on poverty so that we might become rich in him that that pre-incarnate glory involved worship. Remember that scene in Isaiah chapter six when the prophet is rehearsing his call to the prophetic ministry. What does he say?

He says in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord lofty. I saw him exalted. I saw him enthroned on high, says the robe of his trade filled the entirety of the temple complex. Angels were crying out in antiphonal praise.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory. You say, what does that have to do with Jesus Christ? Well, in John 12, 41, the apostle there tells us that Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory speaking of Christ and he wrote of him.

Those are the riches that Jesus enjoyed, praised by the angels, worshipped by the angels. Obviously, Jesus enjoyed the riches of having created all things. This is what John tells us in John 1, 1 to 3. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

This one made all things, John says. We read in Hebrews chapter one that he sustains all things by the word of his power. You see, when Jesus came into this world, it wasn't like it was a better gig. You know, sometimes we might change jobs or we might move because it's a it's a step up, right?

It's a better thing. The whole point of our text is that the one who was rich became poor. He voluntarily condescended. He voluntarily took on poverty in order for our spiritual benefit.

That's the glory of the gospel, isn't it? I always think of that, that that complaint made by the scribes and the Pharisees about Jesus. When the multitude of sinners were gathering near him and the scribes and the Pharisees said, this man receives sinners and eats with them. Absolutely.

This man left the glory of heaven, came into this world, and he sat down with sinners in order to receive them, in order to make them spiritually wealthy, spiritually rich. So, Paul's first statement there concerning the Lord of Glory is that you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich and then he moves on now to consider the poverty of Christ.

The Poverty of Christ

He says that though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor. Is that great for your sakes? He didn't do it for himself. Obviously, there was that sense where there's a God-word reference, where he is obeying the covenantal terms laid out by his father, where he is yielding up perfect obedience to bring glory, honor, and praise to his father.

There is a God-word reference, to be sure. In this particular text, however, Paul is focusing on the man-word reference. And notice the language. He was rich.

He became poor. He was rich always. He became poor. John uses a similar convention in John 1.1 when he says, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

He always was. John 1.14 The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. There was a point in time in history when he when he when he became poor on behalf of his people. And

Kenosis: What Christ Did Not Lay Aside

notice a heresy or an error that is often taught specifically in conjunction with Philippians 2 is that this becoming poor means that he laid aside his deity. That he emptied himself of deity. I realize Philippians 2 says he emptied himself, but it doesn't mean that he stopped being God. You cannot mistake this when you look at the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus, you are struck with the realization that this is the God man.

He raises the dead. He speaks to the waves and they start swelling over. He speaks to the wind and it ceases to blow. He is able to feed multitudes with just a few fish and a few loaves.

He is able to heal blind people and to heal lepers. He didn't lay aside his deity. He didn't stop being God. His poverty is not seen in that he ceased to be God.

I like what John Murray says. He says when he became man, he did not cease to be rich in his divine being, relations and possession. He did not become poor by ceasing to be what he was, but he became poor by becoming what he was not. He goes on to say he became poor by addition, not by subtraction.

He added manhood to his immutable and eternal Godhood. So, his poverty is not seen in him ceasing to be God. Another commentator says it this way, Christ himself chose to exchange his royal status as an eternal inhabitant of heaven for a slave status as a temporary resident on earth. You may say, wow, that sounds pretty bizarre.

Jesus refers to himself in those terms.

Humiliation Culminating at the Cross

His poverty is not seen in ceasing to be God.

The State of Humiliation

His poverty is seen in the incarnation and what the Westminster divines called the state of humiliation. So I don't think we think about this very much what Christ went through on our behalf. This is what Paul is appealing to. You got a lot of money in your wallet.

There's people suffering in Judea. Think about Jesus. You're saving up for that special thing or that whatever. Paul's not condemning riches.

Paul is not saying you shouldn't have anything. You should pour ashes in your soup. You should wear hair shirts, and you should go live in monasteries. That's not Paul's disposition.

That's not his mindset. But when there is a need, and there are brothers and sisters that are dying, or there are brothers and sisters that are hungry, when a famine hits a people group, you should cough up. And the genuine living wonderful pattern. An example of that is the one who was rich and he became poor for you.

What's his poverty look like? The state of humiliation. How does Christ and what did Christ's humiliation consist? Christ's humiliation consisted in his being born and that in a low condition. made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God and the curse of death of the cross in being buried and continuing under the power of death for a time.

His virgin birth, his life marked by sorrow. Isaiah describes in Jesus wasn't this hippie-ish character that was sort of just dancing around life, singing zippity-doo-dah and leading the multitudes astray. The prophet Isaiah tells us that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The Lord Christ himself, when calling men to discipleship, he says very clearly and vividly, you know, the foxes, they have their holes and the birds of the air have their nest.

But the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Now, remember, this is the same son of man that was hearing throughout eternity. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Consider his earthly ministry.

Did everybody just bow down to him and receive him and love him and honor him? No, John tells us in John 1, he came to his own and his own received him not. In fact, in that final week, instead of hearing the antiphonal praise of angels singing, holy, holy, holy, it is a pagan. It is a Gentile that confesses the thrice holiness of Christ.

An unconverted pagan Gentile named Pilate. Three times, what does he say? I find no guilt in this man. I find no guilt in this man.

I find no guilt in this man. So why does he knuckle under? Because instead of the crowds chanting praise to Jesus Christ, they're chanting away with him, away with him, crucify him. They want Barabbas, who's an insurrectionist and a murderer.

You wonder what it means for Jesus to be poor. He left that to come and do this. His lowly life is sorrowful ministry. I mean, I think Jesus would fail today in terms of church planting.

And I say that speaking. I don't even know the word. The language today or the thought today is, if you don't amass a horde of followers and have a huge church after a year, you should just throw in the towel. What happened in Jesus' ministry?

Oh yes, crowds followed him. John 6 is one place I'm thinking. Crowds loved him. Consumers loved him because he was giving them bread.

Right? You can't miss that in John 6. The crowds are following because he feeds them. But when he starts to get into doctrine, when he starts to get into discipleship, when he starts to get into God's sovereignty, when he says things like all that the father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out what he says.

This is the will of my father that you believe in him who he sent when he spoke these hard things. What happened to the following? They left. They departed.

They turned from him. People today would look and say, Jesus, you had them. They were in your midst. You gave them bread.

They were following you. You should have just closed the deal. Don't teach them about high doctrine at a time like that. Tell them good things that they want to hear so that they'll continue to follow you.

What's Jesus then do? He speaks to his own closest, the disciples, the twelve, says, Do you also want to go away? Praise God for Peter. Lord, to whom shall we go?

Thou hast the words of eternal life. See, Peter was thinking more in terms of spiritual riches than a bit of bread in his physical belly. You ask about the poverty of Christ. Brethren, it's good to understand that the shorter catechism for anything or for these current small brief descriptions, it consisted in his being born and that in a low condition.

Think about that, do we? Remember, we had a brother in our church here before, and he had a dairy farm. One time, my brother-in-law, Matt, was here, and we were visiting. We went into, you know, where the calves are born.

It isn't like the pictures you see in December. You know, the stately animals just looking on, and everything all peaceful and serene and calm, and payloads around everybody's head, and the babe there, you know, clothed and laying in the manger. It smells in there. It's nasty.

Who of us would want to go and have a baby in a stable? That's not our first choice, is it, brethren? That in a low condition, made under the law. I don't think we feel the way to that either.

The fullness of the times God sent forth his son, born of a woman born under the law. We whine and we cry and we rebel and we're insubordinate with reference to all kinds of God, God's law. Not Jesus, he says, I delight to do by will. He epitomizes that blessed man of Psalm 1.

His delight is in the law of the Lord, and he meditates upon it day and night. He never broke it. He never violated it. He never, ever engaged in sin.

Undergoing the miseries of this life, we've already touched on that. He had no place to lay his head. His life was marked by difficulty. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Jonathan Edwards has a sermon is very powerful on sinners or or or people condemned taming the glory of Christ. And one of the things that he says in there is that we are just put out when people don't just receive us and praise us and love us and honor us. We get upset, man, if people don't give us our due. It never dawns on us that maybe they are.

He says, Jesus was praised by angels. And what is he here in that passion? We got away with him away with him. Crucify him.

You see what Paul is doing here? Taking the cross and he's planting it right in Corinth. And he says, you know what? Your summer home, your vacation, your this.

I'm not condemning that. I'm not saying it's wicked and evil and you're Satan and you shouldn't have anything. In fact, Israel was judged severely because when they were in the land, they were enjoying the gifts God gave them. They were not thankful to God.

Paul takes the cross, plants it in Corinth and says, you've got brethren in Judea that need help. For, you know, not just the kindness of the Macedonians. I mean, that should have just leveled them versus one to six. Paul says about the Macedonian churches that in great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.

They didn't have much, but what they had, they gave it to Paul so that he could go back to Jerusalem, so that when Paul and James meet, Paul and all of his entourage could say, here's what the Gentiles, here's what our fellow believers think about our fellow Christians in Jerusalem. And there's great rejoicing at the unity, at the solidarity, at the beauty of Christ's church functioning together. Paul takes the cross and he says to the Corinthians, you know, that's the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor. And of course, that poverty is supremely demonstrated at the cross.

Paul deals with this in Philippians two, which in many respects is parallel to second Corinthians eight, nine Philippians two at verse five. He says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. I think that phrase gives people a bit of difficulty at times. What does it mean?

What does Paul mean when he says who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God? I think the idea is, is that he is God. He's in the form of God. He is deity.

He is creator. He is governor. He is redeemer. He is Lord of the universe.

He is the object of angelic praise. He is the Lord of hosts, among whom the whole earth one day will bow down and confess as Lord. But he didn't exploit it. He didn't press it.

This is part of his poverty. He has the riches, but he doesn't come into this world and say, wait a minute, I'm this. You can't do that to me. This poverty is seen in that he does not exploit the deity.

He does not press it into people's faces. He's not like us when we are wrong. Then you say, wait a minute, don't you know you're dealing with here? That's what Paul means when he says, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.

Notice in verse seven, but made himself of no reputation. That's where the King James translates it. He emptied himself. The word is Kenosis.

A whole theory has been developed that Christ emptied himself or divested himself of his deity. That's not the case. This is better. He made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of man and being found in appearance as a man.

He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. See what Paul's referring to here. Remember the Passion Week, the way he's treated, the way he spat on. The way he's beaten with wreaths, the way he's mocked, they clothe him in the garment of purple.

They say hail to the king. It's a big joke to them. What's Paul saying? He became obedient to death or to the point of death, even the death of the cross, the worst form of punishment in that day.

See, we decorate our Bibles and we decorate our homes and we decorate our necks with images of the cross. You wouldn't do that in the first century. If Canada practiced capital punishment and they use the electorate chair, you certainly wouldn't wear one on your neck. It was shameful.

Do you know that a Roman citizen couldn't even be subject to crucifixion? It was that bad. It was reserved for the most heinous of offenders. In certain instances, the Emperor could say that a Roman citizen could get crucifixion, but it had to be approved from on high Roman state.

You wouldn't adorn your walls with images of the cross. People would come over and it would be akin to having, if they use a lethal injection, you'd have a syringe on your wall. What's that? Oh, I'm celebrating the fact that criminal offenders are executed with a syringe.

That's weird. You see what Paul is saying here, speaking of his poverty. He was rich, he became poor. Notice in verse 9, Therefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

So it didn't stop with his poverty. His poverty ultimately led to exaltation. That's what the Apostle speaks of there in Philippians 2 and in Ephesians 1, 20 to 23. God, therefore, has been so pleased with the work of Christ that he has highly exalted him and put him at his right hand, so that thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, everything is subject to him, both in this age and in the age to come.

I'm always rebuked by what God did with Jesus, because I don't think we treat him that way. This is God's divine sanction, God's divine approval of Jesus' life, death and ministry. What does he do? He exalts him to his right hand.

He gives him the name which is above every name. Do we treat Jesus that way? Is he exalted in our lives? Or is he an afterthought?

Is he Lord and sovereign of our universe? Or, oh yeah, I'm a Christian. Could it be said of us, therefore, having prized the mission of Jesus Christ, we've exalted him. He is Lord, he is Savior, he is King.

We do submit to him and that happily because we know what he went through on our behalf.

The Riches Christ Secures for His People

Paul speaks of his riches, Paul speaks of his poverty, and now he speaks of the blessings he secured or the riches that he brings to his people. Notice in 2 Corinthians 8, 9. Second Corinthians eight nine yet for your safety became poor. What's the reason that you through his poverty might become rich.

Now it is to misread the tax to think that they all have, you know, summer homes and big cars. The richness here is spiritual. And you know, the analogy ultimately breaks down. Paul doesn't want them to give everything they have to the churches in Judea so that they have nothing.

He treats that in verse thirteen. 13 and following, he says, no, I want everybody to have something. So it's not going to be Corinthian church that you take all your riches, you get rid of everything, and then you live as monks and put ashes in your soup and wear hair shirts and walk around and say, well, as me. The richness that is in view here is our blessedness. It's that riches are the riches that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 1.

Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has done what? Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. The Bible is very clear. You may be a poor man.

You may be a poor woman physically, economically. You may have trouble meeting your needs each and every month. The Lord, as it were, may just give you enough so that you eat out your existence. But if you have looked to Christ, if you have believed in the gospel, the Bible says you are rich beyond belief.

You are rich beyond comparison. This is the riches that he is alluding to with these dear brethren. Again, remember the backdrop, you know, hard that dough. Paul is all but safe.

Give. You've been the recipients of this kind of grace. You have been given this kind of riches. You have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

And you're going to be a grudging, miserly, Ebenezer Scrooge type person. Well, praise God, they responded, as I mentioned, Romans 15, you can see that later for yourself. Paul commends the churches of Macedonia and Achaia for giving.

Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption

What are the riches that we possess? that you through his poverty might become rich. Well, of course, he is our righteousness, our sanctification and redemption. We just can't confine ourselves to a few places in the Corinthian correspondence. First Corinthians chapter one, you talk about riches.

Here's our riches in the Lord Jesus Christ. First Corinthians chapter one, verse twenty six. Do you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise, according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise.

And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised. God has chosen and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are. that no flash of glory in his presence and notice, but of him, you are in Christ Jesus. Never forget that of him. You're not in Christ Jesus this morning because you made a good decision.

You're not in Christ Jesus this morning because you're wiser than your neighbor. You're not in Christ Jesus this morning because you acted more favorably towards certain data. You are in Christ Jesus by sovereign grace. It is by grace alone that we stand.

Never forget that this ought to be a check to any pride that would ever well up in our hearts of him. You are in Christ Jesus. You didn't put yourself there. What was Jesus' words to Simon Peter.

Blessed art thou Simon Barjona for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my father who is in heaven. Grace we stand by grace we enter in. Why, tonight, when we study Colossians 2 and the specific heresy that Paul is dealing with in 16 to 23, anything that adds to the work of Christ strips from it. Paul speaks of ascetics, those who starve the body, and in that they feed the flesh.

Because when we starve the body, thinking we are meriting favor with God, we are proud, we are arrogant, and we are standing contrary to the cross of our Lord Jesus. But of him, Paul says, you are in Christ Jesus. Now notice who became for us wisdom from God. And I believe the next statement is to explain what he means by wisdom from God.

We might read it who became for us wisdom from God. That is, here is where we see that is our righteousness and that is a righteousness. We need a righteousness with God. Jesus provides that.

See, God doesn't grade on the curve, God doesn't wink. at our indecency. God doesn't turn a blind eye on the day of judgment when we stand before his throne. God has a sovereign gaze and he demands a perfect righteousness. We have it in Jesus.

So, Gloria, the book of Romans alluded to Martin Luther a few weeks ago. Luther hated the concept of God's righteousness until he understood It's used in the Book of Romans. Very often in the Book of Romans, Paul speaks of God's righteousness as God's, the righteousness that he requires and that he provides. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed. from faith to faith, not just the rightness of God, not just the purity of God, but the righteousness that God requires and that he gives us in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Imputed Righteousness as Our Wealth

We are rich because we have a righteousness, not our own. We are rich because we have an alien righteousness that has been imputed to us. As Adam's sin was imputed to us, so is Christ's righteousness imputed to us. God took our sin, heaped it upon the Savior, punished him, took his righteousness and heaped it upon us so that we will stand clothed in a white garment that he has provided.

Jesus is our righteousness. Jesus is our sanctification. He is our sanctification. You try to live the Christian life apart from Jesus.

Or do you say with Paul in Galatians 220 in the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. We need the gospel to be holy. We don't just start by faith in Jesus, we keep going by faith in Jesus. We're always looking to Jesus.

And then he describes it as redemption. The redemption here I take as a reference to the future, that final day of judgment, that day of redemption that Paul speaks of in Ephesians. In other words, when we look at these three terms, Christ is the Alpha and the Omega of our salvation. When we look at these three terms, Jesus is the A to Z of our salvation.

We need him at the beginning, we need him in the middle, we need him at the end. Paul in Hebrews 12 calls him the author and the finisher of our faith. Isn't that great? It's not the author and then leaves us to ourselves.

He is there active in the midst of it. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. Why? Doesn't send you into the valley of the shadow of death and say, I hope you make it out on the other side.

If you if you have a trouble or you have some difficulty, you know, give me a call to misread Psalm 23, though I want. It's an acknowledgement of the reality of the sin cursed world that we live in. The Bible is not a document that lies. One of the most blessed, comforting, and kind songs in all of the Bible tells us that we will walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

But I will not fear. Why? Because thou art with me. Thy rod, thy staff, they comfort me.

That's interesting, isn't it? We don't usually look at the rod as a means of comfort. It is when our Father is employing it. Jesus Christ is our A to Z.

Paul says in the Corinthian Epistle, 1 Corinthians 5, 7, that Jesus is our Passover. Jesus is our Passover sacrifice. You want riches in Christ? Or you want to know what your riches in Christ are?

You have a Passover that is Jesus. The angel of death is going to pass over you because you've been marked with precious blood. The blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Reconciliation and Propitiation

In 2 Corinthians 5, he describes these riches. He says they have been reconciled. God and sinners reconciled. Reconciliation means there was a problem.

There was a problem. Sinners have an axe to grind against God. But contrary to popular thought, God has an axe to grind against sinners as well. In fact, in Romans chapter five, when Paul is speaking of our enmity or our beings being enemies of God, he's not speaking that God is our enemy.

He's speaking that we are God's enemy. How do you bring those two erring or warring parties together through Calvary's cross? A blessed peacemaker secured reconciliation. And Christ is our Savior.

Second Corinthians 521, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. You see, so when Paul comes to these Corinthians and said and says something that they know, you know, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor. And why did he do this? That you through his poverty might become rich.

They didn't have to sit there and go, what does he mean? I hope you don't have to sit here this morning and say, what does he mean? What are these riches? I don't feel any richer.

Your sins are forgiven. You're justified. You're going to heaven. I'm sorry if you don't count that as riches, I can't convince you otherwise.

It's like saying to somebody, here's a big sack of gold. I don't want gold. I can't take it to Walmart and buy anything. It's gold.

It's what all that paper should point to. Well, I don't know about that. We have Christians who I'm convinced operate that way. I think I'm one of them.

Very discouraged, very downcast, very melancholy a lot because I don't reckon riches in Christ. I reckon riches in this world, I don't mean gold or silver or money. I think of big churches or successful ministry. I got to come back to a text like this and say, wait a minute.

I have a righteousness, I have sanctification, I have redemption, I suspect it's the same for you. Come Wednesday or Thursday, man, I just feel like a big blob. My friend Vince Nixon, one time preacher, said sometimes we feel like the spiritual equivalent of a big cold fish. Where should we go?

Not to our performance, not to our works, not to what we've accomplished, not to whether or not we went to Bible study, we should go back to Calvary. We should go back to consider those riches in Jesus. We ought to be familiar with these words. They ought not to be like, I don't want to hear theology.

You should want to hear righteousness. You should want to know what sanctification is. You should really value and prize justification. You really ought to know what propitiation means and expiation.

This is our gospel glossary of blissful words. These all carry freight of God's dealings with us. It's like a big train. It's all going the same direction.

It all accomplishes the same thing. But in this car, you might have forgiveness. In this car, you have righteousness. In this car, you have imputation.

In this car, you have covenant surety. In this car, you have redemption. You should study those trains. You should learn those things.

If I started the Westminster Shorter Catechism, you shouldn't say, oh, that again? That is rich. It's one of those freight trains or a vehicle carrying Those truths and concepts. See, Paul knew that the Corinthians knew what they possessed in Jesus Christ, and I don't want to sound like a pragmatist, but it worked.

So he didn't come to them and say, look, I'm going to guilt manipulate you, I'm going to harangue you, we're going to have a big fishbowl in the back and you drop your pennies in there and we'll raise money for Jesus. No. He said, this is what Jesus did for you. There's an account of Benjamin Franklin.

He was a good friend of George Whitefield. Franklin wasn't a Christian. So this idea that they were all godly Christians. No, they weren't.

Franklin resolved that when Whitefield began to ask for money for his orphans, Whitefield began an orphanage in Georgia when he went to America. Franklin resolved I'm not giving any money when Whitfield starts asking for money for the orphans. So as Whitfield was finished preaching Benjamin Franklin emptied his pockets. Now he was a humanist and a pagan and it didn't secure any favor with God.

We heard that and he coughed up. That's not what's going on here. That's not what Paul is doing. Paul is appealing to believers.

With reference to gospel riches. And the natural outflow is obedience to God.

Application: Gospel Motives for Obedience

Is that the case with us? Is that the natural outflow? Do we hear of what we possess in Jesus Christ? Focusing, thinking, contemplating on that, do we then go and serve and love and obey?

That's gospel motives. Not because we're trying to make it for our final salvation. He secured that. We're not adding to.

We're not helping. We're not contributing to our final salvation. That's been done at the cross. We are, however, living in a manner worthy of the gospel.

Well, let us pray.

Closing Prayer

Our father in heaven, we give you thanks for your word. We give you thanks for the riches of Christ and for the poverty of Christ, the exaltation of Christ and for all that he has secured on behalf of all that you have given him. God, how we praise you that you have saved us. How we praise you that you made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

I pray that you would remind each and every one of us daily with these riches that we possess in the Lord Jesus. And we ask in his most blessed name. Amen.

Scripture References

• Psalm 1; 23
• Isaiah 6
• John 1:1-3; 1:11; 1:14; 6; 12:41; 17:5
• Romans 5; 15
• 1 Corinthians 1:26-29; 5:7; 15
• 2 Corinthians 5:18-21; 8:1-15; 8-9
• Galatians 2:20
• Ephesians 1:3; 1:20-23
• Philippians 2:5; 2:7; 2:9-11
• Colossians 2:16-23
• Hebrews 1; 12