Examine Yourselves to See if You Are in the Faith
Grace in Vain
2 Corinthians 6
Find the Joy
There is someone
richer than a billionaire in your life
He wants to fill your
bucket
He wants to fill it
today
God wants to fill
your bucket with His Favor, His Grace
So what is on your
Bucket List?
Don’t receive God’s
Grace in vain
Come out, separate
yourself from relationships
That don’t encourage
the Grace of God
Don’t reject God’s Favor
because you had other things to do today
If you miss God’s Salvation
today
You risk missing His
Salvation when you “kick your bucket”
Don’t receive God’s
Grace in vain
Fill your bucket with
His Grace, Favor today
Grace in Vain
2 Corinthians 6
In 2007, the movie
“The Bucket List”
came to the big
screen.
It was about a Billionaire
Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson)
and car mechanic Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman)
who are complete strangers, until fate
lands them in the same hospital room.
The men find they have two things in common:
A need to come to terms with who they are
and what they have done with their lives,
And a desire to complete a list of things
they want to see and do before they die.
Against their doctor's advice,
the men leave the hospital and set
out on the adventure of a lifetime.
I think all of us have a Bucket List
Those two things…
A need to come to terms
with who you are
and what you have done
with your life.
And a desire to complete a list of things
you
want to see and do before you die.
I am not a billionaire nor
do I know a billionaire.
I do not have the resources to do the
things
I would like to put on my Bucket List.
So what is important to put in our Bucket
List?
Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:10 says…
But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace to me
was not without effect.
No, I worked harder
than all of them —
yet not I, but the
grace of God that was with me.
Paul brings the Work of Grace
up again in 2 Corinthians 6:1…
As God's fellow workers we urge
you not to receive
God's grace in vain.
Paul said what made his life was the Grace of God.
Paul draws our attention to “time”.
Time is our bucket.
Paul quotes from Isaiah 49:8…
"In the time of
my favor I heard you,
and in the day of
salvation I helped you."
I tell you, now is the
time of God's favor,
now is the day of
salvation.
When it comes to time,
our Bucket, we only have today.
Isaiah and Paul tell us today God wants to
fill our buckets with His Favor, His Grace.
Paul tell us in verses 4- 10 his
Life, his bucket, was full of adventure.
You might say…
Bill, that is not the
kind of things
I want to fill my bucket with.
Paul is reminding the Corinthians of
what he personally went through so they
might know this thing called “Grace”.
God pours out His Grace every day.
Paul gave His life so others might have
their buckets full of God’s Grace.
Paul was concerned for the
believers in Corinth, he says…
We urge you not to
receive God's grace in vain.
Grace in Vain.
Vain means to be empty.
Paul is concerned their buckets have holes in them.
They received God’s Grace but it seems
their buckets are empty of God’s Grace.
Paul describes the believer as a temple, a
place for God to fill with the Holy Spirit.
The believers in Corinth were filling their
lives, their daily activities, with unbelievers.
They were filling their buckets with all the things
people of this world fill themselves with.
Although they were receiving God’s
Grace daily, their companionship with
unbelievers, kept them from retaining it.
This is why Paul quotes from
Isaiah 52:11 and Ezekiel 20:34, 41…
“Come out from among
them be separate”
There is someone richer than a billionaire in your life.
He wants to fill your bucket.
He wants to fill it today.
God wants to fill your bucket
with His Favor, His Grace.
So what is on your Bucket List?
I pray it is more of God’s Grace.
Don’t receive God’s Grace in vain.
Come out, separate yourself from relationships
that don’t encourage the Grace of God.
Don’t reject God’s Favor because
you had other things to do today.
If you miss God’s Grace,
you miss His Salvation.
If you miss God’s Salvation today, you risk
missing His Salvation when you “kick your bucket”.
Don’t receive God’s Grace in vain.
Fill your bucket with His Favor today.
Scripture Reading
2 Corinthians 6 NIV
6:1 As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's
grace in vain. 2 For he says,
"In the time of my favor I heard you,
and in the day of salvation I helped you."
I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day
of salvation.
3 We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our
ministry will not be discredited. 4 Rather, as servants of God we commend
ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and
distresses; 5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless
nights and hunger; 6 in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the
Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7 in truthful speech and in the power of God;
with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8 through
glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as
impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten,
and yet not killed; 10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many
rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
11 We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened
wide our hearts to you. 12 We are not withholding our affection from you, but
you are withholding yours from us. 13 As a fair exchange — I speak as to my
children — open wide your hearts also.
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do
righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have
with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a
believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between
the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God
has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their
God, and they will be my people."
17 "Therefore come out from them
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you."
18 "I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
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