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This is day five, our last day of looking at the first chapter of 2 Corinthians.
We've been walking through this week how God works in our lives in the midst of
the real struggles that we have and how He'll help us to survive. He'll give us
hope no matter what.

As we look at these last few verses, beginning in verse 21 and down through
verse 24, we're going to read together about God's promise of security, of
confidence in our lives. That's in verses 21 and 22. But before we get to those
verses, I want to skip ahead a couple verses first and read verses 23 and 24
because they remind us of the autobiography, the battle, the history of what
Paul and the Corinthians were going through.

Listen to these verses. "I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare
you that I did not return to Corinth. Not that we lord it over your faith, but
we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith that you stand firm.

" Now in a minute we're going to talk about why we stand firm by our faith. But
here Paul talks about, "It was to spare you that I didn't return to see you. "
Remember yesterday we talked about the fact that that was misunderstood.

They thought Paul didn't come because he's a liar, because he doesn't care about
us. And Paul says that wasn't it at all. "I was misunderstood," he says.

To understand what was going on here, you have to sort of understand the history
of Paul and the Corinthians and the battle that they'd gotten into. We talked
the first day of this week about the fact that Paul began the church of Corinth,
that Corinth. This is a very brief look at this history.

Paul begins this church and then he leaves and problems begin shortly after Paul
leaves. Remember the city of Corinth dealt with sin. There's a lot of sinful
behavior in Corinth and it made its way into the church.

The church is going to struggle with whatever the culture is struggling with,
because it's what the people in the culture are struggling with. So the people
began to return to the immorality of their past, the jealousies and the sexual
immorality. And so 1 Corinthians was written to give advice to a divided church,
a struggling church, a church that was struggling with sin.

What happens? They get 1 Corinthians, they read it, what happens? Instead of
following Paul's advice, the church follows what Paul calls, in a joking way,
so-called super apostles, some false teachers who came in and said, "Hey, we got
a better message than Paul.

" They taught a different gospel. They built on the Corinthians' pride and
sinful nature. They built on things that would never last.

And so Paul revisited Corinth and he was, in essence, laughed out of town. He
was rejected by the very church that he'd started. And then Paul sends by Titus
a very severe letter to the Corinthians.

Not 2 Corinthians yet. We know that Paul wrote, because of what he says in 2
Corinthians, another letter in between 1 and 2 Corinthians. And he might have
written two or three, we don't know.

But he sends a very severe letter. You can read about that in chapter 7, verses
5 to 13. And after sending Titus with this letter, Paul could not wait to find
out what their response was.

And he just sent some very harsh things to them. So he sets out to meet Titus
and he finds them in Macedonia, and they meet, and he finds out that all is
well. And out of that, Paul writes this letter, 2 Corinthians, inspired by God's
Spirit, as 1 Corinthians was.

The letter in the middle, not so inspired by God's Spirit. But 1 Corinthians and
2 Corinthians are. He writes this letter and it has more of a tone of
reconciliation.

God's helped us to survive this. Paul writes 2 Corinthians in probably the
autumn of 56, at least the third actual letter in response to this good news
that he got from Titus. But they still had some questions, some struggles, and
Paul's going over it again, reminding them one more time, "I didn't come not
because I was rejecting you, not because I didn't love you, but I wanted to
spare you.

" And then he reminds them, in verse 24, remember that it's God who loves us,
who causes us by faith to stand firm. He says, "I don't lord it over your faith.
" Jesus says, "Lord, I'm not Lord," Paul is saying.

"What I'm talking about is what he wants to do for you, not what I can do for
you. " Now back to verses 21 and 22, because this is what God does for us. How
do I stand firm by faith?

Because what he has done for us in Jesus Christ. When you turn to Jesus Christ
and say, "Jesus, I trust you. I want you to come into my life.

" Some people feel a lot of emotion in that moment, other people don't feel much
emotion at all. But the truth is, he keeps his promise. He's standing at the
door and knocking, "If I open the door, he will come in.

" He comes in if I invite him in by saying, "I repent of my sins. I want to turn
to you, Jesus. I want to live the way you want me to live.

" He comes into my life. And when he does that, whether you have feelings or
not, you're a changed person. Immediately there's a spiritual transaction that
takes place.

Now what happens? Well, there's much that happens, but Paul focuses in on a few
of those things, three of them particularly in verses 21 and 22, when he says
this, "Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed
us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a
deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

" How do we stand firm in Jesus? Not by what we've done, but by what he has
done, because Jesus died on the cross. He opened the door so that when I say to
Jesus Christ, "I want you to come into my life," these three things immediately
happen.

He anoints you, he sets his seal of ownership on you, and he puts his Spirit in
your heart as a deposit. Now what does that mean? First he anoints you.

Luke chapter 4 verse 18, we read that Jesus was anointed. That's something we
think, "Well, of course, he's God in human flesh. " What amazes us is reading
here that we are anointed.

If you've read much of the Bible, you know as you read through the Old
Testament, it's the priests that are anointed. It's the tabernacle of God that's
anointed. But these are pictures, actually, of how God desires to relate to his
people through Jesus Christ, relate to us as believers.

And when we get to the New Testament, we find out we're all priests. We're all a
temple of God's Spirit. We're all anointed by God.

To be anointed by God is not some special favor that God puts on a few people
who are great servants. Every servant of Christ, every follower of Jesus is
anointed. God has put his hand on your life.

He has anointed you. To be anointed is God recognizing the holiness of God has
been placed upon your heart and life to give forgiveness and direction and life
and eternity. He's anointed you with that.

He anointed you. He does a second thing. of ownership on you.

On some envelopes, even today, you'll see a decorative wax seal on the back,
some fancy envelopes. In the days that the Bible was written, that seal was not
a decoration. It was more like a lock.

If anyone opened the letter before it reached its destination, it would be
obvious that the seal had been broken. And just like those envelopes, God's
Spirit has sealed you until you reach the destination of eternity with him. What
does that mean?

Sealing really implies two things, ownership and protection. Every person's seal
had a design on it that was their mark. It was unique to them.

It was like a notary stamp of that day. A seal on a document was a guarantee
that it had not been forged. It came from that person.

And God seals your life through his Spirit. Nothing could be more personal or
powerful than his sealing in your life. The seal of God's Spirit in your life
says you're not your own anymore.

You've been bought with a price. God owns you now. He may be one of those people
who feel like, "I don't have much of a heritage.

I don't really fit in anywhere. " You're wrong. You're part of God's family.

Sealing implies ownership but also protection. That envelope seal protected the
document from being opened or tampered with along its journey. And God put his
seal on your life saying, "Satan, stay away.

" Now, Satan's going to tempt you. He's going to try to tear your life apart.
But in the end, God's seal stays on your life, stands on your life, saying you
can go thus far and no further.

You cannot take salvation away from this one whom I have sealed. God's seal is
on your life. God's anointing is on your life.

And then the third thing Paul talks about here, he says he put his Spirit into
our hearts as a deposit, a guarantee. Now, in ways we've talked today, that's
essentially saying that God's Spirit is God's down payment on our lives. God is
saying, "This great promise of heaven that I have for you, I want to let you
know that I'm not going to let you down on that promise.

" And so in order to let you know that that promise is real, I want to give you
something now, a deposit that's guaranteeing what's to come. And what deposit
does he give us? He gives us himself.

He gives us his own spirit. The depth of God's commitment to us in this promise,
it's almost beyond belief. A deposit is something, especially in the days the
Bible was written, that's a pledge for a promise.

It's earnest money guaranteeing that you'll keep your promise. And when the
Bible was written, the deposit was taken so seriously that if the promise wasn't
kept, the earnest money would be lost. If you put down a deposit on land and
you're backed out of the deal, you'd lose your deposit.

If you gave somebody an engagement ring as a pledge of your intention to marry,
and then you broke the engagement, you'd lose the ring, you'd lose the dowry.
God has guaranteed our eternal salvation with his own self. He can't lose
himself.

He's the one who holds everything together. He's guaranteed our salvation with
something that can never be lost. So how do you stand firm in Jesus Christ?

Because you may feel like, I'm pretty shaky right now in my faith, I don't know
how I'm going to make it through. It doesn't depend on you. So stop listening to
the temptation of Satan to believe that it depends on you and start in a fresh
new way realizing he's anointed me.

He sealed me. He's put down the deposit on my life through his Spirit. I know
where I'm headed.

So based on that, I can begin to live. I can begin to live like a citizen of
heaven. I can begin to live above these temptations.

I can begin to live above this world. I can be in the world but not of the world
because that's who I am. I'm anointed.

I'm sealed. I've got God's Spirit in my life. Our Father, we thank you that it
doesn't depend on us.

We thank you that as we depend on you, you bring all these things into our lives
and so much more. And so Lord, release me, release us from the temptation this
week to depend on ourselves and give us a fresh view of what it means to set our
hope on you, to depend on you. We do that right now in Jesus' name, amen.

We won't want to miss next week. We're going to look at chapter two and this
chapter Paul talks about how you survive personal offenses and accusations with
faith and love.