Let Your "Yes" be "Yes" and Your "No" be "No"!

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2 Corinthians 1:17-20 

You may be asking why I changed my plan. Do you think I make my plans carelessly? Do you think I am like people of the world who say “Yes” when they really mean “No”? 18 As surely as God is faithful, our word to you does not waver between “Yes” and “No.” 19 For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, does not waver between “Yes” and “No.” He is the one whom Silas,[d] Timothy, and I preached to you, and as God’s ultimate “Yes,” he always does what he says. 20 For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory.

How many of you have friends who initially say "yes" when they commit to do something with you, and then have a tendency to cancel and say "no". You are never quite sure if you can count on them, because they are what we often call "flaky". Whereas there are other people who you know when they say "yes", you can count on them. Paul addresses this issue today in his letter to the Corinthians. 

The Corinthian Christians accused Paul of being unreliable and untrustworthy because he said he would come at a certain time and did not. He was unable to come as planned, so instead he sent a letter. (Guzik)

The bottom line was that circumstances, which Paul had no control over, changed his itinerary. The Corinthians had been duped before so they had become cynical about ministers of the gospel. And such is the case today, as many hucksters have tried to sell the gospel and turned out to be "phoneys". This is one of the worst things we could do as Christians is to give the world a disingenous or fake version of Jesus and His gospel. 

Unlike other human beings who have been fickle with them, Paul tells them they can rely on the word he has preached to them. The word of the gospel. The word of Christ! Paul states, 

 For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory.

As human beings we are fallible. We are all susceptible to not keeping our word and lacking integrity. As we grow in our character to become more like Jesus, we do this less and less. Instead of trying to impress people with our "yes", sometimes we will say "no" because of the leading of the Holy Spirit. Always saying "yes" to please others is definitely a symptom of being a "people pleaseer". 

But in Jesus' all of God's promises are "yes"! Jesus fulfilled all of the testimony of the prophets. As he lived his life, his "yes" was always "yes", and his "no" was always "no". When Jesus rose from the dead, all of God's promises were answered. Because Jesus rose from the dead, God's ultimate "yes", we can completely trust in everything Jesus has said and promised to do for us!  To this we say "Yes!", and "Thanks be to God", and "Amen!"