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welcome to everyone it's good to be back in the house of God this evening I did want to say two things by way of announcements just a reminder that our annual general meeting is on the twenty-seventh that's at seven p.m. in the fellowship hall and then secondly I think I am progressing well in terms of my recovery I think two things specifically one I am younger than the typical target audience for a hip replacement but the main important are the the main reason i think is the prayers of the upright I've really been blessed to hear from so many people who have said they're praying for me and I certainly don't underestimate that i bless god that many of you have taken the time to remind me of your prayers and I think that obviously I know the Lord God hears that and as far as I can tell the hip is being knit back together in a good manner so if my leg starts dangling that's a bad sign but that has not happened up to this point so I'm very thankful to the Lord so I do want to communicate my heartfelt thanks for your prayers for the support of the church during this time it has proven to be a great blessing I have so much more already flexibility and mobility and a lack of pain than I had prior to the surgery so thank you very much well for our call to worship this evening i want to read from Colossians chapter 1 Colossians chapter one specifically verses 15 to 20 Colossians 1 beginning in verse 15 he is the image of the invisible God the firstborn over all creation for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on the that are on earth that are in I'm sorry visible and invisible whether Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things consist and he is the head of the body the church who is the beginning the firstborn from the dead that in all things he may have the preeminence for it please the father that in him all the fullness should dwell and by him to reconcile all things to himself by him whether things on earth or things in heaven having made peace through the blood of his cross amen well please take your Trinity Salter and turn to Psalm 110 Psalm 110 when you find that you can stand and will sing together what let us pray a blessed God and Holy Father it is a joy and a privilege to be in the house of the Lord again on the Sabbath day we come to you we acknowledge that from everlasting to everlasting you are God you are a great God Father Son and Holy Spirit and certainly worthy of the praise and adoration of your creatures as the prophet and the writer and revelation asked who would not fear thee O king of the nation's for indeed it is they do we know because of sin and rebellion and wickedness we do not honor you as we ought so we praise you and we thank you for your grace we praise you and we thank you that you predestined us from before the foundation of the world that you have chosen us and that you have saved us that you have redeemed us through the blood of your dear son through the power of your Holy Spirit by the Word of God and you have given us this desire and you've put in us hearts and tongues and and this this hope that we may honor you and all that we do we would pray tonight that you would be exalted that you would be glorified that you would be lifted up that you would be well pleased to dwell in the midst of your people here we look in the book of Revelation we're thrilled when we see that Jesus is in the midst of the lampstand we pray that that would be our experience here tonight we would know the presence and the power of Christ by the spirit we would ask that you would bless pastor renehan and use him to speak the truth to us give us ears to hear and hearts to receive your truth that we may indeed be more and more conformed unto the image of your beloved son we thank you for our Lord Jesus we thank you for his life and his death and his resurrection we thank you for his current session at your right hand and we look forward to that day when he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and our hearts desires that all that would be in this place all of our children all of our young people would be ready for that day that they would be clothed in the righteousness of Christ they would know the joy of being found in him not having their own righteousness from the law that righteousness which is given by God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ we pray father that to that end you would send your spirit tonight she would bless the preaching of the word should open our hearts to that truth and may it indeed had its effect upon us we ask that you would forgive us now for our sins and our transgressions we thank you Lord God that the Scriptures declare that you are faithful and just to forgive those who confess their iniquities unto you we would pray now that you would cleanse us in the blood of the Lamb that you would fit us for worship and for service and God may all that we do tonight redound to the praise and glory the father son and spirit and pray father for your blessing upon this local church we thank you for your your manifold graces to us we thank you for the blessing this morning of gathering together seeing brethren here that we've not seen for a while we pray that you would look with favor on those who have ongoing health concerns she would daily strengthen them and cause them Lord God in the midst of trial and in the midst of difficulty to nevertheless know the comfort of a gracious in a sovereign God we pray father for each and every one in this congregation not only the physical concern but all of us with spiritual concerns we face many temptations and trials in this world we have many remaining sins and so we pray that your spirit would fortify us and strengthen us a daily so that we may indeed stand firm in the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ we ask that you would look with favor upon this nation we pray that you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon the true churches may you revive them and may all of us pray and love scripture and may we indeed shine as lights in this crooked and perverse generation and may we use those opportunities that you give to us to hold forth the word of truth we would pray as well that you would awaken those who are dead in their trespasses and sins certainly we live in days that look like the prophets days when he said that the men call good evil and evil good and we know ultimately the answer is not through politics it's not through more legislation it's through the power of the Christian gospel so we pray that word would be proclaimed that that word would run swiftly and be glorified and that you would be honored through the salvation of a multitude of sinners we thank you God that we're not alone in this community we thank you that we're not alone in this world we pray for like-minded churches we thank you for our bika we thank you for our association we thank you for that confession that it binds us together and we pray that you would look with favor upon this group of churches she would prosper them but you would cause them to flourish in the communities where they find themselves and may you indeed use the gospel preach to save sinners to strengthen and sanctify your people we ask our Father now that you would continue with us and we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord amen well you may turn in your Trinity hem NAL's to number 272 number 272 again we'll stand as we sing together we can turn in your Bibles to the prophet Ezekiel we're reading a zekiel chapter for this evening do commend to you John Gil's commentary as he deals with the various ways of looking at this particular chapter in terms of Ezekiel sign but the main emphasis is God's announcement of judgment against the nation of Israel and certainly what we see described here in terms of the siege of Jerusalem and the famine that would ensue demonstrates to us the wrath and fury of God in his judgment in his righteousness in accordance with his promise of blessing and cursing in Deuteronomy chapter 28 so I'll begin reading in Ezekiel for at verse 1 you also son of man take a clay tablet and lay it before you and portray on it a city Jerusalem lay siege against it build a siege wall against it and heap up a mound against it set camps against it also and place battering rams against it all around moreover take for yourself an iron plate and set it as an iron wall between you and the city set your face against it and it shall be besieged and you shall lay siege against it this will be assigned to the house of Israel why also on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it according to the number of the days that you lie on it you shall bear their iniquity for I have laid on you the years of their iniquity according to the number of the days 390 days so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel and when you have completed them lie again on your right side then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah 40 days I have laid on you a day for each year therefore you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem your arm shall be uncovered and you shall prophesy against it and surely I will drain you so that you cannot turn from one side to another till you have ended the days of your siege also take for yourself wheat barley beans lentils millet and spelt put them into one vessel and make bread of them for yourself during the number of days that you lie on your side 390 days you shall eat it and your food which you eat shall be by weight twenty shekels a day from time to time you shall eat it you shall also drink water by measure one sixth of a hint from time to time you shall drink and you shall eat it as barley cakes and baked it using a and bake it using fuel of human waste in their sight then the Lord said so shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles where I will drive them so I said O Lord God indeed I have never defiled myself from my youth till now I have never eaten what diet of itself or was torn by beasts nor has abominable flesh ever come into my mouth then he said to me see I am giving you cow dung instead of human waste and you shall prepare your bread over it moreover he said to me son of man surely I will cut off the supply of bread in Jerusalem they shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety and she'll drink water by measure and with dread that they may lack bread and water and be dismayed with one another and waste away because of their iniquity amen well certainly can appreciate why the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah were not happily received by the people of Israel specifically because they foretold the wrath and judgment of God coming upon a covenant ileana faithful people and through these particular signs or these acted parables something we see Jesus doing in our studies in the mole of Matthew they are showing to the nation what God is going to do in terms of his wrath and judgment upon that as we've underscored reading through these prophets and seeing specifically God's judgment upon the nation of Israel there is a lesson here for the New Covenant Church visa V we see in Revelation 2 and 3 we are to be faithful we are justified freely by God's grace alone through faith in Christ alone when God justifies us freely by His grace through faith in Jesus Christ we are to live in a particular way and churches are supposed to conduct themselves in a particular way again as we've seen in Matthew 21 when Jesus says he's going to take the kingdom from Old Covenant Israel and give it to a nation he describes that nation as one bearing fruits consistent with the kingdom and so you see if we as New Covenant believers and specifically as a church continued in patterns of rebellion and in patterns of impenitence then the Lord Christ will take that lamp stand from us and certainly these prophets demonstrator these prophets tell us that God means business he calls his people to function in a particular manner and we do not have the right to redefine or we don't have the right to renege on or the right to neglect those things that the Lord God has called us so i would highly commend to you reading the Old Testament certainly understand these passages in their original context what was going on at the time of the prophet Ezekiel the years that the situation but think in terms of the New Covenant application we as well need to be faithful to our Lord and we as well need to seek by His grace to do those things that are consistent with being Kingdom citizens and when we read such passages and when we see such things threatened by our God and as we move through the rest of the history we see those things flashed out and it's a serious serious judgment of God famine I mean in the Book of Lamentations what does it what does Jeremiah lament one of the things that he laments over is women cooking their own children and that why was that because there was famine persons were starving to death this underscores the wrath and the fury and the judgment of God and hopefully promotes in us that terror of the Lord that does make us to go to the Lord Jesus Christ and sort of just Cleavon to him with so many lesson so many things as I said breed John Gill in terms of this particular prophetic sign other commentators as well but the main gist we mustn't neglect God's promised judgment upon an incorrigible people will let us pray our Father in Heaven we thank you for your mercy in your grace that you've displayed to us in the Christian gospel you have blessed this church God we have together or been together for many years now and we give all glory to you for that we know it wasn't because we're good it's not because we worked hard it's not because we're stellar men and women it's because you're a sovereign and a gracious and a merciful Father and we pray that the peace and the unity that we have would be preserved and maintained as well God that we would do those things that we are supposed to do as a new covenant church that we would love one another that we would be hospitable to one another that we would be evangelistic and seek by your grace to reach sinners with the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord we pray father that you had caused us to be a faithful lot and may your blessing be upon us and we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord amen well for our final him before dr. renehan comes to preach will sing number 54 him number 54 will stand as we sing together you Oh you should have passed a renehan with us to preach again the Word of God okay good evening again please turn in your Bibles to 2nd Corinthians chapter 13 second Corinthians chapter 13 and we'll read just one verse the final verse of this letter that Paul writes to the Corinthians second Corinthians chapter 13 verse 14 hear the word of God the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all amen let's pray together our Father a simple reading of these words encourages us would you help us now more and more to be encouraged as we study these words help us give us light glorify yourself in our midst we ask in Jesus name Amen I wonder have you ever been in a situation or witnessed a circumstance something like this the telephone rings and you answer it you soon realize that the person who is calling is someone with whom you're having a dispute or someone who's been offensive to you or irritating in the past what do you feel like at that moment when you realize who the person is on the other end of the line and how does the conversation usually go maybe it's a family member with whom you disagree over something like family finances perhaps it's a neighbor who has initiated a property dispute or who refuses to remove all of the junk in his yard allows his dogs to terrify the neighborhood possibly it's a contractor who did shoddy work on your house there could be many scenarios but seldom do these conversations go well often they start out heated and they only get hotter and how do they end well frequently they end with anger and with bitterness and oftentimes with sinful recriminations hard and harsh words that are spoken back and forth and I asked the question is that familiar well probably and sadly for most of us we can remember when we experienced or witnessed just this kind of thing and it's not a very good memory to bring up is it in fact oftentimes were ashamed of ourselves when we think of the way we conducted ourselves and those kind of circumstances well you know Paul's second letter to the Corinthians is in some senses like one of these very difficult conversations now we're only able to listen to one side like sitting in the room while someone else indoors one of these trying discussions on the phone and I've been there or somebody else is on the telephone and I have to listen to their conversation but it's just like this think about it in this epistle Paul must address deep problems in the Corinthian church he has to defend his own ministry he describes the depth of the multiple troubles that he himself has personally endured he must call the Corinthian church to repentance he pleads with them for reconciliation and much more the Corinthians had criticized Paul had been overzealous in the practice of church discipline they had viewed the Apostle as secondary and perhaps even as an object of scorn because of his difficulties they were proud mais early self-centered willing to accept other pseudo apostles over Paul and this epistle is packed full of these problems really it reads very much like the transcript of one of these difficult conversations and yet it concludes with the fullest and most extensive word of blessing found in all of Paul's letters Marie Harris closes his commentary on second Corinthians with these words if you were to take down his commentary from the shelf and read it in the the body of the commentary this is the very last paragraph that you would read he says this it is a singular power paradox that a letter so full of indignation remonstrance and gyrating emotions should conclude with the most elevated Trinitarian affirmation in the New Testament couched in the form of a benediction addressed to all of the members of a factious church dr. Harris is exactly right while our experience of difficult conversations often ends in hard feelings or shame or even increased conflict Paul concludes his hard letter to this church with words of blessing words of prayer words of hope words that are directed to these Corinthians based upon his Trinitarian doctrine and applied to all of the believers in the church without exception you see here is genuine Christian love presented to us in a delightful form in these final words of second Corinthians we have a beautiful benediction now I wonder do you know what a benediction is we many churches this morning here at your church our service was concluded with a benediction it's a word that we use frequently but sometimes it may be that we don't always understand what it means a benediction is simply a Latin word that's brought over into English that means a word of blessing and it's not the same as a doxology though it's easy to confuse the two of them and try to distinguish between them for you a doxology is a brief expression of praise that we offer up to God in the context here there actually is a doxology if you look over at chapter 11 and verse 31 Paul gives to us an example of what a doxology is he says in verse 30 if I must boast I will boast of the things that show my weakness and then he says the god and father of the Lord Jesus he who is blessed forever knows that I'm not lying in the midst of his defense of himself as over against the charge that the Corinthians make to him he offers off this brief doxology the god and father of our Lord Jesus he who is blessed forever that's an example of what a doxology is a doxology is a word of praise that we speak up to God we sang the doxology at the close of the service this morning that's a brief statement of praise that we offer up to the God of heaven and earth and so a doxology originates with us it's a word of praise that we offer up to God but a bed addiction is just the opposite a benediction is a word of blessing that is spoken to us not by us but to us it comes to us through God's representatives and it expresses a desire for God's bounty to come upon us we include a benediction in our worship services so that the last word that we all here is a word of blessing from the Lord to us and that's what we heard this morning one of your pastors stood up and he spoke to us that word of blessing as God's representative so that when we left this place we might go with the encouragement of the blessing of God upon us Paul very frequently employees benedictions in fact all of his epistles every single one of them both begins and ends with a benediction in his greetings frequently he'll say something like this grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ some variation on that but that's the benediction by which he enters all of his epistles some form like that in the farewells to all of his epistles he likewise expresses a blessing sometimes at greater length sometimes much briefer but always express expressing a blessing to the recipients of his letters now Paul doesn't do this out of custom the way that you and I greet people with hey how are you and we always respond to that with good we don't even think about it do we it's just custom it's what we do Paul isn't doing that rather he pre presents or he begins his letters and ends his letters with these words of blessing because he wishes for God's people to know the things that he expresses in those letters and to grow in the grace of them so a benediction is actually very important in the structure of Paul's epistles he wants God's people to know this blessing Paul's desire is for Christians to live with a deep understanding of the spiritual realities which are at the very root of their lives we could put it like this Christians must know God not just know about him but really and truly comprehend his grace and walk through life with an absolute dependence upon him and it's for this reason that he places benedictions at the entry and at the exit of all of his epistles so that God's people might contemplate and receive the blessing of God now here he closes his epistle to these troublesome Corinthians with this wonderful word of blessing let's take a look at it it's very familiar probably in many churches this is the word that already has been spoken to them today most of us know it by heart sometimes it's even called the grace or the blessing my friend Matthew Brennan will often close his services in Ireland by say saying let's say the grace together the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now Paul here in this extensive blessing picks up themes that have been present throughout the letter we've already said that this is a letter in which he addresses some very difficult problems in the church and those themes that are present as he deals with these difficult problems are repeated for us in this blessing the Corinthians need grace to overcome grace to face the difficulties that are present in their congregation and they will only become by copious measures of the grace of God the love of God they need the love of God to come into their midst so that they might love one another the place to begin to love is by thinking of the love of God you remember what John says in his First Epistle we love him why because He first loved us he wants us to meditate on God's love in order that we might love one another and then the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit the powerful influence and working of the Holy Spirit Paul has already emphasized these things in this epistle and so he picks up these themes and brings them together in this beautiful Trinitarian blessing but it's interesting that while there's a very real sense in which his benediction looks back and presents us with ideas that are drawn from the Epistle it's not a backwards looking benediction because at this moment he wants the Corinthians to look forward it points the Corinthians in the direction of the future the reasons that they needed grace and love and communion or fellowship are obvious but at this moment and you have to picture the Corinthian seated together wherever it was that they met listening to this epistle you have to think in those terms Paul wanted them to have the very last thing that they heard when this epistle was read by one of the elders of their congregation he wanted them to have the way forward presented to them because whatever happened in the past was in the past and yes they needed to repent but they needed to mend those things and they needed to move forward and the way to move forward was by grace and love and fellowship here at this moment Paul is not urging them to dwell on the passing on their sins but rather he wants them to seek the remedy and to know the Blessed fruits of that remedy so that the last word that they here as the letter is read to them is a blessing indeed they have a great deal of repenting to do but even that repenting must be done in the proper context and the proper context is the grace of Christ and the love of God the Father and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit now let's think about this together the first thing that we need to say about this benediction is that it is a Trinitarian blessing it's full of deep and profound and in some ways inexplicable truths and the first one that we confront is the doctrine of the Trinity you know the authors of the New Testament clearly we're Trinitarians though they might not have used that word they believed in the concept it troubles me sometimes when I read books in which the authors of the books say well Paul wouldn't have recognized the doctrine of the Trinity because it really wasn't defined in the church until the fourth century and the Council of Nicaea and I read a text like this and I say you don't know what you're talking about because Paul here clearly presents to us the doctrine of the Trinity think about it we said this morning and you know this for a fact that Paul was a devout Jew one of the strongest and most devout of all the Jews who had been well trained in the School of Gamaliel and new through and through the doctrines of Judaism he was a man who was firmly committed to the fact that there is one God probably the first memory verse that he memorized as a little boy was Deuteronomy 64 hear o Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one and you shall love the Lord God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind is called the Shema it's the most basic truth upon which all of the doctrines of Judaism have been built Paul firmly believed in this one God in many places in his epistles he talks about the fact that there is only one God for example if we took the time we'd look at first Corinthians chapter 8 verses 4 through 6 where he says plainly there is only one God that is Paul's bedrock commitment and yet think about what he does in this benediction here he places three persons on equal footing he doesn't say may the one god bless you but rather he focuses attention upon the three persons of the one God in this blessing that comes from God it's not three gods but rather Paul here articulates to us the doctrine of the Trinity there is one God who exists eternally in three persons and the order that he presents here is son father and spirit we'll see in a minute why Paul places the the person's of the Trinity in this order but he wants the Corinthians to think of this one God who is three persons working together to bring about salvation for his people the doctrine of the Trinity is profound and in reality it is beyond our comprehension one of the the great fathers of the early church gregory nazianz asst put it like this in in really beautiful terms he's he's contemplating the person's of the Trinity and he says this no sooner do I conceive of the one then I am illumined by the splendor of the three no sooner do i distinguish the three than I am carried back to the one which of course means that he begins to consider the splendor of the one which carries him to the three which brings him back to the one which brings him to the three which brings them to the one and he's amazed at the glory and majesty of this great and wonderful God here we have the doctrine of the Trinity portrayed to us in the core nearest language of a New Testament writer you know I'm reminded of what our confession says in chapter 2 paragraph 3 when it speaks to the doctrine of the Trinity it says that this doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all of our communion with God and comfortable dependence upon him if we would know God we must know God as father son and spirit the One God who is Trinity if we would have comfortable dependence upon him folks I want to live comfortably dependent upon God if we are to have comfortable dependence upon him we need to know something of the doctrine of the Trinity and so it should not surprise us that here as Paul desires so much for the healing in the forward movement of the Corinthian church that he turns their attention to the doctrine of the Trinity the Holy Trinity blessed forever in majesty and glory works as one to bring us to eternal life now we do have to be careful here Paul does not by laying out the doctrine in this way the grace of the lord jesus and the love of God the Father and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit he does not tend us Tom sorry teach us that these are the works of the members of the Trinity acting individually it's not that grace alone comes to us through Christ and love is known only through God the Father and that the Holy Spirit is the only one who sheds upon us his fellowship in fact to think in those terms would contradict many other texts of Scripture that speak for example about the grace of God God the Father or about the love of Christ but rather Paul here wants to focus our attention on a very specific and wonderful truth and this is why he presents to us the members of the Trinity in an order that's somewhat different from what we normally consider he speaks of son and father and spirit rather than father son and spirit why does he do that well it is because from one perspective it is only by the grace of the lord jesus christ that the corinthians may know the love of god the father and may know the blessings of the Holy Spirit and that's probably why he places the members of the Trinity in the order that he does of course it might have been different and sometimes scripture emphasizes these things in different order perhaps for example placing the love of God first but here knowing the trouble in the Corinthian church Paul's desire is to help them out of their trouble so this benediction this word of blessing follows this pattern the grace of the lord jesus christ opens the way for us to know the love of God the Father and the blessings the fellowship the communion of the Holy Spirit so we have this wonderful Trinitarian statement that is crafted in such a way to help us in the midst of our need now let's take a look at each of these phrases by themselves and for a moment at least consider what it is that Paul says to us the first phrase that we encounter by itself is this phrase the grace of the lord jesus christ it's interesting that paul here uses the full name and title of our savior he might have said the grace of christ or the grace of the lord or the grace of jesus but he chose to use his complete title the Lord Jesus Christ Charles Hoge helps us to understand why he does this the word Lord turns our attention to his divine nature when that word is employed in the New Testament with reference to our Savior typically it intends for us to contemplate him as the eternal second person of the Trinity is the only begotten Son of God who has lived forever with the father and with the spirit it's it's a high statement of deity when the word Jesus is used it is intended that we consider him in his human nature you remember what the angel came at the announcement of his birth you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins that's the name that was given to the baby that was born to Mary and Joseph this little bundle of joy that was held in their arms his name was Jesus because he was really and truly a man he's the Lord who has a divine nature he is Jesus who has a true human nature and he is Christ one person who brings together his divine nature and his human nature and in his office as Christ he is the long promised Messiah you see there's a sense here in which not only do we have a very powerful and beautiful Trinitarian statement but we also have one of the most detailed statements about the person of our Lord Jesus in the New Testament here we have high trinitarianism and we have high Christology as well two natures join together in one person forever this is the doctrine of the Council of Nicaea once again a demonstration that the authors of the New Testament believe the very things that were later on recognized by the church and here is a guy who loves historical theology I could talk about how the Creed's of the church are based in Scripture but this is one of the places to which they would have gone to demonstrate both the doctrine of the Trinity and the eternal nature of our Lord Jesus Christ who is divine and human joined together in one person forever now the main point though to stay on track the idea here is that our Savior in the fullness of his identity is the one who brings grace to us he loves his church and he lavishes grace upon her grace unmerited favor love flowing from Christ the Savior to his needy people grace of course is not a physical commodity but it is an essential spiritual virtue it's not something that you and I can go to the store and purchase but it is something that Jesus Christ purchased at the cost of his own life his life his death his resurrection his ascension into heaven that's the basis pardon me for granting to us grace and I want you to imagine with me the Apostle Paul down on his knees thinking about the Corinthian church and crying out to God asking for copious measures of grace to come upon the Corinthians from the god-man it's a beautiful picture isn't it this difficulty pistol that is concluded with these wonderful words of blessing that the eternal one who humbled himself and became a man in order to redeem us might send grace to the Corinthians grace to help them repent of their sins overcome their difficulties and move forward in Christ's likeness it's a simple blessing but when you stop to think about it it's amazing grace is to the life of the believer what water is to the soil I live in a semi-arid place a place that's been through long periods of drought without water there can be no growth there is only berenice and emptiness and sisters and brothers without grace in the Christian life there is no growth there is only berenice and emptiness and the corinthians needed grace for this church with all of its troubles Paul seeks the blessing of grace showers of life-giving grace grace the doorway to the future grace the blessing of bringing forth good fruit that's how the corinthians are to move forward and it all comes from the lord jesus christ the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you secondly Paul speaks about the love of God you know when New Testament writers employ the word God commonly or maybe I can even say most commonly they use that word to refer to the father not always but most commonly that word is used with reference to the father here pull once us to contemplate the fact that the grace which comes from Christ helps us to know something of the love of God in fact I'm reminded of those very familiar words that our Lord Jesus spoke to his disciples in the upper room just before he was about to be betrayed and crucified you remember the Upper Room discourse in John chapter 14 15 and 16 and he says I am the way the truth and the life and then what does he say next no one may come to the Father but by me that might be in the background of what Paul is thinking here and why he places these things in the order that he does now when he speaks about the love of God he is not here speaking about our love for God yes we ought to love God but that's not what what is in his mind rather here he wants us to contemplate he wants the Corinthians to know something of the enormous love that the God of heaven and earth has for us grace alone allows us to know something of the fullness of the depth of the love that God has for this fractious group of Corinthians and the love that God has for us he's not a god who is a loop and far away but rather he is overflowing in love and he has given us Christ through whom we may know the fullness of his love how do you describe the love of God what kind of language is it possible to use it's beyond parallel and it's above comparison Paul says in the book of Ephesians that the love of God surpasses knowledge and he tries to express it in spatial terms remember he speaks about the length and the breadth and the height and the depth of the love of God and then he prays that we may know something of it we can't describe it adequately but we can begin to know it and here in second Corinthians 13 14 this simple phrase points to that amazing reality god is love and his love demonstrated to us by Christ's grace is something that we are to know Paul sends this blessing upon the Corinthians because in a sense he wants them to bathe in the love that God has for them and as they are transformed by this they will learn to love like him the scripture asserts that we are to delight in the love of God Jesus prays to the Father for us because the father loves us paul says in romans chapter 5 that the Holy Spirit sheds the love of the father into our hearts that's what Paul is talking about here it's a marvelous truth and an enormous blessing and we might ask the question what better benediction could be offered that all of God's people would know the fullness that the love of that God has that God has in love for them moment by moment day-to-day reveal to them in Jesus Christ the Savior who died and rose again the love of God but that's not the end so far so good right yeah I think this is pretty good I get encouraged preaching it but we're not at the end yet it gets still gets better the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit here is the third member of the holy trinity the sometimes neglected member but one who is an essential part of this wonderful benediction now we need to understand what paul is saying here because it would be easy to read this text as if it said something like this the fellowship that we have with each other because of the Holy Spirit the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Fellowship we have with one another because of the Holy Spirit be with you all but if we read it that way we would miss the point that's not exactly what Paul is speaking about think about what's going on in this text in the first two of these statements Paul's desire is that the Corinthians would know blessings that come down from heaven Christ's grace and God's love it seems probable that the same kind of idea is present here that Paul wants to know them to know something of the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit that comes down from heaven the the Greek word here koinonia the koinonia of the Holy Spirit is the blessings that are brought to us by the Holy Spirit blessings purchased for us by Jesus Christ and granted to us by the spirit another way to put it is to say that this is the fullness of spiritual blessings that are lavished upon us by God they are the fruit of the dead death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and they are things like the fruit of the Spirit as described in Galatians chapter 5 love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control everything that it is said in Scripture is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives in making us to be like our Lord Jesus and preparing us to live in the heavenly world of love in the presence of the glorious triune God if we were to look at parallel passages we could think through some of these blessings the spirit jesus says reminds us of the words that were spoken by Christ the spirit glorifies the Son of God the spirit sheds the father's love into our hearts the spirit bears witness with us that we are the children of God he seals us assuring eternal life he's the down payment of the heavenly world he anoints us like priests so that we may be able to worship he's the spirit of adoption these are just brief samples of what the blessings of the Holy Spirit are about the communion of the Holy Spirit yes involves the love that we have for one another but in many ways that's a byproduct the real focus of attention are the spiritual blessings that the Spirit brings to us because of our Lord Jesus Christ and when Paul praised this prayer on behalf of the Corinthians when he brings this blessing this benediction upon them he wants them to know the communion of the Holy Spirit more and more to be characterized by these things more fully that the work of the Holy Spirit would be present in them that they would demonstrate his power in their midst isn't that a great blessing and how can we possibly quantify what the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit would be like three fantastic statements the grace of the Lord Jesus purchased with his own blood that enables us to know something of the fullness of the love that God has for us and the Holy Spirit who comes and works all of these graces in us to the glory of God but that's not the end of the verse because there's another statement and we would do injustice to this text if we fail to make some comments on how it concludes look at it the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all there's two things that we must notice about this little phrase that concludes this verse the first is simple grace and love and fellowship or communion are not philosophical concepts they're not just ideas that flowed out there they have a source and they have a destination they come from God to women and men like you and me God's purpose is that these three things grace and love and communion will be experienced by us will be known by us will characterize us as a congregation that's the first thing that we have to say may they be with you all but the second thing that we need to say and perhaps this is even more important is that Paul includes the entire church in this benediction now think about this with me for a moment these are the people who had rejected him who had troubled him who had followed others you know I I try to imagine what it would have been like for the Corinthians sit in their congregation and listen to one of their elders read this epistle and as they read their way through it and Paul describes the troubles that characterize that church he knew their names he knew their faces he could remember their voices did they feel the pinch did they say Oh Paul's writing about me here or did they all say oh we know who Paul's describing at this point these are people who had caused him the greatest kind of difficulties and yet as he concludes this epistle knowing their names knowing their faces perhaps he ate at their tables perhaps he was involved in the lives of their families he pronounces these words upon all of them none in the church are excluded from Paul's desire to know these things you know because these words are intended for the whole church we can say this is God's purpose for you as a church as well now I don't mean that you're like the Corinthians but these are words that every Christian needs to hear and they are words that we ought to pray for every Christian now think about it like this these are not rewards for good behavior because if they were Paul couldn't pronounce them on the Corinthians grace is not something that we get because we do well grace is something that we need because we do badly and that was the case with the Corinthians these aren't rewards for good behavior they are blessings to seek for all of God's people no one who names Christ's name ought to be excluded from this prayer these are words of life and health and growth and they are intended for everyone in the congregation now I I know Paul must have been a man like me and if somebody harms me it's very difficult to pray blessings on that person but I've tried to make myself learn how to do that Jesus has to pray for those who you soon despitefully pray for that and since that's what Paul is doing here he's wishing for love our grace and love and the blessings of the Holy Spirit to come upon God's people and that's what we need to do as well for all of God's people not just the ones that we like not just the ones we get along with the best but for all of them it's important for us to seek these things for others even those who have wounded us pretty wonderful words aren't they they're really words that are full of grace and love and fellowship they're not the results of our good works in fact they go before anything that we do and they serve as the only basis upon which our obedience may flow Paul doesn't say grit your teeth steal your back and be determined to go out and do good works he says you need the grace of the lord jesus christ and you need the love of god and you need the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit and those things will give you a pathway to be a different church Oh corinthians this is my desire for you you know reading the book might be like overhearing one of those difficult telephone conversations but the end is really good isn't it the grace of the lord jesus and the love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now you know I've preached this sermon in many places and I say this every time I cannot preach this text to you and tell you three ways to put these things into practice in your life I can't give you five things that you ought to do to see to receive these gifts of grace because this text is not law at all this is a text of gospel pure and simple gospel of God's goodness extended to his people without his presence and his power we can we are nothing and we can do nothing and even our duties and we have many commands that we must obey even our duties be based in God's being our Trinitarian god our savior who is divine and human in one person forever hi doctrine here you could preach some really good fine doctrinal sermons from this text you see all of our duties must be based in his being and in his acts in who he is the foundation of our communion with God and comfortable dependence upon him and in what he does we've only glanced at the surface of this deep reservoir of comfort and strength to know the splendor of our Trinitarian God to receive His grace in Christ to be unfolded by his love to know communion with him and with one another is far more than we can fully comprehend but it is the gift that we may know because of this wonderful benediction from the Lord and so I urge you to go forth from this place blessed by him remember that it all starts with him and as we learn this lesson and as we look to him for our life we will see these things come to greater reality in our churches and so go in peace and may the Lord's benediction the gospel be upon you amen let's pray our father were overwhelmed at what you give to us in our Lord Jesus Christ we do not deserve anything and yet you lavish upon us spiritual blessings that are so wonderful we are not even able to describe them thank you and because you love us we ask you to continue to give us these things not the things that our sinful hearts desire but the things that are best for us so that we might love one another and love you here and that we might be prepared for that great assembly that will stand in your presence and worship you forever do these things for the glory of your name we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord amen what we all stand and sing a doxology if you turn in your hymn books to him 35 will stand and sing stanza one of him 35 now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to God our Savior who alone is wise be glory and Majesty Dominion and power both now and forever amen please be seated we'll have a brief time of Prayer again when the piano is finished you're dismissed you