Cor 13:7-14 Pauls Exhortation Salutation and Benediction

Well, good morning. So this is the last part of Corinthians we're going to do, and then we're going to Romans starting next week. So Mike and I are all pumped up about Romans, and just were talking before the service started about the blessings that people have derived just in studying the book of Romans. But I think we, as a body, I know Mike and I, we've derived great blessing from teaching Paul's letter to the Corinthians. And it's been kind of unique and interesting. And Paul pours out his heart, right? Hasn't he been pouring out his heart to the Corinthians? And so I want to review a little bit and then finish it off here. So OK. So I've called this last part Paul's Exhortation, Salutation, and Benediction. And so I like to use different outlines. I know, it's nice to have an outline. So basically, we're going to look back at verse 5 a little bit and talk about that. And then we're going to go into the last verses, 7 through 14. So that's the plan.

So I'm just going to talk about, actually, my review is just going to be talking about this phrase, test yourself to see if you're in the faith. And a very interesting verse. Many people take it as personal faith. But this has a definite article. And so it's talking about a particular faith.

And if you trace through scripture, you'll see if you do a word search and if you have a computer, you can search on the faith. And you'll see it shows up in various verses. It shows up in Jude talking about the faith that was once delivered, perpetually valid. It shows up in different parts of Scripture and it refers to the body of truth Objective truth from the Bible Christian doctrine if you will so it's not so much focused It's definitely not focused on personal faith, even though I'm going to try to do a balance here I thought after last week that maybe I I didn't want to short sell personal faith, because what we're going to find here, the object of the faith and the object of our personal faith is all in the Word of God. So they both have a common source, but I want to be clear on what's what.

So that's where we're going here. So testing yourself, this is from Merriman, testing yourself is saying that you are measuring yourself against the objective truth in the Bible. Interesting that Bob, we had a great Sunday school today and we talked about the truth. I was just kind of biding my time, I wanted to say more but I held myself back because I was all excited about them. The objective truth from Scripture.

So this is talking about, so remember these were believers in Corinth. And it wasn't that they weren't saved. They were saved, but they were off the rails. They had been following these false teachers. And so they weren't walking in the truth of scripture.

So he wants them to have them examine scripture and look at their lives and say, what's going on here? There's a disconnect. So that's where he's at. So I like this. So actually, in listening to what from several years ago, what Merriman taught, he actually had asked this question, which is, how do you test yourself against the objective truth of the Bible? You think, well, that sounds like an impossible task. I mean, 66 books. How many paragraphs? How many words? Is that what he's talking about? Well, so basically what he did here, he kind of gives just some parameters to it.

First of all, do we know the truths of Scripture? I don't think that means we know every single thing about Scripture, but do we know the core of what Scripture is talking about? It's focused on our Savior, right? It's the objective truth about our Savior. So it's objective truth, and we're to trust and rely upon that objective truth for salvation and for our Christian life. and we're to trust nothing else. It's to be what God has said, we're to trust Christ alone, basically.

So what I liked is that in thinking about this, one of the things we talk about is the magnitude of our salvation from our Savior. There's a past aspect of our salvation, a present aspect, and a future aspect. And in a way, we can use that as a way of thinking about how do I test myself. It's kind of good to go over. This is kind of will be repeat for a lot of you folks But let's think about the aspects of salvation first of all I have been saved from the penalty of sin I am being saved presently right now my Christian life from the power of sin and I will be saved from the presence of sin and some like to call that which I don't it sounds kind of maybe more highfalutin if you will and Oh, I lost my picture there for a second. I can't without my notes. Okay, there we go. Okay. You could talk about the penalty of sin would be justification, sanctification, glorification.

You've heard that probably many times, but some people refer to it that way, but we're talking about I have been saved, I'm being saved, and I will be saved. So let's look at each of these. And this material comes from a class that was taught in the past and made your major Bible themes. I Have been saved from the penalty of sin Refers to a holy past event a past point in time that occurred in your life It's complete and unchangeable You know God is saving you you're not saving yourself.

So it's a completed action that that he has done it's from it's from the penalty of sin eternal death to eternal life and So here's several verses that speak to that past event happening in your life for by grace you have been saved through faith And then John it talks about he who believes has passed out of death into life Another verse in John that you shall never perish No one will snatch me out of my hand and actually if you look carefully at that verse and Mike's been teaching that and John I It's you're actually in the son's hand and you're in the father's hand. We're in two hands, if you will. Wow. We're in the son's hand and the father's hand.

So nothing can change that position once you've trusted the Savior because he's maintaining it. Then lastly, based upon that, there's no condemnation. Down the road, the Lord is not going to say, oh, by the way, oh, I forgot something. You know that sin you committed 20 years ago? I'm still remembering that one. No, no, that's been paid for.

There's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. So that's a past aspect of our salvation. And certainly, as he was talking to the Corinthian church and us as well, When he talks about testing yourself, you say, well, what did I trust to become a believer? Did I trust in some event or some special thing in my life? No, I trusted in what God said in His Word and I believed it. So the present tense of salvation. I'm being saved presently from the power of sin.

And this is one that's not quite as well understood. This is called sanctification, which sounds kind of spiritual. But this is pretty, and this is what Romans is going to be all about. This is the bread and butter of Romans. Salvation is from the reigning power of sin. We are now separated from our sin nature. It is from the power of sin, the sin nature, to being alive to God.

And so a couple of verses, I'm using the Weiss translation. Which it was one of my favorites because what we does he tries to take the original language and then Expand it with additional words and phrases So a key verse in that which will be studying down the road here. Maybe a year or so from now Knowing this that our old self or better old man is actually better was crucified with him in order that the physical body dominated by the sinful nature might be rendered inoperative and like her brother Hal, taken offline, put in idle. The sin nature is still there. It didn't get eradicated. It's just offline. And that's a wonderful thing. With the result that, you no longer are rendering a slave's habitual obedience to the sinful nature. And then another key verse in Romans.

Romans 6.11.

You be constantly counting upon the fact that on one hand, You are those who have been separated from the sinful nature and on the other hand that you are living You're the living ones with respect to God in Christ Jesus kind of kind of wordy But I think you know the point is you've been separated from the reigning power of your sin nature, and that's wonderful.

It's still there and God by and by faith you're to abide in him and You can have victory in the Christian life Okay, and that's and that's certainly a topic for for Examining yourself, right? Are you in the faith? Are you are you walking with the Lord you abiding? What are you but do you believe that you even separated from your sin nature? Do you believe what God's Word is said? so future tense So this one would be are you counting upon this is going to happen, right? And we all are looking forward to this.

I will be saved from the presence of sin I'm saved into full conformity to Christ. I will no longer have a sinful nature I Saved from the presence of sin the sin nature to the absence of sin a couple verses in 1st John 3 2 is not appeared as yet what we shall be but when he appears we shall be like him Before you see him just as he is And this work has protected for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last times And then lastly will be perfected a good work in you until the day of Christ Jesus Okay, so I thought, so that's, I'm going to kind of switch gears on you here. So I've been talking about the body of truth, talking about the, called the faith, which is basically the objective truth from scripture. Well, there's also objective truth about us in scripture in terms of our salvation.

What are we to trust in our personal faith to become a believer? So this is kind of a little overview of that. So, in 115 passages in the New Testament, salvation of a sinner is declared to depend only, with quotation marks, only upon believing. In 35 other passages, it's declared to be depending upon faith. So the two words are synonyms of belief and faith. One is pistoua and one is pistis, and they're the same family of words. So we're talking about the same thing, belief, faith.

God alone can save only through the sacrifice of His Son. Man is to believe the message concerning His Son, right? The message is Christ died for our sins, He was buried, and He was raised on the third day. Believing, I like this, believing is the opposite of doing something. It's trusting another instead. We're trusting what God has done for us. That's what saves you. Salvation depends only upon believing. So here's a list of things that some people think they have to have to be saved. Salvation is not required that one believe and pray. These are all good things. Believe and confess sins. Believe and confess Christ. Believe and repent. Believe and make restitution.

All those things are good. In fact, I can think, when I became a believer, I did all those five things. I can think of one restitution. I said, I got to go talk to some people. I got some fences to mend. There are things that I've done in my life that I, and I wanted to make restitution, but I'd already trusted the Savior at that point. So hopefully this kind of distinguishes. The faith, the body of doctrine, is what Paul is asking the Corinthians to examine. They're already saved, but here's the same body of truth that we're to trust to become a believer. Okay, so hopefully that clears up that point. So let's go on.

So today's verses, I'm not going to re-read it again, but one of the cool parts in here is verse 11. It's going to talk about five things, five commands, five imperative moods that he's going to give us about what he encouraged the Corinthians to go on with. Because this is, he's wrapping up his second letter to them. Okay, so let's start here. Now we pray, let me just go here. First of all, he's going to give us the motivation for this testing. He talked about this testing. Now he's going to give us the motivation.

Now we pray to God that you do no wrong. And the least has it that you do not even do one bit of evil. That you do not do even one bit of evil. So, one of the questions is here, is this a general, generic statement? He's trying to encourage the Corinthians here. He says, don't do wrong. Can you imagine when our kids were young, you say, have a good time, but don't do wrong. Right. And, and we probably have said that to our children, but just kind of a big generic thing.

I, it seems like, and I like what Merriman did here. So, so, so what is, what is the, what is his point here? What's he concerned about? What evil, not one bit of evil, what's he concerned about here? And it seems like. He's concerned about the evil that was going on in the Corinthian church.

And Paul has spent two letters that we've studied for several years now talking about the evils in the Corinthian church. So he wasn't just talking about, be a good boy today. He's talking about don't go back and go after what has already upset the Corinthian church. Stay focused on the Lord and don't get involved with these evils of the Corinthian church.

So I think that's what he says is do no wrong or not one bit of evil. So now he said, now we pray to God that you do no wrong, not that we ourselves may appear approved. So what he's going to do now, he's going to talk about First he's going to talk about, do I appear to be, because I'm an apostle, a super person, and I never do wrong?

I don't want you to have that impression. That's kind of the idea. And it may appear, the appearance of something brought to light, approved as this word, documos, to be approved. So Paul did not want to lord it over the Corinthians. Like, we're apostles, and of course, we only do good. But he wanted to humbly encourage them. He takes that approach and then he does the flip side in the next part of the verse. But, in strong contrast, that you may do what is right. This is the desire for the Corinthians, even though Paul and his team, the others with him, may appear to be unapproved. And the reason they're unapproved is because of the constant battle he's had with the false apostles over his apostleship.

And this word unapproved And actually, we studied this word earlier. And actually, I think it was Joanne asked me last week after class about this word. It's a negation of documas, adocumas. And actually, it comes across kind of plain and vanilla here. But if you look in the King James translation, it comes across much stronger translated. It's translated reprobate or counterfeit. And it's actually used like in Romans 128b, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. So it has a pretty strong context translated that way. It's the same word.

So they basically thought the false teachers were claiming that Paul He wasn't a true believer. You guys are connected with this guy named Paul and he's teaching all kinds of, he's not really a true believer. That's what they're, they're about. And he says, that's not the case.

He said, we want you to walk on the truth, even though it may appear that people are casting doubt upon our faith. Okay. So here's, this is a cool statement. I know Paul makes incredible statements and so hopefully we can understand this one. For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. So once again, it's Paul and his team. So we translate this, we're not able to do anything against the truth. And against is that cool word in the Greek, face-to-face. So it's like you're face-to-face with the truth and you can't do anything against it.

So Paul's really saying, as a preacher of the gospel in Corinth, I am so face-to-face with the truth that I'm not going to give you anything else but the truth. A pretty incredible statement. So what is the truth in context? What's the truth in this context? I think for Paul it was preaching. What did he preach when he was a missionary in Corinth? Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The body of truth about Christ's life in you.

So Paul is so convinced, this is from Merriman, which I liked, Paul is so convinced they are on solid ground with the Corinthians that he makes this categorical statement. And then he says an additional thing, but only for the truth. And for here is hupere, in the interest of, so he's saying, I only promote the truth. Paul is firmly fixed in the position of the truth. So I think what Paul is saying is, You know, I've come to you Corinthians, I'm face to face with God's truth, and that's all I have done with you, and I don't deviate from that. I'm a man, yes, but, so that's what his statement means, even though it sounds like kind of arrogant. I do nothing against the truth. I'm face to face with his truth, and I can do nothing else. I stay in the truth, in the interest of the truth. Okay.

For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak, but you are strong. Paul's kind of been here before. We've heard this kind of before. So now it seems like he's going to do a play on words. He's going to use this weak versus strong tension, if you will. So we know Paul has already said, I am well content with weakness, for when I am weak, then I am strong. So we know Paul's opinion about weakness. Weakness in the Lord is a wonderful place to be. But he detects something else, I think, in the Corinthians. He wants the Corinthians to think about, quote, their strength. They're doing it in their strength. I think it's almost sarcastic, I think. He wants them to think about their strength.

This we also pray that you may be made complete. So think about your strength, Corinthians. But what I want for you is that you're a complete man in Christ. So Paul's prayer is as follows. Your completion, that's what that word means, made complete. Your completion. to render fit, completely fitted out, harmonious.

This is a word about maturity in the Christian faith. And here's a cool verse that speaks to that. Colossians 128. We proclaim Him, Christ, admonishing every man, teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. That's God's desire and that's Paul's desire, that we're complete in His Son. Complete meaning the idea of maturity Okay, so we go on here for this reason.

I'm writing these things while absent so Paul You know that Paul was accused of this many times. They say you he wrote much stronger than he was in person right and that was his preference he would rather talk about the the details that really were super important and that he might get hot under the collar about. He'd much rather do that than come in face-to-face with you and have a heated argument with you.

He didn't want to do that. He wanted to avoid that. So that, with the purpose of that, when I'm present, I need not use severity. He wanted to avoid the caustic approach. He wasn't a confrontationalist. No confrontations were fine with him. But he said he said I'll do it if I have to if it's if it gets to that point I will do it in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me so Paul had the authority of Apostle which was you know, that's the highest human position you had and But his that was to be used for the building up not the tearing down Paul's words are meant to build up Never to tear down, never to literally cast down. He didn't want to shame them into things. He wanted them to see the truth of what he was teaching.

Okay, so now we come to this cool verse. There's five cool things about this verse. So there's finally brethren, so this is Paul's final admonition, then he has his salutation and benediction after this. All five of these are imperative, and I like how Merriman phrased it. This is God's will. I like that. This is God's will for the Corinthians, and this is God's will for us.

Rejoice. It comes from Kairos, Kairo. Personal salutation meaning joy to thee. Literally, present tense, active voice, keep on rejoicing. And we have many verses that speak to that. So that's number one thing he wanted The five last things to tell the Corinthians. Be made complete. And it's kind of important here to kind of catch on to what the... So this is keep on being fitted out completely and harmoniously. And this is in, let's see, I think it's... Okay, this is actually in the passive voice, believe it or not.

Be made complete. You're being acted upon by the Spirit of God. The idea is to grow in grace and the knowledge of Him. And the verse that speaks to that is, Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there's no division among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and the same judgments. You know, one thing I kind of, in studying this, is that we're to be made complete, not so much to be harmonious between one another, but to be harmonious in tune with the Lord. And we want each brother and sister to be that way. We want each brother and sister to be made complete in the sense that we know they're in the union positionally, but conditionally they're walking with the Lord.

So it's more that relationship. And I think that's why it's passive, because it takes the Holy Spirit to accomplish that. Okay, number three. Be comforted. Parallel Cleo. I think of the Holy Spirit every time I see this word. I think of the Holy Spirit because that's what he's called. He's called the Comforter. And this one's in another passive, as you might think. Present tense, passive voice. Actually, I had it up there. I don't know why I was looking for it.

The idea is to keep on being exhorted and comforted. And this is kind To brothers and sisters coming to comfort us, that's always good, but exhorting us, maybe not so much. Comfort is good, but when you get into our business, maybe you don't want them to be around. But this word is kind of both of those together, if you will. Do not reject. Exhortation, you're receiving the action. So Ephesians talks about this. I sent him, and this is a fellow worker with Paul, to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us, that we may comfort your hearts. So Paul sent this fellow worker to comfort their hearts in Ephesus there.

And number four, be like-minded. And this one here is in the active voice. Keep on minding the same thing, the body of Christian truth. Another thing where you're focused on, you want your brothers and sisters to be focused on the truths of the Christian faith. So these are kind of like Paul's key last points. And we could delve down deeper in these, but they're all kind of something to really think about here.

Philippians 2.2. Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintain the same love, unite in spirit, intent in one purpose. And once again, it's the purpose is not so much, we're harmonious with one another, we're harmonious in focus on the Lord. And the fifth one, live in peace. Keep on living in peace is the idea.

I didn't actually have a verse for this one. It kind of dovetailed into the last one. and the God of love and peace. And I would say this is God's character. Christ talked about His kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13. Love, joy, peace. That's a character of Christ's love. We'll be with you. This statement is about God's love and peace being with you. It's a future tense. And here's a verse for that, which is beautiful. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called. in one body, or caught in one body, and be thankful.

Okay. And then, okay, we got the holy kiss, and we got greeting the saints. So the holy kiss, you know, apparently that was, I keep thinking of it like in France, if you go to France, you know, you get kissed in the cheek, even if you're a guy. So and it's and it's okay That's what they do it and it's okay. All right enough of that.

So now the last the last verse is You know, this is quoted this verse is quoted so many times many people in their services with this verse The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all just marvelous things and once again, you could spend we've got three three aspects here grace love and fellowship and So this is the totality of God's grace as seen in our Savior. The Father's love motivated Him to communicate to us that love in Jesus Christ. And then lastly, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Paul's desire here, this is from Constable, was that he wanted to see the Holy Spirit working in their lives and the fellowship that resulted from that. OK, so my final thoughts.

I know we've been through a couple years in Corinthians, and this gentleman, this is Bennett, as quoted by Constable, he kind of summed it up, and this is somewhat speculation because, you know, Paul didn't leave a detailed itinerary of where he went. I went here on that day, he didn't leave his diary with us. He left it, he kind of did, in his letters, right? His diary is kind of in his letters. So we have to kind of look between the lines, but it seems like According to Bennett, it appears that this letter, 2 Corinthians, like the severe letter, brought a change in the hearts for the following reasons.

Number one, Paul spent three months there soon after upon his arrival. Let's go on. The Achaian, so what we find, if you look in Romans there, you'll see that both Achaia and Macedonia contributed to the collection for the saints. And then the letter to the Romans, which we're going to be studying shortly, probably was written from Corinth soon after Paul's arrival. And Paul doesn't seem to, at that point, he doesn't mention anything about being in Corinth, that Corinth was a problem.

So all his heartache over the Corinthians seems to have been resolved. So we have, kind of reading through the lines, we have some good news that all of Paul's several letters and his heartfelt concern for the Corinthians was fruitful. So it's a pretty amazing letter, amazing thing we learned. And it's interesting, I've learned through this that God speaks to us through letters written between people and churches.

That's how he's chosen to do that. You think, well, Lord, why don't you just put it out in a sheet? One, two, three, four, five. Here's the things I want to tell you about. Well, he hasn't chosen to do that. He's chosen for us to read what he has inspired through Paul to write a problem and he will teach us by resolving that problem. That's how he's going to teach us. And that's why, actually, that's why it takes time and study to take in the truths of Scripture.

You just don't read it one time through. That's it. I've heard people say, I've read that book. I've read the Gospel of John. Okay. What did you get out of it? They don't know exactly. God wants us to spend time with Him and His Word. That's what it's all about. Okay, so let's close. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for your care for us. We thank you for our time in Corinthians. And we thank you for your care for this body. In Christ's name, Amen.