SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning into Newsung Churches Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: We're a biblically faithful, gospel-centered Anglican church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.
SPEAKER_01: You can learn more about us at newsongportperry.ca.
SPEAKER_01: May God bless you today through his life-giving word.
SPEAKER_00: Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Test yourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Or do you not realize this about yourselves?
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus Christ is in you.
SPEAKER_00: Unless indeed you fail to meet the test.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test.
SPEAKER_00: But we pray to God that you may not do wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed.
SPEAKER_00: For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.
SPEAKER_00: For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong.
SPEAKER_00: Your restoration is what we pray for.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, I write these things while I'm away from you, that when I come, I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, brothers, rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: Aim for restoration.
SPEAKER_00: Comfort one another.
SPEAKER_00: Agree with one another.
SPEAKER_00: Live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Greet one another with a holy kiss.
SPEAKER_00: All the saints greet you.
SPEAKER_00: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let's speak to God.
SPEAKER_01: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would illumine these words to our understanding, that we would behold Christ and find our security in him, and that through him, Father, we would see your heart of great love and grace towards us.
SPEAKER_01: So draw us into your life by grace, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_01: Well, on the short list of books that have changed my life, there is one book in particular that I keep coming back to, and I know everybody's prepared for a Lord of the Rings reference.
SPEAKER_01: That'll come later.
SPEAKER_01: This book is actually a book that I read in school.
SPEAKER_01: It's called Life in the Trinity by an evangelical theologian, Donald Fairbairn.
SPEAKER_01: And this was a book I was not prepared for the impact that this book would have on me as a young student, maybe 20 or so.
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you're 20 and you're studying theology for the first time, you really feel like you should be teaching the class, you know?
SPEAKER_01: This one really knocked me off my feet.
SPEAKER_01: I remember setting this book down.
SPEAKER_01: I was with a friend in the class, we're both Anglican priests now, and I would say this book had a significant impact even in discerning that uh vocation that the Lord was calling us to.
SPEAKER_01: But I remember setting this book down and turning to my friend and saying, I feel like for the first time I understand my Christian faith is less about what I'm expected to do for God and rather what God has done for me in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize it at the time, but I just articulated the gospel, maybe for the first time at age 20.
SPEAKER_01: So in the introduction to this book, Life in the Trinity, Donald Fairbairn is uh helping us uh modern Bible-believing Christians to recover some truths that we may, if we're not careful, neglect and therefore forget.
SPEAKER_01: And we can neglect, even uh with our with all our right emphasis on the authority of Scripture or on the doctrine of justification, sometimes we neglect what I think is the core of the Christian life, which is this: knowing the life and love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, sharing and participating in it as his people.
SPEAKER_01: We are called to a life in the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: And every other doctrine is meant to bolster and point us towards that goal.
SPEAKER_01: And the early church, he makes the case, helps us to remind us, helps to remind us that that is the goal of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: So let me just read a couple of excerpts from his introduction here to give you a flavor.
SPEAKER_01: One of the significant problems, he says, in contemporary Christianity is that people unwittingly drive a wedge between theology and the living of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: The way the early church avoided the problem of divorcing doctrine from the Christian of life was by understanding all of the Christian life in direct connection to God's life.
SPEAKER_01: Participating in divine life means primarily sharing in the life of the Trinity, sharing in the relationship that has characterized the Father, Son, and Spirit from eternity past.
SPEAKER_01: So, bottom line, what are we called to as Christians?
SPEAKER_01: What are we called to as a church?
SPEAKER_01: To participate in and share the life of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is what Paul is getting at, the Apostle Paul is getting at as he concludes his second letter to the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: That's our New Testament reading this morning.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians 13, 14, which I read earlier.
SPEAKER_01: Often it's known as in shorthand as the grace, and this is a verse that historically has concluded morning and evening prayer for Anglicans.
SPEAKER_01: This is a verse that uh this is a verse that Paul, Paul is concluded, pardon me, Paul is concluding his letter, his second letter to the uh Corinthians, a letter that's all been all about the relationship between suffering and the power of the Spirit in Paul's apostolic life, ministry, and message.
SPEAKER_01: What does he want the Corinthians to know as he concludes this letter?
SPEAKER_01: What does he want to leave them with?
SPEAKER_01: He wants to leave them with this.
SPEAKER_01: The Christian life is a participation in our triune God, shown forth in the grace and love and fellowship of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's a sharing, it's a participating in the life of God.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're called to as Christians.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're called to as a church.
SPEAKER_01: To experience the life of God and to show it forth in how we live.
SPEAKER_01: That's very exciting to me.
SPEAKER_01: That's a very different thing than learning something about God, which might be intellectually interesting but existentially unsatisfying.
SPEAKER_01: No, we're called, our whole person, to be drawn up into the life and love of God.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is helping to lay the foundation for this understanding in this very important verse.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, church reformer John Calvin says of this verse, 2 Corinthians 13, 14, he says, These are three clauses in which the sum of our salvation consists.
SPEAKER_01: Boy, the sum of our salvation could not make this verse more important.
SPEAKER_01: So let's dive in.
SPEAKER_01: Let's understand how it is we are supposed to share and participate in the triune life of God shown forth in the grace and love and fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: All right, life of the Trinity, what does it look like?
SPEAKER_01: Number one, it looks like sharing in the grace of God the Son.
SPEAKER_01: Grace.
SPEAKER_01: Grace means favor, it can mean kindness, it can mean generosity, but especially when it's undeserved.
SPEAKER_01: So maybe we can think of a particular vivid illustration of this in Luke chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: We can think of the prodigal son, right?
SPEAKER_01: Who squanders his father's inheritance that he very greedily grabbed for himself, and then realizes his stake, goes back to the father, and what does he have to say to his father?
SPEAKER_01: He begs that he would just be a servant in the father's house, but the father runs out to meet him, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_01: Throws his arm around him, embraces him.
SPEAKER_01: He shows him a kindness, a generosity, a favor that this son does not deserve.
SPEAKER_01: And we get an image there, don't we, of the grace of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We receive grace.
SPEAKER_01: We receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, is what Paul is saying.
SPEAKER_01: How does Jesus specifically show us grace?
SPEAKER_01: Here again is where I think the church reformer John Calvin is very helpful to us.
SPEAKER_01: He says that this particular phrase, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a, I want to say this right, metonymy.
SPEAKER_01: A metonymy.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't know what that means, I didn't know what it means either.
SPEAKER_01: I had to look it up this week.
SPEAKER_01: Metonymy is like when you substitute one particular word for another.
SPEAKER_01: So it's like if I said something like, Ottawa made such and such a legislative decision.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know that I don't mean the city of Ottawa, you know I mean the parliament, right?
SPEAKER_01: Substituting one word for another.
SPEAKER_01: So what's Calvin saying?
SPEAKER_01: He's saying Paul is taking this word grace and he is substituting it in to denote the whole benefit of our redemption.
SPEAKER_01: This word grace is signals more than just a sort of sentimental kindness, it's the whole story of our salvation being acted out in real time.
SPEAKER_01: In the incarnation where God takes on our flesh for our redemption.
SPEAKER_01: At the cross, where he pays the penalty for our sin and puts to sin and death to death.
SPEAKER_01: In his resurrection, where he triumphs over death and hell.
SPEAKER_01: In his ascension, where he reigns from heaven over everything.
SPEAKER_01: And in his return in glory in the future, where he will bring his glorious kingdom with him.
SPEAKER_01: All of this, Calvin is suggesting to us, is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's meant to, uh, we're meant to be identified with it.
SPEAKER_01: Let it be with you all, let it sink in and become part of your identity.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says elsewhere in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8, it is by grace that you have been saved through faith.
SPEAKER_01: This is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
SPEAKER_01: So from all of this we should gather how wild and generous God's grace is to those who least deserve it.
SPEAKER_01: It is not that you and I have worked hard enough to earn God's grace, it is that He has a heart that is generous towards us and wants to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: That is what Jesus is all about.
SPEAKER_01: That is who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: And when we cling to Jesus, we cling to the God of grace.
SPEAKER_01: See, the life in the Trinity means sharing and participating in the grace of God the Son.
SPEAKER_01: So let's ask this question: what could it look like to live on the basis of grace and to live out that grace of God the Son?
SPEAKER_01: Well, living on the basis of grace might look like something like this.
SPEAKER_01: It might look like being sustained even when life is the most difficult.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to cite a couple of passages from Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: Let's bear in mind Paul is writing this same letter to this same congregation.
SPEAKER_01: So he's already touching on these themes of grace and love and fellowship as he helps us understand his meaning here in this very important verse.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul has already written that Christ has said to him, My grace is sufficient for you.
SPEAKER_01: What's up?
SPEAKER_01: Let me back up and say, Paul is struggling with what he calls a thorn in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: There is some deep trial that he is experiencing that is a serious impediment to his ministry.
SPEAKER_01: Scholars debate what exactly that is.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's the opponents that he's already identified earlier in the letter.
SPEAKER_01: But regardless, Paul knows what it is to experience difficulty and trial and suffering in this life.
SPEAKER_01: And in the midst of that, he prays, Lord, would you take this away?
SPEAKER_01: But here's the answer my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
SPEAKER_01: And so therefore, Paul says, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
SPEAKER_01: For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
SPEAKER_01: For when I am weak, when I suffer, when life is most difficult, then I am strong.
SPEAKER_01: Why is he strong?
SPEAKER_01: Because the grace of God in Christ is showing forth, not in his triumphant, victorious, effortless living.
SPEAKER_01: It is showing forth in sustaining him through all of life's difficulties.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, if you know what it is to experience a thorn in the flesh, to experience the suffering and difficulties that go with living the Christian life, and if you know what it is to be sustained through that by a God who meets you and a God who walks with you along the way, then you know what it is to be sustained and live and participate in the grace of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It will see us through life's most difficult challenges.
SPEAKER_01: We can be sustained when we live on the basis of God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: But when we live out on the basis of God's grace, we suddenly discover a real heart for generosity.
SPEAKER_01: At least that's what Paul identifies earlier in this letter.
SPEAKER_01: He writes, You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You know this Corinthians, though he was rich, yet for your sake, he says, he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich.
SPEAKER_01: That's very interesting.
SPEAKER_01: That takes place in a passage where Paul is describing the generosity of Macedonian Christians making, insisting on making a contribution towards Christians in need in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying there's something about that generous heart that is showing forth the grace of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because God has been so generous with us that we can't help but be generous with others.
SPEAKER_01: There's something about a closed-fistedness that suggests our heart hasn't quite received or it hasn't fully received deep down that grace of God which opens us up to the life of generosity.
SPEAKER_01: There's something about the grace of God that causes us to be open, to see the resources that God has given us as something to be shared, to bless others, not simply to be clung to.
SPEAKER_01: And there's something about this that Paul recognizes as true of Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_01: He was generous towards us, and therefore he enables us, empowers us to show generosity towards one another.
SPEAKER_01: One commentator writes that the grace of God banishes self-assertiveness and self-seeking.
SPEAKER_01: That's what God's grace does.
SPEAKER_01: It frees us from ourselves and it frees us from lesser affections, such that we show forth the very heart of Christ towards one another as his people.
SPEAKER_01: Life in the Trinity means sharing and participating in the sustaining and generous grace of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It also means this: it means sharing and participating in the love of God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at that second clause in 2 Corinthians 13, 14.
SPEAKER_01: The love of God.
SPEAKER_01: This love that Paul talks about is agape love.
SPEAKER_01: We've seen that word crop up before in other passages, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's not just a sentimental love, it is a love that is committed.
SPEAKER_01: It's a love that wills the good of the other, especially through self-sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Often, you know, this very old school word charity gets used as a translation of agape.
SPEAKER_01: C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis writes of this, he says, every act of justice or charity involves putting ourselves into the other person's place and thus transcending our own competitive particularity.
SPEAKER_01: I love that phrase, competitive particularity.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't love it because I recognize my own heart, and I often compete for what's mine, or I compete to get ahead, but a heart that's full of agape, full of charity, full of the sort of the heart of, let me put it this way, reflects the heart of God towards us in Christ, is a love that is far more concerned with the good of my neighbor than is concerned with getting ahead myself.
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of love that Paul is identifying here.
SPEAKER_01: This is the love that we see in God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And this phrase, of course, the love of God, uh, generally in the New Testament and especially in Paul, when we see groupings of the Lord Jesus and then God, we we can generally it suggests uh different persons of the Trinity, right?
SPEAKER_01: The Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, God who, you know, God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what we're seeing is the heart of God the Father towards us in the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: And this is more than mere sentiment, right?
SPEAKER_01: The whole story of our salvation, the whole story of um of Scripture bears witness to God's unfailing love towards us.
SPEAKER_01: He unfailingly wills our good to the infinite degree.
SPEAKER_01: Let's put it that way.
SPEAKER_01: God infinitely wills our good, and especially when we least deserve it.
SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm gonna look at Ephesians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: I love Ephesians chapter 2, 1 to 10, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: If you know you're looking for more homework to do, because everybody's looking for more homework, boy, read Ephesians 2, 1 to 10.
SPEAKER_01: You'll do yourself a huge favor there.
SPEAKER_01: But this is Ephesians 2 again.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is talking to a similar church in Ephesus.
SPEAKER_01: He says, And you, that's you plural, you church, were once dead in the trespasses and sins in which you walked.
SPEAKER_01: But he goes on to say this.
SPEAKER_01: But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: How has God showed his love to us, his church?
SPEAKER_01: He showed us love because he found us spiritually dead in our transgression, in our sin, having turned our backs on God's will and towards curved in ourselves and our own self-will, God has found us where we are, and he was not content to leave us there.
SPEAKER_01: But in Christ, he has drawn us to himself and given us new life in him, that we can live in that love and live out that love towards one another.
SPEAKER_01: We were dead, but now we were alive.
SPEAKER_01: This is amazing grace, and this is amazing love.
SPEAKER_01: Life in the Trinity means sharing and participating in the grace of God in Christ and in the love of God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: So, what could that look like?
SPEAKER_01: What could it look like to live on the basis of God's love?
SPEAKER_01: Well, first and foremost, it looks like security, I think, because there is no more secure place we can be than enveloped in God's unfailing love.
SPEAKER_01: Paul writes in Romans 5 8 that God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_01: So God doesn't show his love in those who were formerly sinners but tried really, really hard and don't sin anymore.
SPEAKER_01: No, God shows his love while we're still sinners.
SPEAKER_01: When we were still sinners, when we were his enemies, as it were, Christ was willing to go to the cross to do away with the penalty of our sin.
SPEAKER_01: To do away, put sin and death to death so that we could share in his new life by way of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: His love is willing to go to hell and back for us, because that's exactly what God in Christ has done.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we can affirm in John chapter 3 that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: When we look at the cross, we see the symbol of God's greatest love for us, and we see the greatest symbol of our assurance in him.
SPEAKER_01: We live in such security because there is nothing that we can do that will spoil God's love for us.
SPEAKER_01: He loves us infinitely, he loves us truly, he loves us committedly, and we are loved in him.
SPEAKER_01: And we live out that love, one towards another.
SPEAKER_01: We live it out in charity, we live it out in agape, we live it out in committed, self-giving love.
SPEAKER_01: Again, one commentator says that the love of God puts jealousy and anger to flight, because these things are incompatible with charity towards one another.
SPEAKER_01: Earlier in our passage, Paul has laid out a little bit of what this looks like.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Finally, brothers, brothers and sisters, we understand, finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice, he says.
SPEAKER_01: Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
SPEAKER_01: That's not conditional, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's making manifest the love of God that he shows us in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Aim for restoration, he says.
SPEAKER_01: These are instructions to the church.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, let me give you some final reminders here about how you live life together as a church.
SPEAKER_01: Aim for restoration.
SPEAKER_01: Which suggests to me that there's something to be restored.
SPEAKER_01: That conflict is part and parcel of living life together as sinners saved by grace.
SPEAKER_01: The church will come into conflict.
SPEAKER_01: The Corinthians we've already seen get divided and gang up against one another.
SPEAKER_01: That can happen in the life of the church, but that's not what we're supposed to aim for.
SPEAKER_01: When we come into conflict with one another, we are to aim for restoration by way of forgiveness, by way of charity, by will of willing each other's good.
SPEAKER_01: What would it look like as a church if we were to have disagreements, whether it's interpersonal disagreements or we're deciding, you know, we've got a vestry meeting, disagreements never happen about church business, right?
SPEAKER_01: What would it happen?
SPEAKER_01: What would it look like if when we had conflict in the life of the church, we willed not for our will be done, but we willed the greatest good for our neighbor.
SPEAKER_01: That's aiming for restoration, aiming to comfort one another, agreeing with one another and living in peace.
SPEAKER_01: And when we do that, Paul says, the God of love and peace will be with you.
SPEAKER_01: He'll be made manifest.
SPEAKER_01: We will experience something of the love of God in how we love one another.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, that is part and parcel of what the church is meant to be: to be a living witness to the grace of God in Christ and to the love of God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: We can show that to one another, what it is to be that.
SPEAKER_01: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: If we are living life in the Trinity, this is what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: This is what we, the basis on which we live and what we live out.
SPEAKER_01: What do we mean by the fellowship of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_01: This is the third clause.
SPEAKER_01: Fellowship can mean something like solidarity.
SPEAKER_01: It can mean sharing.
SPEAKER_01: The Greek word here is koinonia, and it gives us our root word for things like community or communion, right?
SPEAKER_01: This is why I think quest stories are so popular, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And yes, this is where I reference the fellowship of the ring, of course.
SPEAKER_01: I think these stories just enrapture us, they capture our attention because we long for that common purpose that is will that is worth laying everything else down to accomplish.
SPEAKER_01: The thing about our modern world is while it empowers us to determine our own purpose for ourselves, when everybody determines the purpose of life for themselves, it leaves us with very little in common.
SPEAKER_01: And it leaves us with very little to uh, shall we say, quest for together.
SPEAKER_01: But we as a church, we as a church have a fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: We are a fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: And we have a purpose for that fellowship, which is sharing and participating in the very life of God together.
SPEAKER_01: We have the greatest kind of quest, an eternal quest together.
SPEAKER_01: And this fellowship is based in the very fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Our catechism book, To Be a Christian, writes this: the Holy Spirit unites Christians to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Do you hear that communion, that unity language, unites Christians to Jesus, indwelling them, convicting them of sin, giving them spiritual gifts, and bearing spiritual fruit in their lives?
SPEAKER_01: I want us to notice that all these things are related to one another.
SPEAKER_01: These aren't separate operations of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: All of these things connect.
SPEAKER_01: If we as Christians are united to God through his Holy Spirit, then the life of God will flow into us, as it were.
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember Jesus' illustration?
SPEAKER_01: I am the vine, you are the branches?
SPEAKER_01: The life of the vine flows out into the branches.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's the Holy Spirit who unites us to the life of God that therefore brings to us all of the benefits and life and love of God.
SPEAKER_01: It flows out into us, and therefore we can't help but bear much fruit in accordance with our giftings, right?
SPEAKER_01: Last week we read 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and we read these verses.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to share a couple of excerpts.
SPEAKER_01: Now there are a variety of gifts, Paul says, but the same Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
SPEAKER_01: In one spirit, we were baptized into one body, and were all made to drink of one spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Do you hear that unity language?
SPEAKER_01: Do you hear that fellowship language?
SPEAKER_01: It's participation in the life of God and unity with one another as God's people.
SPEAKER_01: This is what life in the Trinity means.
SPEAKER_01: It means sharing and participating in the fellowship of God, the Holy Spirit, who indwells us.
SPEAKER_01: So now what does it look like to live on that basis?
SPEAKER_01: And what does it look like to live that out?
SPEAKER_01: Well, living on the basis of the fellowship of God, the Holy Spirit, can look like this.
SPEAKER_01: It looks like being God's holy temple.
SPEAKER_01: This is the language that Paul uses to describe the church in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and 1 Corinthians chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: So bear in mind, this is a church community that's receiving all of these letters.
SPEAKER_01: It's like they've seen these themes already being developed, and Paul wants to remind them of what he's already said.
SPEAKER_01: So in 1 Corinthians 3 and 1 Corinthians 6, Paul repeats this line.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Do you, that's plural, you church, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
SPEAKER_01: Now it's true, God's Holy Spirit, we can rightly say indwells each individual Christian.
SPEAKER_01: But there is something about the life of the church that we can also rightly say the Lord's Spirit indwells us corporately.
SPEAKER_01: He knits us together.
SPEAKER_01: He brings us together as the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the church becomes God's holy meeting place with humanity.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the temple is, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: It's where God goes to meet with his people.
SPEAKER_01: Well, now we don't look for temples made with hands.
SPEAKER_01: God makes his temple by way of his Holy Spirit, who dwells us, who indwells us and knits us together as his temple.
SPEAKER_01: So when we live on the basis of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit Spirit, we understand that church is more than just that thing I do on Sunday mornings.
SPEAKER_01: Church is who I am.
SPEAKER_01: I am part of the church.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a living member of it.
SPEAKER_01: And God's building us up and me as part of it into this holy temple where he is working out his grace and love and fellowship amongst us and through us.
SPEAKER_01: The church would be far less without any of us.
SPEAKER_01: Because God wants to work through us to show forth his life.
SPEAKER_01: And this is how we live it out.
SPEAKER_01: We can live out this fellowship of the Holy Spirit in this way.
SPEAKER_01: One commentator writes that the fellowship of the Holy Spirit leaves no room for quarreling and factions.
SPEAKER_01: And if there's one thing that the Corinthians are up to, it's quarreling and factions.
SPEAKER_01: The Corinthians' problem, we understand, has a gospel solution.
SPEAKER_01: We are God's fellow workers, Paul writes.
SPEAKER_01: You are God's building.
SPEAKER_01: Pardon me, you are God's field, God's building.
SPEAKER_01: This word fellow workers got me really excited because I thought, oh, that's related to fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: That's a it's a different word in the Greek.
SPEAKER_01: It literally kind of translates co-workers, which is wild to think that God looks at us and among other things thinks, oh yeah, those are my co-workers.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: Like God actually wants to partner with us in his good creation work, which is just crazy to think about.
SPEAKER_01: But it's certainly conveying that same idea, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That we are fellows together, working not in competition with one another, but in cooperation with God.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore we're being cultivated like God's field or being built up like God's building.
SPEAKER_01: I think this also gives us a good basis to understand the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_01: Because in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul has written to this congregation, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation, a koinonia, a fellowship in the blood of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: And the bread we break, is it not a participation, a koinonia in the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: He writes, because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
SPEAKER_01: So what does communion signal to us?
SPEAKER_01: It signals to us as individual Christians that we have fellowship with God by way of the Holy Spirit in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You see that Trinitarian understanding of the Lord's Supper?
SPEAKER_01: But it also reminds us that we together have communion in Him.
SPEAKER_01: It's vertical and it's horizontal.
SPEAKER_01: That's why, friends, when we come to the Lord's table, we come to it together, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're not meant to do communion on our own, you know, sitting at our kitchen table.
SPEAKER_01: We're meant to do communion as a family of God in Christ, coming to the Lord's table together to experience something of that sweet fellowship that we are called to for all eternity in Christ by the Holy Spirit and with one another.
SPEAKER_01: This is what it means to share in the life and love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, His grace, his love, and his fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: This, friends, is living life in the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: Trinity can often seem like a very abstract and removed doctrine, can't it?
SPEAKER_01: I hope we're beginning to see how the Trinity is the basis of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: It is God's vital life flowing in and through us, his church.
SPEAKER_01: And we can start to see what Calvin's talking about, that these are three clauses in which the sum of our salvation consists: participation, sharing, grace and love and fellowship in God and with one another.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, I have to think that Port Perry needs more of these sorts of Christians, and that Port Perry needs more of these sorts of churches that show forth the love and the grace and the fellowship of God as we gather with one another, as we show that towards one another, and as we turn to our neighbors and we make that known.
SPEAKER_01: This is who our God is, and we are called to enjoy that mystery for ourselves and to share it with others.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all forever.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: We hope that you've been blessed by God's word today.
SPEAKER_01: If you live in the area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.
SPEAKER_01: Please find our contact information at newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.
SPEAKER_01: Newsong's ministry is entirely funded by the generous giving of those who worship and journey with us.
SPEAKER_01: If you feel called to support our ministry with a financial gift, please go to newsongportperry.ca giving to make your contribution.
SPEAKER_01: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.