Halloween Candy Of God S11:e51 2cor13:14

Paul gives 3 BITE-SIZED tastes of the triune God for the Corinthians to experience as he closes 2 Cor. It is not everything there is to know about God, but it is enough. He blesses them and asks that these 3 characteristics BE WITH THEM. Sounds like a Podcast.

• The GRACE of Jesus. The winsomeness, attractiveness and the favor of Jesus has to come up in every conversation about sin, death, suffering, etc.
• The LOVE of God. "You had me at hello." Without the attention and regard of God we'd be still in big trouble.  No regard would mean no rescue. The fact that HE REMEMBERS is one tasty snickers bar of truth.
• The FELLOWSHIP of the Holy Spirit. So God now is so close He's indwelling. There's a bit of a two-way street here, God with us and us with God.

If this was all we knew about the trinity, it would be enough for an eternity. To learn more go to bewithme.us or Apple Podcasts or Google podcasts and come back tomorrow. 

Transcript

Michael Smith: 0:00

Good morning, my brothers and sisters Welcome to Episode 51 of be with me in the book of Second Corinthians and we're barely in the book because we're going to talk about the last line in the book of second Corinthians chapter 13, verse number 14, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. I'm gonna call this the Halloween candy of the Godhead are the Halloween candy of the persons of God, that is we are getting the we're gonna get tasty, bite sized pieces, which are delightful of God, and not overwhelming. We're gonna get like a sampling in a sense. That is the deliciousness of a Snickers bar, and maybe a Baby Ruth and Skittles. And I know that there's more about God than these three things that we're going to talk about today. But this is enough. And Paul basically says these are you know, highlights if this is all you know about God, you're probably in good in good shape. So let's start with the first one, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's the word Greek word Charice, charis, which is this attractiveness and the winsomeness and the favor of God. So Jesus here is the good of the good news. It's this favor. That's what it means that's freely giving, given to us asking nothing of in return, it's this highway. If you go to the highway of unmerited favor, you're going to find Jesus there, front and center. The verse that I want to share is from the Gospel of John verses, chapter one, verses 16, and 17. That adds a little bit to this, and from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace, For the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. So if you want to know the point is, if you want to learn about grace, if you want to know about grace, you got to go through Jesus and remember what what grace is here as justice is getting exactly what what we deserve, and mercy is getting less than we deserved. But grace is where we get this more than we deserve. Justice and Mercy. And Grace is kind of the good, better and best part about God. So when, when our bottoms are in the butter tub of God's favor, Jesus has to come up in the conversation. And so when if you want to talk about other things about the spiritual life, sin, death, suffering, substitution, gotten it, enacting why we were yet sinners, all these things, you almost can't even understand them, without the favor of God, the grace of God, the grace of Jesus Christ, impacting each of those of those topics. So the thing that, that Paul wants the Corinthians to know, front and center about Jesus is that he's full of grace. All right, let's talk about the love of God. Oh, for the love of God, which is sometimes horribly used as a curse. And I'm going to curse the curse today and restored the truth of this. And in honor God and worship Him for His love. That's the word agape. And it's that strong positive emotion, of regard and affection. Now, it's the it's the regard get this that God has for us. So if you think about God, up in heaven, us in the US down here, it's the the arrow is going towards us. It's not our love towards him. It's his love towards us. If you want an arrow that maybe heads north, from us, to him, that's probably worship, which I think maybe a very similar word, going the other, other direction. But for now, God is regarding us. He's attending us. He's interacting with us. He comes down, He gives us His attention. I'm thinking of the line in the movie that Renee Zellweger says and Jerry Maguire, you had me add Hello. The fact that God regards us it makes all this other stuff possible. It's asking the question that the Sama sama is Das David in eight, Psalm eight, what is man that You regard him in this regard and this god turning his eye towards us, makes the ultimate rescue and ultimate makes the grace of Jesus and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit? It makes it possible. I'm thinking of the story in Genesis chapter nine, and 13 were Noah gets off the boat. And you know all bets are off the world's been destroyed, rightfully so just justly so. And what kind of a relationship are we going to have with God and He says, I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow seen in the clouds, I God, I will remember my covenant. God is remembering God is regarding God is loving, is not an inappropriate way of reading this, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh. And the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I God will see it. And remember, so the fact that God remembers, that's the love of God. And then finally, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. It's Koinonia, this close, intimate relationship. So that means we have a real God who's really close in spec. So close indwelling, John 1423, we will come to him and make Our home with him. And this is the answer to the promise in Ezekiel 36 is I will give you a new heart and a new spirit, I will put within you. And this is the two way relationship not only is God with us, it's us with God, it's us an interaction. So it's these ethereal pie in the sky, concept about God. Then he asks, Paul asked, I pray for you, I am actually petitioning the Lord. May these things be with you? That means can God be really the real God be really present really now? And it can be received and should be received with God, God with us? So this is obviously mind blowing. He wants us to notice these things and see these things and understand them not in sort of a way hey, I read about Paris, but an experiential with no I went to Paris, I walked the streets, I climb the Eiffel Tower. He wants us to know the things about the grace of Jesus, the love of God and the fellowship of the Spirit. So the challenge is to remember and receive this grace and love and fellowship. Thank you, Jesus, for your grace, Father, for your love, and the Holy Spirit for your fellowship. And my prayer is that those three things may be with whoever hears this this morning.