SPEAKER_00: Morning, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to you if you're new.
SPEAKER_00: Please turn up that passage if you would, either in a Bible that you've brought with you or on your phone so you can follow along.
SPEAKER_00: It's a short passage right at the end of our uh of 2 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: This is the last week of our studies.
SPEAKER_00: Just to let you know where we're going to be going.
SPEAKER_00: So we go into our summer schedule now, uh, where we look at the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to be in the Old Testament book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: We started this series five years ago.
SPEAKER_00: We started at Psalm 1, and you just do a bunch of Psalms until the end of uh the end of August.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we didn't quite realize that most of the Psalms very early on are all lament Psalms, so really we should have called the series Summertime Sadness.
SPEAKER_00: Um but uh we're getting a little bit more buoyant now as we as we go forward.
SPEAKER_00: So we'll be in Psalm 54 uh next uh next week and uh going consecutively through through the rest um up until the end of August.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for us as we look at God's word together.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we praise you uh for all of our time uh in this uh in this letter, for those things that you have taught us and formed in us.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that when your word is read, we hear your voice.
SPEAKER_00: May we hear you speak to us powerfully by your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Over the course of our studies, uh, just to uh remind you or bring you up to speed, over the course of our studies in this letter of 2 Corinthians, that's our practice, we take books of the Bible and we go through them consecutively, is that we have seen the uh the destructive nature of uh divisions, infighting, tension within the family of God, those divisions that can be created in a church.
SPEAKER_00: The church in Corinth was a church that is riven by division, people warring against one another.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that even from the very first letter, the very first chapter of the first letter, when Paul was talking about how some people were saying, Oh, well, I follow Paul, and other people were saying, Well, I follow Apollos, and some super spiritual people were saying, Well, I follow Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And really, Paul was saying, no, that's all just division.
SPEAKER_00: It's worth thinking about what causes division in a church, or what causes division in uh in your home life, in your work team.
SPEAKER_00: What causes division, tension, acrimony, those sorts of things?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's things like self-seeking, self-love, seeking our own betterment, desiring our own power, looking down on the abilities or experiences of others, not regarding others as worthy of respect or as equal to you.
SPEAKER_00: And really, those sorts of attitudes, those sorts of divisions run through not just our lives, but society at large.
SPEAKER_00: We see people uh fracturing into tribes, into identity groups, into factions, and warring against one another.
SPEAKER_00: There is power struggles at various layers of our societal life.
SPEAKER_00: And yet people often talk in quite vague and positive terms about desiring unity.
SPEAKER_00: We want unity, we want togetherness, and yet so often we end up dividing down, feeling threatened, becoming hostile.
SPEAKER_00: Paul here, all the way through the letter, and as he concludes here, wants to remind the Christians of the importance and goodness and basis of Christian unity.
SPEAKER_00: That a united church family is a tremendous witness to the world, that a united church body is a healthy one that commends the gospel to people who come in and interact with our with our community, and as we go out, it commends the life of uh of Jesus to others.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we think about our life together, one of the things that, perhaps even the chief thing, but that will enrich our life, enrich our community, and commend our community in a divided world is the unity that we strive for together.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to spend some time this morning not just talking in in vague uh kind of politician-type terms about wouldn't it be really nice?
SPEAKER_00: We should be united, let's all come together to actually think specifically and practically about what Christian unity looks like, because I think that that is the button that Paul places in this final greeting on the letter as he ties up all of the strands.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that we're going to look at are the aspects of unity.
SPEAKER_00: What are the aspects?
SPEAKER_00: What are the characteristics of unity?
SPEAKER_00: In what ways uh is unity expressed?
SPEAKER_00: The aspects of unity.
SPEAKER_00: Paul in verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you've got it in front of you so you can see it, but Paul in verse 11 gives us five commands, five imperatives.
SPEAKER_00: They are, let's let's note them.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice, first one, aim for restoration, second, comfort one another, third, agree with one another, fourth, live in peace, fifth.
SPEAKER_00: Five commands, things that the family of believers should be working towards together.
SPEAKER_00: What we'll see as we go through them is that Paul isn't introduced, it's not like, it's not like Paul sitting there going, Oh, I'm running out of parchment.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and by the way, rejoice, and uh what's the other thing that he's saying?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, live in harmony with one another and uh make sure that you're comforting one another.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, bye.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, what he's doing is he's drawing together strands and themes from the letter as a whole.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take these commands, these imperatives in turn.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this is a this is a typical uh Markian sermon where this is the first point, but there are five subpoints.
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome, Ben.
SPEAKER_00: The first command, the first imperative is to rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: All of these imperatives, in case you're you may or may not be interested, but all of these imperatives are written in the uh in the continuous form that is keep on rejoicing, keep on doing these things, keep on striving for unity.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just rejoice one time, but be a community that rejoices, keep on rejoicing together.
SPEAKER_00: One of the ways that we show our unity one with another is by rejoicing together.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoicing in what?
SPEAKER_00: Well, rejoicing in the gospel, rejoicing in what Jesus has done for us, rejoicing as you see others grow in the gospel, rejoicing as you see others being brought to repentance and newness of life.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoicing is a sign of our life together.
SPEAKER_00: Paul rejoiced over the Christians back in chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: He says that I rejoiced that you had come to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: When he'd heard that report from Titus, who had returned, he rejoiced that they turned from their sin and turned to God.
SPEAKER_00: And now he's saying at the end of the letter, look at that, like I am delighting in you.
SPEAKER_00: I know there's tension, I know there's issues, but I am delighting in you, and I am inviting you to rejoice in the gospel and what God is doing among you with me.
SPEAKER_00: Let's rejoice together.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want them to persist in their sin, he doesn't want them to wallow in their shame of their sin.
SPEAKER_00: He wants repentance to give way to rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: Is that the pattern of repentance in your own life?
SPEAKER_00: See, we can sometimes think that repentance somehow means that you must perpetually go on just beating yourself up.
SPEAKER_00: You're wallowing in shame.
SPEAKER_00: No, there's a there's a right kind of double heartbeat to our coming to God.
SPEAKER_00: It's repenting.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, I have sinned against you again in thought and word and deed and action and in motive, in things that I have done and things that I have failed to do.
SPEAKER_00: I have not been a good husband, I have not been a good wife, I have not been a good uh citizen or colleague or friend, I have sinned against you in these ways.
SPEAKER_00: Genuine, specific repentance that then gives way to joy.
SPEAKER_00: But thank you for the assurance.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the assurance that if, as John says, we confess our sins, you are faithful and just and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, I praise you for the cleansing of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Do you rejoice at the end of your repentance?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you just go to God and say, Me again, same sin, really sorry.
SPEAKER_00: I'll try to do harder.
SPEAKER_00: No, no.
SPEAKER_00: What will actually fuel your holy living is your joy, your delight, your gladness in God going forward.
SPEAKER_00: The more glad you are in God, the more you're rejoicing in what Jesus has done for you, the less you'll be drawn by those habitual sins.
SPEAKER_00: The less beguiling they will look because they're not the source of your joy, but Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a reason why he put it first.
SPEAKER_00: Because it is the it is the fuel and fire of our Christian living individually and in our life together.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, brothers and sisters, be glad in God.
SPEAKER_00: Be glad in what God has done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Be glad in who he is, be glad in how he has sustained you through this last year or more.
SPEAKER_00: Be glad in how he has borne you and comforted you through seasons of grief and trial.
SPEAKER_00: Be glad in his sending of his son for you to restore you to newness of life and to set your feet upon the rock and to give you the assurance of heaven and eternity with him.
SPEAKER_00: Be glad in God.
SPEAKER_00: Are you glad in God?
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice that he has made you his own.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice in his wisdom and goodness that he has placed you here at this time, at this moment, in this season of life.
SPEAKER_00: That he has done so for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Joy and gladness in God are the wellspring of the other imperatives, of the other commands.
SPEAKER_00: The second one says, Aim for restoration.
SPEAKER_00: Really, here what Paul is picking up is not really restoration, but the idea of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: We've already seen that in chapter five.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, not just aim for it, but strive and keep on striving, persistently strive for reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he means by this idea of aim for restoration.
SPEAKER_00: Reconciliation came up in chapter five where he says that that's the very message of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: You want to know what the gospel is about?
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is about how you as an individual and us as humanity are arrayed as God's enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And he stands in hostility towards us because of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: There is a breach in the relationship, and yet he has taken the actions, taken the steps that we could never take in order to end that hostility, to end that warfare, and bring the two warring parties together in the very flesh of the Lord Jesus, as he dies upon a cross, uniting God and man together, ending hostility because he has ended our sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have been reconciled between man together.
SPEAKER_00: And so what that does, Paul says, and what he's reminding us of here, is because God has done that on the vertical, that makes us, you and I, reconciliation people.
SPEAKER_00: We're the kind of people that love to seek and pursue reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: We try not to hold grudges, we try to bury hatchets, to join back together again.
SPEAKER_00: It is a grievous thing to us when relationships breach and fracture down, and when people leave our community.
SPEAKER_00: That is not a first port of call.
SPEAKER_00: We strive for reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: This is so easy to miss in our context when there are so many other churches and church groups that you know if somebody doesn't like it here at City, if somebody thinks that I'm a bit of a jerk, I know that you can be shocked to think that some people think that.
SPEAKER_00: But if some people think that I'm a bit of a jerk, then just be like, well, I'm just gonna go somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00: If you fall out with someone, just relocate, go to another church family.
SPEAKER_00: There can be little impetus to reconcile.
SPEAKER_00: Because reconciliation's hard, right?
SPEAKER_00: Reconciliation was hard for God, it cost him his son.
SPEAKER_00: And reconciliation is hard for us because it causes at least one of us, if not both parties, to absorb hurt into themselves.
SPEAKER_00: It's saying, I'm not going to seek your ill, I'm not going to seek vengeance, I'm going to absorb that hurt and cost.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to cast it upon the Lord, and I'm going to seek to rejoin with you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul this morning would have us see the goodness of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: And when it happens between us, when it happens between us in our church family, it is living, visible, tangible proof of the transforming power of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing, the third imperative, Paul says, comfort one another.
SPEAKER_00: Here Paul brings us all the way back to chapter one, where go where Paul spoke of the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our sufferings, so that we are able then to comfort others with that same comfort.
SPEAKER_00: This is often why God allows us to go through something painful, so that in time you might know how best, how more precisely to comfort somebody who's going through what you went through those years before.
SPEAKER_00: He comforts so that you can go on then to comfort, so that you can speak words of reassurance, that idea of like I was I was in that pit, I was in that pit that you are in.
SPEAKER_00: I was in that hole.
SPEAKER_00: I know what it is to feel that anger, that resentment, that pain, but I also know the way out.
SPEAKER_00: I also know that God, just as He led me out, will lead you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's journey together.
SPEAKER_00: Let me comfort you.
SPEAKER_00: Let me shoulder some of that burden.
SPEAKER_00: It is a beautiful thing to be with a brother or sister who is despairing, hurting, burdened, and to lovingly lift their eyes to heaven, that they might glimpse the comfort and hope that God has for them, that God is in himself.
SPEAKER_00: Paul would have us so know one another and so be connected with one another's lives that we are able to speak those words of comfort, that we are the type of people that you call when you need comforting.
SPEAKER_00: To fulfill this imperative of comforting one another.
SPEAKER_00: We must be in one another's lives.
SPEAKER_00: We must know when you are hurting, when you're feeling empty.
SPEAKER_00: To know how best.
SPEAKER_00: To come alongside and to shoulder that burden with you.
SPEAKER_00: Or even just to sit for a while in the silence.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth, Paul says, agree with one another.
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that uh we can never have differences of opinion?
SPEAKER_00: Well, no.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: There are things that we disagree on.
SPEAKER_00: There are things that good, faithful, good-natured Christians have differences of opinion on.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not this idea of there mustn't be any there mustn't be any um differences of opinion among you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about just having kind of bland unanimity in all matters.
SPEAKER_00: No, what Paul is asking them to work towards, what Paul is saying that they should strive towards is to having shared shared values, a shared perspective, a shared heart, a shared mission.
SPEAKER_00: This is the difference between unity and uniformity.
SPEAKER_00: Uniformity is everyone believing the same thing, saying the same thing, expressing themselves in the same way, looking the same, dressing the same, doing the same sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: Some movements can even market themselves as being about diversity, when actually what happens is that they struggle to tolerate a dissenting opinion.
SPEAKER_00: There is little diversity of thought in such movements, and so actually underneath they're quite uniform.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody believing the same thing, everybody parroting the same sorts of ideas.
SPEAKER_00: Christian unity isn't like that.
SPEAKER_00: Christian unity is different.
SPEAKER_00: In Christianity, unity is that we have a common core around which we unite, but that there is also room for diversity of expression and diversity of belief, even in terms of non-core issues.
SPEAKER_00: A prime example being that of baptism.
SPEAKER_00: People in this room, we believe different things about baptism, but we unite around the common core that is the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And we believe that Christians, by good faith, can believe different things about the timing, the method, mode of baptism.
SPEAKER_00: Other ones might be people believe different things about the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: And some of those we can all have good disagreement over.
SPEAKER_00: But we believe and share in a common core.
SPEAKER_00: That is Christian unity.
SPEAKER_00: And we should strive to maintain that unity.
SPEAKER_00: So that we might live in harmony with one another.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea, really.
SPEAKER_00: It's harmony, actually.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that we're all playing the same note, it's that we're all playing different notes that are that accord with one another.
SPEAKER_00: That's the right music analogy, Ben.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Music analogies and sports analogies are not my friends.
SPEAKER_00: So I'll move swiftly on to imperative number five.
SPEAKER_00: It says, live in peace, finally.
SPEAKER_00: Over the two letters, 1st and 2 Corinthians, we've seen that the church is in chaos and disarray.
SPEAKER_00: That there is discord between the church and Paul.
SPEAKER_00: They don't think very much of him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we've been seeing for weeks and weeks.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't look very impressive, he doesn't speak very impressively.
SPEAKER_00: There's people who are saying, turn away from Paul.
SPEAKER_00: We hate Paul.
SPEAKER_00: We don't like him.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's hardly surprising then that his final exhortation is to live at peace.
SPEAKER_00: To live at peace with one another and with him.
SPEAKER_00: A peace in the Bible is a rich idea.
SPEAKER_00: It is something that God has ultimately promised to bring.
SPEAKER_00: It's not simply a sense of tranquility, but a holistic and all-pervading harmony between God and man, and between one another.
SPEAKER_00: Paul saying, strive for that.
SPEAKER_00: Saying, don't replicate the restless warring of the world.
SPEAKER_00: But may the church be seen as an oasis of refreshing for restless souls.
SPEAKER_00: And as a final encouragement in verse 11, he says, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
SPEAKER_00: There's two senses to this.
SPEAKER_00: It is both that as we seek these imperatives of rejoicing, aiming for restoration, comforting, agreeing, living in peace.
SPEAKER_00: As we strive towards those things, we have resources at hand.
SPEAKER_00: We have help available to us.
SPEAKER_00: It's that the God of love and peace will be with us.
SPEAKER_00: The God of love and peace will enable and will equip us for these imperatives.
SPEAKER_00: But the other sense, which is equally true, is that as we realize these things in our community, as we rejoice together, as we reconcile, as we display our harmony and our peaceableness with one another, as we comfort one another, do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what will happen?
SPEAKER_00: We will sense and experience and enjoy the God of love and peace in our midst.
SPEAKER_00: His presence will be more tangible among us.
SPEAKER_00: The God of love and peace will be with us.
SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful promise.
SPEAKER_00: Let me assure you that the subsequent points are much shorter than those.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the aspects of unity.
SPEAKER_00: The second point that I want to make, second main point, and there's no subpoints to it, is that Paul encourages them to express their unity.
SPEAKER_00: So the second point is unity expressed.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12, greet one another with a holy kiss.
SPEAKER_00: Paul didn't have COVID to contend with.
SPEAKER_00: Not that outside of COVID times, that's what we were doing.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we should greet one another with a holy kiss.
SPEAKER_00: But there is something to be kept in mind here.
SPEAKER_00: And you may know it from the kind of cultural background that maybe you come from.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's very common for both men and women to embrace one another and to and to kiss.
SPEAKER_00: Very European, Sylvie.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that right?
SPEAKER_00: And there's a whole etiquette about which side you go to first, and I always do it wrong, and I nearly meet Sylvie in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: It's very awkward.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta make sure that you get the side right, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Sylvie can give us a uh a rundown of which side we go to first.
SPEAKER_00: The kiss was a visible sign of all of the things we've just been talking about.
SPEAKER_00: It was a sign of joy in each other.
SPEAKER_00: Happy to see one another, of harmony, of the fact that you were reconciled.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's so that's what's so ugly and abhorrent about Judas, and Judas portraying Jesus with a kiss, because it's supposed to be a sign of friendship and love and reconciliation, and so to take that and to twist it into this just makes the avarice and the betrayal of that just all the more uh heinous.
SPEAKER_00: It was supposed to be a symbol of peace between parties, of a desire to comfort and excuse me, and encourage one another with familial affection.
SPEAKER_00: And so the challenge for us really is this is that we need to be mindful of ways to express our unity in a culture where kissing isn't the usual way that it's done.
SPEAKER_00: The point is, how will we, how will people know that we are united?
SPEAKER_00: We can't even do a firm and hearty handshake or a big romance hug.
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at you.
SPEAKER_00: So, how are we going to express our unity in ways that are tangible, obvious, visible to one another and to the world?
SPEAKER_00: Some ways that we might do that.
SPEAKER_00: First might be our words.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the things that we've talked about in terms of our elders' meetings of late, is how we don't, uh, as a as a culture, I'm talking particularly of kind of Irish like because we don't immediately go out of our way to encourage one another.
SPEAKER_00: Normally the way that we show love to one another is by teasing and slagging one another off.
SPEAKER_00: And the more we tease you, the more we make fun of you, the more we love you.
SPEAKER_00: I know if you're just getting to know Irish, you're like, sorry, what?
SPEAKER_00: But that's the way it is.
SPEAKER_00: We love you, really.
SPEAKER_00: And that's fine so far as it goes.
SPEAKER_00: But there are biblical imperatives that lift us above those cultural norms.
SPEAKER_00: That we might encourage one another with our words, that we might speak biblical encouragement to people.
SPEAKER_00: A well-placed and encouraging word might just steal a person in the suffering that they're going through.
SPEAKER_00: Or encourage somebody for service.
SPEAKER_00: So it's worth thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: How can you encourage somebody this morning?
SPEAKER_00: How can you encourage somebody in your church family?
SPEAKER_00: How can in our church family?
SPEAKER_00: How can you speak words of that are life-giving?
SPEAKER_00: It might even just be like as simple as thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Cameron, for coming in early and for making and serving the coffee to us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's not that's not me just calling him out, he's dying at the back.
SPEAKER_00: But to actually have it noted that you people on the the tech team, David is immediately there getting me mic'd up because I always arrive late, and uh that's just where our family life is, and uh and he was on the ball with that.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you for uh for for enabling this to happen.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't set any of this up.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know who was on the team this morning, but thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there are ways that we can acknowledge the service of one another, that we can acknowledge and point out the ways that you see God at work in another person's life.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, I've noticed this growth in you.
SPEAKER_00: I've noticed Christ doing this in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's glorious.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's one of the beautiful things about our life together.
SPEAKER_00: You see that sometimes in a uh in a you know with your spouse, but you see it also in the Christian community that as we do life together, one of the things that you glimpse just for a moment, it's almost like God gives you a little insight into the future of who a person is becoming.
SPEAKER_00: And God has placed you there and allowed you to see that, to see God at work in another person's life, and you just glimpse for a second the kind of man, the kind of woman that they are becoming.
SPEAKER_00: That's a real, that's a joy.
SPEAKER_00: And you should call it and say, I see that, I see what God is doing in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I see how you are growing, how you are a different person because of that experience.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe another way that we can express our unity together is not just by our words, but what but by our welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Who are the kinds of people that we welcome into our community?
SPEAKER_00: Who are the kinds of people that we welcome into our home?
SPEAKER_00: Well, who should it be, biblically speaking?
SPEAKER_00: It should be people of every ethnicity, every class, every background, every orientation, every family status.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the gospel offers grace and forgiveness for all and asks repentance and faith of all.
SPEAKER_00: We show our unity by our welcome.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's also by our actions.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we had the first of our formal members making their declarations, and they resolved to do tangible things, to keep on meeting together, to live holy lives, to be on our collective mission, to give, to enable that mission.
SPEAKER_00: These are all expressions of our unity together.
SPEAKER_00: We might not be kissing one another after the service.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, regulations would dictate that you probably shouldn't do that, unless you're in the same family group as them.
SPEAKER_00: In which case, fill your boots.
SPEAKER_00: But there should be ways that we can tangibly express our unity together.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, what is the basis of unity?
SPEAKER_00: Paul finishes with a great crescendo, with that great blessing that has now come down to us in the history of the church, that we say from time to time, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
SPEAKER_00: This is the basis of their unity as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Paul finishes with this Trinitarian blessing.
SPEAKER_00: We believe as Christians that we believe in one God, in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, co-equal in divinity, co-eternal.
SPEAKER_00: Yea, indeed.
SPEAKER_00: Good classical Trinitarian theology.
SPEAKER_00: God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That is all the kinds of things that we believe that Paul is expressing here.
SPEAKER_00: After all of the talk in this letter of disunity and mistrust, division and discord, where does Paul point us finally?
SPEAKER_00: He lifts our eyes to God.
SPEAKER_00: And what do we see there?
SPEAKER_00: We see a God who is himself united.
SPEAKER_00: United and yet diverse.
SPEAKER_00: There is diversity in our God.
SPEAKER_00: The Father is not the Son.
SPEAKER_00: The Son is not the Father.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit is neither Father nor Son.
SPEAKER_00: They are not interchangeable.
SPEAKER_00: We do not believe that God just puts on different masks and appears to us in different forms at different times, like you might read in the book The Shack.
SPEAKER_00: That's modalism, that is an ancient heresy.
SPEAKER_00: They are distinct persons.
SPEAKER_00: The Father did not die upon the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It is the Son who died.
SPEAKER_00: The Son can do nothing without the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks the Father's words, he does the Father's works.
SPEAKER_00: That is Jesus' own testimony of himself in John 5.
SPEAKER_00: There is diversity of action.
SPEAKER_00: Diversity of action here.
SPEAKER_00: The Father places his love on us, the Son lavishes his grace upon us, and the Spirit, well, the Spirit unites us in fellowship to Christ and to one another.
SPEAKER_00: There is diversity, but there is also unity.
SPEAKER_00: Back to John 5, great Trinitarian chapter, John 5.
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus say about himself?
SPEAKER_00: It says John 5.24, just as the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son to have life in himself.
SPEAKER_00: That uncreated divine essence is shared by both Father and Son, and consequently Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: There is unity.
SPEAKER_00: There is unity also of action.
SPEAKER_00: Not that each person does the same thing, but that each person acts with the other.
SPEAKER_00: They act in harmony together.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is God Himself united, he is the ground and basis of Christian unity.
SPEAKER_00: Just as the Spirit unites us to Christ and brings us into fellowship with God, so he unites us one to another.
SPEAKER_00: We are all brought together in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The fellowship that we have with him enables the fellowship that we have with one another.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Jesus is only, is the only one able to truly unite diverse people.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus unites people not on the basis of background, ethnicity, race, class, sexuality.
SPEAKER_00: No, he unites people on the basis of faith in him alone, and that invitation is open to all people.
SPEAKER_00: Is Christianity an exclusive religion?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_00: But because it is an exclusive religion, it is the most inclusive religion.
SPEAKER_00: Because it says it's not about your background, it's not about your family, it's not about what you do, it's not about how you identify, it's about faith in him alone.
SPEAKER_00: The exclusivity of Christianity is what opens up its inclusivity.
SPEAKER_00: The Christ's arms are open wide to every tribe and tongue and nation.
SPEAKER_00: And for this work of unity, this work of unity that we must constantly keep in our mind and strive towards, that will be tested and strained at various points in our life together.
SPEAKER_00: For that work of unity, what has Jesus given us?
SPEAKER_00: He has given us his grace.
SPEAKER_00: Paul began his letter by saying, Grace to you.
SPEAKER_00: And now in verse 14, he says, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Grace to you, grace now remain with you.
SPEAKER_00: What is the implication?
SPEAKER_00: That throughout the whole letter and all of our studies, what has been flowing to us, but the grace of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Grace to you.
SPEAKER_00: And then the wellspring of that great letter that we have studied these months has been grace upon grace to us.
SPEAKER_00: And now as we conclude and we move in to our summer season, what we need to know and what we need to rejoice in is that the grace of the Lord Jesus remains with us.
SPEAKER_00: We've received his grace by his holy word these last weeks.
SPEAKER_00: And now his grace remains with us to refuel our joy, to reconcile us one to another, to allow us to comfort and live in harmony and to strive for peace.
SPEAKER_00: May we draw from the wellspring of his grace as we seek to express these things in our lives together for the glory of Jesus and for the good of one another and our city.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that as we have read these words, your grace has been flowing to us.
SPEAKER_00: May we be rich partakers of that grace and so be people who are glad in God.
SPEAKER_00: People who reconcile and restore, who comfort, who are harmonious and who live in peace.
SPEAKER_00: May we know the love of the Father that has been placed upon us.
SPEAKER_00: And may we experience in ever more tangible ways the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: For we ask it in the name of the one true and living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who is one God, world without end.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.