The Fellowship of Faith

One last time, at least for a
while, would the Lord’s people please take their Bibles and
turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 16. I’m just a softy. I don’t know what it is, but
it’s like saying farewell to dear friends to put almost a
dozen commentaries back on the shelf for maybe ever. As we complete 1 Corinthians,
that’s what I began to do last night as I closed each commentary,
reviewing each section. I knew that I was putting those
books back on the shelf, perhaps never to be touched by me again. We find ourselves in verses 19
through 24. where we have Paul’s closing
remarks to this lengthy and wide-ranging letter. Fellowship is a word that gets
thrown out, thrown around a lot, both in Christian circles and
in secular circles. The most basic reference of fellowship
is that it points to the things that we have in common with another
person or with a group. For people who do not know the
Savior, the word fellowship is used to refer to those who generally
share your same interest or activity. And so you can have a car club
that is referred to as a fellowship or some athletic association. And that’s not altogether different
from the way that the word is used in Christian circles, which
prompts me to wonder, do we as believers even know what fellowship
is? What is Christian fellowship?
Is it an activity? Is it something like a club? And what is the nature of this
fellowship? What is it like? How does a person
engage in Christian fellowship? And once engaged, how is this
fellowship maintained? How is it developed and built?
These are the questions to which Paul seems to want to address
with the Corinthians here in his closing words of this letter. In these short six verses, Paul’s
theme in these things is fellowship, Christian fellowship. If you
would, just read along with me verses 19 through 22. And you
will know, as I did on Monday, what on earth do we do with these
passages. The churches of Asia greet you.
Aquila and Priscilla greet you heartily in the Lord with the
church that is in their house. All the brethren greet you. Greet
one another with a holy kiss. The greeting is in my own hand,
Paul. If anyone does not love the Lord,
he is to be accursed. Maranatha. The grace of the Lord
Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ
Jesus. Amen. We can basically break those
closing words down into three groupings. The greeting in greetings
plural in verses 19 through 21, the warning in verse 22, and
the blessing in verses 23 and 24. But the overall theme of
those three paragraphs is the fellowship of faith. And that
fellowship is found only in Christ’s church. Fellowship, Christian
fellowship, most of you know, comes from the Greek word koinonia. That word is used about 20 times
in the New Testament, and mostly in Paul’s epistles. It refers
to a very special kind of friendship with one another, whether with
another individual, singularly, or with others, plural. We could
also call it communion. When we hear the word communion,
we often think of it as the celebration of the Lord’s table, but the
basic significance of communion with others is what I would call
an intimate oneness, a relationship with another person on the deepest
level. And such interaction can be had
one-on-one, or it can be had in a large group of people, like
a church. Fellowship, Christian fellowship,
is a loving communion, first with God, and then with our fellow
believers. And we can enjoy fellowship,
communion, with God alone, that is, by ourselves, That primary
relationship, that communion with God, is foundational. There cannot be an atmosphere
for true Christian fellowship unless both persons or the entire
group of persons is first in communion, that is, fellowship
with God. Well, if fellowship is the result
of common interests, then Christian fellowship is the deepest, most
significant kind of fellowship. Far beyond what you would get
in a club or a secular group of some kind, because Christians
have in common the most wonderful kinds of things. In the opening
chapter of this very letter, Paul reminds the Corinthians
that they have been called into fellowship with his son, Jesus
Christ, our Lord. In chapter 10, verse 16, Paul
emphasizes that as believers, Christians enjoy a sharing that
is a fellowship in the blood and the body of Christ. That’s
an amazing statement. So right away, we can begin to
come to an understanding of what the nature of fellowship is. God is the one who initiates
this relationship, causing all believers to enjoy the blessings
of a relationship with him. One of those rich blessings is
that all believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And building
upon that thought in his second letter to the Corinthian church,
1313, Paul speaks ardently of our fellowship in the Holy Spirit. We have that in common with one
another. By our faith in Jesus Christ,
we have fellowship in light. He says in 2 Corinthians 6, 14,
true spiritual understanding, we have that. in common. We have
fellowship that is in Christ’s sufferings, Philippians 3.10. And as the Apostle John declares,
we have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
But I would suppose that a foundational understanding of fellowship could
effectively be drawn from a verse in the tiny little book of Philemon,
where Paul refers to it as the fellowship of your faith. Whatever
other benefits and blessings that we enjoy as part of Christian
fellowship, at the beginning of it all, it’s a fellowship
of faith. It’s begun by faith and maintained
by faith, a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a fellowship
of faith. So great, so important is a fellowship
of faith that under the Spirit’s guidance, Luke recognized fellowship
was one of the crucial pillars of the early church. Remember
this from our study of Acts chapter 2? If you would, just turn to Acts
chapter two for a moment. It’s such a great verse. Keep
your finger there in 1 Corinthians. In Acts chapter two, immediately
following Peter’s first ever sermon, fantastic scene, Luke
inserted the second of many progress reports, a report on how the
church was doing. It was an amazing sermon, passionately
addressing the sin of the crowd who had put Christ to death,
but also mercifully setting forth forgiveness because of God’s
mercy. Listen to how this second report
reads, and I’ll pick up in verse 40, right at the end of Peter’s
sermon. And with many other words, he,
that is Peter, solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying,
be saved from this perverse generation. What a statement of mercy. This
crowd had just murdered his beloved Savior. and yet he is preaching
salvation to them. Look at verse 41. So then those
who had received his word were baptized, and that day there
were added about 3,000 souls. That is the most fantastic church
growth report I’ve ever heard. Peter preached the word, he offered
them salvation, forgiveness, because of God’s mercy, and 3,000
people responded and were baptized. What a fantastic scene. Look
though at verse 42, would you? They were continually devoting
themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking
of bread and to prayer. Did you hear that? The apostles
teaching, and that’s understandable enough, there would be new people
coming into the group all the time. They too needed to hear
the gospel, hear God’s plan of redemption that is there throughout
his word. And the men that God had assigned
to that task were the apostles. Fantastic. And the breaking of
bread. We’re not surprised to see that
there. The celebration of the Lord’s
table. Jesus had implemented that very celebration on the
night in which he was betrayed. It’s not surprising that that
too is being practiced as expected. And prayer as well. A vibrant
result of their restored relationship with God. They suddenly have
access to the very throne of grace where God is. There’s a fourth element in that
short list of foundational elements, pillars as I called them, fellowship. Fellowship was one of the four
pillars on which the church was built. The early church was established
by the preaching and the teaching of God’s word, by prayer, by
the celebration of the Lord’s table, and by the sweet fellowship
of believers with their God and with one another. But genuine Christian fellowship
doesn’t just happen. Just because two or more people
are gathered doesn’t necessarily mean that there will be true
fellowship, especially if there is strife, and cross purposes
like there were in the Corinthian church. Christian fellowship
has to be carefully cultivated and delicately protected. It isn’t just a matter of calling
people together over food, even ice cream. Christian fellowship
is an intentional gathering of two or more believers for the
purpose of as the book of Jude states it, building one another
up in the most holy faith. That’s fellowship. Now a person
can find sorts of fellowship in a family gathering, in a stadium,
and even in a bar. But there’s only one place where
one can find and enjoy true and eternally significant fellowship,
and that is Christ Church. And Paul knew that the ultimate
success of the church, the church in Corinth or any church, depends
partly on its fellowship, the relationships between the believers. And so that’s why Paul is addressing
these things here, beginning in verse 19. We are called to cultivate a
fellowship of faith. And the first thing that we see
in this passage is that Christ-centered relationships are first of all
sustained by holy affection. They are sustained by holy affection. Verses 19 through 21, the churches
of Asia greet you. Aquila and Prisca greet you heartily
in the Lord. With the church that is in their
house, all the brethren greet you. Greet one another with a
holy kiss. The greeting is in my own hand,
Paul. Well, the first point that we observe in this section is
that for a fellowship to really thrive, to be sustained, there
must be practical communion with one another. There must be communication. And Paul focuses on the most
basic element of communication, the greeting. The word is used
four times in this section. It is Paul’s focus in 19 through
21. And we do what Paul is doing
here all the time. It goes like this, hey, when
you go to such and such a place, if you bump into so-and-so, please
tell them I said hello. We do it all the time. And it goes both ways. Your friend
returns from an event, and he approaches you and says,
hey, I bumped into your friend, so-and-so, and he said to say
hi. We do this all the time. And
Paul makes plentiful use of this feature in all of his epistles,
greeting on behalf of others. But have you ever paused to wonder
why these greetings are even included in the Bible? You come
to a passage like this, especially on a Monday morning, what am
I gonna do with this? Have you ever stopped to consider
that we do the same thing, that we pass along these greetings,
Why do we do that? What is in a greeting anyway?
Well, they tell the recipient of that greeting several things.
Number one, they communicate to them that, hey, I’m still
here. I’m still loving and serving
our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing has changed in that regard.
I’m pressing on by God’s grace. And secondly, they tell the recipient,
hey, I care about you. I know that you’re there, I know
that we’re apart, but you’re valuable to me. And that has
the effect of sustaining, keeping alive the relationship. Let’s
watch what Paul does here in this passage. If you go back
to verse 19, and the first greeting that Paul forwards is from a
remarkable source. The churches of Asia greet you.
What an amazing thing this was. The very reason that Paul left
Corinth, remember, was to take the gospel to peoples and regions
that had not yet heard of it, and thereby to plant churches,
and ultimately that meant the region of Ephesus, Asia. Remember earlier in this chapter?
Paul told the Corinthians that he could not visit them immediately
because a wide door for effective service had opened to him. And
here he’s just telling them about the fruit of that effective service. And so what rejoicing this must
have produced from the heart of every true believer in Corinth
Not just the church of Asia greets you, church singular, but churches,
plural, the churches of Asia greet you. And this gets even
more amazing when we consider the cities which some of these
churches in Asia are represented. The first one, not surprisingly,
is Ephesus. That’s where Paul wanted to go.
That’s where he desired to go and to preach. I mean, how sad
would it have been if Paul had left Corinth after only 18 months,
spent four years in Ephesus, and had nothing to show for it?
The fact that there is a church in Ephesus is cause for rejoicing,
even in itself. But Paul says churches, plural,
in Asia, and even though there were certainly multiple churches
in and around the region of Ephesus, even in the city, there were
likely several churches, but Paul means something even greater
when he references Asia. What are some of the other Asian
churches? Well, let’s see. There was a
church in Smyrna, and another one in Pergamum, And we know
that there was also a church in Thyatira. That’s right. Yes, and all the rest of those
churches that are addressed in Revelation chapter two and three,
Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. And we could also add to that
list the cities of Troas and Colossae. There were many, many
churches. You see, in his nearly four years
there in that region, Paul had not confined himself to one city,
Ephesus, but the Lord had used him to spread the gospel far
and wide. So here, when Paul says, the
churches of Asia greet you, they would have been overwhelmed with
joy. There’s another reason for their
certain joy as well. Think of this. How did these
many plentiful Christian churches know to greet their fellow believers
in Corinth? How did they know that anyway?
It’s simple. Paul must have told these churches
about the Corinthian church. And I take that to mean he told
them about the good things about this Corinthian church. The fantastic
stories of all that occurred in Corinth would have abounded.
Think of this. He would have told them how God
had providentially paired him up with two tent makers, Aquila
and Priscilla, who became his partners in the gospel. He would
have told them about the providential opportunity that he had to preach
in the synagogue every week. He would have told them about
how Silas and Timothy had joined him to serve there for 18 months. How Paul had turned from the
hostility of the Jews ultimately to preach the gospel to the Gentiles
right next door to the synagogue. And do you remember this, how
one of the first converts in that Gentile building was no
other than the very leader of the synagogue? Amazing things. And many other stories from his
year and a half of establishing the church there in Corinth.
No wonder these Christians in and around Ephesus cry out, hey
Paul, When you write to the Corinthians, could you tell them, hi for us? Please greet them for us. Because now they are in fellowship
with the same Lord. And not surprisingly, their dear
friends, Aquila and Priscilla, or Prisca as Paul always refers
to her, they also send their greetings, verse 19. Remember,
Paul had initially met these two when he first arrived in
Corinth. They had also been warmly received
by the Corinthians themselves after being kicked out of Rome.
Roman Emperor Claudius issued a decree that demanded that all
Jews leave the city of Rome, and so they fled, and they landed
in Corinth providentially. And they must have labored right
alongside Paul the entire time because when Paul decided to
leave Corinth 18 months later, he insisted on taking Aquila
and Priscilla with him. But they couldn’t forget about
Corinth and the amazing work that God had done there. And
so Paul passes along their greeting. They greet you heartily in the
Lord. Real quick thoughts here. First
of all, this word heartily. It’s just a translation of the
Greek word polis. It just means much. They really
greeted them. In other words, this was an enthusiastic
greeting from these gospel workers. And further, it was in the Lord. That’s not a meaningless little
phrase, one that we can just brush past. The Corinthians,
rather to the Corinthians, it served as a reminder that whereas
at one point, not unlike our New Testament reading today,
they were not in the Lord, but now by God’s grace they were.
They were in Christ. And since Aquila and Priscilla
were there when they saw them come to Christ, they offer a
sweet reminder of that when they say that we are now all fellow
believers in the Lord, placed as it were into the very sphere
of Christ. They had fellowship in Christ.
And just as Aquila and Priscilla had faithfully served in Corinth,
so they were doing in Ephesus. It says they had a house church.
That was a pattern in their lives. Romans 16 says that they had
a house church there as well years later. Paul adds an additional
greeting if you would just glance at verse 20. All the brethren
greet you. Obviously all the brothers who
were there with Paul in Ephesus said us too. Not just Aquila
and Priscilla’s little house church, but everybody wants to
pass along a greeting to the Corinthians. And now, here we go, would you glance
down at the end of verse 20, where Paul gives the Corinthians
a directive. You wanna talk about greetings?
Greet one another with a holy kiss. Now this isn’t as difficult
as it sounds, and I will have the deacons at the exit doors
demonstrating at the end of the service. Seriously, we’ve talked about
this and this practice before. Paul gives the same directive
in Romans 16, 16, 2 Corinthians 13, 12, 1 Thessalonians 5, 26,
greet one another with a holy kiss. And not unlike the matter we
discussed regarding head coverings, this practice is very much a
contextual cultural issue. In some cultures, this kiss,
whether it’s on the hand, or the cheek, or the forehead, or
even on the lips, is a standard way of greeting another person
in some cultures. And historically, there have
been churches that even inserted this beyond our very warm greeting. They inserted this into their
worship service as part of that service. They would walk around
kissing each other. But I don’t believe that Paul
is prescribing here a literal smooch on the lips. I believe that he’s just urging
the believers there to a warm and affectionate greeting. In some cultures, no one would
even blink at kissing. But in other cultures, thankfully,
like the one in which we live, Just the thought of it is unseemly. Because we need our 18 inches
of space, right? Or six full feet, depending on
what kind of sickness is going around. But even in an exceedingly
demonstrative culture like Corinth, Paul is careful to guide them.
He does this with every church to which he issues this guidance. It’s not just any kiss. It’s
a holy kiss. It’s a greeting that is given
in all purity, nothing crass, nothing edgy or improper about
it at all. And in a church torn apart by
petty jealousies, controversies, selfishness, an affectionate
greeting of one another would have had terrific healing properties.
Let me tell you how I know this. I knew of two young people one
time that were quibbling, bickering, acting like they didn’t love
one another. And I just came up with a genius
cure for this. I made them hug for 30 minutes. And it didn’t take two minutes
before they were giggling and enjoying each other’s company
and forgetting all about their little quibbles and remembering
how much they loved one another. That’s essentially what Paul
is telling the Corinthians. Would you just set your petty
differences aside? and give one another a warm and
hearty greeting. Paul closes this first subsection
with a verification of his letter. He appends his signature essentially
to the document. Glance at verse 21 briefly. The
greeting is in my own hand, Paul. Paul likely used what was called
an amanuensis, a person with better penmanship than he had. used him to write out his thoughts
and communicate them to the Corinthians. And as he had left it alone,
some might have wondered whether this letter was even from Paul.
Perhaps a forger had written it. So Paul’s efforts here do
away with that doubt. This greeting, perhaps everything
in verses 19 through 24 is in his own unmistakable handwriting. And this too is something that
Paul did in several of his letters, Galatians, Colossians, Second
Thessalonians, Philemon. He would at least sign the document. So greetings, back to greetings,
they serve a purpose. They sustain the relationship,
the fellowship of God’s people. It’s established by their faith
in Christ, but it’s sustained through this sweet communication
with one another, but the Christian fellowship also must be guarded. We find that in verse 22, Christ-centered
relationships are not only sustained by holy affection, they are protected
by necessary separation. Verse 22, if anyone does not
love the Lord, he is to be accursed, Maranatha. Now brace yourself for this difficult
point. I’ll begin by telling you that
without a doubt, church discipline is arguably the hardest part
of pastoral ministry. It involves confronting someone
in their sin, lovingly calling them to repentance, But unfortunately,
not all people are willing to turn from their sin, and the
process of church discipline deepens. Two or more go to confront
this brother, and if he remains in stubborn refusal, the whole
church comes to bear against such a person. The biblical process
is derived from many, many passages in the New Testament. Matthew
18, 1 Corinthians 5, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Galatians 6, James 5, 19, and
many, many more. In fact, it would be harder to
reason away observing church discipline than it would be just
to follow Christ’s mandates on the matter. The practice, as
difficult as it is, is for the glory of God, it’s for the purity
of the church, and it’s for the sake of the offender. Did you
get that? The glory of God, the purity
of the church, and the sake of the offender. Church discipline
is for the brother who is caught in sin. And because of it, it
offers him a chance to acknowledge his sin and to turn from it and
to be restored and further sanctified. It’s for him, not against him. And this is what Paul seems to
be addressing here when he says in verse 22, if anyone does not
love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Now there is a subtlety here
that explains a lot. Remember in John chapter 21,
Jesus meets with Peter on the shore and he does so for the
purpose of restoring Peter to ministry. Remember this? You
remember how Jesus went about doing this? He asked Peter, Simon,
son of John, do you love me? The first two times that Jesus
asked Peter that painful question, Jesus used the word agape, the
highest and most noble kind of love, agape love. And both times Peter tried really
hard to convince the Lord that, yes, I love you, Jesus. But both times he used the word
phileo, A more general kind of love, like that between acquaintances. I really like you, Jesus. So in answer to Jesus’ question
about love, Peter basically replies, yes, Lord, I really like you.
That word phileo is the same word that Paul uses here. And
in doing so, he’s speaking of the most basic affection for
Jesus. This would be the minimal sentiment
that a believer could have toward the Lord. Paul challenges whether
even this basic affection is even present. Some people claim
to love Jesus. It can’t really be said that
they even so much as like him. And some people might reply,
I love the Lord plenty. Who are you to judge? It’s people
that bother me. And I think that’s at the heart
of what Paul is driving at here. Based on all that he has said
in this epistle, how they treated one another. I’ll tell you what
may have been in Paul’s mind here. Would you turn to Matthew
chapter 25? Listen to the words of Christ
himself. Embrace yourself. Verse 41. Then he will say to those on
the left, depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which
has been prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry,
and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me
nothing to drink. I was a stranger, and you did
not invite me in. naked and you did not clothe
me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. Then they themselves will also
answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger
or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you? Then he will answer them, truly,
I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the
least of these, You did it, you did not do it to me. The Apostle
John says this very succinctly, 1 John 4 20. If someone says
I love God and hates his brother, he’s a liar. For the one who
does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom
he has not seen. Back to 1 Corinthians, if you
would. People like these are pretenders. They’re false professors of faith. False brethren, as Paul calls
them in Galatians 2.4. And Paul says, as alarming as
it is to our ears, if anyone does not love the Lord, he is
to be accursed. And the word here is a frightening
word, anathema. cursed, damned. But please note,
it is not us as believers who do the cursing. It is not Paul’s
wish or sentence upon unbelievers that they be cursed. Cursing
is God’s business. All we can do is share and preach
the gospel and then stand back to allow God’s plans and processes
to work out. If someone wants nothing to do
with Jesus, if they did not love his body, the people, if they don’t even like Jesus,
they already stand condemned. They’re already under the curse
of death. Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. And if
we love him, we will love his body. We will love our fellow
believer. Jesus Christ is the only way
of salvation, and we know that the Corinthian church was a troubled
church, numerous troubled people within her. Quite evidently,
some of them were pretenders. who did not love the Lord Jesus
Christ, and it was plainly evident because they did not love their
brother. And effectively, Paul says, what kind of real fellowship
can you have with someone like that? What fellowship has light
with darkness? Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6
14, what Paul is doing is hemming in the fellowship of God’s people,
effectively purifying it. And at times the church has a
dangerous tendency to expand the boundaries and embrace rather
embracing and fellowshipping with those who do not love the
Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says this cannot be. Blurring those lines does a disservice
to the unbelieving individual and it does serious harm to the
church. We may and we ought to have interaction
with people. We must preach the gospel to
them. We must show them basic human
kindness, but we do not, cannot enjoy Christian fellowship with
them. There is no fellowship of the
Spirit. There is no fellowship in Christ’s blood. There is no
fellowship in his sufferings. There is no fellowship in Christ.
so that the reality is we are not and cannot be in any kind
of true fellowship with such a person. The best we can do
is to continue to plead with them, that they turn to Christ
in faith for salvation. There is no other way. And then
Paul adds this closing word here to this warning, meranatha. And it’s actually three words,
three Aramaic words, mar, an, atha. Mar means Lord, an means
our, and atha is come. Either the Lord has come or the
Lord is coming. Either way, it serves as a warning.
If we take it in the sense that the Lord has come bringing redemption,
for your sins by faith, if this is so, then why be so foolish
to wait around for a Savior any longer? The Lord has come. If
we take it in the sense that the Lord is coming, the urgency
is that much greater for every individual to deal appropriately
with the Savior. He’s coming. There will be no
second chance. Either you repent now of your
sin and place your faith in Christ, or you will deal with Him as
judge. At any moment, Christ is coming, and He’s coming to
judge. The church is a fellowship of
faith, the institution where the Lord’s people live and flourish
in fellowship with God and with one another. These Christ-centered
relationships are sustained by a holy affection. They’re protected
by necessary separation. And thirdly, they are edified
by godly commendations. Would you look at verses 23 and
24 as we close out our study of this letter? The grace of
the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ
Jesus. In order to promote sound fellowship
in his churches, Paul sets forth one final principle. Christ’s
church is most edified when people engage in godly communications. And these two sentences both
communicate beautiful thoughts. First glance at verse 23, where
Paul says, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. And to be
accurate, there is no verb in the sentence. Our translators
supply that for us with the little word be. Grace be with you. And we tend
to brush right past this phrase, grace to you, grace be with you.
But when you consider it, this is one of the greatest things
that a believer can ever ask or pray for on behalf of a fellow
believer. When somebody tells me they’re
praying for God’s grace for me, there is nothing better. I’d
take that over a million dollars. Because we literally can do nothing,
nothing good or worthwhile without the grace of God. So for someone
to say this, for someone to pray this on our behalf is one of
the kindest, most helpful things that another believer can ever
do. Paul prays for what they most
need, grace. You see, there comes a point
in time where we either personally in our resources to help someone,
or in our ability to do so, or in our measure of wisdom, all
of those things are exhausted. We have nothing more to give,
nothing more to say. But when our resources are depleted,
our Christian friend is not hopeless. This reminds me of Paul’s farewell
to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20. Paul had modeled
to them, preached to them, taught them, labored with them, wept
with them, prayed with them. But he’s leaving, perhaps for
good. And he pauses and in verse 32
of that chapter, he says, and now I commend you to God and
to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give
you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Paul’s well of resources was
depleted. He wouldn’t be there. He wouldn’t
have anything left to give. But God’s resources are infinite. And so Paul entrusts them to
God and to his grace. And here, when Paul refers to
the grace of the Lord Jesus, it specially calls to mind, doesn’t
it, the work of salvation? That It was only by God’s grace. And so too, any endeavor that
the believer ever faces must be attended with the same grace.
Wouldn’t you know it, this is precisely what Paul asks for
on behalf of his churches. Not just the Corinthian church,
nearly 20 times in Paul’s epistles, Paul makes the same exact plea.
It’s a noble feature. In every single one of his letters,
Paul basically asks that the grace of our Lord Jesus be with
you all. It isn’t just a catchphrase.
It isn’t just Christian ease, Christian language. It’s a most
earnest plea. for the most wonderful benefit
that a Christian ever enjoys, the grace of God, the ability
to please him. This great apostle closes the
letter with one last statement, my love be with you all in Christ
Jesus, amen. Similar to the statement in verse
23, neither does this sentence have a verb, literally it reads,
my love with you all. We understand his intent, however,
his desires that his beloved church, to whom he has said some
very direct, even hard things. He wants them to know just how
great his love is for them. And in closing out our study
of this incredible epistle, I loved what one commentator called attention
to, one very special feature. Would you turn back to chapter
one? And no, I’m not going to start over. I just wanna show
you this very quickly. Go to the very first verse of
chapter one, where Paul begins there with Paul called as an
apostle of Jesus Christ. Verse two, to those who have
been sanctified in Christ. Verse three, grace and peace
from the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse four, an expression of
thanks for the grace given you in Christ Jesus. Verse five,
you were enriched in him, that is Jesus Christ. The testimony,
verse six, the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you. Verse seven, you are awaiting
eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse eight,
you will one day be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Verse nine, God has called you
into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. The epistle
opens with everything about the Lord Jesus Christ, and it closes
with the same glorious words. The very final words, Christ
Jesus. My love be with you all in Christ
Jesus. Would you humble yourself before
the throne of grace?