Published: December 1, 2024 | Speaker: Mark Freitag | Series: 2 Corinthians - Part 1 | Scripture: 2 Corinthians 13:14
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our Focus this morning will be on 2 Corinthians 13 verse4 I'm going to read a little of the context from the end of Paul's letter to the Corinthians
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starting at verse 11 of chapter 13 finally Brethren Rejoice be made complete be comforted be likeminded live
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in peace and the god of love and peace shall be with you greet one another with a holy kiss all the saints greet you the
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grace of of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all let us
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pray Our Father we do ask that you would Grant to us a a hearing ability to hear that by the Holy Spirit we could hear your words could
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hear your your voice as it were to in in our hearts and our souls that we might Rejoice with with Paul as he prays for
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the Believers we might understand the work that you've done in the heart our hearts but also in the church and we ask that
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we would walk in these things to give you honor and glory in Christ's name we
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sermon with a with a benediction um it might be strange to start with a benediction that comes in a very strange
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location this benediction perhaps one of the richest and most comprehensive benedictions in all of
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scripture was given by the Apostle Paul to a church Church of detractors a church of
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fools who are intent on having their own factions creating divisions within the body and seemingly as we read through
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first and 2 Corinthians asking Paul for reproach and for indignation and Paul responds
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I think I think uncharacteristically in 2 Corinthians with self with self Vindication uh some authors say this was beneath him to vindicate his own
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Ministry and yet I think if you read 2 Corinthians knowing something about Paul that's not necessarily true but he did
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speak to those people in a rebuking voice but also I think with a a great
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amount of sadness in his heart in various parts of those letters and
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church Embraces all the Corinthians the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with
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all what we have here is not just a clear and I I believe it's clear statement of the Trinity a fundamental doctrine of our
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form which almost defines the trinity we see the three persons of the
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Trinity distinct from each other and yet one with each other there's a cooperation of God the Father and Jesus the
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Son and the Holy Spirit that Paul outlines here I think in a very simple verse in yet I think it's very
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it's very profound each distinct personality in the Trinity is set forth here and their
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nature and Paul is not as the author Gordon fee Gordon fee asserts arguing for this position but position but quote as the assumed experienced reality
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of Christian Life PA Paul's not stating here his doctrine of the Trinity and all the wise and where Force he's
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assuming the reality of the Trinity their divine nature their distinct personalities is
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personalities is assumed and it's announced and it's meant to be
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enjoyed the gospel of of Christ the love of the Father the communion of the Holy Spirit the the word Grace here is is the gospel in its simplest form
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Grace it's first in order of our experience and I think perhaps Paul thought of that here the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that's what we
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experience as experience as Christians and Paul defends the grace of Jesus Christ throughout his writings it's Grace again as we saw with
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David in Psalm 51 this morning there's no self-sufficiency there's no moralistic philosophies that save us there's no
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meritocracies me earning my salvation no amount of work on man's part as Paul writes in Ephesians it's a gift
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of God not by works given to men women and children such that none can
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boast and it's proclaimed here in the entire fullest Majesty of the name above all names the
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Lord Jesus Lord Jesus Christ I know it's a tendency for us to think of first of all that you know
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the Lord Jesus Christ those are his you know first middle and last names which we know is not true but I think we tend to and uh you know we had our our son
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Drew from the Air Force here and he speaks in acronyms everything is three or four or 18 letters for all these things in in the military these departments these Squadron
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these uh various different distinct things and I it was kind of a shock to me when I um happened to be talking to one of my professors at Seminary and he
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had his Bible open where he had written in the margins underline things and reds and greens and blues and he would write ljc and that just that stung my
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heart that he would just write ljc what what we see here is this Majestic name the Lord means his essential
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deity he's he's Jesus he is genuine humanity and he is the Christ he is the Messiah he is the one promised and hoped
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for he's he's not an ljc he is the Lord Jesus Christ and again Paul in very few words the grace
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the grace that belongs to and give given by the Lord Jesus Christ is what he is after and the source where is the source
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of that of that Grace and the love of God that's what one author called The Secret source and yet we know that God loves
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his people with an everlasting love and yet his Holiness cannot ignore the sinfulness of a sinful
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people Jeffrey Wilson wrote it is there that all the attributes of God are seen to harmonize in the dread judgment that Vindicated his Justice even as it
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published his published his mercy God is just but he's also Mercy merciful and and again David you
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know if God if if if you brought judgment for sin who could stand but there is forgiveness with
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thee the love of God encompasses all of that without the cross there's no understanding of God's
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love the Redeemer and the one who brought about
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Redemption without Redemption through Christ's blood blood there is no real Fellowship among people there are those who claim you
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know the Gathering Together come to my house for this or that party for the three FS food fun and fellowship but there's no
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True Fellowship unless it's given and I believe that is the work that Paul brings forward here in The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit the
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communion of the Holy Spirit it is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring about True Fellowship among Believers working in the hearts of
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individuals or as I wrote in my notes he works in individual Hearts but he also works in corporate Hearts to apply the understanding of the
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benefits of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ because of the love of the father and now we have
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Fellowship of the Holy Spirit what is this communion of the Holy Spirit or given in The New American
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Standard The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit I put up the quote from a man by the name of Bob saell I don't know him from
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anything but he wrote the holy spirit is to the Christian what the cloud by day and the fire by night was to the Israelite to me again this brought up
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that phrase that we've learned in Sunday school the holy spirit is God's power presence you have the presence of God but in the power and the majesty and the
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glory of God that is the Holy Spirit the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit guarantees our Redemption and
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eternal inheritance elsewhere in 2 Corinthians Paul writes now he who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God who also sealed us and gave us the
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spirit in our hearts as a pledge that's powerful words it comes from God he gave us redemption in Christ but he sealed
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us with the holy spirit with a pledge and what is a pledge many of you have bought a house
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or a car and you've made a down payment and what is a down payment it's a guarantee for the completion of that transaction I put it
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down because I'm anticipating that it's going to come to to completion at the end and that's the witness of the Holy Spirit he is our pledge he assures us of
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our Union with Jesus Christ and he affirms in us all of God's promises that they are in fact as
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scripture says yes and amen in Christ again Gordon fee writes along with the resurrection of Christ the spirit is the certain evidence that the
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future has been set in motion and the spirit's indwelling presence serves as God's Own guarantee that we are to inherit all that has been promised see
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he's got it all here in one sentence the the Redeemer and the one who brought us the Redeemer through his love and now he has
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sealed us to himself with the fellowship the communion of the
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mean communion of course as you probably know comes from that Greek word coia and it does mean communion it can mean Fellowship it can mean sharing or
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participation but what does it signify what does it convey to us but it is a sense of
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commonality a sense of solidarity a sense of shared
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responsibility and here's where I think some of the arguments of those who believe that the holy spirit is not part of the godhead there is no
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Trinity uh you've heard me say this the man who who preached that there's two who and a what and there's the argument that oh
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yes of course it's the grace of Jesus because it belongs to him and he bestows it and the love of God because it's God's love toward us and it's the
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Fellowship of the holy spirit it's not saying fellowship with the Holy Spirit and therefore you don't worship the Holy Spirit because he's not with you but my
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argument would go I think along with ra Tori when he writes this if the holy spirit is a Divine person and we know it
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not we are robbing a Divine being of the love and adoration which are due him it is of the highest practical importance
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whether the holy spirit is a power that we in our ignorance and weakness are somehow to get hold of and use or whether the holy spirit is a personal
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being who is to get hold of us and use us he's echoing or Tory came before ji Packer but Packer writes in his book
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keeping in step with the holy spirit it's not do I have the Holy Spirit the question is does the Holy Spirit have me and this idea the the communion of
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the Holy Spirit can be described as the intimacy or Union of the holy spirit because that root of that Greek word that we like to pronounce coona is
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common what do we have in common having communion with the Holy Spirit is us having something with in
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common with common with him and does he get a hold of us and communicate that to us so whether you
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want to say communion with or communion of to to me it doesn't matter it's the Holy Spirit communicating to us what we ought
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to have in common with him and at its most General sense the term Coria refers to a
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shared conviction one that the Holy Spirit communion of the Holy Spirit
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manifests itself as an equal status of all believers We Are One in Christ we have equal status before
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him but it also manifests to us that we have equal shared responsibility in the body of Christ to love one another to
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serve one serve one another to Bear one another's burdens and guess what Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that we have all the
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gifts and all of the things that we need to do just
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that to do everything that God calls us to do and to be in the body the communication Paul calls it the distribution of the Divine Grace gifts is accomplished by the Holy Spirit
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First Corinthians 12 all these are inspired by one and the same spirit and it's that participation in
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the holy spirit that makes the love of God and the grace of Christ real to Believers and it makes it real in the life of the body
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of the church so it's our duty to duty to remember that we were baptized into that
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name the name of the father in the name of the son and the name of the Holy
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Spirit God is a relational being and The Trinity ground grounds us for
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Unity and not only grounds us for the unity of the body but grounds Us in the fact that we are diverse that we have a diversity in
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unity and it's the holy spirit that communicates that to
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us as Matthew Henry wrote of this verse it is the communications of the Holy Ghost that qualify us for an interest in the grace of Christ and the love of God and we can desire no more to
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make us happy than the grace of Christ the love of God and the communion of the holy spirit
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amen Our Father these things these things are rich and deep they are the ideas that that no man could have could have conceived that you would reveal yourself
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to us as one God and yet in three persons and yet we thank you that the Holy Spirit has revealed these things to our hearts and our souls and that he has
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given us not only an understanding of the grace of Christ and your love but an understanding of our responsibilities
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and equal status in the body of Christ and we thank you for these things and we can understand now why Paul calls these
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people who were once divisive and divisive and self-interested call them to this communion to this fellow Fellowship to
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honor and glorify you we thank you for these words in Christ's name