your Bibles to 2nd Corinthians chapter 13. Very thankful to be with you this evening. Trust that the Lord will come and help us as we study his holy word. 2nd Corinthians 13 and I'll read the 14th, the final verse of this chapter. The Word of God says, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Let's pray. O Lord, our God, as we come to study your word, inspired, given to us from the Apostle Paul, we ask that you would give us ears to hear Help us to believe these words and to receive them, because they comfort our hearts, they help us, they strengthen us, they remind us of the goodness of God in the gospel. Come to us and bless us, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Have you ever been in a situation or witnessed a circumstance like this? The telephone rings. and you answer it only to realize that the person who is calling is someone with whom you are having a dispute or who has been offensive or irritating in the past. What do you feel like at that moment when you realize who that person is? And how does the conversation usually go? Perhaps it's a family member with whom you disagree over something, such as family finances. Maybe it's a neighbor who has initiated a property dispute or who refuses to remove all of the junk in his yard or allows his dogs to terrorize the neighborhood. Maybe it's a contractor who did shoddy work on your house. There could be many scenarios. But seldom do these conversations go well. Often they start out heated and they only get hotter. And how do they end? They end with anger. and bitterness, and oftentimes sinful recriminations, hard and harsh words that are spoken back and forth. And I ask the rhetorical question, is that familiar? Probably and sadly for most of us, we can remember when we experienced or witnessed just this kind of thing. And the memory is not a very good memory, is it? Maybe we're even ashamed of ourselves. Well, Paul's second letter to the Corinthians is in some senses just like one of these conversations. We're only able to hear one side. It's as if we were sitting in the room while someone else endures one of these difficult telephone discussions. But it is just like this. Think about it. In this epistle, Paul must address deep problems in the Corinthian church. He must defend his own ministry. He describes the depth of the multiple troubles that he has endured. He calls the church to repentance. He pleads for reconciliation. and much more. The Corinthians had criticized Paul. They'd been overzealous in the practice of discipline. They had viewed the apostle as secondary and perhaps even as an object of scorn because of his difficulties. The Corinthians were proud and miserly and self-centered. They were willing to accept other pseudo-apostles over Paul. And this epistle is full of descriptions of these problems. It reads very much like one side of one of these difficult conversations. And yet, it closes with the fullest and most extensive word of blessing that is found in all of Paul's letters. Murray Harris, in his commentary on 2 Corinthians, closes it with these words. This is the very last thing that you will read in the body of his commentary on 2 Corinthians. He says this. It is a singular paradox that a letter so full of indignation, remonstrance, and gyrating emotions should conclude with the most elevated Trinitarian affirmation in the New Testament couched in the form of a benediction addressed to all the members of a factious church. Dr. Harris is exactly right. While our experience of difficult conversation often ends in hard feelings or shame or increased conflict, Paul concludes his hard letter to this church with words of blessing, words of prayer, words of hope. They are directed to the Corinthians based upon his Trinitarian doctrine and applied to all of the believers without exception. You see, here is genuine Christian love presented to us in a really delightful form. In the final words of 2 Corinthians, we have a beautiful benediction. Now, I wonder, do you know exactly what a benediction is? Most churches use them, perhaps even closing their services with one. And it's a word that we use, but maybe we don't always understand what a benediction is. Benediction is simply an English form of a Latin word that, if it were translated, would mean word of blessing. And it's not the same thing as a doxology, although oftentimes it's easy to confuse them. A doxology is a brief expression of praise that we offer up to God. Maybe across the page in your Bible in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 31, you see a brief doxology where Paul says, my eyes are getting old and I have a hard time reading the small text in my Bible. In 1131, he says, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I'm not lying. That little phrase, he who is blessed forever, is Paul's brief doxology. It's an example of what it means for us to praise God. And so a doxology is a word of praise that we speak to God. It originates with us. God is the audience of the doxology and we speak it to him. But a benediction is exactly the opposite. A benediction is a word of blessing that comes from God and is spoken to us. We're the audience. We're the recipients of this. It comes to us from God's representatives and it expresses a desire for God's bounty to come upon us. Many churches include a benediction in their worship services so that the last word that we all hear prior to leaving is a word of blessing from the Lord to all of us. It's a reminder of the promise of forgiveness, of grace and mercy that comes to us from God. That's why a benediction is very useful, so that when we go out, the last thing that we hear is the good news of the gospel from God. In fact, Paul frequently employs benedictions. If you were to go home this evening and take a look at all of his epistles, you'll find that they both begin and end with a benediction. In his greetings, he will say something like this, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. One form of that or another, sometimes more brief. But he begins in that way. Likewise, in the farewells of his epistles, he always expresses a blessing to his recipients. And he doesn't do this as merely a matter of custom, The way that we do when we greet people, they say, how are you? And what do you respond? Without even thinking, your immediate response is good. You may have just come from vomiting, but you'll say, good, because that's the natural expression that we give. Paul didn't do this just because it was his custom. Paul did this because he wanted genuinely for God's people to know the things that he expresses and to grow in the grace of them. You see, Paul's desire is for Christians to live with a deep understanding of the spiritual realities which are at the root of their lives. They must know God, not just know about him, not just have an intellectual sense of who God is, but really and truly comprehend his grace and walk through life with an absolute dependence upon him. And so he places benedictions at the entry and at the exit of all of his epistles. And this is how he closes this epistle. Look at it with me. These are very familiar words. The final words, which pick up themes that are present throughout the previous chapters of the letter. He speaks about grace to overcome, and love for one another, and a knowledge of the fellowship that is brought by the Holy Spirit. Now, it's interesting to think of this verse in light of the rest of the epistle. Of course, we can't take the time to read all of 2 Corinthians this evening. You might want to do that this evening or later this week. But there's a very real sense in which this benediction concluding the epistle looks back and presents us with ideas that are drawn from the epistle. Paul is picking up threads, recognizing things that need to be said to the Corinthians, But it's not a backwards-looking benediction. In fact, it actually points the Corinthians and it points us as the readers forward. The reasons that the Corinthians needed these things are obvious, but Paul doesn't want them to dwell on the past and their sins but rather to seek the remedy and to know the blessedness of this remedy and its fruits. So that the last word that they hear as this epistle is being read to them, I try to imagine the Corinthians and whatever their congregation was, I don't know where they met, I don't know how many of them there were, I assume one of the elders of the church read this to them. But as they listened to this very difficult letter that was written to them, the last word that they would hear was a word of blessing. Yes, indeed, they had a great deal of repenting they needed to do. But even that repentance must be done in the proper context. And this blessing explains what that context is. Now there are several things that we can notice about 2 Corinthians 13 verse 14. The first thing that we need to notice is that this is a Trinitarian blessing. You know, it's surprising sometimes when you read academic books that deal with the theology of the New Testament, many authors will say that the writers of the New Testament were not aware of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. That the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a result of development in the first few centuries, finally demonstrated to us and written down in the Nicene Creed. Well, I want to come to a text like this and say, uh-uh, that's not right. They had a clear understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, and here it is. Think about Paul. Paul is a Jew, a dedicated Jew, born in Tarsus, in Cilicia in Tarsus, but then raised in the city of Jerusalem, trained at the feet of Gamaliel. He was a Jew who firmly believed in the fundamental principle of Judaism, that there is one God. And yet Paul is able to address that one God as Father and Son and Spirit, or in the order here, Son and Father and Spirit. Just keep your finger here and turn back with me to 1 Corinthians 8, just for a moment. I think that this is the only cross-reference we'll look at this evening. 1 Corinthians 8, beginning in verse 4. Now think about this as a Jewish man, well-trained in Judaism, writing these words. Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence. An idol is nothing. There isn't any reality to the idol. If you read the prophets, they will talk about the craftsman who takes a block of wood or a piece of wood or a block of stone and carves that thing into something that someone bows down before. But it's nothing more than a piece of wood or a piece of stone. And it might have been used for something else. It might have been thrown in the fireplace and burned. An idol is nothing. Then Paul goes on, and he cites the most basic tenet of Judaism. We know that an idol has no real existence and that there is no God but one. For although there may be many so-called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, that is, he's using the language of the people, the pagans around, and he's acknowledging that for them these are gods, even though they have no real existence. Yet for us, there is one God. the Father from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist. Paul is able to speak about the Father and the Son and the Spirit, placing them on equal footing. And here in this benediction, he turns our attention to the fact that the one God is a God who exists in three persons. This is a blessing not from three gods, but from one God, Son and Father and Spirit, who work together to bring about salvation for his people. You know, the doctrine of the Trinity is profound, and ultimately it's beyond our comprehension. I think one of the best statements that I have heard or read about the doctrine of the Trinity comes from the early church father Gregory Nazianzus in his oration on baptism. And he says this, no sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendor of the three. No, sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one. He thinks of the one, and it brings him to the three. He thinks of the three, and it brings him back to the one, which brings him back to the three, which brings him back to the one. It's mysterious, and yet it's true. Our God is one God in three persons. Here, Paul uses the doctrine of the Trinity to say this to the Corinthians. The Holy Trinity, blessed forever in majesty and glory, works as one to bring us to eternal life. Now, we need to be very careful here, because Paul is not phrasing himself in this way to teach us that these different things are the actions of the persons of the Trinity working individually. as if love only comes from God the Father or fellowship only comes from the Holy Spirit. In fact, that would contradict other places in the New Testament which speak of things such as the grace of God or the love of Christ. But rather, he speaks in this way because he wants to focus our attention on a wonderful truth. In fact, perhaps you notice that the order of the persons of the Trinity is not what we usually say. We say Father, Son, and Spirit. Here we have Son, Father, and Spirit. Why does Paul do that? Well, it is because from one perspective, it is only by the grace of Christ that the Corinthians may know the love of God and the blessings of communion of the Holy Spirit. And that's probably why Paul places these in the order that he does. It could have been different. It would have been as true and as wonderful if it were different. But he wants to turn our attention to Christ and the Father and the Spirit. He's seeking, remember, to help the Corinthians out of their trouble. And in order for them to know the love of God, they must come to the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. So we have a Trinitarian blessing. Now let's look at each of the elements of this Trinitarian blessing. We read of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we notice that his full name and title is employed here. Charles Hodge in his commentary on 2 Corinthians helps us to understand why. The name Lord has reference to his divine nature. He is truly and really God. The name Jesus has reference to his human nature. He is God incarnate. He is God who has taken to himself true humanity in all that humanity is. And the name Christ is placed before us to remind us of his office. That is, that he is the promised Messiah. So that in one person, he is God and man who fulfills all of the promises faithfully given to God's people throughout the Old Testament. Now, right here, what we could do is say, not only do we have a great Trinitarian statement, but we also have high Christology. And we could take our time to think about this high Christology. Christ is two natures joined together in one person forever. Doctrines of the Nicene Creed. But we won't take the time to chase out Christology. Our brother is dealing with the Heidelberg Catechism. Maybe you've already handled some of that, or maybe it's soon in the offing. But the idea here is that our Savior, in the fullness of his identity as Lord Jesus Christ, brings grace to us. He loves his church. He lavishes grace upon his church. Grace, favor, unmerited love, flowing from Christ the Savior to his needy people. Not a physical commodity, but an essential spiritual virtue. Grace that is purchased at the cost of his own blood, his death, his resurrection, his victory over sin. Grace that is given to us by our mediator. Think about Paul as he's writing this epistle, or perhaps down on his knees before God, asking for copious measures of grace to come upon the Corinthians from the God-man, from the Eternal One, who humbled himself and became man in order to redeem us. That's what Paul is doing. This contentious church that has caused him so much trouble Paul is asking the Lord to give them grace because they need grace. This blessing is very simple, but it's amazing when you think about it. Grace is to the life of the believer what water is to the soil. I used to live in Southern California. We've just moved to Texas. Most of you probably know that. Texas is a little bit less arid than Southern California is. But if I didn't have an irrigation system for my lawn in Southern California at this time of year, it would just be brown. It needs water. Without grace, there is no growth in the soul. It becomes barren and empty. It becomes a desert. And Paul knows that for the Corinthians, with all of their troubles, he must seek for them the blessing of grace, showers of life-giving grace. Grace, in fact, is the doorway to the future for the Corinthians, the blessing of bringing forth good fruit. And Paul here says that it comes from the mediator, from the Lord Jesus Christ, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, the love of God. When New Testament writers employ the word God, generally speaking, most commonly, they're referring to the person of the Father. The grace which comes from Christ helps us to know the love of God. And I'm reminded of Jesus' own words in John 14, no one comes to the Father but by me." In a sense, that's what Paul is opening up for us here. Paul's not speaking about our love for God, but rather he's speaking about the enormous love that God has for us. It is grace alone that allows us to know something of the fullness of the depth of the love that God has for the Corinthians and for us. He's not aloof and far away. showering us with love. He has given us Christ through whom we come to him. How do you describe the love of God? How do you pause and put it into words? It's beyond parallel and above comparison. Paul says that it surpasses our knowledge, it's beyond our ability to comprehend. But in Ephesians chapter 3, he tries to express it in spatial terms. He prays that the Ephesians might know the length and the breadth and the height and the depth of the love of God. He prays that they might know this, that they might enter into this, that they might be overwhelmed in it. Here in 2 Corinthians 13, 14, this simple phrase, the love of God the Father, points to that amazing reality expressed by John when he simply says, God is love. This is what God is. And his love, which is demonstrated by Jesus Christ's grace, is something that is to be known. And as the Corinthians bathe in the love that God has for them, they will be transformed and love like him. The scripture asserts that we are to delight in God's love. Jesus prays to the Father for us because the Father loves us. The Holy Spirit sheds the love of the Father into our hearts. You see, this is a marvelous truth, and it's an enormous blessing. What better benediction could be offered that all would know the love of God revealed to them by the grace of Christ? That's what Paul says. but he doesn't stop there. It continues to grow and encourage us. Thirdly, Paul speaks of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Here is the third person of the Holy Trinity, the sometimes neglected person who is an essential part of this wonderful benediction. Now we need to understand what Paul is saying here. We could read this to say something like, the fellowship that we have with each other because of the Holy Spirit, but that would miss Paul's point. Think about the context and what's happening in this benediction. In the other two cases, the grace of Christ and the love of God, Paul's desire is that the Corinthians would know blessings that come from heaven, Christ's grace and God's love. And it seems probable that he would continue this theme in the third element of his benediction, the same kind of idea, so that the communion or the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is not so much what we know with each other, but rather it is the abundance of heavenly blessings that are brought to us by the Holy Spirit. the fullness of spiritual blessings which are lavished upon us by God, that which is the fruit of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you use the list from Galatians chapter five, it's love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control and everything else that the Spirit does in making us like Christ and preparing us to live in the presence of the glorious triune God in the heavenly world that is full of love. The Spirit reminds us of Christ's words. He glorifies the Son of God in our midst. He sheds the Father's love into our hearts. He bears witness with our spirits that we are God's children. He seals us, assuring us of eternal life. He is the down payment of the heavenly world. He anoints us like priests so that we may worship. He's the spirit of adoption. These are the things that Paul is describing here when he talks about the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. This is communion of the Holy Spirit, knowing these heavenly realities, things even more fully. And this too is a great blessing. And who could be able to quantify it, to know the fellowship of the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts? It's great. The grace of Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And we could stop there. We could be encouraged by what Paul says there. But there's still more. Notice Paul continues. The grace of Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit Be with you all. Now there are two things that we need to say here, and we must not miss this little phrase. First, grace, love, and fellowship are not philosophical concepts. They have a source, and they have a destination. They come from God to women and men like you and me, and God's purpose is that they will be experienced by us, that we'll know grace and love and fellowship. But, secondly, Paul includes the entire Church in this benediction. These are the people who had rejected him, who had troubled him, who had followed others. When I think of Paul on his knees crying out to God for the Corinthian church, I'm reminded of the fact that he had spent a great deal of time with these people. He knew their faces. He knew their names. He probably could remember what their voices sounded like. They may have spoken against him. He may have received reports of words that they spoke against him. In his presence they may have spoken against him. And yet when he's on his knees before God, he prays for God's blessings upon them, for grace and love and fellowship. And no one in the church is excluded from Paul's desire to know these things. It's not that Paul picks out certain individuals and says, Lord, they've been good to me, and they show spiritual growth, so continue to send your blessing upon them. But Paul thinks of everyone, those who have been his helpers and those who have been his opposers, those who are the professors of Jesus Christ in the church. And he prays that God's blessing would come upon them. You see, grace and love and fellowship are not rewards for good behavior, but they are blessings to seek for all of God's people. And no one who names the name of Christ should be excluded from these words of life and health and growth, which are intended for everyone. Paul intends for the Corinthians to know them. He intends for us to know them. He wants us to have an experience of how wonderful these things are, because they are great, aren't they? To know the grace that Jesus Christ has purchased for us, and the eternal, immutable love of God for us, and the abundance of the blessings that the Holy Spirit gives to us. It's great. They're not the results of our good works. In fact, I don't think it's surprising that this text is found at the end of this epistle because there's no way that you could read this and say this is a result of the spiritual growth and all the holiness that you see in the Corinthian church. It's just the opposite. This church was a mess. These things are not the result of our good works. In fact, they go before anything that we do, and they serve as the only basis upon which our obedience might flow. This is the way forward to know grace and love and fellowship. You see, reading 2 Corinthians might be like overhearing one of these difficult conversations. But the ending sure is good, isn't it? When Paul says these things, prays these things, wishes these things as blessings upon the Corinthians. Now, you know, I can't come to you and preach this text and tell you three ways to put these things to practice in your life. I can't tell you to do five things so that you might know grace and love and fellowship. In fact, what we need to say is there's no law in this text at all. It's all gospel. It's all about what God does. Without His presence and power, we are nothing and we can do nothing. And even our duties must be based in His being, the triune God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and His acts, granting to us grace, showing us love, giving us an abundance of blessing and fellowship. Who He is and what He has done. Just as our Confession of Faith says, the foundation of our communion and comfortable dependence upon Him is to know Him as the Triune God. Now, we've only glanced at the surface of this deep reservoir of comfort and strength. To know the splendor of the Trinitarian God, to receive His grace, to be enfolded by His love, to know communion with Him and one another is far more than we can ever fully comprehend. But it's a gift that you and I may know. It's a gift we may know as individuals. It's a gift that our churches may know. Paul is praying for the entirety of the Corinthian church. So I would urge you to go forth from this place blessed by the Lord. Remember that it all starts with him. that it's a matter of grace and love and fellowship. Do we need to repent of our sins? Of course we do. But the start of repentance is a recognition that it begins with God, that it comes from Him, that He's the source of our life, and we receive these things from Him. As we learn this lesson, as we look to Him for our life, we will see these things come to greater reality in our lives and in the midst of our churches. So when you leave, go in peace. And may the Lord's benediction be upon you. May you know the grace of Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit. May that be with you all. Amen. Let's pray. Oh, Lord, our God, thank you for showering an abundance of your love upon us. You sent your son to give us grace. He died, He endured your wrath so that we might receive forgiveness and that grace might come to us. You have demonstrated your love to us in the death of your Son. You've given us your Holy Spirit that we might have first fruits of our eternal life and that we might know the blessings of the heavenly life here in this world. O Lord, because you have done these things, We boldly come to you and ask you to do them all the more. Help us to know the reality of the grace of Christ and the full extent of the love of God, and to see in our lives the power and the presence of the work of the Holy Spirit. Lord, the apostle, by the inspiration of the Spirit, ended this epistle with these words. They are words of comfort, they're words of hope, they're words of blessing, they're words of gospel. Give them now to us. Bless us through them. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.