WWUTT 1728 Finally Brothers Rejoice (2 Corinthians 13:11-14)

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In these final instructions to the Corinthians, Paul says, Rejoice, be restored, be comforted, be like -minded, live in peace, and the

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God of peace will be with you when we understand the text. This is when we understand the text, studying

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God's Word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Find all our videos online at www .utt

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.com as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 2 Corinthians, finishing up the book today with just these last few verses in chapter 13.

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I'm going to begin reading in verse 7 just to keep things in context. This is out of the Legacy Standard Bible, the

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Word of the Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth. Now we pray to God that you do no wrong, not that we ourselves may appear approved, but that you may do what is right, even though we may appear unapproved.

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For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.

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For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak, but you are strong. This we pray for, that you be restored.

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For this reason I am writing these things while absent, so that when present

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I need not use severity in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.

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Finally, brothers, rejoice. Be restored. Be comforted.

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Be like -minded. Live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

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Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

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And it's those last instructions that begin at the finally in chapter or chapter verse 11.

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That's what we have to finish up. 11, 12, 13, and 14 where Paul says, finally, brothers, rejoice.

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That's the first thing he says in his closing instructions in what has been, I'm sure, a very emotionally exhausting letter.

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Paul has poured himself out to these Corinthians, for these Corinthians, that they would turn from sin and they would walk in the truth.

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That they would turn from the false teachers that they have been listening to and remember the true gospel that was spoken to them from the beginning.

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Now, Paul is not just putting on a show here when he writes this letter. It's not that he's just been creative with his words.

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He's dictated this letter and Timothy has wrote it down. If you go back to the very beginning of the letter,

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Paul introduces himself and Timothy who is with him. So, likely, Paul is telling

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Timothy what to write and Timothy's the one who is writing it down. So, Timothy is witness.

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He has seen just how passionate Paul has been as he has been appealing to these

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Corinthians. And he started the letter talking about comfort. Remember, that was right there in chapter one that he was writing to them from God, our

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Father, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may comfort you in your afflictions.

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Notice that Paul comes back to comfort here at the conclusion as well. Verse 11, Rejoice, be restored, be comforted.

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So, he opened up with words of comfort. Why? Because these

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Corinthians were troubled by the previous letter that he had written to them. The tearful letter, as was talked about.

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And they were concerned that maybe Paul just didn't like them. And maybe he was mad at them because of the way that they had behaved.

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Now, many of them repented and were being restored, but there were still many that were following after false teachers and not listening to sound doctrine.

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And it was for their sake Paul made especially this appeal toward the end of the letter, chapters 10 through 13.

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Those that would not yet listen to sound teaching but were still following after false teachers.

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But Paul had heard through Titus who had come to the Corinthians that they were receptive of that letter and they had repented.

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So, at the beginning of 2 Corinthians, he's writing to them expressing comfort to them.

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That they would be comfort in their afflictions. He means comfort to them. So, he sets the tone at the beginning of this letter that they would recognize this is not another tearful letter.

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This is not another, you know, letter from Paul expressing his disappointment in us. He is comforting us.

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He is sharing the gospel with us that we may be comforted. And he comes back to that at the end as well.

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Rejoice, be restored, be comforted. So, as this has been an emotionally draining letter for Paul, it's quite something for him to say in his final imperatives, the first one of those to be rejoice.

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So, they would see that from Paul. He's rejoicing in all of the afflictions that he described going through over the course of this letter.

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Remember, being very autobiographical. And he boasted in his weakness. And he talked about all the different ways that he had suffered for the gospel and suffered for their sakes.

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Yet, at the conclusion to this, he says rejoice. Very similar to something that he said with the

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Philippians as well. The Philippians, he was in prison when he wrote to them.

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The letter that we have to the Philippians in Paul's letters, of course. He was in chains under house arrest, but he's chained to a

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Roman guard. People could come to him. He could preach the gospel to them, but he couldn't go anywhere. And he said, even the

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Roman guard has come to know the gospel and it has spread even among those

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Romans who have had to keep me in chains, keep me under house arrest.

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So it's a rejoicing thing that the gospel is spreading, though Paul had to be in chains.

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We have that theme of rejoicing all the way through Philippians. It comes up like 15 times, some element of joy or rejoice.

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And he says in chapter four, verse four, rejoice always. I will say it again, rejoice.

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A very rejoicing letter. That is clearly the theme of Philippians. So even though he is in chains and has been arrested for proclaiming the gospel, yet there is joy in his heart.

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And he encourages the Philippians to be filled with joy. So here at the close of Corinthians, he is telling them to rejoice.

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Also, the Corinthians have not been satisfied with sound doctrine. That's one of the reasons why they're following after these false teachers.

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They're not thankful to God for all of the good doctrine that was given to them in Christ. And so some of them going after these false teachers, they don't have joy in their hearts.

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They don't rejoice in Christ. They're trying to find things in the world to rejoice in or listening to teachers that will appeal to their flesh.

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So Paul says rejoice. If you're filled with the joy of Christ, then there's nothing else that can satisfy.

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No one else will be able to give you anything greater than what you have because you have the greatest thing.

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And that is Christ Jesus. Another reason why Paul would begin these closing instructions by telling them to rejoice.

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And let's not overlook that he calls them brothers, right? Finally, brothers. He's been harsh with them at times because he needed to be.

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Not unnecessarily harsh, but they needed to be whipped back into shape. And yet, though he has had to speak sternly with them, he wants them to recognize, hey, we've not written you off as a church.

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This is not a letter coming to you saying, hey, close your doors and shut down because you guys just can't seem to get this figured out.

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He's writing to them and appealing to them because they are brothers in the Lord. So even at the conclusion of the letter saying to them, finally, brothers, rejoice, be restored.

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That statement that had come up previously in this conclusion back in verse 9.

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This we pray for that you would be restored, that you would know the truth and you would be restored.

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What does he mean by be restored? Well, they have not been walking in the faith.

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They have gone off the path of righteousness and gone a different way. Where if they continue on that road without turning back, they may show themselves to not really be

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Christians. Hence why he said previously in verse 5, test yourselves to see if you are in the faith.

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Is this little deviation from the path of righteousness here? Is that to reveal that you're actually not

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Christians? Or if you're truly Christians, prove it by repenting of the sin that you have fallen into the false teaching that you're going after and come back to the path that has been marked out for us in Christ Jesus.

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If they will do that, then they will show themselves to truly be filled with the spirit that is convicting them and directing their course back toward Christ.

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That's the restoration. So coming back to Christ and walking in his righteousness. You know,

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I think of the story of Pilgrim's Progress, of course, the famous story by John Bunyan, where Pilgrim, this is before he becomes

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Christian, but Pilgrim receives bad counsel from Mr. Worldly Wise Man.

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He tells the Worldly Wise Man where he is going to have his burden relieved from him.

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And the Worldly Wise Man says, don't follow the direction of the evangelist. That's a hard road.

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I'll give you an easier path to follow. And so he tells Pilgrim where he can go, an easier way that he can go to have his burden relieved from him.

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But not only does the burden get heavier, he ends up going down a road that almost kills him before evangelist shows up and tells him, why have you gone off the path that was given to you?

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And so the same sort of a thing here with the Corinthians. They feel like they found an easier way, a better way.

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They've been convinced by these Worldly Wise Men, these most eminent apostles that claim to be better apostles than Paul.

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And Paul is encouraging them to be restored to the right path. The truth that was given to them from the beginning when the gospel was first proclaimed to them.

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So this is an imperative here. He's telling them, you're not on the right path. Come back to the way that has been spoken to you from the beginning.

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Rejoice, be restored, be comforted, find comfort in God.

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And I just come back again to the very beginning of the letter where Paul says in verse three, chapter one, verse three, blessed be the

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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

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Everything that Paul has written here has been for their comfort, even where he went on his tear, boasting about himself so that they would not follow after the false teachers, but see how much

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Paul has done for them, that they would know the truth and live in it. So be comforted by these words that have been written.

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Be comforted by the gospel and the God of all comforts who is with you.

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Be like -minded, he says to them, and live in peace. Like -mindedness, because right now there's these factions and divisions.

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We've seen that in both letters to the Corinthians, whether it's first or second Corinthians, there's factions, there's divisions among them.

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We even saw at the beginning of first Corinthians how the divisions among the Corinthians kind of became the lenses through which they looked at other

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Christians as well. They thought Paul and Peter and Apollos and Christ were all divided from one another. Paul says, no, we are all working together for the same thing.

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Y 'all are divided. He would not have used the Southern y 'all. I don't think that's

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Greek. I think that's American Southern. But anyway, he said, no, y 'all are divided from one another because you have these factions that have developed.

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You think this person's better because they follow this guy, and this guy is better because he follows that guy.

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And so he encourages them, rebukes them in the previous letter and encourages them to be of one mind, of one faith, of one baptism, one

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God and father of all who is over all and through all and in all. Now that's

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Paul in Ephesians chapter four, but same concept with the Corinthians as well, that they would be of the same faith.

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If they have the same Holy Spirit, then they should be like -minded with one another. And then ultimately, if that is the case, they will live in peace.

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They rejoice, they're restored, they're comforted, they're like -minded and living in peace with one another, not divided from each other.

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As you have some of these guys that are going after false teachers who are stirring up trouble among the church in Corinth, it's causing trouble within the church.

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There's discord and disunity. Now, when Paul talks about coming and dealing with them, when he arrives there, some of those that he talks about dealing with are those most eminent apostles, those false apostles.

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They will be dealt with severely when he arrives. Maybe something like what he did to Bar -Jesus in Acts chapter 13.

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There was the magician, the false prophet, whose name was Bar -Jesus, and Paul rebuked him and said, you are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness.

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Will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? Now behold, the hand of the

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Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time. And immediately darkness fell upon him, and he had to be led by the hand everywhere that he went.

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So the power of the Holy Spirit in Paul to curse those who dealt wickedly.

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Perhaps Paul would do the same thing with these false apostles if they did not repent or if the

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Corinthians themselves did not drive them out of the church, did not get rid of these false teachers, which is what they should have been doing.

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So Paul says, live in peace. Get those out that are causing discord and disunity and division.

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And the God of love and peace will be with you. Now, where Paul goes next in verse 12 is greet one another with a holy kiss.

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Now, this isn't the only place that Paul says that. It's in Romans 16. It was at the end of the previous letter.

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It was in 1 Corinthians 16. And I think it's one of the Thessalonian letters. He has that in there as well.

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So what is greeting one another with a holy kiss? Some have taken this very legalistically and have said, we need to be greeting one another the same way.

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There are others that say that the kiss was like a handshake. Maybe it wasn't literally a kiss.

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Maybe it was just a sign of greeting of some kind. And that bodily contact gets translated in English as kiss.

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But it wasn't really with the lips. We don't know for sure because Paul doesn't lay out some sort of a plan of, here's what a holy kiss should look like.

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So it could have been some kind of an embrace, maybe not a kiss on both cheeks or something like that.

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What we're supposed to see here is affection. And that affection is not just expressed, but it's even shown.

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We are to show affection with one another as a body of Christ. It isn't just enough that we gather together on a

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Sunday morning and we line our pews and we're all facing the same way. How many of you still have pews?

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We have pews in our church and I love it. I love that we still have pews. At my previous church, it was chairs.

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I wasn't as crazy about the chairs. Now they hook together and it was all kind of like one seamless line.

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You could have had, you know, it would be like eight chairs in a row, but it didn't have to be eight people sitting in that row.

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You could have put 10, even though, you know, most everybody just kind of found their own chair, but it still could have been like pews, even though they weren't pews.

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Anyway, I'm just a fan of pews. Maybe you don't have pews. Maybe your church has chairs.

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What was I saying? The point is, you don't just go to church and sit in your chair and all face the same way.

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There is supposed to be a brotherly kindness that is demonstrated among us as a body so that people who are outside of the church, people who are outsiders, they look in and they see this is not just people going to a theater to see a show.

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These are people who genuinely love each other. And when they call one another brothers and sisters in the

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Lord, they actually show it. And that is that's what's being expressed here in verse 12.

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Greed one another with a holy kiss. There is even physical affection that can be seen and shown like we are behaving in such a way that demonstrates that we love one another's company.

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We actually like to be together with each other. And it's hard to fake, you know, doing some sort of an affectionate hug.

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It's not just a, you know, pat on the shoulder. Hey, good to see you or a good handshake. Even all of that can be wrapped up in holy kiss.

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Don't listen to those guys who try to use a verse like this to say that we don't need to listen to Paul's instruction in first Timothy two about how women can't be pastors because after all, we're not kissing one another.

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And he says, greet one another with a holy kiss. Okay, they're reading that legalistically when that's the way they translate that, because we don't know that that's actually what that meant, nor is it even implied that we need to be kissing one another on the cheek.

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And that was what Paul expected us to do. That's not there in that passage. The instruction in first Timothy two, 11 and 12 is clear that women can't be pastors in a church just because we're not kissing one another in a holy kiss doesn't mean that we're picking and choosing which parts of the new

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Testament to follow in which not. So anyway, Paul showing these affectionate greetings even here at the conclusion, verse 13 as well, when he says, all the saints greet you.

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Other brothers in the Lord are affectionate toward you as well. We don't have any animosity toward you.

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We're not writing you off and saying, check that church off the list. Blot them out because they're not part of our fellowship anymore.

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We are greeting you in brotherly kindness. And then finally, we have this

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Trinitarian close at the end of second Corinthians, the grace of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God. You have the son, you have the father and the fellowship of the

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Holy Spirit be with you all. And that's how we close second

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Corinthians with such a beautiful Trinitarian doxology.

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Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below.

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Praise him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise father, son and Holy Ghost.

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Amen. And that's the end of our study of second Corinthians. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we've read over these last few months studying this particular book.

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And I pray that we understand the application, those things that we need to be living by as well.

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This was not just from Paul to the Corinthians, but the Holy Spirit speaking through these words to us now that just as Paul had encouraged the

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Corinthians, had instructed the Corinthians, there would be no strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance, or disturbances that they, there would not be any impurity.

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There would not be sexual immorality or sensuality, which they had previously practiced.

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We recognize that we need to be following those same instructions and we too must rejoice.

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We must be restored. We must be comforted. We must be like -minded. We must live in peace, knowing with confidence and rejoicing that the

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God of love and peace will be with us. You have shown us such affection through the son,

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Jesus Christ. May we have that same affection for one another in Christ Jesus, our

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Lord. It is in his name that we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study.

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Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.