‘FINALLY, BRETHREN, FAREWELL …’
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on January 30, 2022 under 2022 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday message; January 30, 2022 from 2 Corinthians 13:11-14
Theme: A suffering church family can experience God’s gracious healing if it puts certain things into practice.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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Over the past year, we have been studying together from Paul’s New Testament letter of 2 Corinthians. And this morning, we come to the closing passage of that letter.
It has been a remarkable letter to study. It was written to a mixed group of people within that ancient church. In Paul’s first letter, he pointed out some hard matters of sin that needed to be taken care of; and many within the church had seen the error of their ways and repented. They greatly encouraged Paul’s heart. And as a result, much of what we find in the first half of 2 Corinthians is the rejoicing that Paul had over those repentant and faithful Christians. But then, there were others within the church who were still resisting Paul’s apostolic authority, and who were fighting with one another, and were falling deeper into disobedience to the Lord. They broke Paul’s heart. And so, much of what we find in the second half of 2 Corinthians is an appeal to repent—and a stern warning that he will come and deal with those who are causing divisions.
Beyond that, it’s a rather hard letter to organize. And I’m not really sure it was meant to be organized too much. It’s more an expression of Paul’s pastoral heart than a formal treatise. It is filled to overflowing with passion, and love, and deep concern and strong rebuke and lots of emotion.
And now; we come to the close of this remarkable letter.
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Imagine if you were a member of that ancient Corinthian church. And imagine that as the church was gathered together on the Lord’s day, a leader in the church announced that he would be reading a letter from Paul to the church family. After all, in those days, they didn’t simply turn to their Bible and read it for themselves. It had to be read to them all at once. Imagine how, as the letter was read, you would have joined in with Paul’s emotions to some degree—rejoicing over the victorious things that he rejoiced in, but also sorrowing over the problems and divisions and sin that caused him sorrow. You may even have thought of specific names and faces. As the letter drew to a close—even though there was much encouragement in the letter—wouldn’t you feel a sense of grief over the fact that some division still remained, and that some sin still was not dealt with? Just think of how you would long for the full healing of your church family.
And then, as the church leader came to the conclusion of Paul’s letter, you’d hear Paul’s words, “Finally, brethren …”; and you knew that Paul—ever the practical pastor of God’s people—was about to tell you something that would give you direction and hope. He still loved you and your church. He still considered you all his ‘brethren’ in Christ. And then, you would hear Paul’s encouraging words, “Farewell” or “Good-bye”.
Well; that, anyway, is what you would have heard if Paul’s words were being read from most English Bibles. But if you were listening in the original language—the language that the Corinthian believers spoke—you would have heard the word, “Rejoice!” That’s really what Paul said. That, in fact, is how it’s translated in the English Standard Version. And then, you would have known that the hard problems that plagued your church family had a hopeful prospect. A very hard letter—with a very long section of some very hard rebukes—was closing with a very encouraging call to have joy—to rejoice.
And Paul then spelled out the ways to pursue that joy. He said;
Finally, brethren, farewell [or 'rejoice']. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen (2 Corinthians 13:11-14).
This, you see, was more than just the wrap-up of Paul’s letter. In these closing words, Paul laid out a set of practices that—if thought about carefully, and embraced whole-heartedly—would not only bring joyful healing to the church, but would also keep it healthy in times to come.
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Many years ago—when I was just a little boy—there was a very famous man on television who had a daily exercise and fitness show. His name was Jack LaLanne. He was a remarkable man. He was rather small in stature; but at the age of 54, he was able to beat then 21-year-old world-class bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger in an informal competition. Afterward, Arnold exclaimed, “That Jack LaLanne’s an awn-nee-mall!”. At Jack’s memorial service in 2011—after passing away at the age of 96—Arnold referred to him as “an apostle for fitness”.
On his daily show, Mr. LaLanne would guide the viewer through some very basic, very simple exercise routines that would make use of the things that would be readily available in any household—a wall, a chair, a floor, a doorway, a rope. As a little boy, I would watch his show and try to do his exercises. (As you can tell by looking at me, he hasn’t been on television for many years.) But thinking back, I’d say that the charm and success of his show was that he didn’t make things complicated. He kept things very simple and very achievable. He said that there were really only a few simple things that—if you did every day—you could stay fit and healthy for the rest of your life.
And that’s how I look at these closing words in 2 Corinthians. The apostle Paul—a real apostle, who we might think of for the moment as ‘an apostle of church fitness’—sets out before us some basic practices and habits for long-term church health. His words show us that even a suffering church family can experience God’s gracious healing and health if it puts certain things into regular practice.
They can be boiled down to three, simple, basic things: (1) embrace unifying habits (which are we find in verse 11), (2) exchange wider greetings (which we find described in verses 12-13), and (3), exalt triune blessings (which we find expressed to us in verse 14).
Let’s look at these three basic church-fitness practices; and from them, learn how we too can grow to be a healthy, unified, loving church family to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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The first basic thing that we should put into practice is to …
1. EMBRACE UNIFYING HABITS.
Sadly, disunity was a big problem in the Corinthian church. Way back in the very first chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul had to write to the church and say;
Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Corinthians 1:10-13).
And even near the end of 2 Corinthians, he had to write again and say;
For I fear lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I wish, and that I shall be found by you such as you do not wish; lest there be contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, backbitings, whisperings, conceits, tumults … (2 Corinthians 12:20).
A disunified church is a very sad thing to see. In fact, it’s a kind of an oxymoron—a self-contradictory thing—because the word “church” in the original language means “a called-out assembly”. How can a church actually, consistently, be a “called-out, disunified assembly”? And yet, sadly, there are disunified church families everywhere. What a shame and dishonor that is to our Lord!
So, as Paul came to the end of his letter—as he sought to set some healing and health-maintaining practices to bear in the church at Corinth—he began in verse 11 by saying, “Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace …” And here, we see five ‘unifying habits’ that a healthy church family must put into constant practice. These are all very important; so let’s spend a little time looking at each one.
The first, of course, is joyfulness. Do you remember that, in the original language, that’s what the word “farewell” really means? It’s a great greeting with which to close the letter. But in the context of this letter—a letter in which Paul had to write some very hard things—it meant more than just a friendly greeting. It was a call to embrace an attitude of joy together as a church family. It was a command: “Be joyful! Rejoice! Be glad!” And because it was put in the plural, it meant, “Do this together! Rejoice together!”
You know, dear brothers and sisters; a sad and miserable church is an awful place to be. It’s not in keeping with our Lord; and it’s not in keeping with our glorious hope in Him. We have been forgiven of our sins! We are loved eternally by God the Father through Jesus His Son! We are going to heaven together! It’s true that we will have troubles and difficulties. It’s true that we will fail and falter along the way. But we have a fabulous basis for prevailing joy. Our Lord said,
“In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b).
And so, one of the first unifying attitudes we need to cultivate and embrace together is that of joy in our Lord Jesus Christ—keeping our eyes fixed upon Him.
The second habit is restoration. Paul said, “Become complete”; or as some translations have it, “Become perfected.” This isn’t a call, however, to be perfect in the ultimate sense. So long as we are on this earth, we will not be able to achieve perfection. But did you know that the word that Paul used is the same word that was used in the Gospel of Matthew to describe how the fishermen that Jesus called to Himself were in their boats ‘mending their nets’? And that’s what this word really meant. Paul was telling the Corinthians, “Be knit-back together. Be mended together. Be restored to one another in such a way as to be completed by each other.”
The church family in Corinth was in need of such mending It was disunified; and so, as a result, the relationships in the church family—that God had intended for everyone’s mutual growth—were strained and severed; and the spiritual gifts that God gave each one for the edification of all were not being ministered to one another. A healthy and growing church has an attitude of ongoing restoration and maintenance of relationships—so that the various members of the church family can serve one another. Paul described it this way in Ephesians 4; that we all,
speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:15-16).
And so another unifying habit we must embrace is that of being restored to one another in such a way as to benefit from our intended mutual ministry to each other.
A third unifying habit is submissiveness. Paul said, “Be of good comfort”; but he intended that exhortation to be received by a group of Christians to whom he had just issued some strong instructions and some calls for repentance. And so, the real intention of his words is to “be exhorted”; or as it’s translated in the New International Version, “Listen to my appeal”. He wanted the Corinthian believers to experience real, long-lasting comfort through the fact that they had a humble attitude of teachability—and that they submitted to Paul’s instruction.
Many who were in the church were not submissive. They were resistant to Paul’s loving pastoral authority. As a result, the division between them was intensified. But there were others within the church family who had set a great example of humble teachability. In 2 Corinthians 7, he thought back on some hard things he had to say before; and he wrote,
Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter (2 Corinthians 7:9-11).
An ongoing habit of corporate submissiveness to God’s instruction—through His word and through His appointed leaders—is an absolute necessity for long-term church health and unity.
A fourth habit that Paul called for is like-mindedness. He told the Corinthians, “be of one mind …” And by this, he didn’t mean that everyone should think exactly the same way about everything or that personal individuality should be abandoned. Rather, what he meant was that the Corinthians should strive to be united in the basic fundamentals of the faith; and that they should share together in a common love for—and commitment to—the Lord Jesus Christ as He is presented in the Scriptures.
A lack of theological like-mindedness was plaguing the church in Corinth. Many were listening to false teachers; and as a result, everyone was developing their own particular beliefs about things and their own particular way of living the Christian life. They were fighting for the supremacy of their own theological particularities. But that’s not the way a church should be. As Paul said to another church—the church at Philippi;
Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others (Philippians 2:1-4).
He urged that everyone adopt the attitude of mind toward each other that was found in our Savior, the Lord Jesus; who didn’t exalt Himself, but rather gave Himself willingly to the suffering of the cross in order to save us all. A commitment to true like-mindedness in Christ is an essential habit for unity in a church family—where, just like Jesus, I look out for your concerns and you look out for mine.
And finally, a very important unifying habit is the pursuit of peace. Paul said, “live in peace’; and he didn’t mean that they should have an attitude of inward tranquility (although that would be good to have too). Rather, he meant that they should actively seek to maintain a peaceful relationship with one another—setting aside their differences, removing the barriers between them, and not seeking to exercise their own rights in such a way as to hurt one another.
As one dear brother put it to me the other day, we all need to ‘quit the drama’ in the church family. That’s kind of a backdoor way of putting what it means to seek to pursue peace with each other; but it’s still very much on target. As Paul put it in Colossians 3:15;
… let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful (Colossians 3:15).
And note one more thing. In the work of putting these unifying habits to work in the church family—joyfulness, restoration, submissiveness, like-mindedness, and the pursuit of peace—we are not left to our own power to do it all. Paul promised this at the end of verse 11: “and the God of love and peace will be with you.” If we commit ourselves to these things in reliance upon our heavenly Father, He Himself will help us. How can we fail?
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So; that’s one basic practice that we need to adopt in order to become a healthy church—and to stay a healthy church. We must embrace unifying habits. Those unifying habits are very important; and they deserved a close and intense look.
But let’s look very briefly at two more practices. A second is to …
2. EXCHANGE WIDER GREETINGS.
Paul said in verse 12, “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” A warm kiss was a common, culturally accepted greeting in those days. It still is in some cultures. And it might have been hard for some Corinthian Christians to do—especially when they were at odds with one another. They may have been more tempted to bite! But it was important that—within the church family—they learned to greet one another in love.
Paul called it a “holy” kiss. This, of course, might have meant that it wasn’t to be an improper kiss. But it may actually mean much more than that. It may have involved the use of a very common greeting in a very uncommon kind of context. The people of God were truly bound together by the Holy Spirit. They had been washed by the blood of Jesus, and were one body. And such a greeting may have been “holy” because of the holy context in which it was expressed. What would such a greeting look like in our culture today? It may be a “holy” hug, or a “holy” handshake, or a “holy” fist-bump. But it’s to be done within the church family as a warm expression of the deep love and communion we share as fellow members of the body of Christ. That’s what makes it holy.
But notice that the greetings don’t find their limit within the church family alone. Paul also added in verse 13, “All the saints greet you.” And this meant that other genuine believers in other church families were also a part of the same body with the Corinthians. Genuine, warm, holy greetings needed to be exchanged with them too.
Dear brothers and sisters; in growing to be a strong, healthy, growing church family, one of the attitudes that we need to embrace is an expansion of the wideness of our holy greeting. It’s a very unhealthy thing for a church family to be strictly inwardly focused—and to think that it is the only church in town. We need to have a warm and welcoming attitude of holy greeting to our brothers and sisters at large. And even across other cultures. And even throughout history.
We are, after all, going to spend eternity together in the presence of our Savior!
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And finally, one more thing we need to put into practice is to …
3. EXALT TRIUNE BLESSINGS.
Paul’s closing words in verse 14 are not only a closing benediction, but also an expression of grateful worship of the Persons of the Triune Godhead in the work that they each do toward our salvation. He said, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.”
The grace of the Lord Jesus is mentioned first; because our first experience of salvation is by putting our faith in the grace shown to us in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus for us on the cross. It is by His grace that we are brought into a relationship with God the Father. But then—having been redeemed by grace through faith in Jesus—we discover that it was the love of the heavenly Himself Father that crafted the plan of our salvation. He so loved us that He gave us His Son. And then, finally—having placed our faith in Jesus’ cross and having experienced the love of the Father—we are bound together forever to the Father and the Son through the “communion” or the “fellowship” of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes up permanent residence in us and seals us in that relationship throughout eternity. And because He dwells fully in me, and because He also dwells fully in you, then He binds you and me together in an eternal bond of fellowship.
One of the greatest things that we can do to be a healthy church family is to worship the Triune God together—to thank the Father for His love, the Son for His grace, and the Spirit for the fellowship in which He keeps us as one.
Oh, that we may exalt our God together!
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Dear church family; a disunified and sin-troubled church is not the testimony God wants us to present to this world. Here at the end of this letter are some simple, basic practices that—if are put to use in a regular way—will make even a troubled church into a strong, healthy, fruitful church family … and will keep it that way. We must embrace unifying habits, exchange wider greetings, and exalt triune blessings.
Let’s put these practices into use together … and all to the glory of our Lord Jesus.
AE
