He Died...

Remember He did not come to Jerusalem to be made King but to die!

Jesus predicts his suffering and death:

Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. 'For He will be handed over to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again.'”--Luke 18:31-33

Q. Why does death exist?

A. The Fall

In the Garden of Eden, God commanded Adam, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die.--Genesis 2:17

Forgiving Those Who Disappoint

II Corinthians 2:5-17

Welcome! Today we continue our series in 2 Corinthians. After this we will take a two-week break from this series to focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in keeping with Easter. Following the break, we will resume this series.

Our passage today speaks of disappointment and of forgiveness. It is helpful, when looking at this passage, to be reminded of the context in which this letter was written. As we shared several weeks ago, and as explained in the Book of Acts, the Apostle Paul spent 18 months in Corinth as part of one of his missionary journeys. Unlike his previous stops which were short--sometimes only days or weeks--he spent a year and a half of his life pouring his life into the people, and then church, of Corinth. Later, after leaving, he heard of many serious problems facing the church. There were factions, extremely inappropriate behavior at the communion feasts, misuse of spiritual gifts, severe personal sin that was not being dealt with, and in addition to this there were false teachers who were attacking Paul – his teachings, his character, anything they could attack – so as to gain a following of their own. These issues were tearing apart and destroying God’s work, the Corinthian church.

About Pain

2 Corinthians 1:12-2:4

Welcome! I thank you for coming. It takes courage to come to a message entitled “About Pain.” We are continuing on in our new series on 2 Corinthians. The title I have chosen is neither light nor pleasant-sounding, but I think it fits our passage. There are multiple kinds of pain, and we will see several of them in our passage today. At the same time, we will find much in this passage that is encouraging and building.

Last week, we looked at some background on the setting--the time and place of the writing of 2 Corinthians--and then we looked at the first 11 verses. Following a greeting in which Paul wished his listeners grace and peace, he went on to explain that God is the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our troubles. Led to pen this letter word by word by the Spirit, he talked about how the comfort God gives us is an overflowing comfort, and how, with that overflow, we are to comfort our fellow believers who are suffering. I shared how God’s ever-overflowing comfort reminds me of Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand; as people took some bread and fish and passed on the basket, there was miraculously enough for all, with more left over than what existed in total when they started.

The God of All Comfort

2 Corinthians 1:1-11

Welcome! Today we begin a new series lasting about 5 months – a series on the entire book of 2 Corinthians. Over time, 2 Corinthians has become one of my favorite New Testament books, although it didn’t start out that way. When I first read it, I was struck by all the personal information Paul shared, by how his emotions were very apparent in what he wrote, and I thought, “Why is this book part of the Bible?” I was also confused by several parts of the book, and just didn’t understand it. But over the years I have grown to really love and appreciate this book, in large part because it is so personal. Paul is quite literally an open book in this letter, and through his example we learn what it means to really live as a servant of Christ, to really love God with all of your mind as well as all of your heart.

Today’s message has two parts. In the first part, I want to give some background about the time and circumstances that led to the writing of this letter. And in the second part, I want to look at these first eleven verses as they help set some of the themes of the entire book. So first, the background: