Competence from God

2 Corinthians 3:1-18

Welcome! Today we are going to resume our series on 2 Corinthians, looking at Chapter 3. We are going week by week, line by line, through this entire letter. Since we took two weeks off, appropriately focusing in on the death and resurrection of Christ, I thought it would be good to give you a very quick overview of some of the things we have talked about.

This letter was written by Paul to the Corinthian church, a church that Paul had spent a year and a half founding and building into, a body of believers that Paul had come to love with a special love. After he left Corinth to continue on with his missionary journey, introducing other cities to Christ, the Corinthian church began to develop a number of problems. There were problems with immorality, and even in boasting in that immorality. There were problems with their meetings – people coming just for the food, people dominating the meetings, people being disrespectful with regards to speaking out of turn and then saying that the Spirit made them do it. And there were problems with false teachers and with factions. The people divided themselves, some saying they followed one person and others another.

...And He Rose

Christ is risen!

Praise God! What a beautiful and glorious day it is. Isn’t it interesting that for so many, Easter comes in spring? (A quick check on Wikipedia shows 90% of the world’s population lives in the northern hemisphere.) Do you wonder sometimes why God made the world just the way it is? Why do we even have seasons? I know that it’s because of the tilt of the earth. But isn’t it interesting that we get to experience this cycle of rebirth every year. Through creation, we are reminded that there is new life. In winter, trees are cold and grey. With some plants, the foliage dies completely above the ground. I’ve shown a picture of the bloom of a bleeding heart before. I'm including it again below.

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:

Remembrance

At least 275 times in the Bible the word remembrance or a word form of the word remembrance is used. The word forget or a word form of the word forget is used 55 times.

Genesis 9:8-17 (from The Message)

Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: “I’m setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you, along with everything alive around you—birds, farm animals, wild animals –that came out of the ship with you. I’m setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth.”

Filling and Staying Filled

Welcome! Today is a special day for our church – a little later we will recognize John Farmer as a pastor, as an elder, celebrating the work God has been doing and John has been allowing God to do over the past years to bring John to a point of maturity and leadership here at Clemson Community Church.

First, I wanted to share some thoughts from Scripture about how this journey to maturity happens in believers’ lives. God desires that every believer grow to maturity in Christ. Not only does God desire this, but He provides us with exactly what we need for this to happen. And what has God provided us? His Holy Spirit.

I hope you enjoy the picture above. This is of course a fuel gauge for a gas tank in an automobile, and I cannot think of a more appropriate image to go with our title, Filling and Staying Filled. Now, how many of you have cars, or your families have cars, in which when the needle points on empty, you still have quite a bit of gas left? You are not quite sure how much, but it is still going to be a while before even the warning light will turn on. 

The Fruit of the Holy Spirit

Welcome! Today we will continue our series on the Holy Spirit, and will focus on the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is spelled out most clearly in Galatians 5.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. – Galatians 5:22-23a

One little sentence, and yet, so much to talk about! In the first two-thirds or so of this message, I simply want to expand on this verse, to paint a Biblical picture of what the grand scope of what is being said here, to explore what these words really mean. Let’s start with the word fruit. In Greek, the word is karpos. Karpos literally means, well, fruit! Jesus used the word repeatedly to describe the fruit of trees and vines. But more often, the word was used symbolically; the fruit of a tree or vine was used as a symbol of something else. In such cases, perhaps the best translation of karpos, other than fruit, is result. The fruit of the Spirit is the result of the Spirit. And by the way, this word karpos is singular; it is a singular fruit of the Spirit. What this passage is saying is that the result of the Spirit at work in your life is that your life will exhibit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Welcome! Today’s message is on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is a part of our continuing series on the Holy Spirit. I have a lot I want to cover, so I will get right down to business.

I think a good starting point is to first look at the Greek word for “gift” in the Bible. This word is charisma. The reason I think this is so helpful is because this shows that the word is very closely related to another word, charis, which means “grace,” that is, unmerited favor.

Now, this is so important, I want to go deeper. Herschel Martindale, one of the leaders in our association of churches, the Great Commission Churches, has a wonderful way of talking about grace. He says, and I agree, that although grace is unmerited favor, the definition tends to not connect emotionally with most people. Herschel loves to define grace this way: Grace is God’s love at work in my life. Grace is God meeting our needs. I love grace explained this way because it so clearly communicates the idea that God loves us, not just at the moment when He allowed Jesus to die for our sins on the cross, and not just at the moment of our salvation, when we turned to Christ in faith to save us, but every moment. He is interested in us right now, eager to help us to grow spiritually, eager to help us in all things.