We invite you now to turn to 2 Corinthians. It's on page 964 of your Pew Bible, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. This is God's Word. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, to the church of God that is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The word of the Lord is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, as we now have heard Your Word read, we've sung Your Word, we do ask that You fill us with Your Holy Spirit, that You'd soften our hearts so that we may, even though we may be a little tired from the events of this afternoon, but we might still be alert, we might still delight in Your presence, sharpen our minds so that we may discern your truth, and then also we ask that you would shape our wills so that we would desire your ways through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. All right, well, when beginning a new study or a new series, I find it helpful to kind of back out a little bit and start with the big picture and definitely to do a little bit of background, some things, some ways that we want to come to 2 Corinthians and approach it. So, A few of these things, first of all, 2 Corinthians is probably Paul's fourth letter, and I'm sure that all of you at one time or another have read through it, and there are a lot of different topics and a lot of different issues that are addressed here. He's going to address issues of division and conflict, preacher fan clubs that end up being divisive, various views of evil and suffering and how should we suffer as Christians. the relationship between the old covenant and the new covenant, the centrality of the resurrection, our giving, and just general topics of Christian living. And these topics are all topics that Paul addressed in the first century, and they're all relevant for us here this morning. As we start to hear some of those things I mentioned, it's like, oh, we we struggle with that, at least maybe not personally. Maybe personally, but as a church. But because Paul covers so many topics, and in some way they don't seem to be related on the surface, most authors have a pretty difficult time deciding on a unifying theme for 2 Corinthians, and many actually say there just isn't one. Well, I think we can definitely find an overall theme and purpose for Paul writing this letter. Paul does address specific problems, however, he's trying to get the church in Corinth to grasp a bigger, all-encompassing, and more profound truth. He's trying to take them past the basics. He's telling them, yes, about the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ, but he wants us to see beyond that, next level sorts of things. He wants us to see that through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus, that the blessings of salvation and the new creation are already ours. And since they're ours then, how does that affect how we think and how we feel and what we do? Paul knows that we don't need more strategies and steps, although he does give us some specific instructions, especially when it comes to giving in this letter. But what he does give us is what we need in order to grow in grace and in holiness and in love. And he knows what we need in order to grow in these things is to further understand what does it mean that we are united to Christ and that we are united to a risen Savior. So 2 Corinthians really is next level discipleship. There are the basics of Christian doctrine and things in the catechism and how we should pray and whatnot. But there's a bigger theme and a bigger idea here and to get us going on really this graduate level class. on Christian discipleship. That's really what we have here. We're going to begin with some background on Corinth. What was Corinth like? What kind of things did the people experience there? And since 2 Corinthians is probably Paul's fourth letter to the church, well, he's obviously got an existing relationship there. One commentator notes that this is Paul's most familiar letter where he's the most of himself. And so we want to get some specifics of that. So we'll do some background and some relationship history, and then we'll also look at some of the details in Paul's greeting. How does he start? What does he want them to think of first? What's the foundation for this advanced discipleship? course here. So point one is background and history. Point two, who am I and who are you? So Paul will tell us something about himself and then he's going to tell us something about the Corinthian church, which is also true of us. And then point three is an expected and unexpected greeting. So our first point and background in history, you could find some of these things in a study Bible, but I know that you can read those at home, so I tried to include some different sorts of things. I'm going to paint a picture of what the city of Corinth was like, and then we'll look at the history of the relationship between Paul and this church in the city. Classical Greek Corinth was actually destroyed, the city was destroyed in 146 BC. by the Romans, and it remained mostly uninhabited for nearly a hundred years. And then in 44 BC, so this is about 10 years after Christ's resurrection, it was rebuilt by Julius Caesar as a distinctly Roman city. Corinth was strategically located for trade routes through land and through sea. It was an isthmus of Greece, so you think it's like Florida, surrounded by water on most sides. And by Paul's day, it was a sprawling metropolis and the third most important city in the Roman Empire. I got my... It wasn't built 10 years after Christ's resurrection, it was built four decades before Christ was born. So let me just back up one second, sorry about that. So just round it off here. Destroyed around 150 BC, rebuilt around 50 BC. So by the time Christ is born, it's a thriving metropolis. and it was very strategically located and it was actually populated by an extremely diverse group of people. There were Jews in the city, there were Greeks, there were Romans, there were army veterans, there were former slaves that have now either purchased or earned their freedom, and there are many folks of various trades. It's really a pretty, kind of a bustling newer city in the ancient world at this point when Paul planted the church there. You really can think of it as really having every modern day, in some ways, features that Chicago has. It was a place of capitalism. People, they made it on their own by hard work. They had lots of sports. I'm not sure any teams in sports there were Olympic sports. They were second only to the Olympics. I don't know if they were good as the Bears, but... You know, they were definitely, definitely there. There were gladiators, there were theaters, there were temples that included things like feasting and red light district types of places. There were bars. many different religions and in many ways it just sounds really analogous to a modern city. And so it's easy then for us to imagine a lot of the challenges in a place like this to a very young church with a bunch of new Christians where everyone seems to be prospering and there's riches to be had and there are limitless entertainment options and temptation is literally crouching in many doorways along many streets. And so when we think of Corinth, especially, and when we think of our own culture today, there used to be a lot of explaining that you had to do, you know. Well, our culture is so different. We're in the same redemptive historical age and we struggle with the same things, but our culture is different. Well, that's less and less true. So we really can think of our day and age and import a lot of that back to Corinth. And so it's important to remember this because this is the cultural climate that Paul is speaking to. This is the climate where he's trying to plant, he plants this church and encourages this church. And as we get to this letter in 2 Corinthians, there's already some serious relationship history between Paul and the church in Corinth. and to fully understand the purpose and theme of the letter and why Paul writes so specifically and can just say what is on his mind, which he always does that, but he especially does that here in 2 Corinthians. Now we're going to reflect just a little bit, you know, how did Paul and the church in Corinth get here? What's their history? You find that in Acts chapter 18. In Acts chapter 18, we read that Paul spent 18 months in Corinth planting I'm sure it was called something like Corinth OPC. I don't know what their church name was, but I think that's probably what it was. And he wasn't alone. It was a team of church planners, and this was around 50 to 52 AD, and Paul was bivocational, and he was a tent maker. Perhaps he was making tents for the athletic games. I mean, there would be a big demand for these things for, you know, not just temporary housing but even shops and whatnot that you could set up in various tents. And it seems that he left sometime in the summer of 52 and Corinth then was blessed to have Apollos and then Peter follow him. So they were getting some really good preachers in there. That would be Like, if here at New Covenant, if Bruce was followed by R.C. Sproul and Sinclair Ferguson instead of me, like something along those sorts of lines. So even though they had really good pulpit supply, really good teaching, there were also some other teachers around and they were beginning to really question Paul's apostleship and kind of in many ways turn the church in Corinth against him. And so after he left, he plans to church, he leaves, and while Paul is in Ephesus, he starts to hear about some of the issues and problems. He starts to hear about some of the sexual immorality that's in Corinth, and he writes them a letter. And this is actually the first letter to the Corinthians, and it's a letter that we don't actually have, but they read this letter, and you can get this as you read 1 Corinthians. They do a lot of mirror exegesis, and I'll explain what that is. So essentially, you know, where are you getting some of these things? How do you know some of the issues that are in the Corinthian church? Well, you read about the mirror exegesis is essentially you read about the things that Paul talks about, Okay, and the topics that he addresses and how he's doing it. And so then you can read into that the errors that are there, right? So that's kind of how we find these errors. So they read Paul's letter and it seemed many of them took his letter to think, hey, we need to just withdraw from society. So it wasn't going too well. Well, Paul then sends Titus to get a collection going for the Jerusalem churches. And then while Titus is there, the Corinthians ask for advice on various matters. And then Paul's response to that, those questions brought up by Titus, that's what we have for 1 Corinthians. That's where we get the 1 Corinthians that's in our Bibles. And so Paul also sends them Timothy, someone that they know and they love to Corinth to help. And when he gets there, he finds that things are a mess and they're starting to really not even like Paul anymore. So as a result, Paul makes a short three-month visit to Corinth. just checks in, that's in 55 AD or so, and Paul refers to this visit in 2 Corinthians as a very painful visit. It was a hard visit. Well, Paul leaves after three months and things don't seem to be getting any better from what we can tell, so he sends Titus with a severe letter to Corinth. And if you're counting, Paul's visited Corinth twice. He sent Timothy, Titus is there, there's at least three letters over three or four years. There's a lot of interaction going on here. And after hearing back from Titus, then Paul in response writes the letter that we have as 2 Corinthians. And he writes this letter with a very specific goal in mind. He writes this letter in preparation for his third and final, what he believes will be his third and final visit to the church in Corinth, to be around 56 AD. And this is the letter that we're studying. And so there's a lot of background here between Pastor Paul and the church in Corinth that we see. There's a lot of work to be done in Corinth with respect to doctrine and to life. They're a mess. And Paul's been dealing with them, and he's been dealing with church discipline issues basically since, it seems, sounds like since the day that he left, the first time. So he's visited, he's wrote some fairly stern and difficult letters to them, and now Paul, he's getting ready to leave this area of the world. And he thinks he's going to be leaving this area of the world for good, and he wants to visit this church that he helped plant just one more time. Only when he comes, he doesn't want to come and deal with all the same discipline problems. I'm sure he's not naive and knows that they'll be there, but that's not what he wants. He wants to come for encouragement. He wants to come for fellowship. And he writes 2 Corinthians so the church in Corinth will have an opportunity to start working through some of these issues before he arrives. It's time for the young church plant to work through some things and to do some growing in doctrine and in life. They need to work out some of these things with their local church leadership before Paul gets there. So in other words, we can think of kind of the tone of 2 Corinthians is Paul, he doesn't want to come as an angry parent, but he wants to come as a kind and loving grandparent. to just enjoy fellowship with his brothers and sisters in the Lord. So, this tells us a lot about what Corinth is like, gives us some relationship background, and, you know, if you wanna know where to find all that stuff, I'm sure I could give you a, dig out a bibliography somewhere, or you could, maybe you could sit in Pauline Theology and Dr. Menninger's class. There's some of those things in there. But this is kind of the context to what we come to. And so after hearing about this history, we might expect Paul to immediately begin his letter to the Corinthians with correction. But instead, Paul begins by reminding the Corinthians who he is as an apostle and also by reminding them who they are as saints in the church of God. And so this is our second point. Who am I and who are you? In verse 1, Paul opens up the letter by saying, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother. Well, Paul obviously doesn't need any sort of introduction. They know who he is. Yet he reminds them that he's an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. We remember that his apostleship is in question there. And an apostle, as we know, is a sent one. It's also a messenger. It's an ambassador. And there are two things necessary to be an apostle, a messenger or an ambassador of Jesus. And the first here is that you must be chosen by Jesus to be an apostle. It's a special calling that Paul has. In the early church, a person couldn't just wake up one morning and think, you know what, I'm going to just appoint myself to be an ambassador of Jesus Christ. We couldn't just wake up one morning and say, you know what, I'm going to be an ambassador to Mexico. You must actually be chosen and appointed by the president to be an ambassador. Well, we know that Paul was appointed and chosen to be an apostle and ambassador as he met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus and was called to apostolic ministry to be a minister to the Gentiles. And so this is where Paul's authority comes from. and he's reminding of that, that he's a sent one by the will of God, specifically by the will of our risen Lord Jesus. And then the second item that's needed or required to be an apostle, to be a sent one, is that you have to have a message. An apostle proclaims news that's been entrusted to him by the one that he represents. An apostle or messenger does not deliver his own message and his own opinions, but the message of another. Well, Paul is an apostle of Christ Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior, and he delivers the message that Jesus has given him to proclaim. and deliver. And Paul drops Timothy's name because it seems like they probably remember Timothy in it. I think it's probably that it seems like they liked him. That's probably why he mentioned him. So this is what we have here. Paul's doing a little bit of establishing, reminding them of who he is, his authority, where it comes from, and that this message isn't his opinion. This message is going to be the very Word of God. And he reminds them of this right from the very beginning, that his message is a message from the Lord Jesus. So this letter of 2 Corinthians is a word from the prophet of the church. Jesus Christ. This is a letter, essentially, of Jesus to the congregation in Corinth. This message has weight because it's the very Word of God. And this is how the Corinthians are supposed to receive Paul's communication, as from the Lord Jesus. And this is how we are to receive this communication. 2 Timothy 3.16 and 17 reminds us of how we're to receive Paul's letters. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work. Paul knew that he was speaking the Word of God. And so we want to remember that as we go through each and every single passage of 2 Corinthians, that even though this letter was written to a congregation nearly 2,000 years ago, it is still just as much word of God to us here this morning. As much as it was the voice of Christ to them at that time, it's equally the voice of Christ our Savior to us now here this evening. This letter is Jesus teaching. It's Jesus correcting. It's Jesus training us so that we might be profitable kingdom servants. This is the mindset that we are to have as we come to this letter. Well, Paul addresses his readers, identifying them as the Church of God that is at Corinth and with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia. That's the general region of churches there, Corinthian Corinth and its surrounding, you know, suburbs is this area here. Paul's addressing the congregation that meets in Corinth and those in the area. This letter was meant to be distributed and read before all these congregations in the city of Corinth and in the whole county, so to speak. He wanted to make sure that they're thinking rightly about who they are. Remember how diverse it is there. He wants them to make sure that they remember that their first identity, their primary identity, it's not as Corinthians. it's not as free men, it's not as Jews or as rich or as slaves or as army veterans or something like that, but their identity is that they are members of the church of God. The word here for church, ecclesia, in Greek, the Greek translation in the Old Testament, the Septuagint, when they use that word, it's a reference to the gathering or the assembly of the people of God. It's a reference to Israel, God's chosen people who He brought out of Egypt. Our Lord led them through the wilderness, brought them into the promised land, loved them so much that He disciplined them and even sent them into exile and then brought them back. and whom He sent Jesus Christ to as the Savior, Messiah, and King. This is who He's writing to. The Corinthians are saints. They are holy ones in Christ. They are those who have been bought and cleansed by the blood of Christ, and they've been set apart out of this world as citizens of the world to come. Paul's addressing a gathering of God's chosen, cleansed, and special people, His special treasure. That's who he's addressing here. He wanted to make sure the Corinthians remembered that. He wanted to make sure that we remember that, that we remember as we're reading Scripture, it's addressed to us who are the people of God, chosen by God, bought by God, disciplined by God, cleansed by God, so that we might have fellowship, greater fellowship with the Lord and with each other. That's what Paul wants for them. And that's why he's reminding them, calling them the Church of God. And before Paul addresses any problems, he wants to make sure that the Corinthians know who they are. He wants them to remember that they are the property of Christ Jesus. And as the property of our Lord, they have certain responsibilities then to God. and they have certain responsibilities to one another, and they have many privileges that only children of God and friends of Christ the King can have. This foundation is essential. Without this, anything Paul says, any correction or progress or any growth in grace is just going to be a works righteousness. They need to know who they are first. We need to know who we are first. This is true for us. For us to receive and profit from any correction or training in righteousness, we must remember who we are. Now, there are many people here we know that we have dads and moms and children and Americans and veterans, service men and women, these sorts of things. And these certainly make up a part of how we think of ourselves. But this is not primarily and first most, this is not who you are. Your primary and most important identity is not in the temporary vocation that you have. It's not in your hobbies that you engage in. As these are temporary, they are fleeting. If you're a musician, someday you might not be able to hear or you might not be able to play your instrument. If that's your identity, then what's going to happen to you? If you're an athlete, someday it will hurt to move. I just read that Drew Brees said he could have played another three years if he was able to just raise his shoulder. So if it's in some skill or some ability, that might go away. If it's, oh, I'm the wife of so-and-so, I'm the husband of so-and-so, and this is how you think of yourself. Well, someday your spouse may beat you to glory. Well, who are you then? So these things that do help us to think about what God's called us to do, they're good things, but they're also temporary things. They're earthly things that are going to pass away. Anything that is earthly and temporary is not a foundation for our identity. If you are in Christ, first and foremost, you are a member of the church of God. This means that your name is written in the Lamb's book of life. It means that you are precious to God, that you are cleaned, that you are loved, that you are cherished by God. And that together, as a group of saints, in the service and fellowship of the Lord, we're seeking to follow him and to be like him. We know that the word identity has a lot of baggage. And, you know, I've preached to Second Corinthians before, and I would have probably, you know, this would just still jumps off the page. I say we're in an identity crisis, and we still are, and now the crisis is even growing. And we talked about this a little bit in our Sunday school. There's so many people, it's so sad. They don't know who they are, and they're looking for the world to tell them. Or they're looking within themselves to their own corrupted sin nature to tell them who they think they are. And what this results is, is folks constantly trying to seek after comfort and to try to build this identity and maintain it. And it's an identity that's just a facade. It's not real. It's something they made. And if they get any temporary comfort with it, because some temporary affirmation from other people, oh, you're so brave for doing this and what not, all those things, none of that comfort is going to last. It's so sad. And so what a gift that it is for us, for all who believe in Jesus Christ, that we don't have to guess who we are. We don't have to discover who we are. We don't have to decide who we want to be and then try to build it. If you don't know who you are, there is no rest for you. There is no fulfillment in life. There is no peace. We know who we are. We are the Church of God and saints washed by the blood of Christ. We are His and we know what we're made for. Just in the car on the way over here, We had a guest in our vehicle, and so, you know, you're a guest with the pastor. Oh, you had catechism? Let me ask you some catechism questions. What did you learn in Sunday school today? Well, what is the chief end of man? Well, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And the young lady said, well, we learned what this life is for, and so then what's the next question? I'm thinking of it, but one of my other daughters beat me to it. Well, what is this life for? Well, this life is to glorify God and enjoy Him and to be with Him. That's our identity. That's who we are. That's why we exist. We're made for fellowship with God, and our aim in life is to glorify Him and to serve our Savior. This is our identity. and we don't need to discover it. God tells us who we are. Paul tells the church in Corinth, he tells us, you are the church of God. He continues on with his greeting, now that he says, this is who you are. He says, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It's our third point as we look at this phrase. It's an expected greeting, but it's also an unexpected greeting. On the one hand, this is kind of a pretty standard greeting. You know, it's something that we would expect. It's, you know, just the normal way that especially Christians would begin their letters and letters would, even non-Christian letters, would begin in similar ways in the ancient world. So Paul begins his letters with these words. So it is a little standard. It is a little expected. But it's also very unexpected. Because it sounds like the church in Corinth is definitely not at peace. They're not at peace with Paul. And if you're not at peace with God's apostle, his servant, his ambassador, well then how can you be at peace with God? How can you have peace? How can Paul say this about them? If anything, they might be expecting Paul to begin with something like, stop it, knock it off, will you grow up already? Get over yourselves. How many times have I already told you about this? But Paul does not begin this way because he wants to remind the Corinthians that our peace with God is not based on our own effort and our own works, but peace and reconciliation is achieved for us by the work of Christ alone. How comforting for the Corinthians. They probably didn't quite know what to expect from this letter. They might have been a little scared to open this scroll, but right off the bat, They're aware of their mess. They're aware of their sin. Right off the bat, Paul knows that they need to hear God's grace to them. That they are still in right standing with the Lord. That they have grace and that they have peace. They need to be reassured of this. And this is something we need to be reassured of as well, and we are. This is why we hear God's greeting each and every Lord's Day as it's pronounced in the AM service and the PM service. This God's greeting, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not just a cool thing that we say, although it is really cool when you get to become a minister and pronounce that. That is really cool. and it's enjoyable and it's fun to speak for God and to pronounce this. But it's not just something that we say, it's a reminder to us every single time that we gather for worship, that we gather as God's friends, that we have peace with God. We come here each and every week having sinned against our God all week, and probably all morning, sinning against our neighbors, having been ungrateful for God's provision, and complaining about our lives, being self-righteous, entitlement-oriented, bored with, even sometimes bored with what we see as the same old gospel, fickle in our hearts, undeserving. This is how we come. But in spite of all this, and this is true of me and it's true of you, God does not greet us with rebuke and wrath. You've been terrible this week. But instead, he greets us with assurance that in Christ we have received God's grace, that we have peace with God. Not because we were good this week, because we know that we weren't. But because Christ was also not just good, but he was perfect every week of his earthly life. and he paid the price for our sins. He's declared righteous, the very righteousness of God, and he gives or imputes that righteousness to us. Christ is the basis, the foundation of our peace. And since we are in Christ, this is why we're greeted each and every Lord's Day as friends of God and not as enemies. As you're greeted, God says this to you. This is what's also in grace and peace to you. He's also saying to you, and we heard some of this in our Isaiah 43 reading, I love you. This is not your home. I have a better one for you, being prepared for you. And I'm pleased with you because of Christ. And that's not going to change. You don't ever need to be afraid to come into my presence. These are things we're reminded of as we hear God's greeting. And this is the way that Paul begins an amazing book. He reminds the Corinthians, he reminds us that we are at peace with God. Not just on Sunday when we hear this, but every day that Christ is our Savior, which is every day of our lives. Every morning we rise, this is true of us. We're members of the Church of God. Every morning we get up united to Christ. Every morning, God, we're greeted with God's grace and reminders of His goodness to us and of peace and of friendship. This would be something good for us to do, to add to our daily Bible and prayer time, is to remember, and even to read it to us, as we come and sit down, and we're already feeling guilty about some thought we had when we woke up, or something we didn't do, or whatever it is. But you know, when we sit down to read the Word of God in the morning, to spend that first time with our Lord and Savior, Maybe we should read this and maybe you should start doing this. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That message is to us each and every morning as we seek to glorify him each and every day. What a difference that might make for some of us as we were so racked with guilt and with shame and with sin all the time. We forget about God's grace. We know it, but we don't know it. What a difference it might make. Maybe try it. You get up, you get your coffee, Find your quiet place, open the word of God, grace and peace to you. From God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, this is to me. And now, we've heard this greeting from God, even at the beginning of our quiet time, we can have our spiritual breakfast and be filled with the spirit of God and with motivation to go out and to serve him as his ambassadors. By this greeting, Paul reminds us that God's grace is surprising. It's unexpected, but it's always given. It's always given, so it is expected. It's always given to all who are united to Christ. So as we're comforted through this letter, and as we think about it, as we come to Paul's advanced discipleship course, this is where we want to start. That we remember that our God gives us grace upon grace, through the work of Jesus Christ and that we're reconciled to God our Father through Him as the Church of God. And it's with this in mind now that Paul will go forward and give us more. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we do thank you. We thank you that you met the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus and made him the apostle to the Gentiles because that's pretty much every one of us here. We thank you for rescuing us and we thank you for reminding us that we have been rescued and we thank you for reminding us that we have been rescued every single day and especially every single Lord's Day because we need to remember this. So let us remember that we are yours. Let us take this to heart and let us be comforted and remember that you give us grace and we have peace and also that we have this grace and we have this peace so that we might serve you. Help us to be profitable servants this week. In Christ's name, amen.