1 Corinthians 16:13-24

1 Corinthians 16:13-24

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Final Exhortations

13 Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done with love.

15 I urge you, brethren—you know the household of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints— 16 that you also submit to such, and to everyone who works and labors with us.

17 I am glad about the coming of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, for what was lacking on your part they supplied. 18 For they refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men.

Greetings and a Solemn Farewell

19 The churches of Asia greet you. Aquila and Priscilla greet you heartily in the Lord, with the church that is in their house. 20 All the brethren greet you.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

21 The salutation with my own hand—Paul’s.

22 If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. O Lord, come!

23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 24 My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.

The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), 1 Co 16:13-24

• Transcript

  Hey, good morning. Good morning friends. Welcome to Coffee and devotions, jump on the computer here. Make sure everybody is able to join us live. Let's make sure we're going alive. Hope just waiting on Facebook. There we go. Wonderful. Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and devotions. I'm so glad to be with you. This Friday morning this where every day you and I we get together we have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow and our love for the Lord together in this year 2022 Lord willing, we will make it from the book of Acts to the book of Philemon and today we are wrapping up First Corinthians. Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for Your Word. We thank you for how you care for us and you teach us Lord we pray that as we read your Word this morning, you would watch over us Lord, please be our instructor this morning, when there are hard things for us to read. We pray that your spirit would be softening our hearts and teaching us to follow you in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, I know that this has been a difficult book for many. First Corinthians is not the easiest. Book. It's very direct has many countercultural things. But I just wanted to say good job for sticking with it. So we are at first Corinthians chapter 16. We'll begin at verse 13. And we'll work our way through the end of the chapter. Here we go. Watch, stand firm in the faith. Be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love. I urge you brethren, you know the household of stuff honest that it is the first fruits of a Kea and that they have devoted themselves to the ministry. of the saints that you also submit to such and to everyone who works and Labor's with us. I am glad about the coming of stuff fondness for tinnitus, and a kickass for what was lacking on your part. They supplied for they refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore, acknowledge such men. The churches of Asia greet you. Aquila and Priscilla greet you heartily in the Lord with the church that is in their house. All the brethren greet you greet one another with a holy kiss. The salutation with my own hands. Paul's. If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Oh, Lord, come the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen. Well, we need to ask ourselves a What's this about? Be? What's the best verses summarize this and see, what are we called to do in response to these words, right. Paul is wrapping up his letter. He's finishing things off and it's like rapid fire. You know, one thing after another here, he starts off with a series of commands. encouragement, right verse 13. Watch, right? Be Vigeant right? This is like you're on guard in the military and you're being gregarious, you're you're being watchful. That's the Greek word behind it. We think of Greek areas is like going out and talking with people and stuff like this, but this is more of the idea of being being looking out. And then stand firm in the faith. Right be immovable in the faith. Set your feet on the rock of Jesus Christ and don't be moved by the buffeting of the waves, though of the culture of this world. Don't be pushed off of your face by your own heart that might try to pull you away, but stand firm in your faith. And then this one is, is translated a few different ways in different Bibles right your Bible might say, be courageous. Here it says Be strong. The word for it is is act like men are the Greek the it is not that we have a wimpy faith. But you are called to be watchful, to stand firm, to be courageous to be like men of strength. And that's what actually this is be strong as the next command. All right, well, your faith is not to be an anemic faith. But if your faith is wholeheartedly loving God, clinging to the teaching of the apostles and prophets, embracing Jesus Christ, hoping in the resurrection of the dead, loving, even when it's difficult. This is Christian faith. This is courageous faith. This is strong faith, a faith that looks not to our own interest, but to the interest of others. Let all that you do be done with love, right? Everything you are everything that comes from you. Everything that is yours ought to be marked by one principle. Love and that's what he's getting at in verse 14 And this is not just some type of sappy sentimental emotional love, but this is a loving God with all your heart and a loving your neighbor as yourself. It is a practical love. It is a love that is played out in humility, in service and kindness and gentleness and self control. Right not in rejoicing and evil. But loving what is good. i This is First Corinthians love. I today. I'm going to have to leave here and go home and apologize to my children because while I was reprimanding two of them before I came here for coffee and devotions, I reprimanded them and what I said was true, but how I said it was not marked by love was marked by in my annoyance instead of with a heart of love. This is a difficult thing, isn't it? It's easy to say these things. It's hard to live them and this is why he has to command them and remind them at the end of his letter. Now he moves on from here in verse 15. And he talks to them about different people. It first he talks to them about the household as to fanous and stuff on us and it's he's the first fruits of a care, right these he's one of these people who is wholeheartedly devoted to the ministry of the gospel. He says that they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints, right. It's him, it's his wife, it's his children and they they have thrown themselves into the work of Jesus Christ. And he's saying that they're, they're the type of people you want to follow. Actually, it says verse 16, that you also to submit to such and to everyone who works and laborers with us. There's an ancient writing it's found in manuscript forms. And it's written by a man named Clement of Rome. And he actually writes in first Clement, I think it's like the 42nd chapter or something like that. I was reading it a little bit earlier, where he's actually writing about how Paul appointed different deacons and elders, servants and, and rulers in the church. And so it's most likely that this is one of these people Stofan us and maybe even some of his sons were elders in the church. Right? So he says, that stuff that these people who have been appointed to this work who had been devoted over to this work, you submit to them follow them and then he tells them that he's glad about Steve Fanus for tinnitus and a case for what was lacking on your port part they supplied right so he's it's possible these are guys who are going to be taking this letter back to them. That's possible. It's conjecture. So people say that but what we do know from this passage is that they have been generous toward Paul. They've been supplying his needs, but the other people weren't able to do even though they were giving proportionately of their income. These people went above and beyond and they supplied for Paul's needs. And so He commends them for what's done well, he says, For they refreshed my spirit and yours, therefore acknowledge such men if there are generous people, we ought to acknowledge their generosity. If there are people who are given over to encouragement toward a practical love towards refreshing of people, we ought to, we ought to be able to say that these are the type of people that do good work and commend them to others. And then he gives them a greeting verse 19, the churches of Asia greet you. This is Paul is in Ephesus, he's in Asia. This is Asia Minor, what we would consider Turkey today and so as he's on that western coast of Turkey, he's saying that the churches here greet you. And the church we're actually meeting at is Priscilla and Aquila versus Aquila. And Priscilla greets you heartily in the Lord with the church's church that is in their house, right. This is still this time period where people are actually meeting in households and interestingly enough, you can look on Google find these there are there's archaeological evidence to show that houses were actually remodeled, so that they could have Christian assemblies in their houses. And so this is one of these households that is promoting and encouraging the gospel. He said, All the brethren greet you and greet one another with a holy kiss. Right. So so the saints here want to tell you, they're they love you. I love when we have we have guest pastors here. You know, a few weeks ago we had my friend George Gregory come and he's a pastor out in Beaver Falls just north of Pittsburgh. And as he was here in the pulpit, he was he said, you know, the saints at Hope Community Church and Beaver Falls, greet you know, at this wonderful because we have some friends who go to that church, we know people who are there and and some of them know some of the people here and so it's wonderful when saints even from different assemblies are able to acknowledge that we love each other and that saints just means holy ones, children of God and so there are other Christians other than here at Sharon RP. And there's other Christians and just at the local church you might be a member of and so we greet one another and he says greet one another right in your own church greet one another with a holy kiss. Don't just be strangers with one another it was culturally a comedy or culturally acceptable at that time. You can still see it in like Italian culture where people will kiss each other on either side of the cheek. Now I'm going to tell you if I did that here in America, it would be weird. Right? This was actually had to be curtailed in the early church because some people were taking this command to greet one another with a holy kiss and the kiss they were given wasn't so holy. And so one of the practices actually some churches, they put men on this side, the women on the side so that way the men wouldn't be guessing on another man's wife, you know, and so, there's a problem. There's, but how does it play out in our culture, right? Do you heartily greet someone? Do you give them a firm handshake? Are you a hugger? Do you give Christians a hug? Are you genuinely happy? To show people affection? When they come to church? Do you smile at them? Do you show them that? Hey, you're welcome here. I'm so glad to see you again. I know we might have differences. I know we might have had problems. But we're brothers and sisters in Christ. Greet one another with a holy kiss and then we find out that Paul actually signed this letter himself. Right this the salutation with my own hand Paul. It was pretty normal at this time to use what's called Emmanuel winces like a secretary. So Paul, most likely for this whole letter would have spoken it out and his secretary wrote it down but here at the end, now Paul's actually writing with his own hand, you can imagine getting this letter and the handwriting looking like one person's and then here, the handwriting changes to Paul's own handwriting. And these are his final words. Right? If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus, let him be accursed. He's saying right if if you don't love the Lord, and specifically who we're talking about as the Lord Jesus, that person is a cursed at this is an apostolic cursing. Right? This is him saying there's only one way to be made right with God, through the man, Jesus Christ. And if you do not love Jesus Christ, then you are not Beloved of the Lord. And then what does he call out for me? This is interesting. In the in the English it says, oh, Lord come, but it's interesting in the Greek Mara na sa, which is a transliteration from the Aramaic Maranatha. And so in the Greek, Paul, just write it out how it sounds straight off of his lips into Greek, but it's not actually a Greek word. This is an Aramaic word. And so it's translated into English from for us from the Aramaic actually, Lord come. This is one of these interesting things where Paul doesn't have to explain what this word is, but it seems like the church understands when he says Maranatha that people in the church understand what that word means. Oh, Lord come, which kind of gives us a little bit of insight into the makeup of the church, that people were largely familiar with certain words, or at least Paul would use them often enough that even Greek speaking people might understand what that meant. But his heartfelt desire in this injunction after saying if nobody if you don't love Jesus Christ, let you be a curse, he says oh, Lord, Jihad come, right, Lord, return. establish your kingdom. let this happen quickly. And his final words are verse 23, and 20, For the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all. In Christ Jesus. Amen. Right. He wants to send them away with this idea that if they love Jesus Christ, that God's favor shines upon them in Jesus Christ. And that because they are favorite of the Lord because they love Jesus Christ Paul's love is with them also. What a beautiful ending to the letter, isn't it? What's the best verse to summarize? I don't know. Right? There's too many different parts here. I would underline like three or four different things I might understand, or I might underline verses 13 and 14. But then I would also underline verse 15. And then I might be tempted to underline verses 17 or 18. I might be tempted to underline 19 But then that would make me think but I really want to underline 22 It's OCDC by probably give about some cookies. Gotta wait a glass of milk I don't know what to underline here. I need your help. Let me know down in the comments what would you underline maybe the final two verses, I would double underline and store last see calling what are we called to do? Be watchful. Christian. Don't live in the dark. But live your life with your eyes open. Be watchful of your soul. Be watchful for opportunities to love. Stand firm in the faith Christian never give up hope. Have a courageous faith. Have a faith that is strong. Be fed by the Spirit. Be chewing over his word. Be rich in prayer. Be always abounding in love. You really have yourself in two places. You're right at the end of the chapter. Are you one of those who love Jesus Christ? And God's favor shines upon you. If so claim to Jesus Christ. Love the saints love God. Or are you the hard part in verse 22? If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus, let him be accursed. The final admonition, the final calling the final application of First Corinthians 16 I think is found there. In verses 22 through 24. Do you love Jesus Christ hold firm to him. Never let go let's pray. Oh Lord, please come quickly. Father, teach us to love you tell our dying breaths. Give us hope in the resurrection. Let us be unmovable in our faith. Lord, it is a difficult life at times. There is much grief there's much temptation there's much to be in despair about but father with you there is hope. With you there is a possibility of comfort and of joy for eternity. Please, Lord, give us courage to have faith. In Jesus's name, Amen. May Lord bless you today. May you walk in Jesus Christ. May you be watchful, stand firm in your faith. Be courageous. Be strong. May everything that comes from you be of love. I'll see you next time. Bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai