All right, let's go. Let's get after it. Bible's open. Second Corinthians, guys, this is the day that we're bringing it to an end. So I don't know, 30 some weeks in this letter. Hopefully it's been impactful for you. It's been a challenging, but good letter, and you've enjoyed your. Have you guys enjoyed the study of Second Corinthians? Okay. It'd be awkward if you said no right now, but hopefully. I know for me personally, it's been just a loving punch in the gut so many times. And again in the close of the letter, no different. But. So we're going to end Second Corinthians today. Next week, we're going to start a series looking at what worship is. We were made to worship God. It's the point of our lives. So it'd be really important to better understand it. So we're going to take five weeks to look at a. Take a closer look at worship. So if you're somebody who's like, yeah, I kind of come to church once or twice a month, like, that's kind of of a national average. I want to talk to you, up your game in the next five weeks. Okay. If you could, like, make it five weeks in a row, it'd be important to understand all of what life's about and get our minds around the important call to worship. Sound good? Okay, so we're going to that next, but today we're landing the plane on Second Corinthians. These are Paul's last words in this letter. And last words are usually important. Sometimes you get to the end of letters and it sounds just like final greetings. And in your reading, we tend not to read those as close as we should. Like, we just kind of fly through that. It seems like formalities, but these are intentional words. And the way that Paul ends is important. These are his last words to this audience in this letter, and we want to better understand them. And it's not so much how he ends, but how he begins his ending that catches our attention. He says, finally, brothers rejoice. So finally, like, this has been a long kind of rebuke, this whole letter defense of Paul's ministry, but also kind of pressing in on them, like, you just got saying, like, you guys better check yourselves. Like, are you really in the faith? Like, he calls them out. He gets to the places, like, finally. And as many problems as these people have had, he still calls them brothers like that. Let's take comfort in that. He's Like, I'm not. I'm not giving up on you. I'm gonna treat you as you profess, but I'm challenging you. He calls them brothers. And then he says, rejoice. Now, this is a group of people that are full of bad decisions. Like, one after another, they've been making a wreck of their life, not making wise decisions. But he says, rejoice. Now, some of us in this room, we need to hear this too, because you may have found yourself in a pattern of making a lot of bad decisions. And what you might feel and need to hear is loving people say, repent, Knock it off, Change. Stop doing that. Like, that's wise and good. But also what you need to hear is rejoice. And you don't always hear that. Like, you feel the call to repent, but we need to also hear the call to rejoice. Now, why would he be calling people so messed up to rejoice? Because repentance is possible, like through the grace of God. No matter kind of what kind of train wreck you've made of your life, there's an open door to. To turn and come back to Christ. So he's saying, guys, rejoice. I'm calling you back to something. You're not too far gone. And he's got good news for them. Now, this is a church full of problems. This is a church full of problems because it's a church full of people that are full of problems. And just to kind of give us a flyby of some of this, you go back to first Corinthians. Here's how it starts out. Chapter one. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you. So you already know that this is kind of a church that has infighting my brothers. Again, he uses that language. What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Paulus, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ. So you got a lot of different peoples, that there's division, and they're saying they follow different people. There's fractions within the church. You go to chapter five, it gets really messy. He says it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans. So you've taken Corinth, which is famous for sexual immorality, and you've kind of went beyond what even they're doing. For a man has his father's wife, right? There's a guy sleeping with his mother in law. And you're arrogant. Or you could say you're proud of it. You don't have a problem with it. You fly the flag like, you just embrace in this. Ought you not rather to mourn? Like, shouldn't this break your heart? Are you proud of things you shouldn't be proud of? Are you not heartbroken over things you should be heartbroken? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. So there's all kinds of just sexual morality, not just in the city of Corinth. Like, sure, that's to be expected, but it's in the church of Corinth. And then you get to chapter 11, and he's talking about the Lord's Supper. He says, but in the following instructions, I do not commend you, because when you come together, it is not for the better but for the worse. For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I believe it in part. So he's talking about their coming together as a church gathering to take communion, kind of like we're going to do today. And he's saying, it's not good. In fact, further on, he's like, it would be better if you didn't even meet. Like, you're messing this up so bad. So even in their church gatherings, they're just going about the Lord's Supper in a bad way. You get into chapter 12. That's kind of the famous talk of, you're the body of Christ and there's different parts in the body, and an eye can't see to an ear or a hand to a foot. He's saying, there's fractions among you because you have an arrogant attitude. You think you're better than different people. You're not united. You get into chapter 14, they have just chaos in their worship services, people speaking out of turn. There's just dysfunction and lack of order or disorderly worship. You get into chapter 15, you see there's false teaching about the resurrection. Like, there's just all kinds of problems going on in the church. And then you get to chapter 12 of Second Corinthians, and Paul just kind of comes out and says, I got a lot of concerns for you. He says, for I fear that perhaps when I come, I may find you not as I wish, and that you would find me not as you wish. That perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, disorder. This is what I'm afraid I'm going to find a bunch of people that are fighting with each other. There's disorder, there's conflict, there's jealousy, there's anger. And then further on, he says that I'm going to mourn over many of those who have sinned earlier and have not repented of their impurity, sexual morality, sensuality that they have practiced, that you haven't changed, that you're still practicing the same things. Like, I'm worried that he's going to find these things. But then there's this call to rejoice. Like, how do you get from, hey, I'm worried I'm going to come and find a bunch of unrepentant sinners that are just fighting with one another. However, guys, rejoice. There's good news for you. Broken, disunified, conflicting people. There's a place to turn. There's grace to be found. I'm calling you in to something good. And Paul wants something for them. And what we're going to see when we look in this text is he wants them to be unified. And he wants them to be unified for a very compelling reason. So as we close our time in this letter, I want to try to answer two questions. How do we have unity as a church? And why should we have unity as a church? And the second one's really important. Don't just think, well, yeah, unity is good, we should have it. No, what's our motivation for unity? So how do we have unity as a church? And why should we have unity as a church? And the answer might be different and more compelling than what you first think. I would assume that, that we all want a unified church. Is that a safe assumption? I don't think there's anybody that's like, I would love more fighting. That's entertaining, kind of, you know, that's life's dull. I'd like to see that. Like, we don't want that. Unity is not only a big deal, it's something we all aspire to. We look at it with like, yes, we want a church that loves one another, that gets along, that supports one another, that encourage one another. Like, we want to tighten it group. Like, we want that unity. The question is how? How do we have unity? Like real, deep life giving unity, or, or maybe to use a biblical term, fellowship. Like this partnership, this brotherhood, this sisterhood, this kind of family connection in our church. So before I go on, some audience participation, you might be awkward raising your hand in church, but I just want to sense a commonality in this room. Do we really want that? Okay, then let's lean into this text. In fact, let's pray together before we go even further. Father, we want to be a church that doesn't just meet in one room, one hour a week. We want to be a. A family together is your people. And we don't want surface unity. We want real unity. And we need your spirit for that. So I pray that as we look at this text, would you give us eyes to see what we need to see, convict where we need to be convicted, and ultimately lead us to be the type of church you're pleased with. We pray this in your name. All God's people said, all right, let's get after this verse 11. We're going to look at verses 11 through 14 to kind of close out this book. Here's what he says, finally. Brothers, rejoice, aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace. Now, let's stop there because this, especially through our cultural ears, can sound pretty fluffy, right? It can actually give us the wrong idea about unity and the wrong how to pursue unity. This sounds like at least the first read through, aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace. Like a first read through of this, it can kind of sound like, guys, just get along. Can everybody just get along? Just live at peace, just be nice to one another. Like, this is basic kindergarten stuff. Share your toys, don't overreact. Like, let's just get along. It kind of just this passive. At least at first it can seem like Paul's just kind of saying, guys, just. Can we just stop fighting, please? Can we just stop fighting? Just. Just get along. But that's not really what he's saying. However, that is often how we try to solve problems. Like, it doesn't matter if you disagree. It doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong. It doesn't matter what you're fighting about. Just be nice. Like, just, just get along, right? Like we, we've heard those kind of conflict resolutions. Like, let's just, let's just get along. And what gets peddled a lot is not unity, but tolerance. Let's just. Can you just tolerate each other now? Hear me, Tolerance has its place. Like, we live in a world that doesn't all believe the same things. And tolerance is an important aspect of getting along, showing civility with people that are different than us in our world. Like, tolerance definitely has its place. Place. But the church is called to something different. The church is called to something deeper, like this true fellowship that's not built on niceness to one Another, but on a shared commitment of following King Jesus in all of life and doing that, we find the unity that we're called for. So let's look closer at the phrases that we looked at in verse 11. Say, okay, what are you saying there? Because the way we hear it in our culture, it might be like, just give each other hugs and move on. But that's not what Paul's saying. So let's look at some of these phrases. Aim for restoration. That phrase means to be made complete or to put in order what is out of order. And they had a lot out of order. In fact, all of First Corinthians, all of two Corinthians is addressing all that they had out of order. So basically, this is a call to repent. He's saying, put in order. What's out of order? Fix what needs fixing. Make this your aim. Here's what you ought to aim for. Here's what you ought to shoot for. Here's what you ought to work on. Fix what needs fixing. I've addressed what needs fixing, now fix it. Make it your aim to deal with what you need to deal with. The unity that I'm calling you to, that Paul's calling them to is connected to a shared commitment to holiness. All of these things he's called them to. Now he's calling them be unified. But you're unified in this. In fact, you see this if you go back to 1 Corinthians 5, kind of that sin he calls out, where it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has his father's wife and you are arrogant. Ought you rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. And then you go down further to like. Verse 11, he says, but now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother, if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater or rivaler, drunkard or swindler, not even to eat with such one. It's like. That doesn't sound like unity language. For what have I to do judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom we are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. So he's saying, I'm not putting these standards on outsiders. Who am I to judge outsiders? They don't even believe what we believe. God can take care of that. But we are to judge those inside the church, Those who say or Claim the name brother. They claim to follow Jesus Christ. If they're claiming to follow Jesus Christ, then we hold them to a standard of following Jesus Christ. And if they refuse to follow Jesus Christ, practically purge the evil person from among you. So Paul is clearly advocating for their unity, but then back here, he's advocating that you actually kick some people out. So what's the connection? He's like, well, unity is sometimes going to involve dealing with the sin among you. Unity is going to involve either repentance or pruning. Unity is going to involve either repentance or pruning. Either you repent, you make it your aim for restoration, you fix what needs fixing, and then welcome to the family that's all struggling together to follow Christ, or we purge the evil person from among us. But our unity is not built on a tolerance of differences. Our unity is built on a similarity of commitment to honoring Christ in all of our life. And sometimes unity demands conflict, which sounds so counterintuitive from the way we're used to thinking of it. It's like unity. It's like, well, it's the avoidance of conflict. We just want everybody to get along. But. But unity, real biblical unity, is about more than just getting along. We'll see that more. So here's the next phrase that he says, comfort one another. Now we hear that and we think, hug it out. You guys have had conflict. Let's just hug it out. But that's not what he's saying. The word could also be translated beseech or exhort. In fact, some of you, in your translation, it may say, be encouraged. Has anybody got a translation that says be encouraged? Okay, a few of you, that word encouraged could also be translated exhort. So he could be saying, be exhorted. What Paul's trying to communicate is allow yourself to be corrected. Which is fitting because he's just spent the whole letter correcting them. So in the close here, he's saying, hey, make this the aim of your life, that you would fix what needs fixing and allow yourself to be corrected, receive the correction that he's been giving them. And we've all been there in those places where you're having a hard conversation with somebody and you're kind of pressing in on them and the walls go up and it's defensive and you're deflecting. And there's excuses like, that's never good for restoration. That's not a good sign. He's saying, don't be like that. I've challenged you. Receive it. I have your good in mind, like, be good soil. You want to grow some unity. Be good soil. Receive what I've said to you, take it and let's grow unity out of it. But you need to receive how you've been challenged. And Paul's saying he's left him a lot to deal with. Like he's been giving it to him, has he not throughout this letter. And if you read First Corinthians, which you said a few years ago, Paul's not pulling any punches, but he wants something for them. And he's saying here, receive it, receive it. What is crucial for our unity is being people who want to fix what needs fixing and, and are able to receive fixing instructions from others, right? Like we have this desire. I want to be a godly person. When somebody comes alongside and say, let me help you. What we're receptive to that. He's saying, allow yourself to be rebuked. The next phrase he says, agree with one another. Now this is where the unity or the type of unity that Paul's advocating for gets, gets clarified a bit more. Or the difference between what Paul's talking about and what the world is often talking about is different. Because in the world you don't have to agree with one another, just get along. In fact, it's built on not agreeing with one another. Like you don't have to agree with one another, just be nice to each other, just bear with one another, just tolerate one another, just kind of just get along. Like it's just, just based on niceness. But to the Church, it's different, in fact, because sometimes this doesn't get translated. Agree with one another, but be like minded or be of one mind. So what is crucial for unity, at least the type of unity that Paul is advocating for is an agreed upon truth. Like, we're unified because Christ is king and what he says is true. And when you think that, and I think that we're together in that, then we find a unity that we're built on. But it's not just built on a niceness or tolerance. It's built on this bond that we have the same king and the same aim in life to honor him in all things. You can't have that with people that don't see that. Like, you can have niceness, you can have tolerance. I'm not using tolerance as a bad thing. Like, yes, we tolerate people that are different than us. We have civility, we have, we have kindness. But you don't have this type of unity with somebody who doesn't see Christ as King and see the aim of their life, to please him in all things. But when Christ is king, and that is a shared aim of life, you have a bond that Paul's advocating for. So this is why he says, agree with one another. And then he says this, live in peace. And this isn't just the absence of conflict. Like, that is a very low bar for what peace really means. That's like a married couple that says, like, well, we never fight. It's like, you never talk, right? You never cuddle, you never laugh. You can't just celebrate the absence of conflict. There's a bigger vision of peace here. There's. It's talking about, like, a harmony between people. I'm not a musical person, but that the word harmony, like, that note sounds good with that note. Sometimes. A game we'd play on road trips, because everybody in my family can sing except me. Although we've discovered I'm amazing at my falsetto. Like, I can really. If I go boy band, I can usually hit the note. But, like, Marsh will sing a note or, like, okay, dad, try to match it. And I think I do. THEY all LAUGH. We don't sound well together. In fact, I've told you before, like, we would go, and sometimes we still do, like, to nursing homes around Christmas time to sing. We go around and sing to people. And I've been told to just watch. Just, like, greet people and then, like, play your role and step out. But we understand harmony. It's like, it sounds good together. So he's like, live at peace like you should. The way that you live should go well together. Like, you're in the same direction with the same purpose and the same passion. So there's a bigger vision of peace here. It's not just the absence of conflict, it's harmony between people. Well, how do people go well together? And some of you, you hear this, and your minds, you're going right to your relationship, you're going right to your marriage, which is fitting. Like, you feel like, okay, how do we go well together? Like, what's. What's the problem? Because it feels like, well, we don't fight a lot. But I don't know if it's like, harmony. And you might think, oh, we have a communication problem or we have a personality problem. It's like, well, you keep digging, you're gonna have a worship problem. Because here's the counsel that Paul gives for greater harmony. Aim in the same direction. Aim to fix what needs fixing. Aim for restoration. And restoration means bringing everything under the lordship of Jesus Christ and submit to and agree on the same authority. Like, you want to have greater harmony, not just in your church, but in your marriage and your relationships, then fix the aim of your life that we're pursuing. King Jesus, see his word as authority and submit to and agree with that. That's the how to the kind of unity that Paul wants here for them. And it's a deep unity. In fact, you'll see just how deep this unity is going. Look at verse 12. Everybody wants to go to verse 12 in this text. Verse 12. You see, you chuckled. Like, we haven't even read it yet. Some of you chuckled. Everybody's been like, I'm preaching this text. And be like, what are you going to do with verse 12? Are we going to bring back kissing? Like, they're eager for that or something. But it says this verse 12, greet one another with a holy kiss. People get a little freaked out about this. But, guys, this is a good reminder that Christianity did not start in America or in Germany. Okay? This isn't like, greet each other with a firm handshake, look each other in the eye, and then talk about the weather. Like, it's not like Christianity didn't start in those cultures. And some cultures express affection better than others. I was. I had the privilege of doing a wedding a couple weeks ago for some dear friends of ours. Some African family went down to Phoenix to do this wedding. And just different, different cultures. It was like me and maybe a few others were the only non Africans at the wedding. And afterwards at the reception, just talking, getting to know extended family and having a great time, and met one individual. He's a pastor as well. And we talked for a while, and we were kind of like, moving to different places at the time. And he's kind of bringing me along. And so he would hold my hand. Like, they would hold hands, hold my hand. Just like, okay. But he didn't let go. So we just held hands. It was super awkward. Like, I was feeling like, do I need to tell Marcy about this? I'm realizing I never did. This is the first time she's hearing about this. But me and another dude held hands for quite a while, but it was just like, it's my brother. And then there was this. I was like, oh, we're taking family pictures. Like, oh, this was like, oh, you're gonna stop holding my hand now. Like, go take your family pictures. But no, he pulls me. He's like, no, no, it's family pictures. He goes, I know you're family. Like, come take Pictures with this. And it's like. Which reminds me of verse 13, says, all the saints greet you. Like, when you are family, you are a part of a big family. Like all the saints. Like, if you make your life the aim of your life, King Jesus and you see his words as authority that you submit to. Welcome to the family. Like, you are a part. And I love how big God's family is. Like, you just, you're in this now. Even though this is a cultural example, it comes with a timeless principle or a cross cultural principle. We should show affection to one another like we should. If Christians have a type of unity that he's talking about in verse 11, then it should show. It should be evident. Now, one of the things that's really encouraging to me as a part of this church is kind of just being in the foyer and watching people interact. Because a lot of times in churches, I shouldn't say a lot, sometimes in churches you see like this formal niceness. But what I love here is like, people hug each other. You'll hear people that aren't related say, I love you. Like, you should experience that type of bond and fellowship. Like there should be. If we're really united like this, it should show, like, one of the things that I hope if people come to Veritas just to visit or come check us out, they should leave here. Even if they're like, I don't know if I believe everything they believe, but man, those people love each other. Like, that should just be evident, like, they're not a surface niceness. Because you can see that a lot of places. But like, we're in it together. Like, the aim of our life is in the same direction. We serve the same king. We put ourselves under his authority. Because here's the question that nobody asked in verse 12. They just get lost on the kiss. Why is it holy? Why is the kiss holy? Because we have been made holy. Our bond is in our holiness, that we care about holiness. We've been made holy by the work of Christ, positionally but practically we are in the pursuit of holiness. So the bond between people is like, you like holiness, I like holiness. Let's smooch it up. I mean metaphorically, like, we're in this together type of thing. And I hope people see that. Like, we're in this together. So doesn't that sound great? Now, some of you freaked out about the kids, but that type of the bonding, that type of unity, that type of brotherhood and sisterhood, is that not awesome? Like, we would want that, but unity? Hear Me now, unity itself is not the goal. Having brothers and sisters in Christ that support us and love us and encourage us is not the ultimate goal. Don't make unity the point. And you see that so often today. Unity becomes the point, the goal. It reminds me that when I was in elementary school, my grandparents took us on a vacation and we went to Disneyland. Which one's in Florida, Disneyland or Disney World? We went to Disney World, but Grandpa bought an rv, like a big rv. So as a kid, like, I'm not taking a driving shift. Like, I'm on a couch, there's a refrigerator. We're playing games. Like, the vacation started as soon as we back out of the driveway. Like, we're going, this is awesome. Like, I really enjoyed that trip. But we were going to Disney World. It wasn't just, everybody get in the RV and let's just drive around. That's different. That's like making the RV the point. The RV was great transportation to something better. You tracking with me on that. So when it comes to unity, what's unity ultimately about? It's enjoyable, but where does it lead? Why should we be motivated to fight for it, to pursue it? Because it's not easy. Not the kind of unity that Paul's talking about here. Not to, like, I'm going to call you out. We're going to aim for restoration. We're going to work to agree. We're going to. We're going to battle this out on holiness here. Why should we pursue that? Because that's hard. Just being nice is a lot easier. So why should we pursue this type of unity? Look at verse 11 again. Finally, brothers, rejoice, aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be what with you. There's this. Do this and get this. There's a connection. I'm calling you to this. I'm calling you to act like this. I'm calling you to behave this way. And guess what comes with that? The God of peace will be with you. Like, there's the presence of God being laid on this command. There's a promise to this. Guys, I'm calling you to fix what needs fixing. I'm calling you. Like, allow yourself to be rebuked and exhorted. Like, receive that. Agree with each other on the truth of God. Be in harmony with one another. I'm telling you, you're not going to regret it. You're going to experience the peace of God among you. He's promising the prayer and he doubles down on this too. Look at verse 14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. It's not just a nice closing. He's doubling down on the promise. And you get this trinitarian picture of unity and family that we get brought in on, okay? Now this isn't a message on the Trinity, but it's brought up here. And I want us to understand how important that is. Like God exists in perfect community. He doesn't create us because he needs us. Like out of the fellowship that already exists in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He creates us to be involved in that perfect fellowship. If God is not Trinity, if it's just like one, then he's alone. And in his aloneness he creates. Because that's how love works. Like, there's no one to love. There's no affection to spread. I need to create other people so my love can go out. God did not need to create us. He existed in perfect family, in unity before he created us. But out of the overflow of that, he created us and we get invited into that fellowship and family. Is that not awesome? So, guys, we love the idea of unity, but we often get it wrong. Real unity, biblical unity is about more than just people getting along. It's about people getting closer to God. There's a difference. There's a difference between man centered unity and God centered unity. Man centered unity is all about horizontal peace. But God centered unity is about vertical experience of the presence of God. This like the unity here, horizontally. That's nice. But if that's the goal, then we'll pull our punches and we'll just walk on eggshells. Like, don't upset anybody. When you see sin, look the other way. Don't rock the boat. Because our ultimate highest goal is just that, people get along. But if our ultimate highest goal is the presence of God, then we will fight for the type of unity that honors God and pursues God and invites the presence of God into our community. So if we make unity the goal, here's the paradox. We won't get it, like, ever. Either your idealistic version of it, nothing will live up to it, or you'll settle for just some shallow expression of it. But when we make the presence or closeness to God the community goal, we'll discover deep unity, right? Or you can put it this way. If you have a unity built on tolerance, we'll experience civility. We will. We'll experience civility. But if we have unity Built on truth, we'll experience God. There's the presence of God or a type of closeness to God that's experienced in community. You don't get it by yourself. In fact, there's a C.S. lewis quote. He says this talking about he had a friend that died. And he said, in each of my friends, there is something that some other friend can fully bring out. By myself, I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity. So he's saying, we have a group of friends, but the way I experience this person is connected to this person. And if this person's gone, that affects my experience. All of us community bring something different out of each other. So Matt is my friend, but there's a type of playful orneriness that only Caleb brings out. And if Caleb went away, I wouldn't experience that part of Matt. So in a community, like different people bring different stuff out of us. Like he says. I love how he puts it, I'm not large enough to call the whole man into activity. You know what that reminds me of? First Corinthians 12, you're all part of what, the body of Christ. And we're all just different parts of it. And we read 1st Corinthians 12 and we always apply it to ministry function. We all need to kind of play our part to function and do our ministry. But what he's talking about there, like, that's true. And church people to experience the closeness of presence of God, need each other. Like, I need you to experience God, you need me to experience God. Like, when we come together, there's a closeness to God that we don't get on our own. And Paul wanted the Corinthians to have a unity with one another built on mutual submission to God's truth in order to experience God's presence. Let me say that again. Paul wanted the Corinthians to have a unity with one another built on mutual submission to God's truth in order to experience God's presence. Or you can put it this way. The more all of you are close to God, the more all of you experience God, the more all of you are close to God, the more all of us are going to experience God. Or here's. If you're a note taker, here's what I want you to take home. Submit to God's truth together with God's people, to experience God's presence. Submit to God's truth together with God's people, to experience God's presence. But here's what it comes down to as a church. Do we really hunger and thirst for the presence of God? I want closeness with God. I want to know him more. Like, is that a desire of our heart or is what we really want? I just want a church that everyone gets along. I just want a church that's full and a lot of people attend. Like, I don't care so much if God is here as long as a lot of people are here. I don't really care if God's happy as long as all of us are happy. Because if that's the case, we'll never deal with sin. We won't fight for holiness. We won't purge evil people from among us. We won't call for repentance. And we will experience a facade of unity that is really more like worldly niceness than biblical unity. And the scary part of that is Paul attaches the presence to God with it. And if we function like that as a church, we miss out on God. We miss out on God. Listen, we are not interested in just getting along. We're not. We're not interested one bit in just how do we keep a bunch of people getting along? It's not our goal. It's not our goal at all. We want to experience the presence of God among us. We want to be bonded together with a shared passion to honor King Jesus, to fix what needs fixing, to bring our lives under his truth. Because. Because we know where it leads. Closer to God, a greater experience of God. So let me say something that could sound really selfish, but I'm going to say something that any other genuine believer in this room could say. I'm just going to say it because I have the microphone, okay? But what I'm saying could be and should be said by every other genuine believer, this church. I want to really experience God. Like, I want to know him like, before he returns or brings me home. I want as much closeness to his power and his holiness as possible. And I need your help because I can't do that on my own. I need you to bring everything you have to the table. I need you to be fully committed to our King. I need you to repent of your sin because in your holiness, I experience more of his holiness. And in my holiness, you'll experience more his holiness. We need each other in that. And you know what's awesome about this text? Do you notice how Paul doesn't give up on them? Like, if you read 1st and 2nd Corinthians and then you get to the end and he's like, finally, brothers. Excuse me, brothers. Rejoice because grace is a part of Christian community. It's like we've all blown it in different ways, but Paul's saying, yeah, but change the aim of your life. Grace is sufficient for you. You know why there's good news for sinners? Because repentance is possible. Whatever you're doing, whatever you're at, whatever you. The call applies. Come here. Come to Christ. Rejoice, because repentance is possible and his grace is sufficient for you. And when you do, despite all your brokenness, throughout this letter, when you do, all the saints greet you. You're part of this family. So for those of us that crave to know this God, to be closer to this God, this God who would send his Son to die on the cross for us, who's patient with us and bears with us and redeems us, who's holy beyond what we can comprehend, for those of us in this room, that's like, I want more than anything to know this God. I want us to end our time taking communion together. Because normally we give you some time to examine yourself, as Paul instructs to do, and when you're ready to take it. But we're going to do it together to represent. This is our unity. Like, this is what our unity is based on. So if you picked up a cup, I want you to pull it out. Our unity is not found in just being nice to each other. Our unity is not built on any kind of superficial kindness. Our unity is found in a shared purpose and desire to follow King Jesus in all life. And that's possible because he first loved us. And anybody in this room that says, I want to know God through His Son, Jesus Christ, we can say that because God is going to work in us. And he made that possible through the cross of Christ. So I want you to take a little bit of time, bow your heads, take some inventory, and then we'll take it together. It on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he was with his followers and he took some bread and he broke it. He said, this is my body that's offered up for you. Take, eat in remembrance of me. Let's take the bread together. That same night, he took the cup. He said, this is the cup of new covenant of my blood which is shed for you. Let's take this together and church, hold up your cups for a second. Let's rejoice because God's grace is sufficient. Let's rejoice because repentance is possible. And let's rejoice that because of Jesus Christ, anyone who turns from their sins is met with the patience and forgiveness and mercy of Jesus Christ. And as we pursue to honor Christ in all of our life, we'll find each other. And when we find each other in that way, we'll find a greater experience of God. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I pray that our reflection of your work on the cross and the possibility of repentance that's extended to us would indeed stir up rejoicing in this room, that because of Christ, we get redeemed back to you. I pray that we would have a passion to know you more. And in that passion, we would discover a deep unity with other people that share that same passion. And in that deep unity, we would have a community that shares that passion to know you. And in that community, we would just know you all the more. We pray this in your name. Amen.