Practicing Our Faith

2 Corinthians 13:1-10; 11-13

This is now the final sermon in a series I’ve been preaching on 2 Corinthians.  I’ve noted before that in 1 Corinthians, Paul is concerned about the fact that the Corinthian church had lost their focus on Jesus Christ, and he endeavors to bring them back to their center.  In 2 Corinthians, Paul is more concerned with how they act on their faith, and he urges them to be ambassadors for Christ. 

He calls on the Corinthians to act on their faith in concrete ways.  For example, we looked at the passage a few weeks ago where he urges them to keep their promise to financially help the suffering people in Jerusalem, because a whole year has gone by since they made their pledge to help and they haven’t lifted a finger.  He’s worried about their inaction, because Paul knows that if you don’t act on your faith, it will dry up on you. 

In fact, this whole book is a book about putting our faith into action, on practicing our faith.  It’s a book that’s particularly relevant to our church at this time – the final report of our Long Range Planning Team which was distributed earlier this year states that discipleship is an area that should be emphasized in our congregation.  In other words, we need to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

Christian faith is like our bodies – it needs to be used to stay healthy.  It’s funny -  you would think the best way to preserve your body is to continually rest it in order to protect it from injury and overuse.  But if a body lies in bed all the time, it will get bed sores and blood clots.  We need to exercise our bodies for them to work properly. 

It’s the same with our brains – the human brain needs to be used to stay healthy, and when you don’t use it, it becomes weaker.  I noticed this fact this past week – I was helping my daughter with some trigonometry homework.  Now, I haven’t done trigonometry in over 30 years.  It felt like starting up an engine with a weak battery on a cold morning.  Eventually, after much sputtering, my math brain started up again.  It’s true – you lose it if you don’t use it.

Even a car is meant to be used.  I once heard that during WWII some people didn’t use their cars for a whole year at a time because of gas rationing.  What happens to a car that sits for that long without being used?  Well, the fluids start to settle, which is not good for the engine.  Furthermore, if the car is not put up on blocks, then the tires become flattened on one side, and you’re in for a bumpy ride when you try driving it again.  A car runs best when it is both taken care of and used regularly.

Paul is saying the same thing about Christian faith – our faith is meant to be used, to be acted on, to be practiced, otherwise, it will atrophy.

Barack Obama, in his book The Audacity of Hope, makes the same point when talking about empathy:  “Of course, in the end a sense of mutual understanding isn’t enough.  After all, talk is cheap; like any value, empathy must be acted upon.  When I was a community organizer back in the eighties, I would often challenge neighborhood leaders by asking them where they put their time, energy, and money.  Those are the true tests of what we value, I’d tell them, regardless of what we like to tell ourselves.  If we aren’t willing to pay a price for our values, if we aren’t willing to make sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.”[1] 

So Paul strongly urges the Corinthians to put their faith in action.  And then he closes his letter with a number of imperatives.

  First, in v. 11 he says “farewell.”  Notice that there’s a footnote next to that word in your pew Bibles.  Footnote r says “Or rejoice.”  I think that’s a better translation, because the Greek word comes from the root word charis, meaning joy.  He wants the Corinthians to remember the joy and grace that God has given them.

Secondly, he says to put things in order.  Literally, he’s saying, “Be restored.”  He wants the Corinthians to work hard to be restored with both God and with each other.  Again, he wants the Corinthians to act on their faith, to repent of their mistakes and to restore relationships.  

The third thing he says is, “listen to my appeal.”  Again, there’s a footnote that says, “Or encourage one another.”  That’s a much better translation because the Greek word Paul uses is parakaleo. 

Paul started this book with that word (I preached a whole sermon on this back in January).  The word means “to call or to come alongside.”  Marva Dawn says it means “to summon us together to be beside one another, to invite or encourage each other by partnering with the other.”[2]  So it can also be translated “encouragement” or “comfort.”

In C. 1, Paul talks about the God of all encouragement who comes alongside of us in our affliction, so that we may be able to come alongside/encourage others.  Paul uses this word 10 times in one paragraph to start the book.  But now he puts the word by itself in the imperative: be encouraged.  He’s telling the Corinthians to encourage one another, to find a way of coming alongside others.  He urges each of them to be an encourager.

Next, he tells them to agree with one another (literally to “think the same thing”).  The Corinthians certainly need to hear that because they are such an argumentative lot.  One commentator believes that Paul is concerned that they be teammates, that they work together toward common goals, because they can do so much more working together than by working alone.

Finally, Paul’s last piece of advice for the Corinthians – live in peace.  The Greek word used means simply absence of conflict, but Paul being a Jew most probably has the great Hebrew word shalom in mind here.  Shalom means peace, but it also means “health, wealth, fulfillment, satisfaction, contentment, wholeness,”[3] salvation.

To live in peace means first that you need the absence of conflict.  The Corinthians love to argue, and they need to learn to stop fighting.  True peace always starts with stopping the fighting.

But to live in peace also means to trust in the salvation and wholeness we have in Jesus Christ.  We can stay encouraged because we know that Jesus has promised to stay alongside us even in the midst of life’s afflictions. 

And third, to live in peace means to trust that God will bring everything into fulfillment.  You’ve probably heard the expression, “We don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future.”   That knowledge allows us to relax, knowing that everything is ultimately in God’s hands, and that God will perfect his creation in the end.    

Finally, Paul ends his book with the benediction that we use here every week.  If you’ve ever wondered where it comes from, now you know – it comes from the end of 2 Corinthians: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion (or fellowship – koinonia) of the Holy Spirit be with you all.  A great way to end our worship service.  And today, a great way to end a sermon series. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.  Amen.