Sunday Setup – 2 Corinthians 13

[music] [music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] >> Hey, Cross Church family and welcome to the Sunday setup. This is our time each week where we digitally gather Thursdays at 2:00 to pray through scripture that we are going to be studying this week. We want to pray through this so that we can preach it, that we can praise it on Sunday and practice it throughout our week. But today we are going to be in 2 Corinthians chapter 13. And this is actually the last sermon in 2 Corinthians and wraps up our series as we started early this year in 1 Corinthians and moved on to second Corinthians. And Paul as he closes out his letter, his final letter to the Corinthian church, he just gives this this warnings but also these exhortations, these encouragements of what God is ultimately doing in their church and beyond. And we read in chapter 13 starting in verse one. This is what the Apostle Paul writes. He says, "This is the third time I'm coming to you. Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses." He says, "I gave a warning when I was present the second time, and now I give a warning while I'm absent to those who sin before and to all the rest. If I come again, I will not be lenient. Since you seek proof of Christ speaking in me, he is not weak in dealing with you, but powerful among you. For he, being Jesus Christ, was crucified in weakness, but he lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you, we will live with him by God's [music] power. Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you unless you fail the test? And I hope you will recognize that we ourselves do not fail the [music] test. But we pray to God that you do nothing wrong. Not that we may appear to pass the test, but that you may do what is right, even though we may appear to fail. For we can't do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. When we rejoice, we are weak and you are strong. We also pray that you become fully mature. This is why I'm writing these things while absent. So that when I am there, I may not have to deal harshly with you in keeping with the authority the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down. Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice, become mature, be encouraged, be of the same mind, be at peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. [music] All the saints send you greetings. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Paul in closing this out gives some stern warnings to the church of things that he has been constantly pushing them towards. But he also gives some encouragement of ultimately what God is still doing and how God is still moving. And in the second half of this after he talks about testing to make sure we are in the right path going down there [snorts] he he gets into this kind of this last three verses and it's just filled with rejoicing and this encouragement and this unity and all centered around how amazing our God is. And here he just stops in verse 11. He says rejoice. And I I want us to start this time of as we think about all that we've encountered through this series and through this year and through both of these letters is we rejoice that our God is so amazing. And that's our first prayer prompt is God I rejoice that God I rejoice that you are the creator of the universe. God I rejoice that you are my savior. God I rejoice that you are the prince of peace. God, I rejoice that. Spend some time. You could spend hours in this prayer prompt, but God, I rejoice that. Pray those prayers to our father. [music] [music] Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> God, we rejoice that you are holy. God, we rejoice that you are graceful. God, we rejoice that you [music] are powerful. God, we rejoice that you have given us everything we need. God, that it is not by our power, but is by yours. It is not by our strength, but in our weakness, your strength shows up and you show us a better [music] life and a better path. God, we know you hear these prayers of worship, of rejoicing for you. But God, you don't tell us to stop there. Instead, when we rejoice for all you've done for us, it continues in our prayer and where it leads us. And in verse 11, after he tells the brothers and sisters to rejoice, he says, "Become mature." And this maturity, he says, "Be encouraged, be of the same mind, be at peace, have the love of God, the peace of God with us." But there's something to this idea of being mature. And when we recognize how great our God is, it should lead us down in a path of maturity, a path of sanctification, of becoming more like him. So here's our next prayer prompt is God, help me be more mature in God, help me be me more mature in maybe it's my prayer life, more mature in seeking your word. more mature in applying grace, applying love of forgiving those around you is God help me be more mature in pray those to [music] our God. [music] Heat. [music] [music] Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] >> God, help me be more mature [music] in turning to you when times are tough. Lord, in stressful situations and hard situations, often we want to do things on our own. But maturity is finding where true deliverance through power comes from, and that is you and you alone. God, hear these prayers as we just [music] ask you to give us the strength to push us down the right path to make us the the men and women that you desire us to be. And Lord, that we can just [music] fully embrace a spirit of rejoicing for you and becoming more mature after you. And God, just as we close [music] this time, as we prepare our hearts, we set up our lives for what you are doing through your word and through your church. Lord, we just pray to close this the same way that Paul uh closes his letter is God, we just ask that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that the love of our God, the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, it be with us all as we go through our week. Lord, thank you. And we lift all this up [music] in the almighty God of the universe, the one we call Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you guys for joining us today. We'll see you Sunday. [music] [music] >> [music]