Can faith grow through moments of uncertainty and doubt?
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The Final Exam, 1 of 1 from December 28, 2025
“Our true beliefs are seen in how we live.”
2 Corinthians 13 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon concludes a year-long study of 2 Corinthians with chapter 13, where Paul urges the Corinthians to assess their faith's authenticity. It stresses that true Christian faith is shown through actions, not just words. Paul addresses the impact of manipulative teachers, defending his authority and the believers' genuine faith in Jesus. The sermon encourages testing one's faith, questioning trust in Jesus for both eternal salvation and daily living. It ends with a call for restoration, community affection, and the realization that Christ's power is evident in our weakness and reliance on Him.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 Whose definition of power motivates our lives?
💬 Are we trusting Jesus for eternal salvation and hourly living?
💬 How does our relationship with other people reflect our relationship with God?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
🗃️ Outline
📖 CORRECTION (2 Corinthians 13:1-4)
📖 REFLECTION (2 Corinthians 13:5-9)
📖 RESTORATION (2 Corinthians 13:9-14)
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Hey, good morning, church.
Good morning. Welcome to our neighbors. I'm glad to be together with you. This looks like we're starting a new sermon series, but we're not. So what we're gonna do today is we're gonna finish a project that we've been working on all year long.
So Almost all of 2025, we've been in and out of Second Corinthians. We have one more chapter to do. And so as this is the last Sunday of the year, it seemed appropriate to do the last chapter of the book. And I think it's really, really cool, and I'm excited about it. But let me just ask you, have you.
Have you ever, like, been talking with somebody? I don't know if it's a negotiation or something like that, and they have just, like, made all of these promises and told you all this stuff about how things are so good and, like, this is the thing. And you're like, oh, well, if it's that good, like, I want to be a part of it. And then you, like, sign off on, like, doing the thing that they're asking you to do, and you get involved, and then you're like, wait a second. This is not anything like they said it was gonna be.
Like, they were just talking. Like, they just said whatever it is that they thought I wanted to hear in order to get me to sign off to participate so that I would sign off to participate. And it's none of the things that they said it was gonna be like, the actual. Has anybody had that experience? Okay, there's a couple of us.
It's okay for the rest of us. Sometimes people lie.
Sometimes people lie to get you to agree to do something that they want you to do that maybe you wouldn't have done if you knew the truth. Okay. And we find ourselves in those kind of situations. Sometimes people are just talk. Because it's a whole lot easier to take a millisecond selfie, perfect selfie, to post on social media than it is to, like, actually be kind to people all week long.
Right? You can. You can take a snapshot and you can curate and you can tell people about how your life is going in photographs. But that's actually much easier to control than, like, actually being a kind or a nice person who smiles at people. Like, you don't smile at every stranger who looks at your Facebook page.
That. That would be a lot of smiling. Right. But we can take that picture and post it. So the question that I kind of want to wrestle with with this final exam, this last chapter in Second Corinthians, is, like, what counts if we say that we trust the Bible, we believe the Bible.
And the thing that the Bible tells us to do is to believe things about Jesus and say things about Jesus. Does it matter what we say? Yes. But does it only matter what we say? Or does it matter that we actually walk out the things that we say?
And how would we know? So that's kind of the test as we're starting this morning. I'm going to invite you to pray with me. It's our habit to pray the disciples prayer. And so if you're not familiar with it or you're not familiar with this translation, the words are up here on the screen.
But more important than, like, the words and saying the right thing, what Jesus asked us to do in praying this prayer is to, like, look at our hearts. And so as we pray, our Father in heaven do we realize who we're talking to as we ask for his will to be done? Are we trying to figure out how we can manipulate him to do our will? Or are we saying, no, I trust you to do your will? So we'll just take a moment before we start, and let's take a deep breath together.
And as we say these words, would you pray this prayer in your heart?
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen. If you would navigate with me to the book of 2 Corinthians and chapter 13 specifically, this is the conclusion of a long letter, and I could tell you everything it says. But we're going to be here a while. So what I'd like to do is read a couple of verses out of the chapter, and then I'll go back and explain some things so that we can kind of catch up. But we are kind of jumping in at the conclusion.
This is like the final thing I have to say. And so if you haven't been tracking with us yet, it's going to seem kind of jarring, but let's read it so that we have the words, and then we'll go back and kind of explain what we're doing. So, Second Corinthians, chapter 13, if you're using these blue Bibles, is on page 12, 10, 1210. In the blue Bibles, starting in verse one, it says this. This is the third time I am coming to you.
Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warned them now, while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again, I will not spare them. Since you seek proof that Christ is speaking in me, he is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God, for we also are weak in him.
But in dealing with you, we will live with him by the power of God. So we'll pause there. There's kind of a lot to chew on there. Now, if you're not super familiar with the Bible, sometimes we think of it like a book of rules or like an instruction manual or something like that. But I actually tend to think of the Bible as like a library.
So there's a bunch of different books that are all kind of on the same shelf. We bind all those books into the same book and call that the Bibles. It's like a library of different books. And many of the books that are in what we call the New Testament are. Are actually letters.
So they're written by somebody to somebody else. They're letters. And those letters are often written to a community. And 2 Corinthians is like that. This letter was written by the Apostle Paul, the guy who started the church in Corinth, to Corinth, trying to, like, mediate a conflict.
There's been a conflict going on. And if you've been with us, this will look familiar to you. But if you're new, this will help us out. So there's kind of three parties that are. That are in this conflict.
The first is the Apostle Paul. He's the old guy with the beard. And he started the church in Corinth. But as he started that church and preached to them about Jesus, he got them set up, and then he traveled on to start churches in other places. And so.
But Corinth I have symbolized with these casino gamblers. They're like the city itself, culturally, is really, really wealthy and also known for having, like, really, really loose morals. So when I think of the city of Corinth, the ancient city of Corinth, I think of like, Las Vegas or Amsterdam. Like, if you're into it, you can probably find it in Corinth. And so Paul travels to a city like Las Vegas, preaches the gospel of Jesus, and starts a church there, which is super duper awesome.
But then he moves on to start other churches and other places. And as he leaves, there's some other people that come in. And I call them like the influen influencers. They. They come in and they're like, oh, well, Paul has started this group of people, and they get together once a week and they have somebody get up and talk.
And like, if I get up and talk, then maybe I can convince them to give me their money. And so these people kind of come into the church with bad motives. And as they come in, they're trying to undermine Paul's authority, and they're trying to cause division between Paul and the people. But more than that, they're undermining their faith in Jesus. Like, the practice of their.
Of their faith is been gone by the side, gone by the wayside. And that's actually the thing that Paul is more concerned about as we've seen throughout this letter, he's not just like, I want us to get along. I want you to like me. Let's all be friends. He's like, I want you to love Jesus and the way that you are expressing your love for Jesus by being manipulative and condescending and arrogant and boastful.
That's not Jesus. That's not who I introduced you to, and that's not how he wants you to walk. And so I'm writing to correct this. So here in chapter 13, he's closing everything up and he says, this is the third time I'm coming to you, so I'm gonna come visit. I'm writing this letter, I'm sending it ahead of me, and I'm gonna follow it.
I'm gonna come and I'm gonna be present with you. And when I get there, we're going to deal with this conflict. This conflict is going to be resolved. I'm not gonna come, and we're kind of gonna hug and smile like it's Thanksgiving and kind of avoid the issue. And then I'm gon going to go your way and nothing's going to get resolved.
When I come, we're going to deal with the problem. And he's. He's citing a scriptural legal standard. So in the Old Testament, if you were going to make an accusation against somebody, you had to actually have witnesses. You can't just, like, make an accusation.
You had to have witnesses that saw the conflict. And so he's citing this, citing this standard. And I think that he's leveling it up because he says every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warned them now, while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again, I will not spare them. So he's saying, look, I've been really, really patient with you.
I've come, I visited, we've talked, I've given you instructions, but you have not changed. You've not taken any of the instructions that I've given you. And so when I come again, something's going to be different. We're going to deal with the issue. Then you maybe have interpreted my patience as weakness.
But I have tried to rebuke you privately. But when I come this next time, I'm gonna take this private rebuke and I'm gonna make it like a public trial. We're gonna deal with this out in the open. Everybody's gonna see it. I'M gonna bring the laundry out because you refused to wash it.
And then we're gonna ask everybody whose laundry this is. And I've got two or three witnesses. He sent Timothy and he sent Titus, both to deal with these. These. Both to hear and see what's going on in these churches.
And he's even come personally and had personal investigations as to what's going on. So he's like, I have the evidence to make my case that you are being unfaithful to Jesus.
And I think he's as he's talking about that, he's also hinting, like, by the way, how many. How many witnesses can you call as witness against me? Like, I'm going to come, I'm going to bring my witnesses. We're going to start this trial. But, like, are you coming ready for court?
You're saying that I've been boastful. You're saying that I've been arrogant. You're saying that I've taken advantage of you. Where's the record? Show me the evidence.
Because I'm bringing evidence that what I'm saying is true. Now you're like, okay, well, that's fine. Like, what if you make a false accusation? Nbd, the case gets dismissed. It gets thrown out.
No, in Roman law, if you bring a false accusation against somebody and it's demonstrated in court that your suit was unlawful, they actually, whatever charges you were pushing against somebody would be applied back to you. So if I'm suing you for $20,000 and it's discovered that I was lying about that, then I now owe you $20,000. So the stakes are higher, I think, in their court system. And, I don't know, maybe we have something to learn from that that might simplify the legal system a little bit.
So he's saying, look, I've been slow. I have listened to you, I've heard your side. I have been quick to listen. I have been slow to speak. I have been slow to anger.
But there is a time where you just have to make the change. And he says the standard for truth is God's word by Jesus work. He says in verse three, since you seek proof that Christ is speaking in me, you're looking for proof. But He Jesus is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. I know that Jesus is dealing in your hearts.
For He, Jesus, was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him. But in dealing with you, we will live with him by the power of God. He said, my standard for truth, my measure for whether I'm behaving appropriately towards you is not what you like. It's not what I would prefer to do.
It is what Christ has commanded for me to do. I'm behaving to you the way that Jesus has asked me to do. And he is the standard. Like what? So the picture that he's painting is one of Jesus, almighty creator of heaven and earth, allowing himself to be put under trial under false pretenses, allow people to accuse him, allow him to be crucified.
Like that looks weak. If you had the power to overcome the guy who was going to beat you up, don't you think you would just do that? Like, why would you submit yourself not only to a beating, but also to a crucifixion? And that was the example that Christ gave. It says, christ is not weak in dealing with you, but his power is demonstrated by his resurrection, not by his vengeance.
Here's the deal. Jesus is working most in us when we are most dependent on Him.
Jesus is working most in us when we are most dependent on Him.
The Corinthians are saying, look, Paul, you're a nice guy, but you're not really eloquent. You don't speak very well. And these influencers that we're listening to, they're just so sharp, they're so witty, they're so funny. They, like, cut you down, they're loud, they keep our attention, they keep us awake. And you're just not that guy.
And he's like, that's fine. You may think that I'm weak. You may think that I'm slow. You may think that I stutter, but in my weakness, Christ is showing Himself strong. And when I show up, and when we deal with this, when everybody's at the table and we deal with this, you'll see what it is that Christ has been doing in your hearts to correct what's broken in you.
Jesus is working most in us when we are dependent on Him. That's why we read from just a couple of verses before his grace is sufficient. And we are strong when we are weak, because Christ shows His strength through our weakness. Jesus himself teaches in John 15 that the way that our life actually works, the way that we actually have a fruitful life, is when we abide in him, when we depend on him, when we draw our life from Him. So the question, I think, is, whose definition of power motivates our lives?
Whose definition of control is the motivator of life? There are some of us who like personality wise, the way that we thrive is when we are the person who is in control. The things that need to happen are going to happen because I'm the one that's in charge. And there's some of us, personality wise are like, I feel most empowered when other people are taking care of me and somebody else is in charge and I can just kind of help. Right?
Whose definition of power and control are actually the things that are motivating our lives? Is it, I gotta get up and do the grind because the grind is there? Or is it Christ has given me life and invited me into doing good work in the world?
I think the big idea is this. Our true beliefs are seen in how we live. He said, through all the talk, your super apostles, your influencers, they've been talking a big talk and you've been talking a big talk about how you guys got it all together. But when I show up, the thing that we're going to see is how you actually are living it out.
And your beliefs, our true beliefs, are seen in how we live. Read a couple more verses here.
Verse 5.
Examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail to meet the test. I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to God that you may not do wrong.
Not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. We'll pause there.
He says, here's the test. Here's the final test. What I'd like for you to do, Corinth, I'd like for you to examine yourself. I'd like for you to test yourself. Here's the deal.
This is why I don't do math. Third grade. In third grade, I lost my relationship with Numbers because I tested myself. So we had these, like, quizzes in third grade for multiplication tables, and we were supposed to memorize the multiplication tables and then do the quizzes. But we were testing ourselves and then we were grading ourselves.
And so what little third grade Michael did is he would sit with the quiz with the multiplication tables and stare at them real hard and act like he was writing while everybody else was writing. And then when they were done with the quiz, they would go over the answers. And then little third grade Michael would write down all the right answers because the teacher's just telling them right. And that is why I like Numbers don't stay in my head. I don't know my multiplication tables.
I am dependent on a calculator because I examined myself and I graded myself.
Don't do that.
He says, hey, Corinth, what I'd like for you to do is I would like for you to examine yourself. You have some big questions to ask. Are you in the faith? You call yourself a Christian. You have taken that title, but do you realize that Christian means little Christ?
You are a miniature mock up version of who Jesus is. If you call yourself a Christian Christian, do you realize that term was actually meant to be derogatory, like it was a joke? These little Jesuses running around like outsiders used the term Christian as a teasing name. I can't think of the right word. It was a slam from outsiders and they're like, yeah, yeah, that's actually a great picture.
We're going to use that. That's going to be us. We're little Jesuses. That's what we're trying to be. Are you in the faith?
And is Jesus living in you?
How do you know if Jesus is living in you? The follow up question in verse six is, are you doing what's right?
Examine yourselves, Test yourselves. Are we trusting Jesus for eternal salvation and are we trusting Jesus for hourly living? Because the two are inseparable. You cannot trust Jesus to save your eternal soul someday in the future when your thread is cut and now you're standing before, standing before a holy God unless you are also trusting him hourly to lead you in how to live. And probably less than hourly, moment by moment.
But there was no one word for just moment by moment. So I went with hourly.
Think about it. Reflect on it. Are you in the faith? Is Jesus living in you? You ever just like stand on a body of water and look out and go, like, I'm real small.
Ever, like, been in the ocean when it's just a little bit too strong for you to be swimming in the ocean? You're like, I am very small. This is just water moving around and it could kill me.
Do we stand at the ocean of the eternal almighty Creator God and ask the question, like, do I belong to you or am I still worshiping and living for myself?
Michael, that's not really healthy. Like, we're Christians. We're supposed to be like strong in our faith. Of course. Like, I came to church on Sunday morning.
I even combed my hair. Like, of course I'm in the faith. I'm right here. Where else would I be? Like, I'm doing the right thing.
I'm here. I'm singing the songs, I'm raising my hand. I'm here. This is not enough. Like, coming to a church doesn't make you a Christian any more than like standing in a garage makes you a car.
It's not a thing that happens.
Being a Christian is not like the family that you're born into. It's not inherited. Your grandmother's faith is not sufficient to save you.
And so however it is that you grew up, whether you had a faithful family or not. Faithful family, like, the question that you have to answer for yourself is, am I in the faith? Am I a little Christ? Is the God of the universe living in my soul and renovating me, or am I just really, really comfortable with my sin? I feel a little bit guilty about it when the preacher points it out on Sunday morning, but like most of the week, I'm okay.
Michael, you're making me uncomfortable. I don't want to think about that. I don't want to doubt.
Doubt may be a signal of weak faith, friends, but doubt is necessary to build faith.
Doubt is not the enemy. If you never have a doubt about your relationship with Jesus and your position in Christ, I really have some concerns about the legitimacy of your faith. If you just. Well, preacher said it one time and I went forward and that's the last time I thought about it. I got my ticket to heaven and I'm good to go.
I'm concerned for you.
It's not about a one time decision that I knelt down and I prayed a prayer and they said I was good. It's. Did that prayer, did that moment of surrender begin completely renovating the way that my heart works, the way that my soul takes nourishment, the way that my mind processes the world that I see?
Question. Ask the question. Have I surrendered my soul? Surrendered my heart? Surrendered my life to Jesus?
Are we trusting Jesus for eternal salvation and hourly living? Doubt it. Wrestle with it. Ask people to examine you as you examine yourself. Why would you tell me to do that, Michael?
That sounds like I'm going to end up in some kind of existential spiral, like I don't even know what the meaning of reality is anymore. And okay, that's fine. But that bit, that disorientation that you feel is necessary to grow your faith, because if you don't ever push against your faith when somebody else does, it'll fall over if you don't Ever kick the tires on whether or not you actually believe this Jesus thing? Then the world's gonna kick you in the groin and walk away.
Because the day may come where we're not allowed to do this. The day may come where I cannot put a microphone on and say these words to you in a room this size. The day may come where we have to whisper the truths that we hold most dear.
We cannot take for granted that our practice is always going to be like this and that our faith is always going to be in these spaces. If the world opposed and crushed Jesus at the first opportunity that he allows them, they will crush us, too. And in that day, when it costs you something to spend time at church, when it costs you something to be identified with people who identify as Christians, as little Christs, what will this test be? Then?
Examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? He thinks Jesus is in them. He's confident that Jesus is in them.
And he's still asking them to ask the question.
Unless indeed you fail to meet the test. I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. I hope that as you pray about it, you don't see that we are the ones that failed. But I'm not concerned about what you think about us. But we pray to God that you may not do wrong.
I don't want you to have this false practice, not that we may appear to have met the test. I don't want you to do what's right so that I look good as your pastor. It's not about whether or not I have done my job in planting this church well. Paul said says, not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. I hope that you have much, much better teachers, much, much better preachers, much, much better pastors over the course of your life than me.
But more than that, I hope that your faith is not in your pastors and not in your leaders and not in your teachers, that your faith is in Jesus. He's the one who's going to shepherd your soul from this life into the next. And if you put your faith in the church, if you put your faith in a preacher, if you put your faith in a teacher or some kind of a mentor, if you put your faith in a YouTube channel, if you put your faith in some kind of a book, somewhere like it will fall. There is nothing that can sustain you except For Jesus.
So he says, hey, keep your eyes on your own paper.
When it comes test time, like, I suddenly want to compare myself to the person next to me. And Paul's like, hey, hey, don't do that. I'm asking you to test yourself. Don't use what my apparent failure is as an excuse for you not to try. Do well even when everyone else fails.
If every other Christian in the American church walks away and burns their Bibles, you hold yours steady. If every other pastor, God forbid, and every other church falls and sins morally, that does not give me permission to do the same.
Our evaluation is not whether or not we're better than the person next to us. It's whether or not we are who Christ is making us to be.
Our faith is not in the book, but it's a living faith. The Word, the person of Jesus. We don't trust a book. We trust a person. We don't talk to the book.
This would be weird, but we pray to Jesus every Sunday. We invite him in, and we host a party. This is a celebration of the work that he's done. We don't just talk into the air and hope the universe hears it. He is present in the room hearing our prayers and the thoughts of our hearts while.
While we're here, while we're there, while we're anywhere.
And the final exam of our faith will be graded by the one who knows all things. And there's not going to be a curve.
You know curves? Like, remember in school where, like, if the whole class did poorly, the teacher assumed they did a bad job and they graded on a curve and everybody got bonus credits? There's no curve. You know what ruins a curve? That one smart kid that did great on the test.
You know who ruins the curve for us? Freaking Jesus, Creator of the universe. Like, He. He was tempted in every way possible. He was tempted with every lust.
He was tempted with every opportunity to be greedy. He was tempted at every opportunity to manipulate and take advantage of the people around him. And he was without sin, there's no grade. He's messed up the test. We either let him take it for us or we fail.
Are we trusting Jesus for eternal salvation and hourly living because our true beliefs are seen in how we live?
A couple more verses here. Let's start in verse nine again.
For we're glad when we're weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. For this reason I write these things while I'm away from you, that when I come, I may not have to be severe in the use of my authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down. 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 with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. So he says his goal the whole time has been their restoration. I want you to be restored to a living and active faith in Jesus. And I'm writing to you now and I'm saying these things to you now so that when I get there, I don't have to be heavy handed with you, that we can be reconciled and we can move forward together.
Oftentimes reconciliation requires a mediator. And it's interesting if you're kind of reading in between the lines here. He's assuming that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are doing the work of mediating while they're apart. And he's using that letter. He's using this letter to prime the pump for the Holy Spirit, to use these words to bring reconciliation there.
But you know what's crazy? The Holy Spirit is using the words of this letter to bring reconciliation between us and our Savior today and us. And that person who came to mind when I started talking about conflict and unresolved anger, the Holy Spirit still uses the word of God in the people of God to do the will of God. I think that's neat. Maybe it's just me, but he says strong rebuke and correction should only be done to make the other person better.
He says, I have the authority to tear you down, but my authority is for the purpose of building you up. There's another church in our fellowship in Port Richey. And the way that they articulate their mission is to rescue and to renovate. Rescue and renovate. They reach the lost and then there's a renovation that happens.
There's a restoration. Like when you go to renovate a house, you got to break some things first, but the breaking is so that it can be rebuilt. The tearing down is for the building up and the making stronger. And so when you're tempted to rebuke somebody, it happens to the best of us. The question is, did they offend us?
Did they offend me or have they offended Christ?
Have they offended me or have they offended Jesus? And I probably don't need to necessarily give the same strong rebuke if they have only offended me.
So what do we Do finally, brothers, verse 11. Rejoice.
That's a hard left.
Finally, brothers, rejoice. I'm coming to you. And when I get there, I hope that I don't have to deal with you severely. So rejoice, okay?
Have joy. Rejoice when you face trials of various kinds, James says, because the testing of your faith purifies your faith. Joy is not like rejoicing is not like putting my head in the sand and pretending like the world's problems don't exist. Joy is knowing that God has not lost sight of my problem, nor has he lost the strength to address it. He sees me and what I'm going through.
He has the ability to address it. And most importantly, every pain has purpose when we trust God with it.
Every pain has purpose when we trust God with it. A knife in the hands of a madman wounds a scalpel in the hand of a doctor brings healing. We can trust God with our pain.
So rejoice.
Aim for restoration. Aim for restoration. Work towards restoration. Restoration is the goal. Sometimes it doesn't happen, but aim for restoration.
Comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Like, that's crazy. Restoration, comfort, agreement, live in peace. And then the loving, peaceful presence of God will be the amongst your community.
Our true beliefs are seen in how we live. Now, I have a little bit of an excursus here. We're late in the sermon. I know it's late for me to bring up some more stuff, but did you see the kissing part? Did anybody like that throw flags for anybody else?
Okay, cool. I just want you to know it's in there and it's not just this letter. Like, greet one another with a holy kiss is actually a command in the Christian scriptures and in the New Testament. We can't just say it's Old Testament stuff. It's in the New Testament four or five times.
And so I just. I want you to know that that's in there and I don't want you to be surprised. And now you're like, well, Michael, what am I supposed to do with that? Are you asking to smooch me? And that is not what I am asking to do.
There's a couple of layers of this, and this is probably a whole different sermon. And so I know we're late, but I think we need this. Okay, so in their culture, in Roman culture, you actually communicated because they were like a kiss on both sides of the cheek, Italian type deal. Because they did that, you actually communicated more by not kissing than kissing. And so he's writing to people in conflict and saying, hey, you guys gotta greet each other.
Everybody can read the tension in the room when y' all aren't kissing, right? Because that was how they greeted one another. Okay, now what does that mean for us? I actually had a Great Commission Bible Institute student text me late one night. He says, what do I do with this holy kissing thing?
I said, what do you mean? He's like, I don't know anything about holy kissing. I only know the unholy kind. I said, well, let's talk about the holy kind then. For us, I think the principle is that genuine affection should be a Mark of our community.
When we get together, it should be apparent to outsiders and insiders alike that we actually like, like each other and actually want to be together and actually are in the same room.
So the holy kissing thing, does that mean that we have to kiss? I don't think that we necessarily have to kiss, but I do think, I do think that we have to reclaim physical expressions of affection from our over sexualized culture. We can't just say, well, in this time we can't touch each other. I don't know how we can be followers of Jesus and not have physical contact with one another. I cannot get away from reading the gospels and noticing how often Jesus touches people who are unclean and that much of his ministry was literally hands on.
So don't. Like, we're gonna have to process that together. But just because our culture is overly sexualized doesn't mean that we have to say, now what does that look like here? Don't do anything that makes other people uncomfortable. Don't be weird.
Okay? I think that you can do a holy kiss. I have. There's a brother. I don't see him very often.
He lives in Canada. I've got a brother in Christ who lives in Canada. And every time I see him, he kisses me. And the first time it freaked me out. And then I realized what we were doing.
I was like, oh, this is right. And so he's probably the only brother that kisses me regularly. And we don't talk a whole lot, but like, when I see him, I know it's coming. So I'm not saying we gotta do that. I think you can have a holy kiss.
I think you can have a holy hug. I think you can have a holy fist bump. I think you can have holy eye contact. Like in our society, we spend so much time doing this and like not looking at people. I think it is a Gift to other people to look them in the eye when you're talking to them.
My hoodlums in the back. I think it is a gift to look people in the eye when you're talking to them.
Holy eye contact, a holy smile, a sign that I am Christ's and you are Christ's and we are on the same team.
In our communion tradition, we practice three elements. We practice the bread and the cup, which is most churches do. We also share a feast, a love feast together, an agape feast, and we wash one another's feet as expressions of reenacting the night that Jesus was betrayed. Initially, that tradition also included a ceremonial like holy kiss where everybody walked around the room and kissed each other. We don't do that.
But I think an interesting thing to consider how our traditions have formed us. And I think it's an interesting thing to consider how our relationship with other people reflects our relationship with God.
If we're so isolated and pushed everybody away from us and can't let anybody know us and won't let anybody touch us, what does that say about how. How we're approaching God, our creator?
Because in verse 14, God's full and holy presence in us and with us is God's will for our life. I don't know if you know this. God wants to be with us. Have you heard that recently at Christmas time we say Emmanuel like it's a Christmas thing. And it actually is an all the time thing where God wants to be with us.
Did you know that, like, one of the best features, perhaps the only best feature of the Garden of Eden was that they walked with God in the cool of the day. His presence was there and they were naked and unashamed. They walked with God and they had nothing to hide. And did you know that at the end of the book he's going to restore all things? And the thing that he's restoring us to is a way that he can be present on earth with us.
You know that all along, every chapter, every verse, I think is God trying to communicate. I am far from you because of your choices. And my desire is to be with you. I want to be in your presence. I want you to be in my presence.
This is the thing that I am working towards. It was the purpose of the law of Moses. And the miracle of the Jesus way is that Mary was not the last one to be indwelt by God.
Like, I think babies are weird in general and pregnancy is the thing that I just can't wrap my head around. And then I think about Mary being pregnant, like, with God, and that's a whole other thing. But then when I think about, like, is Jesus in you? I'm like, no, I don't feel him right. But Mary was not the last person to be indwelt by Jesus.
Like he says, I will be in those who trust me, believe me, surrender their lives to me. And our truest beliefs do I believe in Jesus is seen in how I live.
So the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. God blesses the reading of his Word. Let's pray.
Lord, I know that there's a lot kind of packed in here, and I know I'm an imperfect messenger. And so I pray if there's anything I've said that's been distracting or untrue or unclear, that those things would be forgotten quickly. But where your word has been declared, that we would not be able to shake it. But I pray that we would wrestle with things that we have assumed, Lord, that we would ask questions about the nature of our faith and our trust in you, that we would genuinely wrestle with how we express.
