Grosey's Messages

if we experience this Triune blessing, there is nothing we could face that it does not overwhelm: 'Everything in the Christian life is essentially a footnote to this Triune blessing.'

The verse is a benediction - 'Not what God has for you if you have the maturity for it, but what God has for you if you have the humility to receive it.' It is 'defiant trust for anxious Christians'. It is the antidote to what the Devil wants us to believe - which is 'the scrutiny of the Son, the indifference of the Father and the evasion of the Spirit.'

We need to grasp the comprehensiveness of this blessing:

1. The Grace of the Lord Jesus

'Grace imparts pardon and power. It is undeserved and free'

'We easily think our effort + his help = acceptance with God. Jesus says 'My efforts don't complete your effort, but replace them''

'Roman Catholic theology treats grace as a 'thing' to be stockpiled and distributed, but grace is the person of Jesus.'

'Grace is not money in the wallet of the Lord Jesus but air in his lungs that he is exhaling'

'It is the gladness of the heart of Christ…to take poor sinners into relationship with himself' (Owen)

2. The Love of God

'God' here is clearly the Father - Trinitarian context

'This verse does not refer to God's 'love of benevolence' of all people (cf John 3v16) but to his 'love of complacency' exclusively to believers. His fatherly love for his children.'

'There is no difference in intensity of the love of the Father for us than the love of the Son.'

'We are like minnows swimming in the ocean of God's love. We can see 100ft, and there is so much more.'

'The greatest unkindness you can do to the Father is not to believe that he loves you' (Owen)

'Jesus is the beam who leads you to the sun of the love of the Father'

3. Fellowship of the Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the warmth of the Son - the consolation of God's love

'Fellowship' is used twice in 2 Cor - 9v4 translated 'taking part in' & 9v15 translated 'contribution' - It means togetherness/oneness/deep trust/felt friendship

'The Father loves you, the Son is next to you, and the Holy Spirit is in you'

'The Comforter gives a sweet and present persuasion of the love of God to us. That is his distinctive affective work.'

4 Be With You All

This is the greatest surprise of the verse. The Corinthians were a dysfunctional church (tolerating sexual immorality, inebriated at the Lord's Supper, suing each other, etc), yet Paul says this Triune communion is for all of them.

'In the Triune God you have the perfect older brother, the perfect father, and the perfect friend'

These are the words from John Owen's tombstone. He was born in 1619 and died in 1683. All his eleven children and his wife pre-deceased him:

'Leaving other things aside, he cultivated, and realised in practice, the blissful communion with God of which he wrote; a traveller on earth who grasped God like one in heaven…A scribe instructed in every way for the kingdom of God, this pure lamp of gospel truth shone forth on many in private, on more from the pulpit, and on all in his printed works, pointing everyone to the same goal. And in this shining forth he gradually, as he and others recognized, squandered his strength till it was gone. His holy soul, longing to enjoy God more, left the shattered ruins of his once-handsome body, full of permanent weaknesses, attacked by frequent diseases, worn out most of all by hard work, and no longer a fit instrument for serving God, on a day rendered dreadful for many by earthly powers but now made happy for him through the power of God, August 25, 1683'