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I remember reading that whereas all Scripture speaks to us, the psalms speak for us.

Martin Luther said essentially the same thing, but a little more expansively: ‘The Psalter is the book of all saints; and everyone, in whatever situation he may be, finds in that situation psalms and words that fit his case, that suit him just as if they were put there for his sake, so that he could not put it better himself, or find or wish for anything better.’

The psalms have been the prayer book/hymn book of the church for centuries. They were used by Jesus and His disciples. Eugene Peterson describes them as ‘prayers that train us in prayer’.

As we begin this new series on the Psalms, I want to encourage you to do at least three things:

• Read the Psalm for the day (preferably out loud) as a prayer to God;
• Make it (or at least some of it) the basis of your ‘impromptu’ prayers;
• Prayerfully look for one word, or phrase, or sentence, or idea that grabs you, and carry it with you through the day. As you have opportunity, turn it over in your mind, and ‘suck as much juice’ out of it as possible.

Eugene Peterson goes on to say in the introduction to his book: ‘Answering God’:

‘That’s it: open our Bibles to the book of Psalms and pray them – sequentially, regularly, faithfully across a lifetime. This is how most Christians for most of the Christian centuries have matured in prayer. Nothing fancy. Just do it.’

PRAYER: Lord God, open our hearts and minds to see everything you want to show us as we read them and pray them. Thank you that we are standing on holy ground.

2 Corinthians is probably Paul’s most personal letter, and shows, more than any other, something of the cost of his ministry.

‘The Corinthian Christians gave their founding pastor, Paul, more trouble than all his other churches put together. No sooner did Paul get one problem straightened out in Corinth than three more appeared.’ Eugene Peterson.

Church life can be hard, and ministry is tough.

Ministry is regularly tough because church life is hard.

But in the triune God, we have all we need both to love courageously and to lead enduringly.

(After a day or two’s break, we will move back into the Old Testament and begin to work through the psalms. More of this shortly).

 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. NIVUK

The Bible teacher, David Pawson, said that the Christian church is:

• The family of God the Father;
• The flock of God the Son;
• The fellowship of God the Holy Spirit.

God the Father, in love and grace, came into the world in the Lord Jesus Christ – in all that He is and did – to bring us into fellowship with Himself and with one another. As we seek to walk in step with the Spirit, He enables us to walk in harmony with one another. The Corinthian epistles are full of raw honesty. They show how difficult this can be, but they hold out the promise of all that is possible in God’s strength, not our own. We have been brought into a supernatural life.

‘…those who are grasped by this love, who have the grace of the Lord Jesus in their bloodstreams, are thereby joined together in a family which the world has never seen before. It is a family based not at all on physical or ethnic descent or relation; anyone and everyone is welcome in it, which was just as challenging to most ancient people as it is to most modern ones. It is a family called to share a common life, and the word Paul uses here, koinonia, can be translated ‘partnership’, ‘association’, ‘participation’, ‘sharing’, ‘communion’, or even ‘inter-change’, as well as the familiar ‘fellowship’. This koinonia has been under enormous strain as Paul and the Corinthians have struggled to work out their relationship through visits, letters, reports, rumours, sorrow, joy, despair and hope. It is because Paul believes passionately that God’s own spirit is at work in both his life and that of the Corinthians that he cannot let them go, cannot walk away and found another church somewhere else, cannot simply bask in the happy relationship he has with his beloved Macedonian churches, but must thrash things out, must let partnership, participation and fellowship have their full expression. Indeed, if you want to know what ‘the fellowship of the holy spirit’ means in practice, a slow and serious reading of 2 Corinthians is a good, if sobering place to start.’ Tom Wright

 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. NIVUK

Through ”the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” we come to experience ”the love of God”.

”God is love” (1 John 4:16). This is always true, but we only come to know it truly and deeply – to experience it – through God’s grace in Jesus. As John writes in the first part of this oh so famous verse: ”And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” If we take account of the wider context, from verse 7 onwards, we inevitably see that Jesus and His Cross (His grace) are fundamental to our coming to a subjective awareness of God’s love.

Tom Wright says that love ‘…is the very heart, the essence of who God is…And it is noticeable that the Jewish and Christian declaration of belief in a God of love stands out a mile from most other views of God ancient or modern.’

He adds that the ancient world was ‘…full of the anxiety that comes from a fear of superhuman forces that are precisely not loving, but are instead capricious, malevolent, and needing to be pacified or placated. None of the multiple options in that most pluralist of religious worlds spoke of a single God whose innermost nature was love.’

However, for the early Christians, ‘…gazing upon that loving God, and learning to love and trust him in return’ they ‘found themselves embraced in a new kind of spirituality, an intimacy of trust like of children with a father, a warm security of knowing that they were loved with an everlasting love.’

Of course, it is one thing to know the love of God, but quite another to share it. So, for a church which was fragile, in danger of being ripped apart by divisions, Paul prays for the continuing manifestation of God’s love among them. May they (and we!) know this love not only as a theological proposition, but as a practical reality.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. NIVUK

We are Christians only ”by grace” (Eph.2:8). This is the reason we find ourselves in the church fellowship. God has taken the initiative. He has moved towards us, in Christ, in sovereign grace.

But it is not only the case that by grace we are saved; it is also by grace that we serve. Think back to chapters 8 & 9, where Christian giving is also described in terms of grace. I seem to remember John Stott saying, with regard to Ephesians 4:7, that not only is there saving grace; there is also such a thing as serving grace. We are graciously gifted by Jesus to serve Him in varied ways. This includes our financial giving (as 2 Corinthians shows). So grace is not just about what God does for us, but it also concerns what He does through us.

‘We could put it like this: Jesus is the person the generous and self-giving God became. Jesus embodied the grace of God. In Jesus grace became human…and we can pray, as Paul does here, that this grace will be powerfully active in the life of the church.’ Tom Wright

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. NIVUK

These are some of the best known words in the Bible, although I think it is possible that many people who have heard them, or hear them, regularly, or use them repeatedly, may not know that they come from the Scriptures, or indeed that Paul wrote them.

Also, I can’t imagine that Paul himself could have had any inkling that these simple words of blessing, at the conclusion of one of his letters, would be picked up and used so widely in the church.

Who knows how God might use some small, simple, routine thing that we do in His Name today.

Tom Wright says that Paul’s blessing ‘…sums up so much of what being a Christian is all about; it draws the focus firmly on to the God we know in and through Jesus and the spirit; and it takes the rich practical meaning and the rich theological meaning and turns them together into an elegant prayer. No wonder it has become so popular.’

We will pause over these wonderful words during the next few days, and take time to look at them and listen to them.

 Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

¹² Greet one another with a holy kiss. ¹³ All God’s people here send their greetings. NIVUK

The ”full restoration” Paul calls for, and prays for, looks like ‘love’: a people living together in unity and harmony. It is a fact that if we want to experience the reality of ”the God of love and peace” being with us, we have to work at living in love and peace. Is there any real happiness, or rest, in a home riven by conflict?

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. (Romans 12:18; see also the verses around this text).

We all have our part to play. May the Tri-une God fill us with His ”grace” and ”love” by ”the Holy Spirit” (14).

Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration…NIVUK

As we have seen, Paul has said in verse 9: We are glad whenever we are weak but you are strong; and our prayer is that you may be fully restored. 

I simply want to underline the point that prayer and action are not mutually exclusive. They are joined together in a beautiful dance. They move in harmony. So if we pray for spiritual growth, we should take all the steps we can to cultivate our own growth: make full use of the spiritual disciplines and avail ourselves of all the means of grace. If we, as preachers, exhort our congregations to Biblical living, we should also pray for the practical outworking of sermons.

Praying and striving (in God’s strength, of course) belong together.

As someone said, ‘Work as though it all depends on you, and pray as though it all depends on God.’

Now we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong – not so that people will see that we have stood the test but so that you will do what is right even though we may seem to have failed. ⁸ For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. ⁹ We are glad whenever we are weak but you are strong; and our prayer is that you may be fully restored. ¹⁰ This is why I write these things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority – the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down.

We no doubt all know the familiar saying that ‘Prayer changes things‘. But Paul clearly held the conviction that prayer changes people. That’s why he not only exhorted them (and instructed, rebuked and corrected), but he also prayed for them. He clearly believed his prayers would make a difference. Why pray if you don’t?

Paul knows, of course, that he may still have to act in a disciplinary fashion when he visits them, but he hopes (prays) for better things – for their full restoration.

The word he uses in verse 9 ‘doesn’t just mean ‘mature’ in the sense of a human being growing up, or a tree getting to the point where it can bear fruit. If Paul had had machines anything like the ones we know, this is the word he would have used to describe what happens when a machine is put into proper running order, when all its parts are functioning properly in themselves and working in harmony with each other. That is what he longs to see in Corinth, and that’s what he’s praying for in particular.’ Tom Wright.

Who are you praying for today? What are you praying for them…and why?