Devoted service to Christ requires looking beyond present hardships to an eternal perspective, as exemplified by the Apostle Paul. Despite the decay of the outer self and momentary afflictions, the inner self is renewed, and these temporary struggles produce an eternal weight of glory. The core lesson is to focus on unseen, eternal realities rather than temporal, seen circumstances, recognizing that this life is a temporary tent and we have an eternal dwelling from God. This heavenly perspective is essential for enduring service, pleasing Christ, and anticipating the judgment seat of Christ with joy.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 2.90 → restored 4.62
Ernie, when you were telling us about that statement from your mother, I remember another statement that I heard all my life, and that is that when you get a cold, it takes a week to get over it if you don't take medication. And if you take medication, it takes seven days. Now, how many of you heard that? Yes. Now, how the seven days fits in with the nine days? I'm not sure. But sometimes those old sayings aren't always matching, are they? Well, this evening I'd like for you to turn again to Second Corinthians.
Move yet into another very, very significant section of this epistle. We're going to begin reading tonight in chapter four and verse sixteen and read down through the first opening verses of chapter five. and if there's any portion of second corinthians that you heard a number of teaching message times on this is probably it second corinthians chapter four verse sixteen therefore we do not lose heart you heard that before haven't you paul said that at the beginning of the chapter therefore we do not lose heart but though our outer man is decaying yet our inner man is being renewed day by day For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
For the things that are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent, which is our house, is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we having put it on shall not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent we groan being burdened because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now he who prepared us for this very purpose is God who gave us to us the Spirit as a pledge.
Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body, to be at home with the Lord. Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body. according to what he has done, whether good or bad. We'll end our reading there. Let's ask God's blessing again. Father, again tonight, we seek your help, your ministry to our hearts, open our hearts, minister to us by your Spirit, by your word.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. I would venture a guess that by now most of you are saying this is a funeral passage the fact of the matter is however that's not the context now we've been studying enough in second Corinthians to know that the context is not funeral the context is devoted service to Christ because the Apostle Paul in this letter is very concerned that as he communicates his heart to these Corinthians, as the Spirit of God moved him to write this letter, he is concerned that they will understand something of the apostolic ministry because detractors had maligned him and his associates.
They had badmouthed them in order to peddle their own watered down message of the gospel they had spoken against Paul and his associates and again and again in this passage the apostle is moved by the spirit of God to defend the apostolic ministry the ministry that they had in Corinth and of course everywhere they went as far as that matters and in the section that we did not look at between what we looked at last night and what we read tonight I hated to miss that but I thought we would move on to this passage tonight in that section that we skipped over at the end of chapter four, the middle of chapter four.
Paul talks about the experiences they had as servants of Christ. He talks about the abuse, the threat on their life, the hardship that they endured in the service of Christ. And yet through it all, not only were they not destroyed, not only were they not knocked out of the running, They were reminded again and again through all of the adversity they suffered as servants of Christ, that God is faithful and that He was at work in their lives. Paul has never changed his mind about what he said back in chapter two, where he said, Christ always leads us in triumph. He looks at the ministry given to them in proclaiming the gospel of Christ as a ministry of triumph in spite of the hardships.
And the context that we're dealing with tonight is the context of devoted service to Christ. But at the same time, the reason why this is often used in funerals, the apostle is reminding us, however, that devoted service to Christ, particularly in the face of hardship and difficulties, is never going to be as it should be if we don't look beyond this life. If all we see is the hardship and the difficulty and the adversity and the stress of life, if that's all we see, we're going to be in trouble. We will not be serving Christ as we should.
We will not go on for him as we should if all we see is the trouble. We must learn to look beyond this to that which lies ahead. And so the context is clearly the context of Christian service. Now, as we indicated earlier, this passage too is full of sharp contrasts. So watch the text of your Bible now. Let me just quickly point them out to you again. In chapter four, verse sixteen, you see the outer man and the inner man. See that? you see the outer man decaying you see the inner man renewed in verse seventeen you see momentary affliction in contrast to eternal glory you see light affliction in contrast to weight of glory in verse eighteen you see things seen in contrast to things not seen.
You see the temporal in contrast to the eternal. Hang in there, keep going. In chapter five, verse one, you see the tent in contrast to a building from God. You see the earthly house in contrast to the heavenly. You see the torn down earthly house in contrast to the eternal heavenly dwelling. You see in verse two and three, groaning in contrast to longing for. You see the tent again in contrast to our dwelling from heaven.
You see naked in contrast to clothed. Then we come to verse four, where you see mortal and you see swallowed up in life. In verse six you have at home in the body in contrast to absent from the Lord. In verse seven you have walk by sight in contrast to walk by faith. In verse eight you have absent from the body in contrast to at home with the Lord. And so it's really an astounding passage. I tell you when I look through this and see these very striking contrasts.
The summary conclusion that comes to my heart from this is, you and I want to serve Jesus Christ and live for His glory as we should. We need a different perspective than most of the people around us have. If we do not look at life and eternity through biblical lenses, If we do not look beyond this scene, we're not going to amount to much for God. And we're not going to weather the storms and the stress and the adversity of life very well.
There are two completely different outlooks in this passage. We're not talking about shades of difference. We're talking about two distinctly different perspectives on life and reality. The contrasts are numerous. And again, I would suggest sometime, if you want in your own personal study, come back to this passage, take a piece of paper, draw a line down through the center, and on one side list all of the things that characterize our natural human way of looking and experiencing light. and then on the other side of the page write down all of these things that characterize the perspective that the apostle had and when you're all finished then just get on your knees and say now Lord which of these is mine which of these is my outlook on life am I preoccupied with this tent This earthly house, the fact that it's being torn down and that I'm groaning and that I don't want to be naked.
I don't want to be a disembodied spirit. I'm only mortal. And boy, I sure like being at home in this body. And I like to see where I'm going and have all my ducks in line. Is that how I look at life? Or do I look at life anticipating that building from God in the heavens? That's eternal. And there, there is an eternal weight of glory. And although I can't see it, yet someday I'm going to be closed with that heavenly body and death is going to be swallowed up by life.
And I'll be absent from the body, but at home with the Lord. Now, in which of those two frames of mind do you live? Well, I'll tell you which one will give you a better basis for service for Christ. It's not the former, but the latter. Look with me at a couple of these. Notice he says in verse sixteen that there is an outer man and that it's decaying. We know that. We know that. that's characteristic of any any reasonable way of thinking the outer man this mortal physical body is decaying there are all sorts of ways to express this I'll never forget the first time I heard a medical doctor say we begin to die the day we are born and I it sort of shocked me I remember as a kid hearing that for the first time and it didn't seem to make sense to me But then when I got into the study of medicine, I realized that it makes very real sense and that it is literally true.
And of course, the apostle Paul is telling us here in verse sixteen that this is the reality of life. But of course, this is not all there is to it. Because Paul also reminds us that there is an inner man. There is an inner person. And ah, for the believer, there is all the difference. because that inner person is being renewed day by day. By the way, this is progressive sanctification again. In our morning studies, we're talking about that holiness of life, that progressive sanctification, the work of God in the believer's life day by day to make us less and less like Adam and more like Christ.
This is an ongoing process. And we're not talking about degrees of salvation. No, no, no, no. You were ready for heaven the moment you trusted Christ as Savior. The moment the Spirit of God did His great work of salvation in your heart, you were ready to go, folks, in God's eyes. But there is also a progressive sanctification in which there is this day-by-day work of God by His Spirit in our lives. And that's the perspective that Paul wants us to have. And he is very much aware of the fact that life has its rough times again go back to the section we didn't study together and see his apostolic experience i'm sure none of us have experienced what the apostle experienced in terms of hardship and abuse and the peril of his very life as a servant of christ and yet at the same time he says this really is momentary this affliction is light In fact, he said, it is not even to be compared with that eternal weight of glory that lies ahead.
There's no comparison, he says. No comparison. And of course, he reminds us that in order to understand that, you have to look not at the things that are seen because they're temporal. Now, you got your eyes open. What do you see? Well, if you look past me, you see a wall and lovely curtains, you see carpet, you see a nice building, you see comfortable pews, lights. If you go outside, you'll see houses around, palm trees, temporal. These are not here forever.
They tell you that. That house you live in isn't here forever. That house I live in isn't here forever. No, no. The things that we see are not here forever. They're temporal. The fascinating thing is that I live in a culture that says that's really all that exists. I live in a materialistic culture. And materialism says that the only thing that exists is matter. This stuff. That's it. It's the beginning and the end, says a materialistic culture. The Bible says it's not going to be around long.
It's temporal. It's passing. Passing. But our materialistic culture doesn't realize, however, that there is another world of reality. And not only is the world of the Spirit eternal but it is real in fact because it's eternal it is even more real if that's possible than this temporal world and that will not pass away and you see my physical body you're very gracious to put up with this sight but the real Dan Smith you don't see someday I'm out of here.
I will never forget the morning that I found my son's body in the crib. It was cold. Eight weeks old. And I found myself later that morning sitting in the bedroom, sitting on my bed, looking at that empty crib because they'd taken the body away. And I found myself wondering, I wonder when Danny's soul departed from his body. Did it go through that corner of the room? Or did it go through that, or did it go through the ceiling right here? And after a while, I thought, I must be going crazy in my grief. But you see, that's what comes from understanding that that little body we put in the grave.
That wasn't the end of my son. Hmm. the spirit did leave the body. And we didn't see it. And it didn't make any hole in the ceiling. But while the body's long since decayed, there's a boy up there in the glory that I'm going to see someday. And Paul says, that's what's real. The things that are seen are only temporal, only for time. What really lasts is that which we don't see with these eyes.
The contrasts continue as he goes down into chapter five. And you know, of course, that all of these chapter designations were not a part of the original text. They have been added for the sake of convenience and reference. And so the thought flows right on into the apostle's statement saying, we know that this really is just a tent. and the language is very specific here this body is now seen Paul says as a tent ever live in a tent maybe many of you have never lived in a tent we don't think of a tent as a very good a very lasting place to live in fact usually think of a tent as something you go into for a week and if you're camping or you look at The nomadic kinds of peoples that are always pulling up their tent stakes and moving to another place where their cattle can find grass to graze on and so on.
The tent idea doesn't appeal to us too much at all, does it? But that's the very language that the scriptures use here to refer to this physical body. It's a tent. It sort of reminds me, Peter, in fact, uses identically the same word in Second Peter, chapter one, where he says, and the Lord told me that someday I'm going to have to fold up this old tent. And that's the language of this passage. But Paul says, look, the thing that drives us in the service of Christ, the things that motivate us to serve him in spite of the very peril of our lives, is that this tent isn't really the most important thing.
There is eternity, and there is a house not made with hands, and it's not temporal. Now, David, I'm going to frustrate you here. my colleague told me he's waiting for some comments on this passage because as you know commentaries do not agree as to what the apostle is really saying here when he talks about a building not made with hands a home that is eternal in the heavens and you know that some theologians have theorized that when I die and they lay my body in the grave and my soul goes to heaven that there is a temporary something up there, temporary body, in which my soul will dwell in heaven until the day of resurrection when my body is raised.
And that may be what Paul is saying. My inclination is rather to think that Paul is talking when he talks about that eternal house, that he is not specifically talking about something temporary. I don't think he would use the word eternal if it was temporary. The important thing to see in this passage is this. Paul admits that we are groaning in this body, verse four, and we do not want to be unclothed. We, you know, I think of the very impressive story that Charles Dickens wrote and Marley's ghost that appeared and all of that business.
And there are some people who think that that's what happened when some people died. They're just disembodied spirits that just float around in misery with chains all over them and all that kind of stuff. And I'm not sure where we get these ideas because that's not what this passage teaches. In fact, this passage teaches, if there's anything that is clear, this passage teaches that when you and I leave this body, we are not going to be floating around in misery like disembodied spirits. There is an eternal home. And we will be clothed and rejoicing in His presence. We will be at home. We won't be vagabonds, folks.
I don't know where those ideas came from. They did not come from the Scriptures. And we need to understand this. Because this will help us in our service for Christ. This will help us to face the adversities of life. This will help us to get a right perspective on reality. After all, if all I have to look forward to beyond this life is just some kind of vague, disembodied experience, boy, who wants that? That's not very inviting. But that's not what this passage teaches. This passage teaches us that God has prepared us for eternity in His presence.
And when I am absent from this body, I am at home with the Lord. And he's not talking something just for funerals here. He's talking for you and me and the way we face everyday life situations and the way we live here is going to be heavily influenced by what we look for hereafter. and I really believe that you and I will not serve God as we should if we don't have a biblical perspective of the future if we do not have hope of his presence and the certainty that we have been prepared for this I love this statement of verse four where the Apostle Paul says in order that what is mortal what's he talking about here this body Mortal means subject to death.
In order that which is subject to death may eventually be swallowed up by death. Right? No, no. Oh, check your Bible. That's not what it says. Oh, I know an awful lot of people that think that way. That what is subject to death someday is going to be swallowed up by death. And it's not too many days since I have literally held a person's hand in my hand and felt the last pulse beat. It's a sobering experience, folks, to see death right before your very eyes.
But the Apostle Paul is looking far beyond that. He says for the believer, it's not a matter of this mortal being swallowed up by death. If you know Christ, death will not swallow you. It will merely release you to life. That this which is mortal may be swallowed up by life. And that's why the Apostle Paul could face the stones and the imprisonment and the beatings and the peril of his life from robbers and the adversity of the elements and storms and shipwreck for Christ.
Why? Because he knew that this old tent's going to be someday swallowed up in life. And it made all the difference. All the difference. I hope you live like that. I hope you think like that, fellow believers, because this is so essential. Notice Paul says not only that this mortal is going to be swallowed up in life, he says in verse five, this is based on the saving work of God. He says in verse five, it is secured by the pledge gift of the Spirit. You see, this isn't just something written in the book, as marvelous and supernatural as this book is.
God has reinforced this same reality by the very Spirit of God that is in your life as a permanent resident that has sealed you for this very thing. The gift of the Spirit is God's pledge that someday mortality is going to be swallowed up by life. Now, if you don't have the Spirit of God, of course, you don't have this hope. But if you do, you do. Not only that, He says... in verses six and eight. And this is why we have good courage. Did you see that? Therefore, being always of good courage. Do you see it down here in verse eight?
Therefore, we are of good courage. He's not talking funeral here. He's talking service for Christ. And this encouraged him in his life. It'll encourage you to think that way. When you got an appointment with the doctor, when he's giving you these tests that you're afraid to hear about, or whatever the issues of the stresses of life may be, if you want encouragement, you've got to get this perspective, folks. It's essential. It's essential. Stop looking at the tent and start looking at that eternal home, Paul says.
We look an awful lot at these tents, don't we? I'm glad a doctor looks at mine once in a while. Not minimizing that. Not minimizing that. But there is a better perspective and there's a greater perspective. And that is that dwelling not made with hands. That's not going to be folded up like a tent. That's eternal when this which is mortal will be swallowed up by life. By life. Paul says this is our ultimate goal and of course results in what do you see it there in verse nine it gives us that high and holy desire to please him see this is the context again I say this is not funeral passage this is a passage of service to Christ and Paul says this is what gives me that priority in life above all else to please him.
This is what Paul talks about when he writes to the Corinthians, Ephesians when he says in chapter five, and try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. It's one of the marks of love and devotion, by the way. If you really love someone, you want to please them. if you're really devoted to someone you want to please them and our self-seeking self-pleasing world has trouble with this you see it's one of the reason why marriages are so miserable in our world because we're taught to please ourselves but true love true devotion seeks to please the other and so that's why Paul says look this really When you bring it right down to the functional aspects of my life of service to Christ, I want to please Him.
Oh, the stones may fly, the ship may sink, I may be afloat in the ocean for a night and a day, I may be in peril of robbers, I may be maligned. But none of that really dims that ultimate desire that I may be pleasing to Him. See? That's what a heavenly perspective will give you. That's what it'll give you. And then, of course, the apostle tells us, because we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Someday we're going to stand in His presence at the Bima.
You had many, many, many messages, a lot of teaching on this. I just remind you that the word judgment here is not the normal New Testament word for judgment. This is not the word that is used when the Bible speaks of the great judgment, for example, of the white throne. No, no, it's a very different word. This is the New Testament word, Bima. And the Bima was a place in all of the Greek cities where, sort of like the town square, often an elevated place. Many of you have been to Old Corinth and have seen the Bima there. A place in the center of town, sort of an elevated area where important things happened in the city.
Announcements were made, public debates were held, even petty problems of, your dog bit my kid, what are we going to do about it kind of thing. Never criminal judgment. Never. Never was anybody sentenced to jail or to death at the Bima. No, no, no, no. The Bima was a place where citizens dealt with their issues. And Paul picks that word up now and says, the Bima's seat of Christ. We're not talking about the judgment of those without Christ. We're talking about that day when we shall come into the presence of Christ, when he catches us from this earth, when he raises our bodies from the grave, And we are ushered into his presence the Bemis seat of Christ.
And there we will give an account. Paul lived and served with that day in view. And he's not the only one. I remind you that many, many, many years before the apostle wrote this, there was the man Moses who had the glitter, the splendor of Egypt, perhaps the throne of Egypt itself before him. and he brushed it all aside to cast his lot with a persecuted minority of people. Why did he do that? The scriptures say he considered the recompense of reward. That's why he did it.
And that perspective will not only make a difference in Moses' life and in Paul's life, but it will make a difference in your life and mine. if we live and serve not for the applause of men, but for that day when we shall stand in the presence of Jesus Christ with a gray longing desire to hear him say, well done, good and faithful servant. This eternal perspective was a major motivating factor in the service of the Apostle Paul. He had gotten his eyes off this tent and on to that eternal home.
He had gotten his eyes off the beatings and the troubled and the aches and the pains and the sufferings of life. And he had gotten his eyes on that brighter day, in the presence of Christ, when he would stand before his Lord. I love many of the apostles' references. Take the references in First Thessalonians alone. The references to this day when Paul, in the return of Christ, sees himself as coming into the presence of Christ, and he says to the Thessalonians, and what will be our source of rejoicing in that day? Is it not even you? And Paul sees himself in that day as coming into the presence of Christ at the Bema, and as it were, introducing him and saying, Lord, look at all these people in Thessalonica.
I'm just here to present all of these to you, Lord. This is my thank offering to you. All of these people that came to Christ in Thessalonica. Lord, I'm delighted to present them to you. That's how Paul sees his relationship with these Thessalonians. They will be his source of joy and rejoicing. in that day, in that day, in that day. And I think that it's very obvious as I read through this passage that we too as believers can live with that perspective. We don't need to deny reality. Paul admits he's had it tough.
He admits sometimes he finds himself groaning. He admits that this tent sometimes and its frailty and its deteriorating condition gives him problems. And Paul was not a healthy man. So he's not denying reality. But he's giving us something far better than the tent. He's giving us the perspective of the glory. And that eternal house. that we'll never have to fold up and the presence of Jesus Christ when this which is mortal will be swallowed up by life praise God for such a prospect I hope you live that way father We find ourselves standing in awe as we hear a man say these words, a man who had suffered like the apostle had suffered, not only perils from without, the
beatings, the elements, the threats to his life, but also the physical affirmation, the affliction, whatever that was. And we're grateful, our Father, that He doesn't play games with reality. He doesn't deny all of these things. But Father, we're even more grateful that by the Spirit He lifts our eyes beyond this deteriorating tent and life with its pressures and reminds us that for every true believer someday This which is mortal is going to be swallowed up by life.
Thank you, O God, for this glorious promise, this glorious truth. Help us, we pray, to keep our eyes fixed upon that glorious, promised reality. so that someday when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ, we may do so with joy. We may do so in an attitude of worship and praise. Oh, Father, we pray that you will help us to be faithful in serving Christ.
Help us, we pray, to live for His glory. Help us as the apostle to desire above all else to be pleasing to our Lord. We pray that you will give us this heavenly perspective that will motivate us for a life pleasing to Him. We pray in Jesus' lovely name.