2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10

Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

2 Corinthians chapter 4.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

Open up your Bibles, turn on your Bibles, whatever, whatever you need to do to have a Bible in front of you.

And I'm going to just put this in front of you to begin with before we pray.

Remember.

There's this saying that we have as a church, just to frame up our understanding of how did God create me?

You're blessable, image-bearing, covenant partner.

That's who you are.

That's the body that walked in this morning, is that you're blessable, you're image-bearing, and you're a covenant partner.

You're designed to be those three things.

And so as we open up 2 Corinthians 4 and 5 this morning, as we open up God's word, we're asking for God's Spirit to speak to us, speak into our lives, we're going to pray that as blessable, image-bearing, covenant partners that we'll receive what He has for us.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for your word.

And as we look at this text that Paul wrote 2,000 years ago, we ask that you would direct our attention to the phrases, the statements that are there that just you want our attention upon this morning.

And Lord, we pray just for a moment with you that you would be the one speaking to us.

Lord, you know everybody's story in here.

You know how we're wired and what went on in our week this past week.

And Lord, we know that the gift of the Spirit is to speak and preach this text to our hearts individually.

And so as a group, we open up our hearts and we say, Lord, come and speak to us.

Pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Now, last week we were in chapter four, and we looked at verses 7 through 15, and we ended with this doxology, which is a statement about God's glory and praise.

Grace was spreading through the church praying for Paul.

There's thanksgiving being multiplied, and God is getting the glory for what he is doing in the midst of the suffering that was experienced.

You remember I had the pot with me, that clay pot.

And we talked about how you have this treasure in earthen vessels.

The work of God in your life is like a treasure inside of you.

You are created to be a vessel containing something.

And if you don't know Jesus, then you are an empty vessel, or you're filled with Satan or demons.

Those are your choices.

You can be empty, filled with demons, or you can have God's Spirit inside of you.

So we're gonna open up in verse 16 here, and we're gonna see that there's this repeated statement that we saw two weeks ago from verse one.

It's this don't quit statement.

Don't lose heart.

It's the same opening, but the reason, the reason not to quit has moved.

In verse one of chapter four, the reason we don't quit is because you were given mercy.

Right?

You and I were given mercy.

In verse 16, it stands on a new contrast.

The outer person is wasting away, but the inner person is being renewed.

And because you're experiencing, you and I, if we have a relationship with God, we're experiencing this internal renewal.

We do not quit.

Now you may look at your outer body wasting away and be like, I quit.

But Paul says, no, there's a dynamic inside of you where you're being renewed, and so we do not quit.

Some of you walked in here with a tired that no nap is going to fix.

Your body, you have a body that is breaking down.

You may have family members experiencing physical sickness.

You may be experiencing grief because of sickness or illness.

And others of you walked in and you look great.

Most of you did.

But you can't, we're not measuring our spiritual life on our how photogenic we are.

That's not what God is doing.

We treat, we can treat the visible self as the real self, so wasting feels like losing the plot, and heaven can feel like a rumor we use to be polite at funerals.

We either panic at our own decline or we repent re pretend we are not declining.

What part of you, what part of you is falling apart?

This week I went to the ophthalmologist.

I hadn't been to the eye doctor in two years.

I thought it been a year, but it was two years.

The last time I was there, he's like, you're about to experience some decrease in your vision.

I was like, nah, I'm 43, I'm good to go.

But man, about five months ago, I had my phone up here, and I'm like, I think I'm seeing double.

What if I go here?

It's like, oh, I can see it so clearly.

Yeah, so which part of you is falling apart?

And what have you been doing with that reality?

Paul does not scold you and I for outer man wasting away, but he is going to interpret it for us.

Last week we saw that there were treasures in these earthen vessels.

We talked about our earthen vesselness.

This week, Paul is gonna tell us what is happening to that earthen vessel, that clay pot, and what God is building in you and I.

So let's walk through the text.

It's a lengthy text, so we're gonna just take it one chunk at a time.

Let's start with verses 16 through 18.

Therefore, we do not give up, even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day.

The therefore here goes back to what we covered last week.

It leans on this idea that because the God who raised up Jesus is going to raise up you and I, and because grace is spreading, wasting is not the last word.

The reality is that Jesus was raised from the dead.

Do you believe that?

Yeah.

And do you believe that as you live out the resurrection reality, the grace of God is at work spreading through your life?

Good, because that's what I preached last week.

I'm glad you believe it.

So Paul takes that and he says, therefore, we don't give up, even though our outer person is being destroyed.

Yeah, because we follow a God who was raised from the dead.

We don't just follow a God who was insightful.

We don't just follow a God who makes rules and says, do this, don't do that.

No, the core tenet of our understanding of Jesus Christ is that he was raised from the dead.

And so we don't give up.

When it says here that we are being, that our outer person is being destroyed and we're being renewed, both of those are in the active present voice.

That means this is a statement about your active condition.

Here's what's going on in your life.

You are actively in decline, and you're actively by the work of God, you're being made new day by day.

The inner is the person God is making new.

God is the implied agent of renewal.

So you can be falling apart and being remade in the same week.

But you're like, Josh, no, I look in the mirror.

There's a new wrinkle, there's a little bit more gray in my hair.

There's a new lopsided because I'm crippled.

And that's what you see.

But Paul is saying, no.

Actively you're in decay, and you're also being renewed in the inner man.

You are allowed to decline.

There's a whole movement right now, culturally, especially as technology improves, around longevity.

And the promise of science, right, is that you'll live longer.

We'll be able to double the lifespan of humans.

And we may.

The fascinating thing is that the hope there is that this bot, I need to not decay.

The Christian message is that even though you are decaying, God is at work in you to renew you day by day.

And so you don't need to look at this reality be with like a superstician and saying, listen, if I just have enough faith, I'm not going to be wasting away.

No, Paul is speaking truth.

And he's saying that the outer person is wasting while this inner person is being renewed.

The apostle is not the exception.

He himself is our exhibit.

He is, he has been transparent with this church, telling them, here is what my experience has been like.

So then the next question is: why would God let the outer person come apart?

Why does God, this is what Paul's describing as a process, but why does God allow the outer person to be destroyed?

Some of you have sicknesses, some of your you are in wheelchairs or walkers, some of you have an unseen disease that is crippling you.

It's evidence of that wasting away.

Why would God allow that to take place?

Well, in verse 17 and 18, he answers that question.

For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.

So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen.

For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

The wasting is not wasted.

Your wasting is not wasted in God's economy.

It says in verse 17 here that it is for our momentary affliction, it produces something.

What does it produce?

It is producing for you and I an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.

Imagine you had scales, and on one side of that scale, you put your wasting away, your affliction.

And on the other side, what you put is your eternal weight of glory.

The eternal weight of glory is incomparable.

Incomparable.

This word here, that it's light affliction, it's the lightness of it, is the word that Paul's using.

It's just absolutely just like a feather.

Your affliction is incomparable.

But man, it's looming over my life.

My handicap, my disease, my thing, what maybe it was some genetic thing that you're born with, you feel like, man, this is so handicapping in my life.

It is debilitating.

It's got me on disability.

It's put me in a position of great weakness.

Paul says, no, no, no.

That thing is light compared to what it is producing in you, which is the glory of God.

The eternal weight of glory.

So we do not focus, he says.

Right?

So if that's the case, what are you looking at?

Too many of us are looking at the weakness.

Our city, Baltimore City, is composed of people who use their weakness to tell a story of victimization, and it is their, it is their champion identity.

I want to get a leg up, I want to play the victim card, I want to talk about my disability so that I can be fill in the blank.

And Paul says, listen, if you're a follower of Jesus, we are not focused on what is seen, that wasting away, the deterioration, the fact that you're a clay pot.

That is not our identity.

But instead, what we're focused on is the unseen.

That thing that is being renewed day by day.

That is what we are focused on.

So may the Spirit of God preach to our hearts this morning.

What am I focused on?

Am I focused on my physical body and my the clay pot, or am I just taken up with the fact that God is at work in my life doing this renewed, renewing process.

That's what we need to sit with.

Do you see?

He says, here's why we don't focus on it.

So he's going to substantiate it here.

Look on the screen, right?

He says, we're not focused on the unseen.

We're focused on what's not seen.

And then here's why.

It's because what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Many of you are familiar with Christianity and how we talk about living eternally, that you are designed to live eternally.

The Bible says that every human was designed to live eternally, either in the presence of God or separated from the presence of God.

So all will live eternally, but only those who take up the invitation of the gospel message will live eternally in the presence of God.

And he says, listen, the things that are unseen, the work that God is doing in your life right now, today and tomorrow and the next day, that renewing process is unseen and it is eternal.

I think we make a mistake when we think about life after death because we think it's going to be radically different.

But there's going to be relationships in eternal life.

There's going to be worship.

There's going to be meals.

There's going to be purpose.

So your concept of eternal life, like the work that God is actively doing to renew you now, has a life beyond the physical body that you are in.

And so there is a tremendous value.

Paul says it's in an incomparable weight of glory, but there's a tremendous value in the work you have done over the last eight weeks.

Those of you in class memorizing Scripture, reading your Bibles, listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit, in your waypoints class, as you are engaged, letting God do that work in you that is life-giving, there's a renewing process that is eternal.

And so the time you invested through waypoints into knowing God better, understanding Him better, what is going on in that process is that there is this renewing, this life-giving process, and it's going to outlast the physical body that you are in.

Let's keep going.

Verses, we're going to jump to chapter five.

Well, here's the visual, okay?

Here's the visual.

Your momentary light affliction that's visible, it doesn't weigh very much.

The unseen, incomparable weight of glory is much, much heavier, eternal and unseen.

So how can anyone look at what they cannot see?

That's the question, right?

That is that that the text gives birth to.

Well, if you're supposed to look at what can't be seen, how do you do that?

Well, chapter 5, verses 1 through 4 answers that question.

And he says, let's talk about your earthly tent.

So we we're we were talking about your body as if it were a clay pot.

Now we're going to change the metaphor over to being a tent.

How many of you have ever gone camping before?

A few of you, okay.

But when we talk about a tent, you know what we're talking about, right?

A tent that you pitch?

Okay, good.

As long as we're we've got that down.

Because that's the key metaphor here that Paul is using.

He says, For we know that if our earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens that is not made with hands.

Notice, we're not guessing, but we know.

Do you know that?

Do you do your life knowing that you have, that when your earthly tent is destroyed, that you will have a building from God.

So he says, presently we have this earthly tent.

But the house is already yours.

It's already prepared for you.

This new body that God will give you when you shed this body is prepared for you already, even if you are not wearing it now.

When he uses this term tent, if you were Jewish, you'd be thinking.

Of, like, the tabernacle that the Israel would set up, how it'd be set up as a place to worship God, and then it would be torn down and moved to the next place.

But the building, notice he says that the building that God has made for you, your future body, he describes it as not made with hands.

Two things there.

It's eternal in the heavens, and it's not made by hands.

It's not like just something humans pulled together.

No, this is a God-crafted future body.

Let's go to verse two.

I want you to notice that Paul is not a stoic in his response to this reality.

In verse two and in verse four, he says, We groan.

A stoic doesn't groan, but Paul does groan.

He says, Indeed, we groan in this tent, desiring to put on our heavenly dwelling.

So there is a permissible desire in this life to long for this future body.

He includes this.

Paul, it's not just I groan, Paul's saying, he's we groan.

You're allowed to groan with Paul to put on this heavenly dwelling.

Since we are clothed, we will not be found naked.

Indeed, again, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed.

Our desire is not to shed a body and be a disembodied spirit.

That's the desire.

That's what the desire should be.

Like if you're hoping to be Casper the ghost when you die, you've got the wrong desire.

No, you're going to be an embodied spirit that lives eternally, but you're going to shed this tent, this body.

It's because he says picking up at the because there, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

So verse 4 here, this is a purpose clause.

Further clothed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by death.

Notice death, death is not the swallower.

We often look at death as like this great thing that's going to like chew you up and spit you out.

But Paul says, no, it's life that swallows you up.

Life that swallows you up.

When the tent, when your tent comes down, you're not moving out into nothingness.

I think that's the teaching of like Hinduism.

Right?

No.

What the Bible teaches is that when you die, you're going to be clothed by life and by this new body.

You're moving into a house, God already has standing, and you will not be a naked soul.

You will be further clothed.

Some of you are here.

You're groaning, but you feel bad about the groaning.

And you just need to know that it is okay with Paul to long.

This is why we opened up our um our uh service today with that song by Phil Wickham about the hymn of heaven.

He's in that song longing for the presence of God.

To be in the presence of God.

Let it be today, he says.

Right?

So you don't need to apologize for your groaning.

Paul groans twice in these four verses.

There is almost a sense of homesickness for a better body, and that's faith, not ingratitude.

Now, how many of you are familiar with Star Wars?

Star Wars is based, oh Marvin's very enthusiastically raising his hand back there.

The philosophy of Star Wars is a dualism, right?

You have the the dark side, right?

You have the dark side, and you have the light side, right?

You have the Jedi force.

Or you ever seen the yin and the yang?

That's dualism.

Dualism was popular in Paul's day as well, as well.

And some people fall into, they read a text like this and they fall into dualism.

Like the body I have is bad, and I want to put away the body.

That's a plague disease thought for Christians.

Because they think like that you that that somehow being outside of that the body is a problem, and you need to be outside the body to be more spiritual.

No, you're but you're designed to be in a body.

Like there is a there is a war between Satan and God.

Satan was cast to heaven, and there is chaos, it says over the waters in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And God created the humans in the midst of that battle to be his image-bearers, to subdue, to rule, to be fruitful and multiply on the earth, to carry out his mandate on the earth where Satan was cast.

Now, humans failed at that, but in order to carry out that culture mandate, God embodied the humans.

Your body and my body have a purpose.

And so a dualism that sees the body as the problem is not fully getting it.

God purposely designed your body.

But the body that you're in right now had a purpose and it's now warped in its purpose from even carrying out that design from the garden.

It's experiencing death and decay.

But you will get this eternal body in the future.

There's also this cynicism that comes in when you look at this text.

The tent comes down, you are weary, you're in decay, and then you think, well, that's it.

You know, that's the end of my life.

And Paul's saying, no, no, no, we don't quit because our king rose on the third day.

Grace is spreading through us, and we we have that as the anchor of our soul, and we're here experiencing the decay of our bodies, but we're not quitting.

We're recognizing this internal work of renewal is actively at work in our life day by day, and it is this eternal weight of glory, and we're anticipating this future body, and so we're not cynical about just the fact that the tent is coming down or we're gonna experience decay.

We read Psalm 23, we sang Psalm 23, and he says, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

That's just not that's not a mood, that is a reality.

It is the same house that Paul says we already have laid up for us.

When he talks about, when the psalmist talks about dwelling in the house of the Lord forever, that house is ready to go.

You're on the launch pad.

And so there is a very real purpose that we talked about last week about being like a clay pot, and there's a very real purpose about being like a tent.

God is at work in your life, and you're experiencing your mortality in one way or another, but you need to know that it has a dynamic, it has a purpose.

Let's go to verse 5.

Now, the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the spirit as a down payment.

Very important.

So God is the one who has prepared us for this purpose and who has placed his spirit as a down payment.

What's a down payment?

You make a down payment on a car, right?

You make a down payment on a house.

A down payment, right, is just this it's it's proof money.

It's like actually goes towards the real thing.

Like a down payment on a house is your payment, but it's like, hey, I'm good for it, right?

I'm good for the whole mortgage.

The spirit of God is given to us by God as his down payment towards this whole picture.

You have the Spirit of God in you, it says in Ephesians 1, as a seal of the hope.

Here, Paul says, the Spirit is given to you as a down payment of this picture.

The spirit already given to you is not just tingly feeling.

It's not just goosebumps.

We're talking about the Spirit of God is in you.

He is a legal pledge that the builder will be, the building will be occupied.

The building will be occupied.

You will get that house.

That's the witness of the spirit in your life.

Apart from the spirit, this passage becomes kind of like a stoic coping or a body hatred with the spirit, it becomes a homesickness.

You see, the spirit is at work bearing witness to this reality.

It is the recipe in your pocket for an eternal reality.

And so Paul says to you and I, he gave us the Spirit of God as a down payment.

You don't have to wait until the tent falls to know that the house is yours.

God already put the down payment in you.

Let's look at verses six through eight.

So we're always confident.

Here the version is confident.

It also is the word courage in Greek.

We are always courageous, knowing that while we are at home in the body, in the tent, we're away from the Lord.

So we're courageous, we're courageous.

While we are at home, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.

In fact, we are confident and courageous, and we would prefer to be away from the body and to be home with the Lord.

So Paul is again, he's he's circling the ideas here.

He's circling around this, the ramifications.

If it was a spoke, a wheel, and it spokes, you would have the core concept, the first principles in the center.

You have these spokes coming out.

And he says, what underlies this, what comes about in our life is a confidence, a courage that while we're in the body, we're away from the Lord, but we're walking by faith, not by sight.

In fact, we're confident we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Faith is how you walk towards a house you have but cannot see.

The Spirit's in you.

The deposit, the down payment towards that future house.

You cannot see it, but you are taking steps of faith towards it.

Sight is not the enemy.

Sight is just not the map.

So you, if you again, if you're looking at what you can see, your own decay, you're not looking at the map.

You're looking at the present body that has a purpose.

It carries God, God, God puts you in that body, it carries out a plan, but it is not the map to the ultimate destination.

So we don't look at what we can see.

Instead, we're focused on the eternal, what we can't see, what's being renewed, the eternal weight of glory that is in us.

Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to him.

So it gives us a courage, but it also inspires our obedience.

God is speaking to you.

You're reading your Bible, you're memorizing scripture, there's the witness of the Spirit in your heart.

And Paul says, listen, whether you're at home or you're away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to God.

Why, Paul?

Why?

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

The reality is that you and I one day will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

So that, why are we gonna stand there?

Like, what's that room gonna look like?

What's that space gonna look like?

What is Christ on his throne gonna look like?

I have no idea.

But Paul says this is a reality.

That you and I will stand there before Christ, and it's here's why.

So that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether it is good or evil.

This judgment seat is not where your eternal destination, your eternal life is determined.

No, this is an accounting.

What did you do in the body?

Remember, I said there's a disease, there's a plague of bad thinking where Christians think the body doesn't matter.

No, Paul says, you and I will stand before the throne of God, and our deeds done in the body will be weighed out.

Were they good or were they evil?

There's an accounting that goes on.

This is where there's the rewards stored up in heaven.

This is where there are crowns that are given out in heaven.

This is this the vision of revelation begins to kind of become real, or the visions of Daniel kind of come into focus here with what Paul is saying.

You and I will come to a point where we stand and we have to say, Here's what I did while I was in the body.

And so Paul in this text, he's going, he's moved beyond clay pots, and he's dealing with this very reality, this very much real lived experience of decay.

And he's saying, Listen, don't get caught up with it.

Set your eyes on the unseen reality.

What's God doing at work in you?

Then come back to the body.

Come back to the body that you have and say, okay, God, you've renewed me.

Here's my body, lifted up to you as my offering, as my act of worship.

Do with it what you will.

I want you to be pleased, absolutely pleased with what I do in my body.

As long as I'm home in this body, I want you to be pleased.

Just remember, in closing, God, the word of God, became flesh and dwelt among us.

He took up a tent.

His outer person wasted away on the cross.

His tent was taken down on a Friday.

And the Father did not leave the Son unclothed.

He was further clothed.

He was given a real body, scars still on it.

Jesus was not raised as a ghost.

He went home to the Father, and then he sent that spirit as a down payment.

If you're wasting away, God is already renewing what the wasting cannot touch.

Your house is already ready.

Groan, look, walk.

You're not going into nothingness.

If you do not yet have a relationship with God, but you know that He's invited you into that relationship, that Jesus paid for your sins on the cross and raised so that you could be raised.

If you are not yet his, you need to know that the down payment is given in Christ.

It's not earned by a better body.

There's nothing you can do with your body to earn the down payment of the Spirit of God.

You need to just ask him.

God, I want your work.

If this is real, I want to have it.

I want to have what your son did.

Let me pray for you.

Lord, we read Psalm 23 that you're the good shepherd that leads us to quiet waters.

You even lead us through the valley of the shadow of death, and you've told us we do not need to fear evil.

Lord, I pray over the saints here.

Lord, over the last eight years of church life, many of our brothers and sisters, they have moved from their tent into their the eternal building made by you, God.

I think of Sister Yvonne, who we watched take her last breath and transition from this life into your presence.

And Lord, the rest of us are soon behind.

And so, Lord, would you help us?

Teach us not to look at what is seen, but to find our identity in you and what is unseen and to trust in that renewal process that you are carrying out in our life day by day.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.