Waiting For Glory

Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,

a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.

This fall, we're studying the book of Second

Corinthians. Second Corinthians is a heartfelt

and practical book calling us back to the life

of the cross. We, like the Corinthians, so often

pursue glory, admire eloquence, shun suffering,

hide hurt, and hoard our goods. And yet the gospel

of Jesus tells us that resurrection comes after

a cross. that comfort comes after being crushed,

that the way up is the way down, that the way

to glory is through suffering, that his strength

is made perfect in our weakness. We'd love to

meet you, and we hope you'll consider coming

and joining with us each Sunday morning at 10

a .m. in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You

can find us online at secondcitychurch .org and

on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We hope

you enjoy this sermon. God bless. Lord, would

you meet us now and enliven our hearts more that

we might desire you, you alone, and your coming

to make all things right. God, would this season

be a holy one. On this holy day, your Lord's

day, where we desire you more fully, where we

maybe even have a sense, a greater sense of our

need for you more fully. God, now with the words

of my mouth, with the meditations of our hearts,

be pleasing in your sight, our Lord, our rock

and our Redeemer. Amen. All right, I'm going

to try to sing this first, but I may give up.

When I grow up, I will be tall enough to reach

the branches that I need to reach to climb the

trees you get to climb when you're grown up.

I'm not going to keep going. I practiced this

song a little hard. I'll just read it. But it's

not as much fun to read. And when I grow up,

I will be smart enough to answer all the questions

that you need to know the answers to before you're

grown up. And when I grow up, I will eat sweets

every day on the way to work. And I will go to

bed late every night. And when I wake up, when

the sun comes up, and I will watch cartoons until

my eyes grow square. And I won't care because

I'll be all grown up. And I love this one, a

couple of these, I'm gonna keep going. When I

grow up, I will be strong enough to carry all

the heavy things you have to haul around with

you when you're a grown up. And when I grow up,

I'll be brave enough to fight the creatures that

you have to fight beneath the bed each night

to be a grown up. When I grow up, I'll have treats

every day and I'll play with things that mom

pretends that moms don't think are fun. All right,

I won't say all of it. That's one of my favorite

songs from, somebody knows this, right? Where's

it from? Matilda, thank you. And I love it in

part because it's sort of silly. It invites your

laughter and it's a very wonderful tune that

I couldn't keep going with. But another reason

that I love it is that it shows how often we

think that there is a grownup life. out there.

Children sometimes might think this, but I think

we think this too. Where you have it all. You

have it all together. You're able to do it all.

It's almost like an adulthood that in theological

language we would call an over -realized eschatology.

Amen? Y 'all are like, what's that? I'll tell

you. That is the idea. that the final events

in the Christian life and faith, when all is

good and right and as it should be, can be realized

here in this life. It's come fully now. It's

just yours to be grabbed onto and to be lived

into. And in that idea, there is no need to wait.

for glory, to wait for Jesus to come. It's not

needed. I want you to think about this with me

for a moment in regards to Christmas carols being

sung during Advent and November. I shared what

last week, what an angry preacher I am that right

after Halloween, all of a sudden there's Christmas

decorations up in all the stores. And all of

a sudden there's Christmas songs being sung.

Played all over the place. It was as though we

went from October 31st That blessed eve of our

Saints To December 25th candy and then presents

the good life We don't want to sort of sit in

the need of how difficult life is how painful

it is how full of sorrow It can be I Don't like

to wait Paul in this chapter again is continuing

this dynamic with these super apostles. This

is a major part of this, the theme of this book,

of course. These teachers had come into the church

in Corinth with their letters of recommendation

and their, you know, their know -how and their

eloquence and all, and we're teaching another

Jesus as we looked at last week. And I posed

to you last week that very likely the Jesuses

that they were proposing, the different messiahs

corresponded to the messiahs that were on offer

at the day and are on offer in our own day. But

here in chapter 12, our text we have before us,

it seems as though a lot of what Paul is arguing

for here in this chapter is that these super

apostles were living and declaring, inviting

others into the paradise life. They were teaching,

you don't have to wait. And maybe you should

actually think less of those who have their thorns

in their side, their sorrows that persist. Can't

they just live into glory now? The pain and the

weakness of this life, they would say, was an

aberration of the Christian experience, not the

norm. Proverbs 13 -12, I love this proverb. It

says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. My

guess is pretty much all of you know that experience

on some level. Hope deferred makes the heart

sick. Maybe what they were saying though, what

was on offer is, well, don't be sick! Have it

all or you can we should Don't wait you can grow

up now you can have it all now you can climb

the tree now you can eat the candy now Have all

the Christmas songs now Sorry, I do love Christmas

songs. There's something great in waiting. So

what's Paul say? Okay, so the first thing I want

us to consider is that he Paul actually does

know the experience of the wonder of what God

has done and will do. Paul knows this taste of

glory, okay? So verse one, it begins like this,

I must go on boasting, though there's nothing

to be gained by it. You remember, he's been kind

of entertaining their rhetorical dynamics to

hear their boasting. I will go on to visions

and revelations of the Lord. What he's doing

is he's introducing this idea that he has had

experiences of glory. He's hesitant to get too

much into it. And maybe you heard this as Rebecca

read it for us. He says a few times, I knew a

man. He doesn't want to sort of enter into the

discussion, but he eventually of course doesn't.

We know from verses six and seven that he's the

man. He does say eventually me. who he's talking

about, but he's sort of pushing it off. But he

then, he gets into this dynamic, he says, I know

this experience. I know the idea of having tasted

something so glorious that you just want to sit

in that all the time. And you want to grab onto

that all the time. The verses two and five, he

says this, I know a man, there's that phrase,

in Christ, who 14 years ago was caught up to

the third heaven, whether in the body or out

of the body, I do not know, God knows. And I

know that this man, Was caught up into paradise.

Whether in the body or out of the body, I do

not know. God knows. And he heard things that

cannot be told, which man may not utter. Okay.

What's clear is that this is not his conversion

experience. Paul recounts that elsewhere a couple

different times. This isn't his experience on

the road to Damascus where he's blinded. That's

not what's happening here. In fact, this is the

only time where he seems to talk about this experience.

He says it happened 14 years earlier, which we

would have known would have been actually quite

a few years after his conversion. It would have

been probably right before his first missionary

journey. And what is clear is that there's this

experience that he had, and it was so significant,

it was so life impacting, it shaped him in such

a way that he actually can't even describe whether

or not it was actually a physical experience.

Was he brought up into this place of paradise,

maybe like Elijah or Enoch of old, like physically

done, or was it just this spiritual experience,

this out -of -body experience of his spirit?

What he knows is that it had happened though.

He had actually had a glimpse, at least a taste

of glory and of paradise. He doesn't say much

about it. He doesn't describe it. But he says

he experienced this, this paradise experience,

this glimpse of glory. So it's Advent. We've

mentioned that a couple of times, of course.

This is the time when we remember the Lord's

coming, His first coming. We do more than that,

but we remember this first coming of the Lord's

in His incarnation. And I hope that each of you

actually have tasted in a way of the things to

come. The life for which your heart longs. Things

that you want to hold onto and not let them pass

you by, right? Just sit in that. Maybe a meal

with friends where laughter permeated the whole

time. Sorrow seemed to just not even be present

in your mind or in your heart. It was so gone.

There was such an experience of fellowship there.

Fellowship that pushed out all of the disunity

of our day. And maybe you've had moments of your

relationships that seem so ecstatic that the

union was so tight, the discord again, which

we live in so often in our time, was just a thing

of the past. It wasn't even on your mind because

there was such a deep dynamic between others

at play. Maybe you've had this sense of God's

spirit within you that truly you actually have

had that experience of the peace that passes

your understanding. God with you. the Spirit

of God making His habitation, His temple in you.

And you had this ecstasy of grace which sort

of blew your mind past your understanding. I

hope you've experienced some of those things.

But we can think back to the time when our Lord

did come to us here on this earth, right? I think

one of the reasons why so many uh, Christians

and non -Christians alike are so intrigued, at

least by Jesus, is because, because when you

consider Christ and His coming, you look back

at His first coming, you actually do see a glimpse

into glory, into things as they should be, right?

The lame, they're walking, the blind, they're

given sight. Uh, the socially estranged, think

of the woman who had a bleeding for 12 years,

right? She had to go around saying, unclean,

unclean, and nobody would hang out with her.

She's Far off, outside of the neighborhood. Think

of the woman there at the well, having to go

out to the well to get her water at midday when

nobody would do that. And nobody's with her because

nobody would be with her because of her sordid

past. What does Jesus do? He restores her things

as they're supposed to be, glimpses into glory.

We can say, we can truly say in a way that when

we look at the first coming of Jesus, we get

a little glimpse into paradise. We taste it.

We have it a little you know, we touches our

hearts and we want to grab on to it And we see

in his resurrection that his resurrection Joy

is our resurrection Joy think of the stories

a little bit after the resurrection Jesus meeting

not just Thomas's doubts, but our doubts With

his nail pierced hands, right? Jesus feeding

not just the disciples on on the beach there

but in some ways he's feeding our hearts by saying

well fellowship restored life with god with roasted

fish jesus restoring peter despite his threefold

denial glimpses into paradise what we most desire

but these super apostles here in second corinthians

They probably came in and spoke of their experiences,

and Paul's saying, I don't want to have to speak

about this, but I'll tell you. But I think the

big difference that's going on is that they're

saying, grab onto it now. And if you're not experiencing

this now, you are living a lesser -than -Christian

life. expect necessarily that all of you think

this. So maybe some of you have heard this. And

maybe not all of you think, man, I just need

to live a life that is all together, that can

have it all now. But I certainly think it's at

least the temptation of our hearts to do this,

to think that it must be on offer. At least somebody

has it, right? And I need to grab it and I need

to desire it. And that needs to be the object

of my life. It's certainly the good life the

life of having it all together certainly at least

the life that we project is it not We want to

show that we have it together that we are mature

that we're adults We can climb all the trees

and you know what I can eat the candy if I want

I'll just go to the gym I can make it happen

We project competence We display our experiences

and our knowledge our know -how our book smarts

Of course we do this on social media it's built

on this experience right Or at least that we

know that this is how it works if the news cycle

is primarily about Catastrophizing and just showing

you all that is wrong in the world. What is social

media doing? posts about vacations and about

The glorious food we've tasted the mountains.

We've climbed the races. We've completed the

kids that have all of the smiles We don't need

to tell anybody it was like the 20th picture

Paradise here And we certainly think that at

least some can have it all now, maybe it's not

the people we know but in it In our minds, there's

this idea that it exists out there. Maybe it's

the greats of history. I don't know who comes

to your mind. Steve Jobs, Mozart, Isaac Newton,

Martin Luther King, John Calvin, we're in a Presbyterian

church. If we were only just like them, we could

live into the glory that is on offer today. Let

me tell you about Florence Chadwick. She was

born in 1918 in San Diego long before Title IX.

She won her first swimming competition at the

age of nine. She was drawn more though to open

water swimming and so at the age of 10, what

have you been doing with your life? She became

the youngest person to swim across the mouth

of the San Diego Bay. In 1950, she became both

the fastest woman to swim the English Channel

and the only woman to swim it both ways. She

went on to swim the Strait of Gibraltar. Then

in 1953, she swam the English Channel again because

somebody else took her record and she wanted

it back. And then she swam the Bosporus and the

Hellespont. Her career was one of success, right?

There's those people out there, right? This idealism,

this over -realized eschatology exists, at least

for some people in our hearts, just ache and

we eat ourselves up. I think in some ways we

approach the Bible and its characters like we

approach Francis Chadwick or Martin Luther King

or Augustine or Calvin or whatever. Maybe we

know that the social media count with all of

the edited beauty, which is exactly what it is,

edited beauty. We know that that might be a farce,

but we have this idea of being set on this good

life. And we hear of these super apostles. We

say, yes, super apostle, give me that title.

Some people can have it now. Strength and unending

progress is on offer now. So what these super

apostles were offering was something that of

course the Corinthian church was like, yeah,

give me that instead of this bumbling Paul figure.

And of course that's what so many in our day

do. But Paul goes on, right? He goes on from

speaking of his experience of what God has done

and giving him this glimpse of glory, to then

the second movement in this first half is speaking

of his experience, actually, his real lived experience,

which also speaks for the hope that he has, what

God will do. So verses seven and eight, right?

Seven and eight. So to keep me from becoming

conceited, because isn't that exactly what happens?

Look at what I did. Look at my pretty blah, blah,

blah. Look at the experience I had. So to keep

me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing

greatness of the revelations. A thorn was given

to me in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to

harass me to keep me from becoming conceited.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this,

that it should leave me. And we don't know what

this thorn is. The word for thorn is scallops,

like how some people pronounce scallops, scallops,

which can mean a stake, which is driven down,

sort of immovable. A one event kind of thing

that is just in you. Or a splinter which just

is constantly irritating, right? You just can't

get it out. But it's something sharp and it's

painful and it defies eradication. Its effect

was crippling, draining of energy. Was it his

constant persecution? Was that maybe the thorn

in his flesh? Some people have said, given the

context of St. Corinthians and where he brings

it up, was it a speech impediment? A stutter?

A slur? Was it deep mental illness? The ongoing

slot of depression? Was it, we have some reason

to believe, that Paul may have been married?

It's possible. Was it the loss of his loved ones

at some time? We don't know. And I think it's

God's grace we don't know, but just like our

Lord prayed in Gethsemane for his cup to be taken

from him, Paul did this and it was not. And I

want to suggest this too this morning, that this

thorn not being taken away was that he would

look for and hope for all the more the coming.

of Jesus. His second Advent. Because there's

a dynamic at play that if you can have it all

now, why wait? Why long? You know, adults don't

exist. I wish the kids were up here to hear that.

It's actually a kind of important lesson. I mean

like the perfect social media pictures aren't

real. Please hear me. No, super apostles that

have it all together do not actually exist. They

don't. So I heard this quote this week from an

essay from George Mack. The essay is, adults

don't exist. Steve Jobs delayed nine months of

medical treatment for pancreatic cancer to try

carrot juice diet Mozart spent his income and

lived miserably in mountains of debt and regularly

wrote letters to friends begging for money Nietzsche

lost His virginity in a brothel and caught syphilis

and only saw his work sell 300 copies in his

lifetime. Martin Luther King had extramarital

affairs with over 40 women, including spending

his last night with two women who were fighting.

The last night of his life. Isaac Newton spent

30 years of his life writing one million words.

The great scientist Isaac spent 30 years of his

life writing one million words on the pseudoscience

of alchemy, which were hidden for years by his

heirs because they were too embarrassed to publish

them. Don't put any adults on pedestals. Kill

your gurus or a more useful belief. Your adults

aren't going to save you. They don't even exist.

Which he means is that there's this idea that

just when we get there We'll be able to carry

the heavy loads that we have to carry around

when we're adults So we'll get to do what we

want. We can climb the trees, right? We can get

to the high place. There's this possibility But

there is something really wonderful in coming

to this admission Listen to this there are 4

.9 billion people on social media throughout

the world and the average person spends a 145

minutes a day on social media, that's the average.

That's a lot of time, two hours and 15, no, sorry,

two hours and 25 minutes. And what has it done

for us? What has it done for us? Unbelievable

increases in anxiety and, you know, the constant

FOMO, fear of missing out dynamic that we live

in, looking at the highlight reels. of everyone

else's lives. The super apostles over realized

eschatology doesn't do us any good. Whereas the

thorns in our flesh, the places where we ache

and hurt and know our frailty often are the very

places of God's grace. Let me say that again.

The thorns in our flesh, the places where we

ache and hurt and know we don't have control

can be the very places of God's grace in our

lives. Think with me back to Matilda. If you

know the story, you know that most of the adults

in that story are not the adults that they sing

about. Not even close, their living self -serving

lives. They're hurting those about them. I mean,

her father is an absolute awful father. The headmaster

of the school, one who is to tend to and care

for the children under her care, Mrs. Trunchbull,

is like a hell figure. And yet, who is the one

who brings some redemption, Miss Honey? Who knows

heartache, who knows loss, who knows pain, who

has this deep -seated thorn? After Paul speaks

of the thorn in the flesh He says what is at

the very heart of this whole book second Corinthians.

This is the heart of this message But he said

to me the Lord said to Paul My grace is sufficient

for you My power is made perfect in weakness

then Paul goes on therefore I will boast all

the more gladly in my weakness, so that the power

of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ

then I am content. I'm content with weakness,

insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

A wild thing to say. Content with insults and

calamities. Why, when I am weak, then He is strong,

then I am strong. Which is to say, it's in our

weakness the power of God is made strong. It's

in our weakness where our faith in what God has

done, right, this glimpse of glory that he gives

us in his first advent, moves in us that our

faith might grow and our hope might abound. What

he will do in his second coming is in these places

of waiting and longing and desiring God. where

we find strength, where we grow up into Christian

maturity. Let me go back to Florence Chadwick.

So she was this unbelievably masterful swimmer.

I mean, her story is remarkable, records throughout

the world. And in 1952, keep in mind she grew

up in San Diego, Southern California. She attempted

to swim the distance between LA, Los Angeles

and Catalina Island, which is 26 miles. Right,

I ran two half marathons and I couldn't walk

after the second one for like three days and

she swam a marathon 26 miles of deep chop choppy

cold shark infested water And she was doing very

well until the fog came and settled in and She

couldn't see where she was going thought And

eventually she loses heart and she stops and

she climbs in the boat. And when she got to the

boat, she realized the people there in the boats,

she only had it one mile to go. 25 miles of swimming.

You think of this church, right? The Corinthian

Church. They're so desirous to get there and

all this is about them is just clouding their

vision. The temptation is to go along with these

super apostles and to give up on the true Christ.

And it may be easy to look at her life and see

what a loss. She had such a great career anyway.

But then a couple of months later, she said,

I'm going to give it a go again. She tried and

you know what? The same thing happened. Well,

sort of. Swimming and the fog descends again.

And she can't see where she's going. You can

say in a way that the thorn in her flesh persisted.

But give up? She said, no. Glory was in front

of her. She couldn't see the shore. And she wasn't

at the shore. And she keeps going. And she makes

it. She makes it. And of course the question

is, What's different? What's different from being

so blinded by all that's around you and giving

up or being blinded with solid around you and

continuing on? She said she kept a mental picture

of the shore in her mind. She just focused on

that mental picture as she swam and swam. And

we are in Advent. And we have had, we have this

recorded for us in the holy scripture. We have

had this glimpse of glory. Christ among us, kingdom

of God is at hand, Jesus says. And he is saying,

keep going despite the thorns, despite the pain.

It may actually be the grace of God for you that

causes you to continue to long for him and have

your eyes fixed. on what is to come in Christ's

second coming. His resurrected life, true paradise,

true glory, not these fake ones that we are so

tempted to grab onto. Christ is our shore, God

in the flesh. The one who for our sake actually

drank the cup that he pleaded would be taken

away. And in His cross and His resurrection,

we wouldn't have this temporal life hope, but

we would have an eternal glory set before us.

Brothers and sisters, Christ's power is made

perfect in our weakness, and your thorns are

the very grace of God, helping you to cling to

Him and to fix your eyes on Him. Let me pray

for us. Lord in heaven, what a lesson we need

to hear, God. how tempting it is to grab on or

to be blinded by these fake lights, these flashing

lights that grab for our attention, these beautiful

posts, beautiful people and hagiographies of

the people of the past. God, would we be a people

that own our sorrows, that are acquainted with

grief like our Lord was? You know that often

actually it is our thorns which are your grace.

Would we fix our eyes on Jesus, both the author

but also the only perfecter of our faith? Amen.

Thank you for listening to Second City Sermons

podcast. We hope this sermon has encouraged you

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Thanks again for listening. God bless.