Groan Away from Home

So if you have a Bible and you want to find 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians in the New Testament, we have been walking through a series, and this is number 10, 10th installment in 2 Corinthians.

We're in chapter 5, and if you were able to be with us last week or catch us, you know that Paul has been very honest and very personal about what's going on here in this church

at Corinth, his standing with them has been tested, hasn't it, in these recent days. Part of that's due to their own sinfulness as a church, which is kind of encouraging to those of us that struggle as churches even today, that this original church at Corinth

also had its problems, but things have been exasperated, you could say, by the arrival of the so-called super apostles, these rivals who showed up and began to challenge Paul's very apostleship.

So Paul has been sharing, teaching with them in the last chapter about the clay jars that we all are, chapter 4, cracked and chipped, in his case, persecuted and mistreated, afflicted

in every way, but never forsaken, never abandoned or destroyed, and never driven to despair. Paul went on in chapter 4 to start talking about some eternal realities, about how our outer

self is wasting away, even while our inner self is being renewed day by day, he says. He made a brief mention of the resurrection, about Jesus being raised and us being raised with him someday.

And he looked forward to what he described as an eternal weight of glory that he contrasted with these light and momentary afflictions. But that's pretty much where he left things off.

Today, Paul is going to be much more specific as we come to verse 1, specific about what happens to the believer after this life. So let's begin reading in verse 1, and we're going to read the first 10 verses of God's Word today.

Verse 1. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. If indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed,

but that we would be further clothed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.

Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Would you pray with me once more? Father, as we think about mortal life, as we are reminded today, even in Tom's prayer a moment ago, that many of us are indeed burdened, and there are afflictions, things that weigh on us physically, spiritually, mentally.

We look to you. And so, Lord, our prayer this morning is that you would lift our hearts as you lift our minds and equip us, Lord, with the knowledge that we need to build our faith.

Lord, to shape our outlook so that we will not focus only on things that we see all around us in this world, but that we will think about eternal realities, because it is in this that we ground our hope.

And we pray this in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

If you know anything about the Apostle Paul, you know he had really good training, but we know he also had a trade, right? Maybe that's a good metaphor for life.

Go off and get a good education, but know how to work with your hands, too. Paul's trade was that he was what? A tent maker. And so, it's interesting to see, it's no accident, no random chance, that that's the analogy that he reaches for, the metaphor of a tent.

And he says that we know. So, he's not writing something that the Corinthians have not ever heard of. Like, this is brand new news to us. They know this.

And he says to them right away in verse 1, we know that the tent that is our earthly home, our body, that if it is destroyed, we have a building from God.

Isn't that interesting how he talks about the tent as an earthly residence? And like a tent, it's temporary and not very secure. I can tell you a story about my father-in-law, who at 84 years of age still likes to go out into the wilderness and camp.

I don't know what's wrong with him. He's crazy. And so, he packs up his little car, right, with all of his camping gear. And he doesn't go to, like, you know, Potato Creek.

He lives out in Iowa. He goes further west to the wilderness, where there are lions and tigers and bears, anyway. Right? And he tells us this story, I think it was a year ago, how he was out there, and he, you know, one of the things he packs is a cot.

Because, you know, he's getting old, so he can't sleep on the ground. So, he has a cot. And this cot is an interesting thing. I don't know if you've ever seen this, but it has a tent that zips around it.

So, it's literally a tent. No, he can't even sit up. It just covers him. So, he's in there in this tent, I guess you could say, on his cot. Middle of the night, he wakes up and he hears breathing.

He's not 100% sure, but we all are. It was a bear. I don't know if you know that nylon is not great protection from a bear claw. He survived.

But actually, this metaphor of a tent, if that helps you, this is what Paul's talking about. But honestly, Paul didn't, he wasn't the first one to come up with this metaphor.

It actually appears in the Old Testament. Take a look in the book of Isaiah, chapter 38, verse 12. This is King Hezekiah, sick and dying. And he composes this prayer.

Isaiah 38:12

And what does he compare his dying body to? A shepherd's tent. Isaiah 38, verse 12. My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd's tent.

Isaiah 38:12

Even that original tabernacle that God gave to his people, the Israelites, that they were supposed to pack up and move as they wandered around the wilderness, that tent would go with them.

They had a system. That was temporary. That was never supposed to be the permanent structure. I mean, even the temple wasn't permanent, but it was more permanent.

And Paul says, this is how it is with our bodies. He says, we know this. And if, or more like, when it is destroyed, whether by accident, or by illness, or by persecution, or simply because it wears out with old age.

We have a building from God, he writes. A house not made with human hands. Eternal in the heavens. Paul's talking about the resurrected, glorified body.

Our permanent, eternal building that God's going to give his children as their heavenly dwelling. What's he say in verse 2? For while we're in this tent, we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.

He goes on in verse 3. If indeed by putting it on, we may not be found naked. Now a few things to clarify here. And we're going to need a few other scriptures to bring in to kind of help us round out this partial picture Paul's giving us right here.

First off, the term naked that he uses in scripture, when someone is, when it's said that we will not be found naked, there are a range of meanings.

Okay? Naked can mean actually, totally unclothed, but it can also mean not adequately clothed. Or underclothed, underdressed, partially clothed.

And I want you to understand that really fits the context here. In the sense that we do right now have our mortal bodies, they are some covering, you could say, for our souls.

We are right now partially clothed in our flesh, but they are mere tents. They're vulnerable, they're temporary, and they are not durable for eternity.

They are, as he says in his first letter to the Corinthians, perishable. Let me share a couple verses with you back in his first letter. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 50, he says, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

1 Corinthians 15:50

They're of different kinds. And this is what happens to our bodies, he says, a couple verses later, verse 53, for this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

So we leave behind the perishable tent, right? Our mortal flesh, and we get to inherit or literally put on what is imperishable in our eternal dwelling, in that glorified, resurrected body.

Now, at the risk of letting this all sound rather straightforward, let me confuse things. Let me throw a monkey wrench in, all right? Because the reality, there are things, again, that we learn from other places in Scripture, even from Paul's own writings, that introduce a few complications.

You say, why didn't you just leave this out? I was fine until now. Well, we've got to deal with Scripture as we find it, don't we? Here is Paul over in another letter, in his letter to the Thessalonians, and here again, he talks about these same matters, and this is what he says over there in 1 Thessalonians 4,

1 Thessalonians 4:15

verse 15. He says, For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then, we who are alive, will be caught up, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

You say, are these literal clouds up in the literal air? Well, I think we're going up. At least that's true. It could very well be literal. But I want you to notice a couple of things in what Paul says here.

Two groups of believers. One, who are still alive at the second coming, right? Still alive. That's not going to be Abraham. It's not going to be Moses.

It's not going to be your dead grandma. These are the people who are still living and breathing in their mortal flesh who are able to see with their very own eyes the second coming, which has not happened yet.

The second group is everybody else. All the people who have fallen asleep, which is a euphemism for died. And of course, the second group is a really, really big one because it includes all the deceased saints who have fallen asleep throughout all of human history.

It's a big group. And what Paul's telling us here is an encouragement is that the dead in Christ, that big group, they're going to rise first.

What he means is that their mortal bodies will rise up from the grave or out of the dust or from the four corners of the world, wherever their remains lie, and they will be reunited with their resurrected souls and they will be gathered together on the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

Paul says this happens first. And then, those who are still alive at his second coming who have been watching this happen will get to join the rest on the clouds with the Lord.

This is the time where the mortal remains, understand this, whatever remains of the mortal body everywhere and for all time is resurrected and transformed into a glorified body.

Whereas, where our mortal bodies are, Paul says it this way over in Romans, where they're redeemed. He says that. The redemption of our mortal bodies.

Romans 8.23. Where the bare kernel, that's another metaphor he uses, the bare kernel of our mortal body finally puts on immortality. 1 Corinthians 15.

Here's how he describes it over in Philippians 3. Philippians 3.20. He says, Our citizenship is in heaven and from it, from there, from heaven, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will do what?

Will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. a transformation from mortal to immortal, from flesh and dust to permanent

heavenly dwelling fully clothed, as Paul says right here in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 4. In fact, the words Paul uses here in verse 4, talking about this time when we will be further clothed, he describes it as the mortal life being, the mortal, I should say,

2 Corinthians 5:4

being swallowed up by life, like Jonah and the fish. The mortal swallowed up by life, or as some scholars like to say, like putting on an overcoat.

The kernel or seed of our mortal flesh, whatever remains after we've died, and listen, in the cases of some people, this is going to be interesting, because we all know that some people don't die a natural death and get embalmed and put into a coffin.

A lot of people in the history of the world have been blown up and obliterated in war. Other people, like John Wycliffe, one of the great leaders in church history, you know, he died a natural death and was buried, but then a church council that didn't like what he did, making the Bible available to people,

decided they would dig up his corpse, I mean his bones at that point, and they put them on trial, and they condemned them, and then they burned them, and ground them up into powder, and spread them in the river.

You say, well, why are they doing that? They're trying to prevent his resurrection, which is quite ironic if they think he's a heretic. They shouldn't worry that he's going to go to heaven.

Strange people. Strange councils. We don't do that anymore. Thank goodness. But I want you to know, somehow, in some miraculous way, emphasis on the word miraculous, God is able, right?

I'm not a scientist, but God is able to retrieve, I guess, the molecules of what we once were, somehow, bring them back together as our mortal bodies, resurrect them, instantly transform them, and then overcoat them, right?

With immortality. eternity, transforming them into that permanent, glorified body that will last for eternity. You got all that? You don't need to worry about it.

God's going to do it for you. There's nothing for you to do. But maybe you wonder how. Because, you know, a lot of people get cremated these days.

Ashes get spread in the wind? Or, what about all those Christians who die at sea? And you know, what they do at sea for, they don't do this anymore much, but, unless you're Osama Bin Laden, but most people, if you die at sea, they bring you back.

But that's only a recent thing. For many, many, many centuries, they dumped you off the ship. They let you become fish food. How are you going to explain their resurrection?

And I will tell you, I can't. I don't know how to explain it. I'm not going to try. But I know God knows. I know God knows how. And I know God says He can and very much will do it.

In fact, Paul tells us, if you missed this in verse 5, Paul tells us right here that God has a plan for all of this. You hear people say, God has a plan for your life.

God also has a plan for your resurrection. Verse 5. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God.

And please remember, this is the same creator God who, a while back, originally created human beings out of literal dust. And if God can create humankind out of dust, I don't think it's going to be a problem for Him to recreate it and resurrect old dust again.

He's God. And as Paul reminds us in Philippians 3, he's got omnipotent power.

But then how does all this work? And maybe more to the point, how does all of Paul's teaching in these various places line up? I mean, if our fellow believers who have departed this world, who have fallen asleep, as he says, if they're somehow immediately with the Lord, I mean, that's true, isn't it?

Didn't Jesus once say to the thief on the cross next to Him in Luke 23, verse 43, what did He say? In a thousand years you will be, no, today you will be with me in paradise.

Luke 23:43

That sounds immediate. And even right here in this passage, Paul speaks about being at home in the body, verse 6, as opposed to being at home with the Lord.

Sounds like it's an either or, right? Either we're at home in the body or we're with the Lord instantaneously. We leave here, we go there. And I personally believe this and I teach this at every funeral I do that our departed loved ones,

if they are believers, they're instantly with the Lord the moment they pass from this life.

But Paul seems to teach in 2 Thessalonians that our mortal bodies actually have to wait. That they don't transform immediately upon death into their glorified form.

This doesn't happen until the final resurrection which occurs at Christ's second coming. So then, are all the deceased believers, where are they?

we ask ourselves, are they still in the grave? No. No, they're with the Lord. Are they in some kind of a state of soul sleep that some would describe?

We don't believe that. We don't find scriptural evidence for that. Are they in fact actually with the Lord? And yes, they are actually with the Lord.

But with what kind of body? It can't be their final resurrected glorified body. And the answer to these questions, I'll be quite honest with you, is not something that I have, at least not perfectly or completely.

I believe they're all in heaven. You should believe they're all in heaven or literally paradise as Jesus calls it. but what form they have is a bit of an open question for me personally.

And I wonder, are they simply resurrected souls? Are they in a state of spiritual existence at this point? Not yet embodied? Some think so. And I don't think it's necessarily wrong to think that.

We do, after all, get these pictures later in the book of Revelation. I want to share one with you from chapter 6. Revelation chapter 6, verse 9, when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar, John writes, the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.

Revelation 6:9

And you know what? We get the same picture about 14 chapters later in Revelation 20. John's vision again sees the souls of the martyrs.

Others have suggested that we maybe get temporary bodies, right? Kind of like when you go to the BMV and you've got to wait on your license plate and they give you the paper one.

I'll share an interesting story with you. I want to take you back to the Old Testament to the book of Samuel. You don't have to turn there, but I'm going to read some of it for us.

It concerns a very troubled king named Saul. Remember Saul? Not a good king. Started out okay. Didn't end well. This is at the time when he's not ending well.

Saul, Prophet Samuel, his mentor, he has died. Saul was very distraught about that. And so, distraught as he is about his many bad decisions and consequences, he decides to go off and make another bad decision.

He goes off and gets in disguise, disguises himself as king, goes and pays a visit to someone in the land who's not supposed to be there, he was supposed to get rid of them all, to a medium, a necromancer, a witch.

And what he does is he wants her, get this, I want you to conjure up Samuel from the grave so I can seek his guidance. I mean, you can't make this stuff up.

1 Samuel 28, verse 11, the problem with the crazy story, get this, the problem is that the witch is successful. Listen to this, then the woman said, whom shall I bring up for you?

1 Samuel 28:11

He said, bring up Samuel for me. When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice and the woman said to Saul, why have you deceived me?

You are Saul. The king said to her, do not be afraid. What do you see? And the woman said to Saul, I see a God coming up out of the earth. He said to her, what is his appearance?

And she said, an old man is coming up and he is wrapped in a robe. And Saul knew that it was Samuel. And he bowed with his face to the ground and paid homage.

Listen, we think the witch is freaking out because she's not used to getting actual people back from the grave. I don't know what she was getting.

Maybe a demonic spirit impersonating a person? That still happens today. But this time, based on what grumpy Samuel goes on to say to Saul, we're pretty sure, pretty certain, it's actually Samuel.

that the Lord did, in fact, send Samuel back to earth, I guess allowed him to reanimate his body and even his old clothes so that he could deliver a message of judgment to Saul, which he did.

And which included a prophecy about Saul's own death on the very next day. He says, tomorrow you and your sons are going to be with me. We wonder, what had Samuel been doing?

Where had he been living? Had Samuel been living in paradise as a disembodied soul? Well, if he was, he seems to have liked that existence a whole lot better than mortality because he complains when he shows up.

Why don't you leave me alone? Was he given some kind of temporary body that he had to leave up there in paradise and come down and get into his mortal one?

I don't know. I think they're all viable possibilities. But you know what? I also don't think we need to worry about such things. Whether we're disembodied spirits or in temporary bodies, I don't think it matters.

You know who else doesn't worry about it? Paul. Funny enough, Paul seems to have had his own sort of out of body experience, you could call it.

Did you know that? That he, the apostle Paul, had a very unique, special experience that he wasn't even really allowed to talk about very much?

Here's what he'll tell us later in this very letter in chapter 12, 2 Corinthians 12, verse 2. He says, I know a man in Christ. That's a humble way to say it's me.

2 Corinthians 12:2

I know a man 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. Second time he said that. God knows.

And he heard things that cannot be told, inexpressible things, which man may not utter. Paul's talking about himself and he's testifying that he had been caught up to the third heaven.

You're like, I didn't know there were levels. Well, in the ancient world, the sky is the first level and then outer space, we think, is the second level.

So the third level's heaven. Heaven, heaven. Paul says, I went there. I don't know if I was in a body or not. Only God knows. But Paul knows for a fact that he was there, that he visited paradise.

Again, was he disembodied? Was he getting like a preliminary taste, a trial run of what it would be like for him when he died? Maybe. We're not sure.

Neither is Paul. And he's not worried about it because, in fact, the things that he went on to see and hear, things he describes as inexpressible, completely wonderful.

He was gag-ordered by God. He's not allowed to write about it or talk about it because, in fact, they were wonderful. The point, and I think the Bible's point for us is this, is that we can trust God.

We don't need to worry that Abraham or Moses or Grandma somehow has been up there in this place called paradise and they're miserable. We don't believe in a purgatory.

That's a Catholic doctrine manufactured from Catholic teaching, not the Bible.

They are with the Lord, our loved ones who are in Christ. They are in paradise. They are at home with Him, as Paul tells us. That's why he goes on to say what he does in verse 6.

He says, yeah, we are always of good courage. It's like, listen guys, tent life, tent life is rough. Now, I know, I of all people know, tent life leaves you vulnerable.

Tent life means we suffer, means we carry heavy burdens. It means we groan and we long for what we're ultimately created for. But we're always confident we are absolutely convinced and bold in our convictions that God absolutely

knows what He's doing and what He's preparing us for. And when that moment comes that each of us dies and we leave the home of this body, this earthly tent, we go immediately to our paradise home in Christ's presence.

Yeah, verse 7. We walk by faith in this. We walk by faith, not by sight. And probably none of the rest of you are ever going to get the foretaste that I got, Paul would say.

But that's okay. We can still be confident and courageous and have bold faith, verse 8. Even if we would rather be away from the body and be at home with the Lord.

You know, it's funny, when we read this from Paul, we actually get a sense that he might really mean it. maybe it's because his tent life lately had been really rough, much rougher than probably most of ours.

And maybe it was also compounded by the fact that he had that out of body or in the body, whatever experience, and got to see and hear things in the next world.

He'll talk about how it creates tension for him. This is what he talks about over in Philippians chapter 1. He writes to the Philippians in chapter 1, verse 23, and he says he'd rather depart.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

Here's what he says, Philippians 1, 23. I'm hard pressed between the two guys. My desire is to depart, leave all of you, and be with Christ.

That's far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. But no matter, he concludes right here in verse 9, no matter whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim, our absolute ambition

to please him, to please him. And here's why, verse 10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Now please don't think this is a judgment for your salvation. It's not. Paul right here is talking about a judgment for reward. Our salvation is not, it is not determined by things we do, by our deeds or works, by things we don't do.

It is determined by one thing and that's the work of another. Our perfect substitute, Jesus, who died on our behalf. When we trust in him personally, and we need to do it personally, that is what saves us.

So this is not that kind of judgment, but it is still a judgment. This is still a judgment seat that Paul talks about. And he says, we will receive what is due for what we've done in this life, for what we've done while living in the tent of this body.

Paul talks about this again over in his first letter. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 12. This is what he says over there. He says, now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay straw, each one's work will become manifest for the day, capital D,

1 Corinthians 3:12

the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.

If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss though he himself will be saved but only as one through the fire.

And so how much should every one of us who follows Christ aspire for this to leave behind good work, to do things in this body, the tent of this body that will endure endure, and that the Lord at the judgment

seat of Christ will be able to commend.

Let's talk takeaways very quickly. In light of what Paul teaches us here, in light of what he shows us, what is an ordinary believer like you, like me, we who are still in the body, what are we to take away from this?

I'm going to offer you three things. I see three things for us to do and it starts with this one. Number one, groan hopefully.

Groan hopefully. You don't have to do it right now but let me explain.

How you like in tent life. Those of you who know me know that I hate camping. Sorry, my parents did that to me. We had a pop-up camper growing up.

We never really actually had a tent that we pitched on the ground. That would be even worse to me. But I'm not talking about literal tents. I'm talking about your flesh, your body, living in the tent that you are.

How are you doing with tent life these days? You know, the answer to that question, it probably depends on a lot of things, right? A lot of different factors starting with how old you are or whether you have maybe some disabilities or whether you care for someone

with disabilities. Maybe you're with child. I've never been with child, not in that way. Maybe you're caring for a child or in many cases children.

Are you caring for someone very young who's very needy? Are you caring for someone elderly who needs a lot of assistance and special care? Are you caring for someone who's sick?

Or maybe it's you, yourself, and you're suffering physically in some way or you're just getting older like the rest of us. From what life throws at us to what the enemy hurls our way to what other people in this world sometimes throw at us,

all of these things affect tent life, don't they? They affect how we experience life in this tent. And we remember that. We are only tents. We are a tent dwelling people.

And our tents are going to get a tear here and there. And they're going to break down. And sometimes they all but collapse and need a trip to the ER to see if we can get a little tent repair done.

But we know that at some point they won't be able to be fixed and they will eventually wear out. So yeah, life can be tough. And if you're vibrant and young and energetic and you're like, I don't know what you're talking about, just wait.

Just wait. Live a little longer. You will feel the tentness of your body sooner or later. But here's the thing. We can groan about it. But there are a couple of different ways to groan.

We can groan like ancient Israel. they groaned in a way that sounded more like grumbling. We can complain. We can be negative. We can groan faithlessly.

We can groan in bitterness. Or, I'm going to suggest another way. Hopefully, we can groan in hope. I want you to hear Paul again. Here he is.

It's another letter. Romans 8, verse 23. Here's what he says. He says, talking about the creation groaning. He makes this link in the next verse.

Romans 8:23

And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we eagerly await for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Listen, it's okay to groan and sigh and long for heaven and a groan and a sigh. I mean, a sigh is probably even a better way of saying it. Because it's this involuntary response, right?

Something's challenging, and you're like, ah. It's involuntary. A sigh, it's very natural to let out a sigh, to even let out a groan. It's been called, groaning and sighing have been called the natural language of the heart.

I don't know who said that. Somebody did. I read a commentary and they said, somebody said, it's been called the natural language of the heart.

So I can't track that down. you're disappointed in something, you sigh. You hear a diagnosis, you get some tough news, it's natural for our hearts to sigh.

Groaning is an ongoing experience in this life. And if Paul did it and talked about it, it's not sinful. we can do it too. But we don't give up.

We don't groan in despair about our tent life. We don't groan in a way that complains. We groan in a way that expresses our hopeful longing.

That loved one who may be dying, they won't suffer forever. That's hope. That spouse, that child, or that other family member that you're losing, or that you lost, won't be separated from you forever.

Let's not grieve or groan like the rest of the world does who doesn't know Christ because they don't have our hope. Yes, we are a people who groan, but we groan in hope.

So groan hopefully because we trust in a God who raises the dead and who rewards accordingly. number two that feeds into our next point, the second thing we should do.

Number two, walk confidently. Walk confidently. Paul says it almost so quick we might miss it in verse six. So we are always of good courage, he says.

And then he repeats it just two verses later, doesn't he? Verse eight. Yes, we are of good courage. This is coming from a man who had incredible pressure and suffering right now in his life with even more waiting for him in the days, weeks, and maybe a couple years up ahead before he gets martyred.

But for him, it's good courage, it's boldness, it's confidence. And you know what Paul's confidence was rooted in? Not the tent of his body, not his earthly dwelling.

His confidence was rooted in eternal promises from God, in a God who always keeps his promises. He had confidence in a Savior who, as he had told the disciples, had gone ahead to prepare a place for him.

Commentator George Guthrie says that Paul's theology forms the bedrock of his confident posture in life. the bedrock, his theology, of his confidence, and it really did.

His belief system, his knowledge of God, and what God promised to do based on what he had already done for him in the gospel by sending his son, this is why he did not lose heart, this is why he was of good courage, and that should be true for you too.

Don't base your confidence on some naive belief that you can control this world. You can't. You can't control this world. You can't control your world.

We cannot always protect our vulnerable tents. We don't have power to fend off suffering or trials or attacks, but we can still be confident and be of good courage and encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today.

Paul calls this walking by faith. Walk by faith in this, Paul says, not by what you see, because what you see might be very challenging in the moment, but we don't live simply by things that are seen, right?

We don't live by fear. We don't live in view of short-sighted, earthly realities only, light momentary afflictions. We live and walk by faith, in faith in the things that are not yet seen.

And finally, on that note of walking and living, third thing that we are encouraged to do today, number three is to live accountably. Live accountably.

Romans 14, verse 10, Paul writes there that we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. Here in verse 10, Paul calls it the judgment seat of Christ.

Romans 14:10

You say, well, which is it? Well, they're together. One's at the right hand of the other. And when Paul talks about judgment seats, he knows what he's talking about.

He was very familiar with judgment seats. He'd been in front of a few before. In fact, very recently, he'd been in front of one right there at Corinth.

Did you know that the city of Corinth, ancient Corinth, was known for its spectacular judgment seat? In the Greek, it's called Bema. The Bema seat in Corinth is well known.

Had steps up to it. Paul had once been dragged there in the book of Acts to face charges from angry Jews and he had to appear before the proconsul, a man named Galileo.

But here he's talking about the heavenly Bema seat. And Paul's telling us that while in this body, with the time on earth that he has, it is his aim, his singular ambition, to please the Lord.

He wanted to live accountably glory, because he knew he would be held accountable. And so will every Christian. Yes, again, we are saved by the work of Christ, not by our deeds.

But we will be held accountable. And we will be rewarded and measured accordingly by what we do while we are in the body, in the tent of the body, whether good or evil.

Whether it's the work of ministry you're trying to do in your place of work or your school or where you make your abode with your neighbors, your apartment building, your house, your neighborhood, or the ministry you're doing with the family who live with you, and maybe that you're raising.

Let's remember that God will evaluate all of our deeds, all of our life, all of our use of time and resources and opportunities, our priorities or lack thereof, and we will appear before his judgment seat and will be held to account.

I know I want my work to survive, right? How about you? There are days where, yeah, I enjoy keeping a nice lawn or blowing some leaves or shoveling snow like we did last week.

I don't enjoy that. There are days I do that. But those things of the world, keeping up a home, or in my case, going for a walk or getting in a workout or taking a vacation, that's fine.

But none of that's going to survive.

My legacy is a father, as a husband, as a friend, as a pastor, that will. So to all my fellow tent dwellers out there, let's groan hopefully, like Paul shows us.

Let's walk confidently, like we know what the truth is because we do. And most of all, let's live accountably, because we will one day give an account for what we do in the body.

Can I ask you to stand with me as a team comes? Let's take a moment and let's pray.

Dear Lord, precious Father, we thank you for the gift of your Son, Jesus, the one who came and died, who did have that perfect account, the perfect record that's required by your holiness, who not only came and demonstrated that

record, Lord, but through obedience to your plan, gave himself in our place, died for our sins on that cross. We thank you for him. Lord, we also thank you for the Holy Spirit.

We almost missed it in our passage. He has been given to us right now. We have him in our hearts as a deposit. It's a guarantee. And Lord, sometimes it's through him, inside of us, that we do groan and long the right way.

We long for heaven. We long to put on immortality. We long for what is imperishable. So, Lord, we are right now tent dwellers. Everyone in the sound, the range of the sound of my voice is living in a tent where tent dwellers help us, Father.

By your power, through your Spirit at work in us, help us to groan hopefully, not in bitterness, not with complaints. Lord, help us to walk confidently.

And Father, help us to live most of all with accountability in mind, knowing that we will one day appear before your judgment seat. Lord, we pray for those of us who are struggling right now with mortal existence.

We pray for those physically who are suffering. We pray for the caregivers among us, Lord, so many as they are. Give them strength. Remind them that their work matters.

Remind them that there will come an end one day.

And Jesus, we again thank you for your promises. Whether we are those who have fallen asleep, resurrected from our graves, or whether we're still alive to see you when you come a second time, we know you will come.

We know you will gather your church. And we give you praise and thanks for this. We pray this in your name, in Jesus' name. Amen.