Encouragement
in our Life’s Journey
INTRO:
Sometimes we need a booster in Life’s Journey
Ex. Of Paul- Here is a man who has been rejected,
ridiculed, beaten down, battered, & criticized.
2 Cor.11: 23 … I have served him far more! I have worked
harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and
faced death again and again.
24 Five different
times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was
stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked.Once I spent a whole night and a day
adrift at sea.
26 I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced
danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people,
the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in
the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be
believers but are not.
27 I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless
nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have
shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.
28 Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of my
concern for all the churches.
One of the themes of this book is that we should live
confidently even when we’re under pressure.
Paul uses the words confident and confidence twelve times
in this little book. I believe the whole
book of 2 Corinthians could be titled “Why I Am A Confident Person Despite
Life’s Pressures, by the Apostle Paul.”
Ex. Of
Congregation
-Inang/
Villaverts family.
-Youth: education- when will this end.
-Seniors- pain in
the body & sicknesses.
-Working people:
enough for retirement, even enough for everyday needs, to send to Phil’s.
Ex. Of Tito: He is a new
immigrant, and has to start all over again- new environment, build friends- relationship,
new home & look for things for the house, new job, new set of skills
needed, even Resident Chaplain- education again….55 & diabetic (exercise,
diet, medicine w/c is easier said than done), wife’s own challenges.
A.Because life’s difficulties will end. Life’s
Difficulties has an ending
5:1 For we know that when this earthly tent we
live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body),
we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body
made for us by God himself and not by human hands.
2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we
long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.
3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be
spirits without bodies.
4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan
and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that
clothe us.
Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these
dying bodies will be swallowed up by life.
1. Earthly tent : Paul would have had
intimate knowledge of this kind of dwelling as a professional tent maker.
All human beings experience the dismantling of their
earthly tent-dwelling.
This is referring to our human bodies right now. Paul is making a comparison, telling us that
our bodies are like tents. It’s a lot of
fun staying in a tent—for a night or two.
But for most of the year, we prefer our bedroom with the king sized bed,
carpet under our feet, bedside lamp, temperature controls, and the adjacent
bathroom.
Tents are temporary dwellings, and at some point we
loosen the cords, pull up the stakes, collapse the tent, and pack it away.
The Lord is using
that as a picture of our human bodies.
We are living right now in tents.
It’s a temporary dwelling place for our soul, because on
this planet we are pilgrims and strangers.
But one day this
body will be resurrected by the power of God and will be glorified and
eternalized—and compared to this earthly, dying body, my new body will be like
a solid mansion.
Not as something that can be easily swept away by storm,
wind or other accident of nature.
1b. House in heaven : Christians, however,
look forward to …
This house is distinguished in 3 ways.
1. It is of heavenly versus earthly origin.
2.It is a permanent (eternal) as opposed to a temporary
structure.
3.And it is assembled by God rather than by human hands
(not built by human hands).
And so now we groan, we get tired of living in a tent, we
long for our heavenly dwelling.
We think about heaven, and it gives us confidence about
the future.
2 We grow weary, 4 we groan and sigh Paul says, we
groan
The verb "to groan" can mean to long for
something or to moan in response to physical suffering, loss or distress.
Paul sighs out of
a longing to be clothed with his heavenly dwelling and be done with the burdens
of this present existence.
God's intention for the believer is bodily existence,
not disembodiment as some would claim.
3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be
spirits without bodies.
4 …we want to put on our new bodies so that these
dying bodies will be swallowed up by life.
While the culmination of physical decay is compared to
dismantling a tent, the climax of renewal is likened to putting on an overcoat.
To be clothed with is actually a verb meaning to put on over something that is
already in place .(compare 1 Cor 15:53-54).
Whenever we’re tempted to lose heart, we think about
heaven. Because we know that our bodies
right now are merely tents that will collapse at some point, but we have an
eternal house in the heavens, not made by human hands.
Now, this inspires confidence for obvious reasons.
When we know that
the ending of something is going to be favorable, it inspires natural confidence.
So the first thing to remember is that confident people
think a good deal about eternal life, heaven, and the weight of glory that
shall be revealed.
In this life we have momentary troubles.
But we are heirs
of eternal life in Christ with all that comes with that—the new heavens, the
new earth, the new Jerusalem, the new order of things—and when you put that on
the other side of the scale, there’s no comparison.
B. Because we
have the Holy Spirit to sustain us in our Life’s Journey:
5 God himself has prepared us for this,
and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
6 So we are always confident, even though we know that
as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord.
7 For we live by believing and not by seeing.
The verb prepare means "to equip" someone for
something. The something for which we are being prepared is to have our
immortal existence. This is accomplished through the Spirit given to us as an
arrabon.
2nd .
Confident People Draw On Inner Resources (5:5)
verse
5: God Himself who is preparing us for the
experience of putting on immortality and experiencing eternal life; and as a
down payment, guaranteeing what is to come,
He has given us the inner resources of the Holy Spirit.
I don’t have time to review everything the New Testament
says about the inner working of the Holy Spirit, but let me just give you some
thumbnails.
1.The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit enters into our
hearts at the moment of conversion and
2.He goes to work, re-creating the attitudes and
personality of Jesus Christ in and through our lives.
He forms Christ within us.
3.He bears within us the fruit of love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness….
4.He reproves and exhorts and helps us with our
infirmities.
5.He guides us into all truth and illumines us as we
study the Scripture.
6.He bestows spiritual gifts for ministry, and enables us
to live in victory and to work with effectiveness.
If we fully appreciated the powerful indwelling presence
of His Holy Spirit, we’d be confident people as we go through life.
6 So we are always confident, even though we know that
as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord.
Notice what he said:
“Therefore we are always confident….”
Confident people are those who know how to draw on the inner resources
of the Holy Spirit.
7 we live by
faith, not by sight - this represents a
conviction about what is yet to be seen compared to what can now be seen.
As we face challenges that would otherwise deflate us and
defeat us, we go to the Lord in prayer and the Holy Spirit who lives within us
provides the necessary power and grace and strength and confidence for whatever
comes.
Because our faithfulness & labor for the Lord is
not in vain:
8 Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be
away from these earthly bodies,
for then we will be at home with the Lord.
9 So whether we are here in this body or away from
this body,
our goal is to
please him.
10 For we must all stand before Christ to be
judged.
We will
each receive whatever we deserve for the good
or evil
we have done in this earthly body.
Paul then he goes on to give us the third mark of
confident people—
When our goal in life is to please the Lord, it inspires
confidence because we know we’re on the right road. And the great thing about pleasing Him is
that we can do it on both sides of the grave.
Notice what Paul says here: 9 So we make it our goal to please Him…
As long as I’m
alive on this earth, my goal is to please Jesus.
When I die and go to heaven, I’ll have exactly the same
goal.
The verb means
"to strive eagerly to do something," "to aspire earnestly".
The something Paul
strives eagerly to do is to please Christ. His ambition is an eternal one.
He makes pleasing Christ his goal, whether at home in the
body or away from it.
Either way, his lifelong and eternal ambition is to
please Christ.
David Brainerd expressed a similar thought when he said,
"I do not go to heaven to be advanced/ promoted but to give honor to
God."
For most people,
their life’s goals come to an end when they die.
Maybe they’ve reached their goals and maybe they haven’t,
but it’s all over with in any case because they have been snatched away in
death.
But for the Christian, we go right on with the same
goal. It’s our primary pursuit and
purpose
whether we’re alive on earth or alive in heaven. We just want to please Him.
And that inspires confidence in living because we know
our objective, we know we’re on the right road, we know where we’re heading,
and we have a sense of purpose in life.
The second reason Paul strives to please Christ is the
prospect of appearing before his judgment seat (v. 10). This prospect is an
inclusive one, " we all must appear".
The tone is one of
warning. Must appear evokes images of being called before the judge's bench to
give an account of one's actions.
The ministry of
all who claim to be followers of the gospel (including Paul's critics) will be
subject to divine judgment.
Divine judgment is
a requirement, not an option. Nor is this judgment to be taken lightly.
In 1 Corinthians
3:10-15, Christian workers are cautioned that the quality of their work will be
tested by fire. If what they have built survives, they will "receive a
reward." But if it is "burned up," they will "suffer
loss."
Who is to be judged?
For we at the start of verse 10 looks back to verse 9 and
those who make it their aim to please Christ.
So it is judgment of the believer that is in view.
Paul's intention is to remind the Corinthians that all
those who are in Christ will have to give an account of what they have
accomplished for the Lord.
How will we be judged? According to Paul, we are to
receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or
bad; each, is responsible for his or her own actions (v. 10)
This could be construed as in conflict with salvation by
grace (as in Eph 2:8), if it were a judgment that determined destiny or status.
But this is not the case.
Paul is thinking, rather, of a divine assessment that
results in praise or blame (1 Cor 4:5).
A final assessment
of the Christian is a recurring theme in Paul.
In 1 Corinthians 3:15 there will be those who will
"suffer loss" even though they themselves "will be
saved."
One final question needs to be raised, especially since
this is one of the few places that Paul touches on what happens to the believer
at death: does the believer face an embodied or a disembodied existence in the
interim betoeen death and the parousia?
But perhaps even to phrase the question in this way
misses the central truth of these verses.
The question of life beyond the grave is primarily not a
metaphysical one (that is, what happens to the body at death and when a new
body is given) but a Christian one (that is, what happens to the believer at
death ). What matters the most to Paul is that to be absent from this present
world is to be at home with the Lord (v. 8).
This is absolutely critical to communicate to those
grieving the death of a Christian loved one, facing a terminal illness or
struggling with the concept of personal mortality. We do not float somewhere in
limbo at death or sleep the sleep of the unaware--even though our language at
times wrongly communicates this. For the believer, death initiates face-to-face
fellowship and communion with Christ--a "going home," as it were.
A little girl whose father had just died asked her mother
where he had gone. "To be with Jesus," replied her mother.
A few days later, talking to a friend, the mother said,
"I am so grieved to have lost my husband."
The little girl heard her and, remembering the earlier
conversation, asked, "Mother, is a thing lost when you know where it
is?"
"No, of course not," said her mother.
"Well then, how can Daddy be lost when he has gone
to be with Jesus?"
The little girl had hit the nail on the head. To say that
at death a Christian "goes to be with Jesus" is not a euphemism but a
reality.
Application: Staying Confident Through Problematic Times
Symbols: Cemetery, Dove, & Church (Cross)/ Court
Buildings.
1. Life’s Difficulties has an ending; we look forward
to our future;
Ø God the
Father has a house for me in the heavens, not built by human hands.
2. We have the Holy Spirit to sustain us in our Life’s
Journey:
Ø God the
Spirit lives within me as a divine deposit.
3. Our faithfulness & labor for the Lord is not in
vain:
Ø God the Son
gives meaning to my life as I seek to please Him whether in life or death.
Resources: Robert
J. Morgan & IVP Commentary on 2 Corinthians
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