Eternity Written In The Human Heart: Where Is Home In A Fallen World? Series

My fiancé and I went to see The Chosen in theaters this weekend, season four, episodes 4-6. And we really enjoyed it. It was very powerful. Particularly I really enjoyed episode 4. You have Jesus seeing the faith the centurion who doesn’t even need Jesus to come to his house to heal his son, he simply believes that Jesus will do it, and Jesus is amazed by his faith. He is excited. But suddenly, his own disciples disappoint him greatly, James and John ask to sit at his right and left. And it's just exhausting for Jesus. He leaves the area and goes and prays. And I just felt the power of that moment. That we groan in this life with the problems and difficulties.

Sometimes as Christians we feel as though we’re caught between heaven and Earth. We long to be in heaven with God. We long to escape the flesh, to be free from the evils of this world. Yet we know we have a job, a duty to minister to this world and be salt and light to the world. But it’s tough. We long for something greater.

As C.S. Lewis wrote, "I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter." -C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, pg. 3

Ecclesiastes says he has set eternity in the human heart. There is a piece of eternity within us, and we long for something more.

We long for a place we’ve never been. Our hearts ache for eternity. We’re going to talk about that tension between heaven and earth in the Christian life today.

We’re looking today at 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verses 1-10. Our structure of faith today is an hour glass shape, the bottom represents our life on Earth, the top portion represents our future in heaven.

It says in 2nd Cor 5:1, “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.”

I believe Paul is referring to earthly tent here, as our physical bodies, but some translations, like the KJV render it as earthly house. But again it’s most likely the same thing, your body, housing your soul.

One day every person in here will pass away, our earthly tent will be destroyed. But we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, so a new heavenly body, that does not age like this body does. It’s not built by human hands. Our earthly bodies grew from our mother’s body, right? But the heavenly body is created by God.

Verse 2-3 says, “Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.”

Yet while we live in this earthly body, our flesh on Earth, we do groan. We sigh. We long for something better. We long for something new. We long to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.

It gives us this picture then of being clothed vs being found naked. In Christ, while in the flesh, we often wonder, am I properly clothed, am I living the Christian life correctly? We wonder if we’re really saved. We battle against sin. So we are concerned with staying clothed in Christ, and not being found naked.

But when we die, and go to heaven, the uncertainty is over, the spiritual battles are over, and we’re safe. In the flesh, we remain in a sense, guarding against sins and evil, but in heaven, the time of guarding is over. We won’t be found naked then, but clothed.

Next, “4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”

Right now my brothers and sisters we are burdened. We deal with physical health issues, mental health issues, addictions, and temptation, we are burdened, lightly, with the troubles of this world. We groan. The 1828 dictionary calls it uttering a mournful voice in pain or sorrow.