One thing you notice when you study what Paul wrote is that he wrote some much about what we talk so little about. It may be because the people he wrote to faced death on a daily basis. War, persecution, disease and lack of medical advances made death a constant reality.
Paul wrote so much to remind and encourage about what it meant to live beyond this life and how we should celebrate that truth that the world cannot understand.
• The Christian life can be somewhat defined by living one place while experiencing another. We live in a present ‘earthly tent’ yet we yearn to be clothed with a permanent dwelling.
• The only thing that should exceed our physical groans from the limitations of our earthly vessels is our spiritual groans for the fullness of the existence God has prepared for each one of us beyond this life.
1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. 4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.
6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord - 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight - 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
• It is ironic that life’s greatest uncertainty comes from life’s greatest certainty.
We are certain to all die but apart from God’s revelation we would be completely uncertain what that would mean for each one of us.
Life is short and so uncertain. “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14b).
Worldwide, there are approximately 56,600,000 deaths each year. 4.7 million per month, 155,000 per day, 6,500 per hour, 107 per minute, and 1.8 per second. Life is a gift: We do not know when we will die but that we will die.
In any cemetery and you can’t really tell the difference between the Christians and the non-Christians. They both lie buried side by side, six feet underground. There they are, all grouped together, young and old, male and female, rich and poor, famous and infamous, churchgoers and nonbelievers. WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE?
• Death is not the end of the story for those who know the Lord. The Bible tells us what lies ahead for those who know Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 5, we discover wonderful truths that give us hope as we face death with all its dark fears.
• The Greek culture did not believe in a bodily resurrection but thought that the soul was ‘imprisoned’ in the physical body and would one day be released.
The body was considered evil and it was a good thing to finally be free of it. Paul assured them that they would not be rid of a body but only getting a new one fitted for eternity.
THE COMPARISON BETWEEN THE NOW AND THEN:(difference the future will bring)
1. A NEW BODY: 1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
A young man saw an elderly couple sitting down to eat at McDonald’s. They had ordered one meal, and an extra drink cup. He watched the gentleman carefully divided the hamburger in half, then counted out the fries, one for him, one for her, until each had half of them. Then he poured half of the soft drink into the extra cup and set that in front of his wife. The old man then began to eat, and his wife sat watching, with her hands folded in her lap. The young man decided to ask if they would allow him to purchase another meal for them so that they didn’t have to split theirs. The old gentleman said, "Oh no. We’ve been married 50 years, and everything has always been and will always be shared, 50/50." The young man then asked the wife if she was going to eat, and she replied, "It’s his turn with the teeth."
• I like that this passage starts with ‘for we know’. Our world desperately wants to know things of the future. Ouji boards, fortune tellers and 8 Balls all exist because of this great desire. God says we can know some things for sure.
• God does not want us to be without the knowledge we need to live our lives here bathed in hope. He assures us of what is to come regarding what is to the rest of the world their greatest fear.
• Paul says that this body is like living in a ‘tent’ which will one day be torn down.
I have never been a tent person. Even as a kid when we set up our tent in the back yard I was never impressed with the difference between sleeping in it compared to the house. When I was really young our family took vacations in a tent. It was a nice one in terms of the Civil War era. I remember when we set it up at a camping spot right next to a brand new Airstream trailer. I decided then and there that I was not a tent person. Our bodies are like tents: They wear out, they sag, they expand, they wrinkle, the joints get creaky, gravity pulls everything downward. Our back gets stooped, and our arms grow weary. The body bulges in all the wrong places. Our bodies grow old and begin to break down. Eventually they stop working altogether.
• There will come a day that we will trade our ‘tent’ for a ‘house’ that is not made with hands. This is not just something we want but something Paul says we can know.
• “Torn down,” is a word means “to demolish, to destroy, or to loosen.” It was used to refer to “travelers reaching the end of their journey and loosening the straps which held the burdens to the back of their animals.” It was also used to take down a tent and move on to the next part of our journey. There will come a day for all of us when this journey is over, the burdens come off and we enter a rest from our long journey.
• Paul says that our death is like a front door that leads into the house. When we are at ‘death’s door’ we are actually standing on the front porch of our new home waiting for the call to come on in.
Went to Sawyers home(Jim & Ann) and they proudly told me that they had lived there 25 years and that when they built it they actually built the insides themselves. They knew exactly what they wanted and made it as much like that as they could. There is only one Person I know who could have made it more perfect for them. Someone Who knows them better than they know themselves. He is the One working on my house right now. That is the house I will step into when death becomes my front door into something brand new and just right. A place where I will never change my address from but will live in it forever. Paul says we can know it for sure.
2. NEW CLOTHING: 2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked.
• Everybody loves new clothes. Especially when our old clothes are worn out and won’t be right for the new place we are going to.
When Paul says we long to be clothed, he uses an unusual Greek verb that means something like “to be clothed upon.” It is the idea of putting on an overcoat. The new resurrection body will not change who we are but ad to it. We will be the same, minus the sin nature, that we were here but now clothed in the fullness of our eternal apparel.
• When we truly understand what waits for us then we will become like those who have difficulty waiting. Like a child December 22cnd begging ‘just one gift early’.
I have to admit that sometimes I suffer from clothes envy for specific articles of clothing. I remember being finally able to wear a high school letter jacket and then after going to OSU to finally get that college letter jacket because your high school letter jacket has a shelf life of only 3 years. It is the last thing you should wear at college.
Hannah just got her high school letter jacket and it goes with her everywhere. After her older brother Tim got his he wore it long after it was climate necessary.
4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.
• We groan to be clothed with something different than what we have learned to be temporary and inadequate. This life is not what real LIFE is meant to be. We will finally discover that when we have a new body with new clothes.
We groan because we live in a fallen, mixed-up, messed-up, broken-down world, and we ourselves are broken down. So we look for a better day and a better place, and we dream of a better world where there is . . . No more cancer.....No more abuse….No more hatred….. No more hurricanes……No more crime….No more sadness….No more night….. No more sickness…..No more death. That is the OVERCOAT I am ready to put on.
THE ELEVATOR: Story of an old hillbilly who brought his family to town for the first time in many years. They pulled their truck up in front of a fancy hotel. Papa told Mama to sit and wait while he and junior checked on the inside. Papa and Junior went into the fancy entrance of the hotel and looked around wide-eyed at all the beautiful walls and furnishings in the lobby.. Then Papa noticed two doors that opened and an elderly woman got in with great difficulty. The doors closed for what seems only a short time and then reopened and a beautiful young woman came out and bounced across the hotel lobby and out the front doors. Papa, not knowing how an elevator worked, looked over at Junior and said, ‘Go get your Mama’. The change Papa thought he saw will be nothing compared to what will truly happen to those of us who know Christ. Paul says we can know it and knowing it we will naturally groan for it.
Phil 1:21-24 For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better;
1 Cor.15:53,54 “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."”
THE COMPULSION FOR THE THEN IN THE NOW:
(The evidences NOW that assure us of what God has for us in the future)
• What kinds of assurance has God given us now that we can know for sure what will be true of us then?
1. ASSURANCE OF HIS SPIRIT: 5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.
The Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives now assures of our presence in heaven later.
God gave us the Spirit as a “down payment” or “earnest.” When you buy a house, you put down what is called “earnest money.” It’s an amount that legally binds you to pay the full amount later. The Holy Spirit is God’s “earnest” on our future resurrection.
It also carries the idea of an ‘engagement ring’ in preparation for the great Wedding feast and marriage to come.
• God says that what I can experience now in my walk with Him and from His presence in my life is ‘small potatoes’ compared to all that is to come.
2. THE ASSURANCE OF THE SPIRITUAL: 6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord - 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight - 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
• Our earthly experiences of His work in our lives is further proof of the reality of the great work that will happen when we come to the end of life. We should take great courage in knowing that these proofs assure us of one great truth.
A man was troubled by questions related to faith. He wondered how a God, Whom he had thought was so good, could allow difficulties to happen to those who lived their lives for Him. As he walked, he passed a construction site where a huge cathedral was being built. He noticed one man carving a small triangle out of granite with a chisel and a hammer. The man called asked man carving what he was making. The workman stopped and pointed to a place near the top of that great cathedral. He said, “Do you see that tiny, open triangle near the top of the roof?” “Yes.” “Well, said the workman, “I am carving this out down here so that it will fit in up there.” Then he understood the things that God does are often merely carving him out down here so that he would fit in up there. Our trials are meant to shape us to fit there.
The kind of spiritual life that will serve as a proof for us consists of:
a) A realization that we are not home here but will be home there: knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord
We carry inside of us a settle assurance that this is not where we ultimately belong and like fish out of water we never really feel at home here.
Phil 3:20-21 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body…..
b) A daily practice of living not by the things we see but by the faith we have: 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight
Hindus have a desire to visit the city of Banares at least once in their lifetime. It is a holy city with 1500 temples. The road circling the city is 36 miles long. To walk around the city with devotion is deemed a very holy thing. We believe how you walk more important than where.
WALK: Not that we think by faith but it is the very steps that define our life.
If you are not taking steps of faith in your life right now then your spiritual life is at a standstill regardless of what you know in your head or believe in your heart.
Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is not a blind leap but a step into and onto what you know by highest authority to be true. Faith is based upon ‘substance’ and ‘evidence’.
I may have never been to a place on a map but the map is my substance and evidence that that place is real and if I start heading that direction that I will experience being there by the end of my trip. God’s Word is the map, the substance and evidence of God wants us to have a living hope/assurance of and to journey towards even though it is yet ‘unseen’ So many things remain ‘unseen’ in the lives of Christians because they never exercise the road of faith to go where those things can be seen.
This needs to not just be an occasional journey but a daily walk that proves for us there is more to come beyond this life. People who walk in faith rarely walk in doubt.
c) A driving passion to please God in every way possible while we still exist I this body. 9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
It is interesting that after a call to walk by faith is the statement about having a desire to live a life in this world that is pleasing to God.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Moses knew faith and what pleasing God was all about: Faith chapter of Hebrews 11 V. 24 By faith Moses____, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter), 25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.
Paul say we can know the greatest truth the world is searching for which is the answer to what death is truly all about. But we will never truly know it as more than a statement of faith until we make our lives the experience of faith that God has called us to be.
Years ago, men used to sail around within the Mediterranean as the great sea. It is called the Mediterranean because the word literally means "the middle of the earth." Every now and then they would go to the Straits of Gibraltar and venture out a little way into the open sea and then come back into the Mediterranean.
The Rock of Gibraltar, rising up there out of the sea, had some caves, and these sailors went up into in order to rest and stay for awhile. They chiseled on the rocks these words in Latin: "Ne plus ultra” meaning "there is nothing beyond." They were at the end of the world. Then one day a man named Christopher Columbus sailed west, came to a brand new world, discovered the Americas, came back and told people what he had seen. Some sailors went back up to the Rock of Gibraltar and they chiseled off the "Ne" and simply left the words "plus ultra." The inscription now simply said, "more beyond." When it comes to faith our WORLD IS FILLED WITH NE SAYERS
I want to tell you, for everyone who has received the Lord Jesus there is more beyond this life than you could ever dream, more than you could ever imagine.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."
Paul says you can experience more than enough of it now to the absolute the hope you need if you have the courage and faith to live each day for the things that this world has no idea exists and God wants to satisfy your life with.
