Since today is Senior’s Sunday, I thought I’d share with you the Top Ten Signs You’re Getting Older. You know you’re getting older when…
• Ten, you’ve got too much room in the house and not enough room in the medicine cabinet.
• Nine, your little black book contains only names ending in M.D.
• Eight, you know all the answers, but nobody asks you the questions.
• Seven, your children begin to look middle-aged.
• Six, your favorite part of the newspaper is “Twenty-Five Years Ago Today.”
• Five, you sink your teeth into a steak, and they stay there.
• Four, you look forward to a dull evening at home.
• Three, your back goes out more than you do.
• Two, the little gray-haired lady you help across the street is your wife.
• One, you sit in a rocking chair and can’t get it going.
Someone has said there are seven decades of man: Spills, Drills, Thrills, Bills, Ills, Pills, and Wills.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).
Paul writes, “We do not lose heart.” It’s easy to lose heart, isn’t it? It’s easy to feel like giving up. It’s easy to be discouraged, disillusioned, depressed, and disappointed. The reason why it’s easy to lose heart in this life is because we face so many troubles.
Each stage of life has its own set of troubles. The troubles that seniors experience include loneliness, sickness, failing eyesight and hearing, vulnerability, etc. Paul says, “Outwardly we are wasting away.” That’s pretty blunt. Our outward man/bodies are decaying (NASB), dying (NLT), and perishing (NKJV). Seniors know this better than anyone. But that’s reality for all of us, not just seniors. Today, all of us here are one day closer to dying than we were yesterday. That’s a sobering thought.
Consider the problems Paul was experiencing: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8-9). What was the secret of Paul’s courage in the midst of so much adversity? He did not dwell on his present problems; he looked ahead to the fulfillment of God’s promises. In other words, Paul had an eternal perspective.
[SLIDE] BIG IDEA: Having an eternal perspective will radically alter your values and desires.
This is why Paul could describe his troubles as “light and momentary.” This is why he could say in Romans 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Though his problems were real and intense, his problems did not overcome him. Instead, he says, “we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.” Why did he do this? Because “what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” In other words, “The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever” (The Message). The unseen things are what count because they are eternal. They last forever. The seen things, the things of this life, do not. They are temporary.
Of course, to see what is unseen is impossible. How can we fix our eyes on what is unseen? Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Seeing the unseen requires the eye of faith. Seeing the unseen requires believing the promises of God concerning your future. Seeing the unseen requires being certain that God will do for you what He has said He will do.
Most seniors like to talk about “the good old days.” They like to tell stories of the past. And they like to repeat them over and over and over again. But those good old days are nothing compared to the future God has in store for us. What will happen when you “fix our eyes” on what is unseen? As I said before, your values and desires will be radically altered (three ways).
1. You will stop obsessing about your present body and start longing for your new body.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about our bodies. Obviously, we should practice healthy habits. We should eat right, get regular exercise, etc. But I believe that there is too much emphasis placed on our bodies today. No matter how much we exercise or how healthy we eat, our bodies are still only temporary. Our bodies will still die one day.
Some people try to find happiness by striving to have the perfect body. For most of us, that goal is hopelessly out of reach, and we become discouraged about the appearance or condition of our bodies. In Dartmouth there is a gym called Nubody’s. But God has a different solution for our bodies. He’s not going to send us to Nubody’s; He’s going to give us new bodies (heavenly bodies, perfect bodies, glorified bodies, a body like Christ’s resurrected body).
Paul writes in verse 1, “Now 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.” The phrase “we know” is one of certainty. We don’t have to consult a fortune-teller, a Ouija board, or a deck or cards to find out what the future holds or what lies on the other side of death. God has told us all we need to know in the pages of His Word.
[SLIDE] “Earthly tent” = earthly body; “building from God” = heavenly body. A tent is a temporary dwelling place; a building is permanent. One day our tents will be “taken down”; the bodies our spirits live in will be “destroyed.” Paul called his death a “departure” (2 Tim. 4:6). One meaning of this Greek word is “to take down one’s tent and move on.” Death is not the end; it’s only the beginning. Our spirits go from one place (earth) to another (heaven, for believers).
When will we receive our new bodies? [SLIDE] First Thessalonians 4:16-17 gives us the answer: “The Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” When a believer dies, his body goes to the grave, but his spirit goes to be with Christ. When Jesus Christ returns for His people, He will raise the dead bodies of believers, and body and spirit will be joined together for eternity in heaven. (People often ask how Christ is going to raise the bodies of those who have not had a traditional burial, but remember that nothing is impossible with God.)
[SLIDE] Look at verses 2-3: “Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.” This “groan” is a groan of anticipation. Paul longed for his new body. Paul wrote in Romans 8:23, “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” I’m sure Paul didn’t neglect his earthly body, but he was much more interested in his future body.
Paul says in verse 5, “Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” The word “deposit” has basically the same meaning as “firstfruits” in Romans 8:23. The Holy Spirit is God’s pledge or down payment, guaranteeing that He will finish what He started. The Spirit is the first installment of our total transformation (“conformed to the likeness of his Son,” Rom. 8:29). Scott Hafeman writes, “God prepares his people for the future by giving them a longing for it. And he does this by granting them his Spirit as a down payment of his presence. Only those who have begun to experience the glory of God long for its consummation in the midst of their adversities” (NIV Application Commentary: 2 Corinthians, p. 214). If we’re not longing for the completion of God’s purpose in our lives, that means we’re not enjoying the presence of the Spirit as we should.
2. You will stop living as if this life is all there is and start craving the presence of the Lord.
“Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (5:6-8).
[SLIDE] “At home in the body” = life on earth; “away from the body” = life in heaven (in the presence of the Lord).
The people of God can be found in one of two places: either in heaven or on earth (cf. Eph. 3:15). None of them is in the grave, in hell, or in any “intermediate place” between earth and heaven. Believers on earth are “at home in the body,” while believers in heaven are “away from the body” (waiting for the resurrection). Believers on earth are “away from the Lord,” while believers in heaven are “at home with the Lord.” Life in this world is not the believer’s final reality. It must be seen for what it is, namely, being “away from the Lord.”
[SLIDE] Paul talks about this in Philippians 1:21-24: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.”
Let me ask you a question: When you think about heaven, what is it that most gets you excited? To live in your mansion in the sky? To be reunited with a loved one? To be free from the problems of this life? Some people jokingly say, “Heaven is the great golf course in the sky”; or, “when I get to heaven I am going to eat all the pizza I can without worrying about my cholesterol.” Scott Hafeman writes, “To make the central focus of heaven anything or anyone beside God himself is ludicrous; to add something to God as heaven’s pleasure is idolatrous” (NIV Application Commentary: 2 Corinthians, p. 219). The part of heaven that we should get most excited about is living eternally in the full presence of God.
[SLIDE] In Revelation 21, John recounts his vision of the heavenly city: “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (vv. 2-4). Notice what is mentioned first: the presence of God with His people.
Think about the questions people often ask about heaven. What will it look like? What will we do there? Will my loved ones know me? We want heaven to be an improved version of our life on earth. Do we really long to be in the presence of God?
We know in our heads that heaven awaits and that it’s so much better than anything we can experience now, but often we live as if this life is all there is. Consider our modern, materialistic conception of retirement, in which the hope is to live as long as we can, as healthy as we can, and as wealthy as we can. We go after the enjoyments and comforts of this life as if there is no such thing as heaven. It’s like getting filled up on food from McDonalds before you go to a first-class restaurant.
Can you say with Paul, “We…would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Are you living by sight instead of by faith? Are you living as if this life is all there is, or do you crave the Lord’s presence?
[Paul’s emphasis on his confident knowledge of the future makes clear that faith is not an irrational leap into the dark that calls for accepting the truth of something that makes not sense or has no foundation in reality. Just the opposite! Faith is trusting in God’s promises for the future, not in spite of what we know, but because of what we know. The lack of sight in this passage does not refer to the uncertain basis of faith, but to the fact that the consummation of God’s promises has not yet been realized (Hafeman, NIV Application Commentary: 2 Corinthians, p. 223).]
3. You will stop living your life to please yourself and start living it to please Christ.
“So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (5:9-10).
For Paul, heaven was not simply a destination for Paul: it was a motivation. He knew that in heaven he would stand before Christ, and he wanted to hear Christ’s approval. “The judgment seat of Christ” is mentioned several times in Scripture:
• “The Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done” (Matt. 16:27).
• Romans 2:16 talks about “the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ.”
• “We will all stand before God’s judgment seat….. So then, each of us will give account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:10, 12).
• “[Christ] is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42).
• “The Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does” (Eph. 6:8).
[SLIDE] It is impossible to separate trusting God from obeying God (“the obedience that comes from faith,” Rom. 1:5). Any attempt to separate faith from works ignores the fact that in one and the same passage Paul can speak of living by faith (v. 7) and of being judged by deeds (v. 10).
Every act of trust in God’s promises expresses itself in an act of obedience to His commands; every act of obedience is a manifestation of trust. On the other hand, every time we disobey God it is because we are not trusting him. Every command of God is, in essence, a promise of God in disguise. To declare, “You shall have no other gods before me,” is therefore essentially the same thing as saying, “God promises to be sufficient in all things as your sovereign Provider, Redeemer, Lord, and Judge—so trust Him alone.” In the same way, “You shall not covet…anything that belongs to your neighbor” is essentially the same thing as saying, “God promises to provide what you need in the world and in Himself in order to satisfy the deepest longings of your heart—therefore trust Him.”
[SLIDE] What will all this mean to you? You will be “renewed day by day.” Remember what Paul said back in 4:16: “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” There are at least two types of renewal that take place when we fix our eyes on what is unseen. First, you will be renewed emotionally. When you have this new perspective, this eternal perspective, you will see the problems of today as insignificant and temporary (“light and momentary”) compared to the glory that awaits you in eternity. We can endure a lot if we know that there’s something good up ahead. [Hard day of work: lasts only a few hours and a paycheck is coming.]
[SLIDE] “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isa. 40:29-31).
Second, you will be renewed morally. If you think everyday that soon you will stand before Christ to be evaluated, your obedience to His commands will dramatically improve.
You and I need to see the unseen (the hope of the resurrection; the joy of the presence of God; the expectation of Christ’s judgment). We need to have an eternal perspective. So…
1. Stop obsessing about your present body and start longing for your new body.
2. Stop living as if this life is all there is and start craving the presence of the Lord.
3. Stop living your life to please yourself and start living it to please Christ.
When you think about life after death (eternity), do you see yourself in the presence of God? Are you living by faith? Have you given your life to Jesus?
