The Christian's Certitude

The Christians Certitude

2 Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:

3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.

6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst 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 confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

9 Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.

Introduction:

I. Our Dissolution

a. The certainty we have – death “if your tent is broken up”

Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

The Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, has an exhibit of unique epitaphs. Give a few. Near Uniontown, Pennsylvania there’s a gravestone that reads, “Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake. He stepped on the gas instead of the brake.” Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona, has an epitaph that reads: “Here lies Lester Moore; Four slugs from a .44; No Les, no Moore.” There’s a minister’s tombstone that reads: “Gone to another meeting.” Sympathize with that! A New England tombstone carries this epitaph of a woman who evidently was a big talker: “Beneath this sod lies Arabella Young, who on the 26th of May began to hold her tongue.” My all time favorite is one from a cemetery near Wetumpka, Alabama: “Beneath this sod and beneath these trees lies the remains of Solomon Peas. Peas is not here, only the Pod. Peas shelled out and went home to God.”

b. The comfort we have

I named this message “The Christian’s Certitude” for a very good reason. Life is filled with so many variables; so many things that are uncertain but for the Christian there are some certitudes and we find one in our text that should be a comfort to all believers. Not only is there comfort in knowing where we will go when we die but we are comforted in the knowledge that our loved ones who have passed in the Lord are already in the presence of Jesus awaiting our arrival.

c. The clothing we have – we have a desire to move into this new home v. 2

Eternity Clothes

Norma Lauby, of La Mesa, California, was browsing in the ladies’ department one day with her son who was just learning to read. Trying to read all the signs he could, he came upon one in the maternity department. “Look, Mom!” he said excitedly as he pointed at the sign. “They’re even making clothes for eternity now!” (Norma Lauby, La Mesa, CA, “Heart to Heart,” Today’s Christian Woman)

Well, I doubt that the department store chains are making clothes for eternity, but God is. Through faith in Jesus Christ, God has provided just the right clothes for eternity, and He wants us to start wearing them today.

From a sermon by C. Philip Green, Eternity Clothes, 6/26/2010

II. Our Dwelling

a. It’s contrast – tent vs building

Paul knew something of tabernacles and tents. He was familiar with the tabernacle in Exodus and he was a tentmaker by trade so these would be very familiar metaphors. That is to say, the first outstanding difference which arises before the Apostle as blessed and glorious, is the contrast between the fragile dwelling-place, with its thin canvas, its bending poles, its certain removal someday, and the permanence of that which is not a ‘tent,’ but a ‘building’ which is ‘eternal.’ Involved in that is the thought that all the limitations and weaknesses which are necessarily associated with the perishableness of the present abode are at an end forever. No more fatigue, no more working beyond the measure of power, no more need for recuperation and repose; no more dread of sickness and weakness; no more possibility of decay, ‘It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption’-neither ‘can they die anymore.’ Enough for us that the contrast between the Bedouin tent-which is folded up and carried away and the stately mansion reared for eternity, is the contrast between the organ of the spirit in which we now dwell and that which shall be ours.