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Reader: Susan Preston 2 Corinthians 5:1-10

Introduction

[Get in the hunting blind]

(Shhhhh…you won’t see anything if you are aren’t quiet)

Since we live where we live here in the heart of deer hunting country many of us have and are going to spend a great deal of time in a tent like this over the course of this week. And we go out to these tents with a particular mission. We will spend many hours sitting here in this dwelling that is typically far away from our home to intentionally accomplish that mission.

And there are all kinds of different deer blinds that will be used in this mission this next week. Some of them are very much like a tent, like this one, but others are hard sided with heaters and insulated walls still others are one sided with out even a roof to keep the elements out. Each hunter has a different experience of hunting depending on the make up of the dwelling that he or she is hunting from. Even though our mission is the same, our hunting stories will be different because the many tents that we hunt from are different.

But no matter how luxurious the deer blind seems to be…it is still not home. And every hunter knows that there is just something about coming home after spending hours in this temporary dwelling that is so warm, welcoming and inviting. When you leave the darkness of the night behind you...after a long time of being after the mission...and walk into the light and the warmth of home surrounds you...there is just nothing quite like it.

And what you come to learn is that the more difficult your experience was out in the temporary dwelling the more excited you get about coming home. The hunter that is out there in steadfast faithfulness despite his being in the biting wind with a stinging face, frozen toes and stiff fingers he or she develops a deeper longing for the warmth of home than one who has an easier go of it.

[Come Out of the Blind]

Tension

This is something of what the Apostle Paul is getting at in the passage that Susan read for us this morning. Of course Paul is hunting for something different than venison. He is after a different mission. A mission that he shares with the Church in Corinth…only God has led him to accomplish the mission from a much more abrasive environment than this Church. He says in back in Chapter 4

2 Corinthians 4:8–10 (ESV)

8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

Paul isn’t sitting in the comfy blind. Paul’s outer dwelling is taking a beating. He is something like - sitting out in an open air blind and not being able to feel his toes while icicles are forming on his eyebrows - and yet he stays out there in the field, on the mission even in the face of this biting opposition. Why does he do this? How does he do this?

He does it because he knows that his time in the tent is temporary. He know that he is only here, under these conditions for a short time. In that time, he has a mission to accomplish, but when he is done he is going on to eternity in his true home. And because Paul’s journey in the mission has been so difficult, he is not ashamed to say that he is looking forward to being home.

2 Corinthians 4:16–18 (ESV)

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

I have to confess that I think I have been reading these verses wrong for a long time. I don’t know if I just read them too fast or what, but I always understood these verse to say that the affliction mentioned here is preparing us for something. Something close to a “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” message. But that is not what this verse says.

...this light momentary affliction is preparing - for us - an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

Do you see the difference between those two ideas. If this “affliction” just prepares us, makes us stronger, then we could think that part of that growth would be in learning how to avoid “affliction”. So we just plan to keep our head down and wait it out till Jesus comes back. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t stir the pot. Don’t cause a fuss. Just deal with whatever you have to, but affliction should be avoided at all cost.

But saying that the “affliction” is actually preparing for us an eternal weight of glory means that there is something to be gained from remaining steadfast in the face of affliction. Much like the hunter who is willing to sit out in the biting cold, because he believes that is the best way to accomplish what he is there to do. But still that willingness to endure temporary affliction, doesn’t keep him from longing for his eternal home, in fact it drives him to long for home even more.

So if you haven’t already, let me invite you to open to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, it’s on page 966. I’ll pray and we will look at three ways that setting our thinking on our eternal home can keep us going even in the harshest environments.

Truth

The first thing that we gain from remembering our eternal home is that...

Thinking of Home... gives us hope in our adversity 2 Corinthians 5:1-5

2 Corinthians 5:1 (ESV)

1 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Paul is not talking about a tent with poles, zippers and screens but of our earthly bodies. So when he speaks of the possibility of our earthly home being destroyed he is talking about death.

And Paul’s ministry brought him to face his own mortality on a regular basis. On top of the danger of his extensive travels with the threat of thieves in wilderness places or storms on the high seas, Paul was on the “hit list” of many powerful men in the world at that time.

But that didn’t cause him to duck and cover. He wasn’t holding on to this dwelling like it was his true home. He was just here temporarily to accomplish a mission, but his hope was in the promise that when that mission was over he would move on to an eternal home with God. He says...

2 Corinthians 5:2–4 (ESV)

2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

The prevailing Greek ideology of Paul’s day was that after you died your spirit or soul moved on to a different form of existence. But Paul knew better, teaching the Corinthian Church that what we are now will not continue as is, but we won’t be left without a covering. We won’t be left naked. The God who gave us life in these bodies that have been corrupted by sin and death will further clothe us with an incorruptible body in the life to come.

2 Corinthians 5:5 (ESV)

5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

We know that God has not given up on the idea of us having a body because He has already begun to work in us by the power of the Holy Spirit...while still in this body. The Spirit is working in and through each one of us to make us more and more like Jesus.

And Jesus, as always, is our perfect example in this too. He was afflicted more than any of us, even to the point of dying a horrible death of the cross. But when God raised Him from the dead he was not some sort of hovering spirit or soul. His showed himself to more than 500 people including his disciples so that they would know. And then he went Home, home to be with the Father and to prepare a place for us. This reality should encourage us in our adversity.

An in a very practical way, remembering our eternal home is important because at times our lives contain a lot of pain and difficulty. And in the face of these experiences the deepest questions of life ring out. Things like:

“Why are things like this?” or

“Why did that have to happen?” or

“Why are people like that?”

These and questions like these that are brought on by our pain, loss and suffering line up under one realization that I believe God plants in the hearts of people so that they will be able to better understand these difficult moments. It is the realization that: “Something is broken here, because this is not the way things are supposed to be.”

No matter how hard we look for lasting hope around the next corner of this life, we won’t ever find it. It just isn’t here. Even if we were somehow able to follow all of Jesus’ beautiful teachings…we would still not escape the pain, loss and suffering that is a part of our existence here.

That is why Paul said in his first letter to the Church in Corinth

1 Corinthians 15:19 (ESV)

19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

We are to be most pitied because foundational to the Christian faith is that truth that we don’t live for this life. Christians we don’t live our lives in this body to gain advantages for this life only, we are to be storing our treasure up in heaven. We are only sitting out in these broken down tents because we are after a mission: to share the good news of Jesus, but we know that good news is not good news for this life only.

There is life after death. As a result, trials, sufferings, and disappointments do not have to lead us to hopelessness because our hope is not in this life only.

This introduces our second theme:

Thinking of Home... gives us confidence in our destiny 2 Corinthians 5:6-8

2 Corinthians 5:6–8 (ESV)

6 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

To have “good courage” is to be confident in and towards something. In fact, if you are reading from the NIV or another translation you may have the word “confidence” in place of good courage. And Paul says this two times, that we have this confidence that we are of “good courage” in both of two situations.

1. When we find ourselves in these tents, away from the direct presence of the Lord, we have confidence because we walk by faith in God through the Holy Spirit.

2. But we would rather be away from this temporary tent, because we have confidence that if we are no longer here then we will be “at home with the Lord”.

But how can we have such a confidence, especially because God is infinitely holy and all we have known is the broken condition of our sinful world, and us in it?

Paul tells us later in chapter 5 when he says:

2 Corinthians 5:17–18 (ESV)

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;

So we are already “new creations” even though we are still here in these temporary tents. But we are here because the one who made us “new” has given us a mission and ministry. We are to share the good news of reconciliation with God through Jesus, and we can because we have already received it…as new creations in Christ.

This is where we find the confidence of our destiny. It isn’t from us or our ability to be righteous, we are only able to be reconciled with God because He has clothed us with Jesus’ perfect righteousness.

Down in chapter 5 verse 21 we read:

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Without Jesus’ righteousness we have no hope, but when we place our faith and trust in Jesus then we get to wear His righteousness, the righteousness of God, which is perfect and it reconciles us with God. Not only that, but it equips us to be ministers of the good news of Jesus. There is great confidence found in the salvation and ministry that Jesus has given us.

This is where our last theme is found...

Thinking of Home... gives us changes in our priorities. 2 Corinthians 5:9-10

Finally this morning Paul says...

2 Corinthians 5:9

9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

What would it take for you to live as if your aim was to please Jesus?

I think most people who call themselves Christians would say that their aim is to please Jesus, but I am not sure they even know what that means? I think most of them live the bulk of their lives in what they think is something of a neutral zone. And the decisions that they make in their attitudes, actions, thoughts or words in this zone are just neutral. They don’t count for anything, they are just everyday life type stuff.

And then every once in a while we are inspired toward something especially nice. We choose to be extra gracious or generous with our time, money or attitude and that is our good. It is like we peak over and above our neutral zone to something good.

Then in contrast to that extra good, we sometimes drop down out of our neutral zone toward something bad. Not really bad, typically, but just bad. “What would Jesus do?” yeah not this, but it isn’t really evil, like genocidal world dictator evil but it is not really a thumbs up from Jesus kind of thing.

But that doesn’t happen very often, because most of my life is in this neutral zone. I didn’t use it for good, but I didn’t use it for evil either, so I have decided that those things just don’t count.

And when I say that most people I meet tend toward a scale like this - I am talking about the guy I meet in the mirror each morning too. The problem is that I don’t think that Jesus uses this scale.

2 Corinthians 5:10

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Something that is really important to remember at this point is that when the Apostle Paul says “we must all” he is talking about all the believers…including himself. So this judgment is not about whether someone is going to be going “Home” to be with the Lord or going to “Hell” away from the Lord. That is not affected by what we have done, only what Jesus has done for us.

This is Jesus taking care of some “in-house” business. Where every believer will stand before Him and give an account for how we lived after we became “new creations” in Christ. Paul already introduced this idea to the Corinthians back in chapter 3 of his first letter were he talked about how we build on the foundation of Jesus Christ that was already laid. He says:

1 Corinthians 3:14–15 (ESV)

14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

It’s true that when we think ahead to “the judgment seat of Christ” it will be a day when our greatest successes and worst failures will be laid bare before us in the presence of the Lord. And those are going to be hard enough to deal with, but I was convicted this week to consider what will happen if Jesus spent some time evaluating the aim of my decisions in my so-called “neutral zone”. I am guessing that I might find that they were not really as “neutral” as I had hoped.

If you are brave enough to think yourself in front of that throne right now, then I know it will serve to at least challenge your priorities. And if you are faithful to follow through with what you find, I know it will change your priorities in ways that will make your “home-coming” all the sweeter.

Gospel Application

Speaking of tents…I wanna close this morning with a story about Jesus and some tents that never happened. Some of you probably know this story, but late in his ministry Jesus took three of his closest disciples with him up a mountain and the text says that he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And these three disciples saw this and they had to be just amazed…but it gets better because then Moses and Elijah show up and start talking to him. The original Moses and Elijah…this was just mind blowing crazy, but that didn’t stop Peter from speaking up.

He has this great idea, he was like “Hey Jesus, I am glad we got to be here because we can get right after building tents for you, one for each of you so we will be all set...” but it appears that was the wrong answer because before he finished laying out his plans for these tents…a bright cloud overshadowed them and , and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

You see just like Peter, we can be a little too focused on earthly tents. Investing the bulk of our lives on the things of this temporary earth where moth and rust destroy. But there is no lasting hope found in a life like that, because this world that we live in is temporary. It will pass away.

But we have confidence in the eternal home that God has built for us, we long to go home to our true home, but until we get there we are sitting out in these tents to accomplish the mission that Jesus gave us and that he will hold us accountable for.

Landing

How goes that hunt?

Lets pray