Wearing and Worn Out Tents

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning's message is a portion of the epistle lesson where we read beginning at verse 16: "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 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. 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." These are the words of our texts.

Have you ever wondered why we do the things that we do that we're not supposed to do? You know, like our parents told us: "Now don't do this," and we did it. And then after we did it, we realized why Mom and Dad told us not to do that.

My dad told me once, don't mess with my razor, it's sharp. And did I believe, my father? No. We're on vacation, Mom and Dad are sleeping. I'm looking for something, and I find my dad's razor, and I'm like "oh, that can't be very sharp." So I ran my finger across it. That wasn't very sharp - nothing to it. After about 30 seconds, my finger began to sting, and I looked, and it was bleeding, rather profusely. And so, I put a Band-Aid on. My dad goes, "Why do you have a Band-Aid on your finger?" I made up some excuse. He said, "You weren't messing with my razor, were you?" I said no. But to this day, if I look really closely at my finger, I can see the scars from that razor. I learned my lesson.

Another time, my father said - I had gotten a three-speed bike, that was a big thing. I think it was sixth grade, so I was old enough to know better that I should listen to my father - it had hand brakes front and back. Quite a step up from the coaster brake on the one-speed, and my dad said, "Now, when you're breaking, make sure you break with the back brakes first, and then, the front ones." So I'm tearing around in the driveway on my bike and I'm like, "Now, why am I supposed to use the back brake first? I wonder what'll happen if I use the front brake first?"

So I squeezed on that front brake, and the bike went over the front wheel, and I was laying in the driveway. Scraped up my elbow, and if I look really close, I can still see where all the gravel was. Had that scab for a long time. The worst part of it was my dad was in the garage watching me. And he said, "didn't I tell you to put on the back brake first? It'll help slow you down, and then you can apply the front brake." I said, "Well, you didn't tell me that part." I said, "But I figured it out for myself. Now, it'll stick with me."

Ever wonder why Adam and Eve did what they did in the garden? Why did they disobey God? He had clearly said, "You can eat of anything in the garden but not this tree." And they say "It was the woman you gave me. She gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate." And God asked the woman, "What is this you've done?" "The serpent deceived me and I ate." They had somebody else to blame. I didn't have anybody to blame but myself with the razor blade and the bicycle.

But because of Adam and Eve's disobedience, we all disobey God. We're all born sinful, in need of a Savior. And God, before He dismisses, before He sends out, before He casts out Adam and Eve out of the garden, He gives them a promise. That there's going to be emnity between her seed and the serpent's seed, and her seed is going to crush that serpent's head. And in the process, the serpent will bruise His heel. The very first message of the Gospel. And we know that in the fullness of time, God brought that promise to fulfillment when He sent His son to be born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law. And we know about Jesus living the perfect life for our salvation. We understand His death on the cross for our redemption, taking our punishment, His resurrection from the dead.

We understand all that. And we have the sure and certain promise of our redemption, we have that benefit at work in our lives everyday, but yet, we still live in a fallen and sinful world, and we in ourselves bear the marks of that sin and death.

If I'd have been standing here 15 years ago, you wouldn't have looked anything like you look today. Oh, I'm sure I would recognize many of you, but you wouldn't have looked like you look today. Nor would I look the way I look today. Because in that time, we've aged. We have grayer hair. Or less hair. Our hearing may not be as sharp as it was. Our our vision. Our minds might not remember or think as easily as they did. Now, what is that Post-It for? Is that to remind me to look at that Post-It and what that's supposed to remind me of?

You see, Paul says our outer nature is wasting away. And as we look at ourselves, as we look at her aging, our weakness, our diminished abilities, we sometimes do lose heart, don't we? We have those days when we really detest our very bodies. It's like nothing I do with my hair that I have looks good, nothing fits right or looks good from the top to the shoes. And we lose heart, don't we? We get frustrated with ourselves. And it probably really hits home when we're sitting, looking at old photographs, and the grandchild or the great-grandchild says "Grandma or Grandpa, who is in this picture?" And you looked and it's you. And they say, "Now, that can't be you." Because at least as a young child, they think we've always been what we are. That we don't change. But we do change. And they grow, and they change.

And so, yes, our outer nature is wasting away. And eventually, it's going to not just wear out, but it'll be worn out, won't it? And we know that once it's worn out, well, our time here in this time and space, that God's placed us in has really come to an end, hasn't it? And yet, we don't have to be old to have worn bodies, do we. We can be any age. From the stillborn in the womb, to the middle-aged, to a teenager, to the infant, to the 100-plus-year-old. The wearing out is not a respecter of age or persons. We all wear out.

Remember those words spoken on Ash Wednesday, "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return." Those words God says to Adam and Eve, and He says them to all of their descendants. We will return, but we have this promise that we will also live again through Jesus Christ.

My final years of college, I spent three summers working for the Boy Scouts of America - Milwaukee County Council summer camp out by Oconomowoc. And one of the responsibilities at the beginning of the season of the staff was to set up a campsites. And I thought, "Well, they're Boy Scouts. Why don't they set up their own campsite? Isn't there a merit badge for tent setting-up or something?" Cuz you see, I wasn't a Boy Scout. And those who were Boy Scouts laughed, and they said "Well, we just set them up so that they could come and focus on the other stuff." So we're setting up these huge wall tents that are the canvas. And some of them, we discover, they've got a rip in them. Or a hole in them, and it's like how did this get past the people that were taking down? It should have been repaired over the summer, I mean, over the winter months. So then you'd have to take the tent all down, put it on the side, and grab a new tent and start all over. Tents require maintenance. They wear. And they get worn out. And when they get worn out, they're tossed away.

Our bodies, Saint Paul says, are like tents. They will wear out, but they also need maintenance. But in the midst of this wearing out, in the midst of our wasting away, Saint Paul says, our inner in nature is being renewed, day by day.

And I imagine there are those of us here as we look upon our life, and we look upon those years, and we can say, "Yes, I look in the mirror. And, yes, I'm wasting away and I'm aging, and one of these days, I won't be here to look in the mirror anymore." But in spite of all that, my faith in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the promises and blessings of God has grown stronger and stronger over the years. And so those words of scripture are at work in our lives, and they come true. I imagine, partly becuase finally, we realize that everything we can see wears out and gets thrown out. And the only thing that lasts really is God's word and His promises to us. And the faith that He works in us through that word and sacrement through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so we don't lose heart. And we realize that this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us a weight of glory beyond comparison. The glory of heaven is far beyond the momentary afflictions we face in this world. And that's not to say that the afflictions we face are minor or inconsequential. Some of them are quite life-changing. Some of them are quite painful. But yet, just as I learned from this scar not to mess with sharp razor blades, and this elbow from not applying the front brake before the last break, we also understand through God's word. And those poor choices that we made, they have consequences, don't they? Just like the gravel in the elbow or a cut finger. But the sin, the poor choice that receives forgiveness, we still have to live with the consequence. And sometimes, it's unpleasant. And yet, it is going to prepare us for an eternal weight of glory in heaven.

Saint Peter put it another way. He says even though now you've had to endure trials of various sorts, you know that it is for the trying of your faith and the testing of your faith, which is more precious than gold, which is refined by fire. That, in the day of Jesus Christ, your faith may be found to be genuine, not false. May be proven genuine, not false.

Several years back. I had a toothache, I thought it was a bottom tooth. Went for about almost a month with it. Finally, the Abreva wasn't helping, so it's like, I guess I better go to the dentist. She goes "Well, what's huring you?" I said, "It's down here." She poked around, tapped around, and she said everything looks fine down there. So, she said "let's see what's going on up above." And she tapped a tooth and that was the one. It had cracked. And she said, "Well, you can do one of two things: you can have a root canal, or I can yank it out." I said, "Just yank it out. It's in the back. I got enough other teeth to chew on." But that pain. I mean the novocaine helped the pulling, but you still hear the tooth crunching and cracking, and you can feel her pulling and the tension, and she's looking and she says "Are you doing okay?" And I'm like "Fine. Yeah, just get her out." And after it was out, no pain. No discomfort.

Imagine that being heaven. That partly was heaven for me. No more Abreva. No more pain. Now I knew which the tooth was.

And Saint Paul says this momentary affliction, it's nothing compared to what's yet to come. For we know that the tent, which is our earthly home, our tent, it's not only wearing out, it's not only going to be worn out, it's going to be destroyed. Our tent is going to be destroyed. And tents are not permanent, are they? Tents are not permanent. They're not meant to be permanent. They're meant to be temporary.

He says, this which is our earthly home is destroyed. We have a building from God. Now a building, that's permanent, isn't it? A building from God. A house, now that's permanent, isn't it? A house in the heavens. A house in the heavens. That's eternal. And you see Paul contrasting the temporariness of this body, this tent, and the permanence of the new body than the resurrection on the last day that will endure forever. No creaking joints, no aches and pains. No sorrow. No grief, no death, no afflictions.

But life the way God truly meant for it to be before Adam and Eve's disobedience and their plunging all their descendants with them into a world of sin and despair. Sadly, many of their descendants don't believe the promise of a Savior. And their tent's going to be destroyed too, but they have no home, eternal, in the heavens. No house made with the hand of God. Only those who believe and trust the promises of God in Christ Jesus, again through that powerful Holy Spirit at work in us. So, let us not look 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.

It is sometimes difficult for us to take our eyes off of the things that are seen, is it not? There are those things that we've come to love. Imagine you're only allowed to take 10 things. Which 10 will you choose? For some, that might not be a hard problem. For some of us, it might be a major crisis in our life.

The devil wants us to be comfortable in this world. To think that this is where we belong. But we know that our time here is just temporary. We're strangers here. As the old hymn said: heaven is my home. Heaven is where there's a house made not with hands, eternal in the heavens. And so we ask our God and Father, together with His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit that we not lose heart, though we are outwardly wasting away. Let us give Him thanks and praise that our inner nature is being renewed daily, and that the afflictions we have, they're preparing us for that eternal weight of glory in heaven. And that, yes, this tent will be destroyed. But that we have a building from God, a house eternal in the heavens.

And so, then, let us fix our eyes on the things above. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus Christ: the beginner and finisher of our faith. And let us then look forward to that day of our Lord's return and the renewing of our bodies: no more worn and wearing out tents. But living, glorious bodies, just like our Lord Jesus, for we will see Him then as He is, because we ourselves shall be like Him by the power of God that was able to raise Him also from the dead. And now may the peace of God, which surpasses our understanding, keep our hearts and our minds in faith in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.