Sermon on 2 Corinthians 5:1-10

now we're gonna look at this truth to the words of second Corinthians 5 I want to read together with you the first 10 verses 2nd Corinthians 5 the first 10 verses and we're going to focus especially in the message tonight on on the first 5 verses there we read these words for 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 I mean while we groan longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling because when we are closed we will not be found naked for while we are in this tent we groan and our burden because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be closed instead with our heavenly dwelling so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God who has given us the spirit as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord where 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 so we make it our goal to please him whether we are whether we are at home in the body or away from it where we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done well in the body whether good or bad this is the word of the Lord all I want to begin the message tonight by asking you a question begin by it by asking you how do you how do you feel about growing old or maybe I could ask how do you feel about growing older it's a question that depends a lot on on your perspective it's a question that depends a lot on on where you're at in life my kids for example my kids talked a lot about wanting to be older and want to be older because when they're older then they're gonna have a later bedtime and when you're six or eight that's kind of a big deal when I talked to some of the youth from from blessings youth and I see some of you here some of them talked about wanting to be older because when they're older well then they're gonna have their driver's license and then there's gonna be freedom and life is just gonna be grand and when I talk to some of the older youth some of the young adults they also talk about wanting to grow a bit older because when they're older you know give them a few more years 18 19 20 then then they're gonna move out on their own no one to look out for them no one to keep an eye on them and things are just gonna be swell and this is what they look forward to you see when you're young there's such a desire to be older but the truth is the truth is that at some point in time the pendulum begins to swing the other way so you spend a lot of years wanting to be older but there is the day that you wake up and you realize that I am actually older and that day actually happened for me yesterday so so yesterday we had eaten run with our church and and you go to these different homes where you get to eat with groups of people and at two of the homes I was the oldest person there and suddenly I felt older and you know if your if your mind forgets this from time to time then your body takes the liberty of reminding you see our bodies as well they're kind of on a on a pendulum and you know there's this whole stage where they grow bigger and stronger but there is the point where it begins to swing the other way and your body slowly begins that process of of decline in your body begins that process of growing more fair or frail and and more weak and I think it's interesting because it seems like all of those things that you wanted to achieve when when you were younger begin to actually be undone instead of wanting a later bedtime you start to want an earlier bedtime right and instead of wanting less more sleep and even things like you have this desire for so long to to obtain your driver's license but you actually you actually at some point you hit this other stage where you end up not being able to drive and you've all these years where you want nothing more than to move oh and to have independence but when the pendulum swings the other way there is that point where you actually have to move back and you need some help and you need someone to look after you the thing about reflecting on growing old is that you're struck by the fact that life is temporary life is so temporary and for many people that is just a frightening reality it's a frightening reality and so many people they just try to ignore that reality or or they try to kind of fight that reality or to resist and reverse that reality or to slow it down but but when it comes to aging when it comes to growing old that's a reality that just will not be denied and our bodies are often just a testimony of that our bodies they do grow tired and they they grow weaker and they grow frail and that can be a bit frightening and so we ask as Christians well how do we live in the midst of this reality well we live with a different perspective we live with with the hope that that what we have here and the knowledge that what we have here is just temporary well what we're looking forward to is eternal it makes me think of Paul's words in Colossians three verse two where Paul says focus your hearts on the things above right not on what what is earthly not on these earthly things but the challenge is that in our lives were so consumed with the earthly we're so often consumed with our with our jobs and we're consumed with with our relationships and we're consumed with with our health with our bodies with our image all of these things they take up so much of our time the temporary earthly things and that's not to suggest that my point is not that we need to disregard all these temporary things but I think we are called to look at the temporary through the lens of eternity and that's really what we're confessing tonight when we state that we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting and in Paul's words in second Corinthians he's stating that same perspective and he's saying remember ultimately that you're trading an earthly tent for a heavenly home and that's really what I want to focus on tonight it is just that statement what does it mean for us to trade our earthly tent for a heavenly home but I do want to challenge you to think about this tonight are you also living with that perspective and as you think about your life are you focusing on the temporary or your eyes really set on the eternal how much time do you spend worrying about the earthly tent and how much time do we spend focusing our hearts on the heavenly home I think this is really the message that Paul's after in 2nd Corinthians 5 but to understand this chapter you do need to understand something about the world in which Paul is living so I just want to make a couple of quick comments about Paul in this letter to the church at Corinth Corinth was a city that was very strategically located so it was it was a little bit below Greece but it was it was right on a major trade route so everything kind of flowed through Corinth you had a large city some three hundred to five hundred thousand people very large city but also a very very wealthy city because of its location but the other thing that Corinth was renowned for was the fact that it was also a worldly city you had so many people passing through merchant sailors people coming through in it it developed this reputation for ungodliness just as an example in Corinth the worship of the Greek goddess Aphrodite it included a temple worship with a thousand priestesses which essentially acted as prostitutes it was it was an incredibly ungodly atmosphere but so much so that that the Greeks actually developed a word Corinthians oh my the fun word to say they developed this word to describe the people of Corinth they made a separate term to say this is what it means to live like a Corinthian and it wasn't a compliment obviously and so you have to understand that when poles right into this group Paul's dealing with a group that is facing incredibly hard reality they're suffering they face temptations they face pressure they're not just being attacked for their Christian lifestyle but but they're often attacked for their Christian beliefs when you read through Paul's letters to the church at Corinth you discover that that this pressure from the culture is beginning to impact both their lifestyle and their theology and so he's writing because he wants to encourage them but he's writing as well because he wants to defend the Christian faith and in this particular chapter he's he's defending the belief in the resurrection of the body and the reason he has to defend it is because there are Christians in the church at Corinth who who believed that the resurrection was basically entirely a spiritual affair so these Christians in Corinth they were they were influenced a bit by Greek philosophy and and Greek philosophy saw it saw the soul as being trapped by the body it saw the body almost as something negative something evil that was just trapping the soul and so when you talked about the resurrection in their mind the resurrection was the soul being liberated and reunited with Christ but they didn't believe that the body itself would be raised from the dead and so Paul here is combating that specific belief that's his concern in 2nd Corinthians 5 and the Heidelberg catechism in the words that we read it's kind of paraphrasing the argument that Paul is going to make it says not just our souls are going to be raised up and United with Christ but but our body our flesh raised by the power of Christ is going to be reunited with our souls and it's gonna be made like Christ's glorious body and to make this this point to drive home the importance of understanding the bodily resurrection Paul creates a picture Paul creates a picture for the people impulses listen yep our lives here in this body they're just lives in an earthly tent but he says that he says in verse one he says we know that if our earthly tent is destroyed we know that we have a building from God an eternal house in heaven not built by human hand Paul says I understand to this church he says I know that you're suffering I know that you're struggling and I know that you face hardship but remember ultimately that what you're doing is you're trading up from an earthly tent to a heavenly home if we wanted to use let's say an analogy to use a picture maybe the words that we would use today Paul would say listen Christians you are you are ultimately trading a weekend of camping for a permanent stay at the Hilton that's the kind of comparison he's drawing and that speaks to me because I'm not a big camper I'm just I'm just I'm just not last last year on the Labor Day long weekend we we went camping we do this kind of yearly with with a big group of friends from church we go camping on the Labor Day long weekend and the truth is that among this group there there's a bit of division because there's like the haves and and there's the have-nots there's there's those who kind of come into the campsite wheeling their RV you know this this plush toy that they pull in behind them it's kind of like the Hilton on wheels and then there's those of us who are like in the earthly tent we're sleeping on the ground now I don't know if you remember last Labor Day long weekend but it was particularly cold there was a thunderstorm thrown in for good measure and after a couple of days is sleeping in sub-zero temperatures you recognize that the tent is not meant to be a permanent solution right that the tent is not the ideal and the harder that the circumstances around you become the more painfully aware you become of that reality and for Paul in the church at Corinth the circumstances had become very very hard and they were painfully aware of the reality that these earthly tents were not the ideal they were not the permanent solution and so Paul is saying for them pulsing I understand we groan he says we're suffering and were groaning but not because we want to get rid of our earthly bodies that's not the point that he's making he says if we're just getting rid of our earthly tent that that's like being found naked he's saying no we groan because what we want is we want to trade that earthly tent for a heavenly home Paul says we groan because we're longing for the resurrected body we groan because we want what is temporary to be swallowed up by what is eternal as we groan because we want what is mortal to be swallowed up by life he was painfully aware of the fact that this this living in an earthly tent was not meant to be a permanent solution nobody nobody wants to sleep in a tent forever it's just a fact and if people say they do I'm not gonna get into it now last September even though things were were quite rough we were fortunate that we had we had a campsite where there was where there was power and so what we did is is my wife and I we ran an extension cord over to the power outlet we plugged it in and we had space heaters in the tent for the record this is a glorious addition to camping and suddenly we had warmth in the tent that there was warmth and we had just a glimpse we could almost taste what it was like to be like in the Hilton across the campground and in and in many ways that's the picture that Paul is working with here Paul is Paul is saying I understand that we have an earthly tent and he says I understand that we face circumstances that are very very hard and when those circumstances happen we're painfully aware of how inadequate the earthly tent is but Paul also says don't forget that you have the holy spirit as a deposit the Holy Spirit is a guarantee that that is that is inside of you and the Holy Spirit is the thing that gives us hope and the Holy Spirit gives us warmth and it gives us a taste of just how good life will one day be the Holy Spirit is what opens your eyes to just how good it will be to be united with Christ forever and I think in some ways we could look at this world that we live in and we could almost say that you know we're all really just camping for a while we're we're just so Jonah or sojourners we're just staying here for a time and it's sure if we could argue that there might even be divisions there there might be the haves and the have-nots some people are are really living in in worn down beat up ten pastor bill and I this past week we we were in an area of Hamilton that's pretty hard hit a pretty tough area of Hamilton where there's a lot of poverty and a lot of crime and it's an area where you know you just you see prostitutes on the street in the middle of the day it's and you can't help but look at this and your heart goes out because you see people who have been worn down just by life people who've who've just struggled with the brokenness of life and that earthly tent that that image suddenly becomes a reality and you you feel for these people because in their minds this is all there is which makes it so much more sad and what they need is is hope and so we pray we pray that we might be able to minister to them in a way that that they they receive the Holy Spirit in a way that changes them that gives them hope that opens up their eyes just gives them a glimpse of what it means to be United with Christ so many people in this world that need the promise of the gospel they need to be reminded of the fact that that you will ultimately trade this earthly tent for a heavenly home so many people just camping for a time and I think one of the great challenges in presenting the gospel particularly in the Western world is that is that there's a lot of people who are camping you could say in the Hilton on wheels and they're quite content with their current condition and the appeal of the gospel kind of loses its luster in some ways on them because they look at what they can see and touch and experience and life seems pretty good camping you could say doesn't seem that bad but the gospel says that everything that we see will ultimately fade away the warning of the gospel whether you're camping in that broken-down tent or whether you're camping in the Hilton on wheels everything will ultimately fade away so our prayer tonight for you wherever you're at whether you truly relate more to one end of that spectrum or another our prayer is that the Holy Spirit and the belief in the resurrection of the body would give you a perspective that allows you to see the temporary through eternity that you truly would be people that that take your hearts and that focus them on what is above and not on the earthly things doing it ultimately for the glory of God and thankfulness to Jesus Christ let's pray together our Father in heaven Lord we we want to thank you for the amazing gift and the amazing promises that you give we thank you for your word thank you for the promise that you give of the resurrection of the body and the hope that we have of the life everlasting and we recognize that often we get distracted from thinking big picture so often we're focused on what a temporary were spending our time worried about this affair or that affair or this thing going on that thing going on our minds can so easily be drawn to the things that will not ultimately laugh and father we pray that we would more and more have an attitude that sees our job through the lens of eternity that sees our friendships through the lens of eternity that sees our finances through the lens of eternity and father we pray that we might also have a heart for those who are hurting because all of us are just sojourners in this place we're just here for awhile and yet there are so many people who are convinced that this is all there is and nothing more and particularly when they face circumstances where there's brokenness and pain and anguish it can be such a crushing situation and so we pray that we might take the hope of the gospel to this city that we might share the good news of Jesus Christ that even when people have these tents that are really worn down with rips and with patches that we might be able to assure them with confidence that there is a heavenly home awaiting them and father we pray that you might give us courage and conviction as we do that grow our hearts grow our faith grow our love for Jesus Christ and grow our love for others in Christ's name we pray amen you

Channel: Blessings Christian Church

Views: 2,074

Rating: 4.0588236 out of 5

Keywords: Sermon, Christianity (Religion), Hamilton (City/Town/Village), Blessings Christian Church, Church, Religion, 2 Corinthians 5:1-10

Id: Fq8jyxRQzf8

Length: 22min 58sec (1378 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 06 2018