I asked Tanner to read that chapter
4 to us because, well, it's part of the context in which Paul
writes these next words, beginning in verse 1, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Now we
know that if the earthly tent we live in destroyed, we have
a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by
human hands. Meanwhile, we groan, longing
to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are
clothed we will not be found naked. For while we are in this
tent we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be
unclothed, but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so
that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is for this,
or 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.
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. 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. Now verse 7 is our focus. We live by faith, not by sight. Now this little verse could be
taken out of its context and just preached as a general purpose
that is true for everyone who believes. You'll notice Paul
does not say to these Corinthian believers, we should live by
faith, not by sight. He says, we do live by faith,
not by sight. Notice that. So often statements
in the scripture are taken by some preachers and turned into
commandments. This isn't a commandment. This
is simply a statement of truth. Every believer, every last one
of them, from the newest one to the oldest one, does not live
by sight. He lives by faith. The walk of every believer, and
actually, our translation puts the word live there, And that
is a legitimate translation of the word. It's a metaphorical
word. It actually says we walk by faith,
not by sight. And the only reason that live
might be a little bit confusing is they might, people might read
that and think that we come to spiritual life by faith. But
that's getting the cart before the horse. We don't live because
we believe. We believe because we live. It's
that simple. People dead in trespasses and
sins can't live. And they can't believe. At least they can't live until
Christ tells them to. And then they do. And the moment
they live, they begin to believe. So that's the only way that that
could be a little bit misleading by using the word live, but what
he's talking about is how we conduct our lives, that's our
walk. The word strictly means walking
around, and it refers not simply to isolated matters here and there,
just as you're walking around in your life. If you are a believer,
you are walking by faith and not by sight. Now we do not mean
by this that the believer does not walk by faith in the natural
things of life. Let me make sure I said that
right, I'm not sure that I did. We're not saying that the believer
does not walk according to the flesh in the natural things of
life. Now if I said that right the
first time, I just said it twice. When we're done here, I'm going
to get in my car and drive home. I am not going to close my eyes.
I'm going to use these fleshly eyes and fleshly ears listening
for Somebody to honk at me if my fleshly eyes didn't catch
what I need to know. And I'm going to drive home in
the flesh. Why? Because driving's a fleshly
thing. It's a natural thing. Unbelievers
can drive. There's a lot of things we do
in the flesh. Why? Because it's the flesh that
does them. He's talking here about spiritual
matters. Paul's reference is to the spiritual
aspect of their lives. If you look at beginning in verse
16 of chapter 4, Therefore, we do not lose heart,
though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being
renewed day by day." Now, what's he mean by that? Well, these
bodies are wasting away, aren't they? I mean, our children, it doesn't
look like they're wasting away. They're still in the process
of maturing. Seems like their bodies are getting better and
better every day, stronger. They're learning to use them
better, but about the time you hit 25 or 30, once your body
is fully formed and all the systems are as good as they're going
to get, then you start this downhill progression of wasting away. For the first 25 years or so
of our lives, according to doctors anyway, and people are supposed
to know these things, first 25 years we mature. We spend the
rest of our lives aging. until finally there's too much
age and we die. These outward bodies are wasting
away. We can't stop that. And actually,
Paul, saying that that should not be our concern anyway, not the primary driver of our
lives. Yet inwardly, the spiritual man,
That part of the believer that's been born again by God, it's
being renewed every day. Not being born again every day,
doesn't need born again every day. But our spirit needs, for
lack of a better way, it needs sustenance. It needs God to provide
for it. to preserve it, to keep it alive,
to strengthen it. And here's the wonder of it,
the Spirit never ages. That's why God's life is eternal
life. We never get old in Christ. We are like Him we'll be like
him, and spiritually already are like him, already in the
full vigor of, shall we call it, adult spirituality. And we
are not, spiritually speaking, in a process of decaying that
will someday eventuate in spiritual death. It's being renewed day
by day by the very one who brought it to life in the first place.
And I'll bet that there's many people here, and I know you're
not prone to complaining, most of you not prone to telling out
your trials, but if someone could get you to talk about it, you
would prove what he said there. Because there's times when in
the flesh, you had no idea how you'd make it. There are times
when overwhelming grief has all but blotted out the light of
God's grace and His mercy. And in your flesh, you thought,
I'm giving up. I can't do this anymore. But here you are. Here you are. Why is that? Well, you were right when you
said, I can't do this anymore. In fact, you couldn't do it up
to that point. You weren't doing it. He was.
He doesn't wear out. And he renews you every day. That doesn't mean you feel renewed.
That doesn't mean you feel strong. Here's the wonder of God's grace. You are strong, even as you are
weak. You might still say, I can't
go on, I can't go on, but somehow, miraculously, you do. Why? In the inward man, and blessed
be his name for this, God keeps working. One of the famous doctrines This
part of the so-called five points of Calvinism is the perseverance
of the saints. And I suppose within a certain
context I might be willing to talk about that. But here's what
I believe. I believe in the perseverance
of God. He that began a good work in you will persevere. He will bring it to perfection
until the day of Christ. We're wasting away on the outside,
no way to stop that. But inwardly we're being renewed
day by day. Verse 17, for our light and momentary
troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs
them all. Now, we Americans are so accustomed
to having things so good that Things that are truly light
and momentary afflictions seem to us like overwhelming trials. But as Paul is saying this, as
he's writing this, he is a man who is hounded and persecuted
by the enemies of the cross. As I recall one preacher from
my past saying, when Paul came into town, he didn't look for
the Motel 6, he looked for the jail because he knew he was going
to end up there sooner or later. He says, and I can't remember,
I think it was three times, he received the 40 stripes minus
one. The law forbade the Jews from
giving any more than 40 lashes. And just to be sure, they would
only do 39. Nonetheless, they'd beat you
with an inch of your life. I don't know that I'd want to
bear up under that once. Three times. He'd been given up for dead on
some occasions. He'd suffered betrayal from those
who it seemed as though had heard the gospel from him and rejoiced
to believe it. And then they turned on him.
In Philippians, he said that there were those who were rising
up and preaching the gospel and they were doing it out of envy
because he was in jail and they were saying, now's our chance
to take the top spot. the absence of Paul they thought
they could become Paul in the eyes of the people. He suffered sickness, he was
shipwrecked, abandoned by his countrymen and
family, and he bundles all of this together and says, our light
and momentary affliction. Why could he call all these troubles
light and momentary afflictions? Well, let's go on. Verse 18,
so we fix our eyes on what is seen, not on what is seen, but
on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal. Now notice this. Once again,
he does not say, we ought to do this. He says we do. Now I understand as Paul's using
the word we here, he's talking about himself and maybe including
those who travel with him. Some call it the editorial we.
It's a way to speak of yourself and yet not draw so much attention
to yourself. And that's what he's doing here.
He says, we fix our eyes not on what is seen. But the truth
is that is applied to every believer. Our gaze, our fixed gaze may
not be so fixed as it should be. We, after all, do have this
flesh. And we only have one consciousness,
so when the flesh is busy doing things it must do, or busy pursuing
the things it would like to do, then we're probably not, or don't
have our eyes, our consciousness fixed on the unseen things. But in spiritual matters, when
our consciousness has been captivated by spiritual things, when for
a time like this, when we are able to think upon Christ and
His gospel and all this, we are not considering the things of
this life. The things we consider will affect
the way we live our lives here, but that's not what our message
is about. And that's why when churches take up this business
of trying to teach people how to live, I'm not talking about
the occasional exhortations you find in the scripture. I'm talking
about, you know, they, well, there's a one church, you know,
and most people, their churches, their title, their name tells
you what they consider to be most important. Because they
want to attract you with that thing. And I saw a family Baptist
church. I bet you I know what they preach
on. I bet you they're real big on the family. That became such
a big thing when I was a kid. There's lots of sermons about
how to raise your kids, and sermons about man's the head of the household
and the woman's supposed to submit to him, and they had all the
details of how that's to be done. Somebody came out with a seminar
that they'd hold all over the place called Basic Youth Conflicts,
and it was to approach youth and tell them how to handle the
conflicts of life and things like that. That's not what we're about. We are about unseen things. We are about eternal things. And when, or the more that we
are able in our conscious life to become consumed with the unseen
and eternal things, the lighter and more momentary will our present
troubles seem." Now you think on that a minute. The more we are consumed with
thoughts of things we cannot see, the less consumed we will
be with things that can be seen. Light and momentary. You say,
but I got a disease, and it's a lifelong disease. One of these
days, you'll look back and say, well, that life of mine was just
a moment. Just a moment. And it was over. I mean, those of us who have
accomplished more than half of an expected lifetime already
feel like it's clipping by pretty fast, doesn't it? Now, I know
when you're suffering, time slows down. Well, I'd been up in the
middle of the night, racked with anxiety, racked with fear, mind
going 100,000 directions at once. And boy, that makes for a long
night. Oh, I'd watch the clock. I'd try to sleep and couldn't,
but I'd sleep. I thought, oh, man, I'll bet you a half hour's
gone by, and I'd look up in five minutes and tick by. but it's just a moment. Compared to eternity, it's all
it is. And I know that all of us take
our turns suffering what seems to be unimaginable sorrow and
suffering. One of these days, one of these
days, you'll say, that wasn't nothing. Why did I worry about it? Light and momentary. No doubt the spiritual sight
going to have an effect on our fleshly lives and our natural
lives. But the man who is restrained
to only fleshly sight, all he can see, all he can observe is
what these bodies can observe. Such a one is very limited in
the information with which he can make decisions, and consequently they often make
the wrong ones. Do you know why churches have
to use guilt? I spoke in the Sunday School
lesson some about guilt-driven ministries, but do you know why
they have to do that? It's very simple. They're speaking
to people who have no spiritual life. they can see or all they
can perceive is that which they can naturally understand, and
we can naturally understand guilt. So they tell them, you need to
give more. Why? Well because if you don't
give more, God's going to take away what you have. All right,
don't want that to happen. God becomes like the mafia, you
gotta pay him protection money so he can keep the rest of it,
you know? But that's what they do, guilt and fear. And they
have to do that because the unspiritual, the fleshly man, can see no value
in giving. He must either gain a reward
for his giving, or he must avoid some kind of trouble by his giving,
or he won't do it. Here you all, and we're a small
crowd. Now this is looking at you all
by sight. I'm not looking eternally. I'm just looking at you in the
flesh. How does a little group like this keep something like
this going on? I mean, it takes some money. You gotta pay me. You don't have
to, but you know what I mean. That's part of the budget. That's a lot of money to come
up with every month. Enough money so man can live. Buy health insurance. My, my. And then we got to pay
the utilities. Got to keep up the building.
My word, a lot of money. How? Why do you all do that? I can't remember the last time,
if ever, I preached a message giving. I probably mentioned
it but to devote a whole message to it I don't know that I ever
have. I've never tried to make anybody feel bad about it. I don't think that I have ever
tried to weasel any money out of you by
deceptive means. Why? Because I believe you see
things the rest of the world doesn't see. And what you see
makes you think, yeah, completely sensible to give like I do. You know, the law set a minimum
for giving, the tithe. And people love the tithe. And
here's the reason they love the tithe. They love the tithe not
because it costs them 10% of their income. That part they
don't like. What they like is this. Once I've given my 10%,
I'm free. And it doesn't matter if others
go hungry. I gave my 10%, I did my part,
I'm done. That's why people like legalism.
They don't like the rules, but they feel at least once they've
met the standard, nothing more is required of them. So there is a minimum standard
set for those who live according to the flesh, who lived under
the law of Sinai. But you know something? In the
Old Covenant, excuse me, in the New Covenant of the Gospel, there's
a maximum. You say, God put a limit on how
much we should give? Yes, he did. And I don't mind
telling it to you. Here's the maximum amount you
should give. Number one, only as much as you
can. Number two, only as much as you
want to. Bible says God loves a cheerful
giver. When a person is called on to give more than he wants
to, he's no longer a cheerful giver. So when you decide when you're
going to write your check or if you use cash, you're reaching
in your wallet and you want to figure out how much should I
give, ask those two questions. How much can I? Because God does
expect you to use the money you have, take care of your day-to-day
needs. So he's not expecting you to
give by impoverishing yourself. And then secondly, how much do
I want to give? And I'll say this because I believe
it to be so. If your eyes are set on eternal
things, on unseen things, when you open up your wallet, what
you want to give will always exceed what you can give. Now you think on that, that's
true. Now, truth of the matter is, we believers still got that
flesh working on us. And we look, well, I could give,
but if I give that much, I can't such and such. And sometimes
the wrong answer wins out, doesn't it? But I'm telling you this,
spiritually speaking. Spiritually speaking, you walk
by faith. you will always want to give
more than you can. Wouldn't it be fun? I think that's
a fine word to use. Wouldn't it be fun if you just
double your giving? Wouldn't you find some satisfaction
in that? Wouldn't you find some joy in in knowing you could contribute
more, as it were, to the kingdom of God in this world and the
furtherance of the gospel. When you're thinking spiritually,
that is, when unseen eternal things take hold of your mind,
yeah. In fact, and I just use that
one as an example because flesh is so attached to our, excuse
me, money is so attached to our flesh. It's just such an easy
one to point out the principle I'm trying to make. But the fact
of the matter is in every, in every spiritual endeavor, if
that's the right word, the believer wishes he could do more. So Paul's context, though, starting
way back somewhere in chapter 2, his context is the ministry. That covers this middle of chapter 2 on through
chapter 5, and in chapter 6 he says this, verse 1, as God's
fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. So there he is, he's using that
we again and he's referring to God's fellow workers. Now indeed
all of us are God's fellow workers in one way or another, one extent
or another, but he is talking specifically of those whose lives
have been given over to the ministry of the gospel. Now I say ministry. Let me use a word we actually
understand. People think ministry, and all
they can think of is a preacher in a suit sitting in a nice study carrying on, quote, a ministry.
Folks love religious words that have been stripped of their meaning
because that means they can make them mean whatever they want.
The word ministry means simply to serve, to serve. The ministry of the gospel is
the service of the gospel. is to take the place of a servant
within a household, bending to the sensitivities of others. Paul says, I'm all things to
all men that by all means I might save some. Does that sound like
somebody that's demanding he be in charge of everything? He
says when he goes among the Jews, he's sensitive to that, he obeys
the Jewish ceremonial laws. He's not going to go there and
come Friday evening, which is when they begin their Sabbath.
He's not going to fire up the lawnmower and mow his grass on
their Sabbath day. Why? Because he knows full well
if he does that, he's not going to get to go into the synagogue
the next day and tell them about the glorious riches of Christ. He was a servant to them. In
fact, it says the Lord Jesus was a servant to the Jews for
the truth's sake. As I mentioned to you before,
I'm trying to write some essays about the ministry, just things
that I've learned over the years, and one of them is this. I would
tell any young man interested in the ministry, don't try to
build a ministry, just minister. Don't try to build up something
that's going to still be here when you die. And that's true of all of us,
really. Don't try to leave a legacy. Just serve. Serve. And so he's saying here now,
let's go back to chapter 5, verse 1. The ministry and even all our
conduct in relationship to God is carried out by faith. You
see, only faith sees God. Moses left Egypt and all the
treasures and all the pomp and circumstance of being a part
of the royal family. He left all of that. You say,
how could you do that? How could you leave all of that
for the desert? He didn't leave all of that for
the desert. If he had looked at that with
the eyes of the flesh, all he would have been able to see is
a throne, unimaginable amounts of gold, being pampered, being
bowed to in the street. You say, I wouldn't want that.
Yeah, right. We can easily say things that
we don't want that we know we're never going to get. And then compare that with going
out here in a wilderness where the only people that live out
there live in tents and they're not particularly trustworthy
people. There are no walled cities. There are no places of protection.
You look at those two things, it's a no-brainer, right? You stay in Egypt. Why did he leave Egypt? The Bible says, because he saw
him who is invisible. Moses did not choose between
Egypt and the wilderness. He chose between Egypt and the
God of all glory. And when you look at things that
way, once again, it's a no-brainer. Right? And Paul's thinking the
same thing. He's not choosing between jail the seminary life he could have
had as a, and I call it seminary, would have been whatever Jews
had for teaching schools. He said he was way past other
men his age in advancing in Judaism. The name Saul means sought-after,
and that's what he was. He was sought-after. When there's
a question, let's go ask Saul. And He could have had a life
of wealth. He could have had a life of respect.
He could have had a life of ease. Why did he choose the life of
trouble? He didn't. He chose to follow Christ, and
that simply led to the trouble. He saw the life he had. he saw
the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was a no-brainer. And
it rendered all the troubles that he experienced as a result
of following Christ, it rendered them to be light and momentary
afflictions. Only faith sees God. Only faith
pleases God. With the flesh, you can be religious,
you can go to church, you can read a Bible, you can understand
the Bible's doctrines, and you can even believe that those doctrines
are true, just like any false religionist can follow their
doctrine. I hear people say, well, I believe
in free and sovereign grace. Okay. It doesn't mean anything, not in
and of itself. I'm not saying this to scare
you, but it's good for us to be sobered once in a while. What's
the difference between reading this Bible in the flesh
and reading it in the spirit? Well, in the flesh we can know
that salvation is by grace through faith and not by works. But only by God-given faith can
we cease from our labors and actually trust the Lord Jesus
Christ for salvation without cost. See the difference? You can know all the doctrines.
I'm sorry, you can go all the doctrines and go to hell. Because salvation is not had
by a theological process. You can do that in the flesh.
What you can't do in the flesh is believe God. What you can't
do in the flesh is to quit coming to Him with a tale of all the
works you've done and simply rest your soul in what Christ
has done. And the ministry is carried on
by faith. Excuse me, I'm going to have
to take a minute to pick and choose because I got a whole lot of
things here and don't have, I thought to be to this point after about
five minutes and I didn't make it. All by faith. He says in verse 2 of chapter
4, because his ministry was conducted not by the things that can be
seen, but by unseen things. Rather, we have renounced secret
and shameful ways. We do not use deception, nor
do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth
the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man's conscience
in sight of God. No gimmicks. No pretending we're doing one
thing when we're really doing something else. No taking the
edge off of doctrines that we think somebody might find offensive. No distorting the Word of God.
No ignoring some aspect of the Scriptures. Because we know that
it's not going to attract many people or might even drive some
away. But because we have seen unseen
eternal things, we preach those unseen eternal things to the
full breadth of our knowledge of them, knowing this, that the truth never drives sheep
away. And it most nearly always drives
the goats away. so it collects the sheep and
gets the goats out of their way. So yeah, but we could have a
much more successful ministry if we were just, wait a minute,
do you really think that we could get more converts to Christ by
something more than the gospel? That's what we would be saying.
Well, you know, just preaching the gospel ain't going to get
you much. But if you do this, yeah, you're going to get some
more, but you're not going to get any more believers. By faith, we've seen
the glory of what we preach. And we scratch our heads when
people come in here and act like nothing's been done of any consequence. They think to themselves, that's
all they do at that church. Yeah, that's all we do here.
And they think it's nothing. Why? Because they can't see.
They don't see the glory of it. We who believe do. And we're satisfied with that
glory. That's why Paul described the ministry as being with unveiled
faces reflecting the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And I'm pretty sure the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ is about all a fellow needs,
right? I can't imagine what we could come up with that would
help that. However, as we're doing this,
Paul says, verse four of chapter five, for
while we are in this tent, we groan in our burden because we
do not wish be unclothed or be clothed with our heavenly dwelling
so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." Paul says,
well, we're living here, we're walking by faith, not by sight, and we're counting these troubles
we face as light and momentary affliction. But inwardly, we
groan. Have you ever been around someone
with an illness causing great pain? And you just hear them
and you're, uh. They can't contain it. They groan. The believer groans in this life. There's a lot about this life
that pains him. It pains him that sin is still so much a part
of what he is. And he groans. Have you ever
groaned before the Lord because of your wretchedness? We groan because we try to pray
and we can't imagine that God would hear what we have to say.
It's a mess, our thoughts wander. We groan because we preach this
gospel and so few want to hear it. And we know what it means
when they reject it. Our children. We do the best
we can with them to tell them the truth. Not all of them believe
it. And we groan. And Paul says, we've grown because
we don't want to be naked. Well, I'm not a naked preacher.
Boy, am I glad. We all ought to wear clothes
to church. It's a good thing. That's not the nakedness he's
talking about. You know, it's interesting. When Adam and Eve
sinned, you know what it said they found out about themselves?
It said they realized they were naked. It said they didn't know
beforehand. It never meant anything to them. And my personal belief is they
were clothed in glory, like our Lord was on the Mount of Transfiguration.
But that's speculation, the Bible doesn't say so. But once they
sinned, the glory was gone, and there they stood, naked, ashamed. And our Lord,
it said, He made them skins, or garments out of animal skins. to cover their nakedness. They had on clothes, but they
were still naked. We used to make a joke when I
was a teenager. Go up to somebody and say, you
know, underneath my clothes, I'm completely naked. You know, it just kind
of meant to shock, and then people realize the silliness of the
statement. underneath our clothes, we're
completely naked. We are clothed, oh thank God,
clothed in the righteousness of Christ, but we're naked. Our nakedness has been covered.
Someday we'll be clothed. Someday we'll no longer be naked. As the old Him writer said, when
I stand before thy throne, dressed in beauty not my own, when I see thee as thou art,
love thee with unsinning heart, then Lord, shall I surely know,
but not till then, how much I owe. All will be clothed no longer
be naked, but even then the clothes will not have been made by us.
They will still be linen, white and clean, manufactured by the Lord Jesus
Christ, but we will be clothed. Therefore, verse 1 of chapter
5, And I'll finish with this. Now we know that if this earthly
tent we live in is destroyed, then brethren, it will be. It
will be. We have a building from God. We got this one from our parents.
My parents are gone. And someday I will be too. Because
I got this body from them. Someday I'm getting a body from
God. A new one. One not corrupted by sin. Not
one devastated by the curse. Not one that competes with my
spirit. One not built by human hands. And then, oh brethren, then we'll quit our
groaning. Then we won't lie in the pain of a more or less terminal illness
called sin. Then we'll no longer have a conflict. We will be absolutely completely
and unendingly full of joy and faultless in the presence of
God. We hate death, and death is an
enemy. We don't like to see our loved
ones go, but they do. And hopefully when we go, there's
going to be somebody that didn't like it. Someone said, live your life
such that even the undertaker is going to feel bad when you
die. We don't like funerals. We don't like going out to the
cemetery and watching them put our loved one in a hole and cover
it up. But that's because we look at
it, not by faith. but by sight. With some, I understand,
they died unbelieving. What joy can we find? But oh, when you bury a believer,
you need not to look at that hole in the ground, because it's
a temporary hole. You need not consider that anything
harmful has happened to them. Maybe the last you heard from
them was agonizing groans of a sickness. They groan no more. Maybe old age had robbed them
of their mind. Don't worry, they got a good
mind now. Death. Learn to look at it. by faith, not by sight. Learn that by death we don't
go to the wilderness any more than Moses did. By death we're
not leaving the riches of Egypt to be stranded in a place where
there is no water. We are leaving the wretchedness
of this world to enter a paradise where flows the river of life
freely, where it has no sun because the Lamb of God is the light
of it. We go to be with him who is our
heart's chief desire. No wonder Our brother Henry,
he told me this twice in a letter. Every night he prayed, Lord,
I don't want to wake up. And finally the Lord heard his
prayer and now all of his groaning is done. He sees what he could only believe
before him. Heavenly Father, add your blessing. Thank you that we live by faith
and not by sight, and we pray that we would learn to do that
better, having our consciousness captivated by the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ, to see the glory of his person,
the glory of his sacrificial work, the glory of his everlasting
reign at the right hand of God. These things, Lord, keep us from
despair. We pray this in Christ's name,
amen.