We will start at verse 8 and read through chapter 5, verse 9. Now hear God's word. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, I believed, and so I spoke. We also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight 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 which is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 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. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. The grass withers, the flower fades, but God's Word stands forever. Will you pray with me as we come to God's Word? Father, we thank You that Your Word is an encouragement to us. We thank You that Your Word is a comfort to us. As we come on a day like today to Your Word, we praise You for the fact that Your Word is living and that Your Word is active. Father, that it doesn't just teach us things in our minds. It does that. But more importantly, Father, it shapes our hearts and it shapes our lives. It gives life and it transforms life. And so this morning, Father, we pray that in its living and active nature, Your Word would continue to shape our lives and form us into people who fix our eyes on the things that are above, on the things that are eternal. Even as the things of this earth continue to be shaken around us, even as the tents of our bodies continue to wither, and Father, even as those we love have their tents taken down, We pray that You would fix our eyes on that which is eternal in the heavenlies, that which You have promised us, that which You have guaranteed us in Christ Jesus and by the gift of Your Holy Spirit. So, Father, encourage us this morning, we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen. So, let's take a little break today from our study in the book of Revelation, can all, as we mourn the loss of our friend and our brother, Ted, we can let God's Word strengthen us and let God's Word encourage us. It seems in our church that God, by His providence and in His kindness and in His goodness, allows a lot of suffering to come into our midst, allows us to taste and experience often the hard and bitter realities of life in a fallen world, and the fact that things here are temporary, and that things here are transient. And we are reminded again and again by the fact that people do go through very hard things, and we do lose people we love. God uses those things to remind us that this stuff isn't the stuff that we ultimately need, and that this place isn't ultimately our home. And we're grateful for that. I have a friend that he's a pastor and I had lunch with him not too long ago. And I think I started working here in 2001 and I think he started working and preaching at the church that he's at in 2003 or 2004. And he said, I'm going to be doing the first funeral that I've ever done in 14 years of ministry at his church. That's just how God has providentially orchestrated his congregation. He's done lots and lots of weddings. but he had never done a funeral. And I shared with him that we have done many, many funerals at this church, that we have been touched by the painful realities of the loss of life in this world often in this church, but I'm thankful for that because it does remind us that this is not our home. It does remind us that as wonderful as the world is that God has created for us to live in, it's nothing compared to what He has in store for us. And so this morning again, we come to God's Word, and we allow it to comfort us, and soothe us, and remind us of what matters in times like this, and on days like this. Physical death, especially when it's unexpected, especially when it's sudden, it's hard for us, it's painful for us, it's intensely sorrowful for us. And there's no way, no matter how often you experience it or go through it or deal with it, there's no way to prepare yourself for the full impact of it. Every time the phone rings at an hour that it wouldn't ordinarily ring and the person on the other end has that particular tone in their voice, it makes my heart stop all over again. You don't get used to it. You don't get used to it. And so, when death comes and when the sorrow and the pain does what it does. It crashes over us like a wave. We've got to be able to turn to the safe harbor of God's Word in those times. God gives us living truth. Living truth. Not theoretical truth. not abstract truth, but living truth to hold us up and bolster us and carry us through the hardest and most painful and most sorrowful times of our lives. Not only when people die, but when we suffer. And this is a body of Christ that is well familiar with suffering. And so we need these truths. And we need them often. And we need to return to them often. This passage we'll look at here now, 2 Corinthians 4 and 5, is one of the most important passages in all of God's Word for those kinds of times. This passage is coming out of everything that Paul has experienced in his own life. All of the suffering that he has endured. All of the times that he has come face to face with death. He says in verse 8 of chapter 4, he says, He says, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. That's his own life he's talking about there. That's what was normal, that's what was ordinary for the Apostle Paul as a Christian living in this world that hates Christ. Paul was absolutely no stranger to suffering in his life and in his ministry. And so he talks about his life here and in other places in this book. and all of the hardship that was a constant part of his life. For instance, over in chapter 11, just listen, we've all heard these verses before. We've talked about them many times as Paul chronicles some of the things that he endured in his life, an experience that marked his life as a servant of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 24, five times he says, I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked at sea. A night and a day I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the Gentiles. That's everyone now. Danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea. It's everywhere. Danger from false brothers. in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and in exposure." That was the kind of stuff that had come to mark the daily life of the Apostle Paul. This was the kind of thing that he had in mind when he said, I'm afflicted in every way, from everybody, everywhere I go. Every imaginable thing that's hard, I've had to endure. We've seen this word afflicted a lot of times, right? It's that word that means to squeeze something, to put something under intense pressure that hurts. My sons are getting big enough now that when they come and they hug me as hard as they can, it hurts. I can feel my ribs cracking almost. The word affliction means to squeeze somebody a lot harder than that, so that it literally hurts and you literally feel like you can't breathe. physically, emotionally, spiritually. That kind of pressure is what affliction means. And the life we live is full of it. It's not a life of ease. It's not necessarily going to be a life of liberty and the pursuit of happiness or the American dream. Paul's life sure didn't look like that, right? Paul's life didn't look anything like my life looks like. The comforts that we enjoy and take for granted oftentimes here. Paul had long since given up any hope of living in a nice house and always having a fridge full of good food to eat and money to spare. Paul had long since parted with any dream of a life of endless earthly comfort or pleasure. Paul knew that's not what God had for him. Paul's life was all about those sleepless nights in the cold. and going hungry for days on end, and not knowing where his next meal was going to come from. He didn't have the privilege of being surrounded by people everywhere he went who loved him. Everywhere he went, they were throwing rocks at him, and trying to arrest him and kill him. He didn't have a lot of friends that he could turn to for support and help. Paul's life was the opposite of that. Everywhere he turned, people were persecuting him, even his own family, even his own Jewish countrymen. Even people calling themselves Christians, even people that called themselves as brothers in Christ, were persecuting him. Not just teasing him, or mocking him, or laughing at him, or ridiculing him either, right? They were hurting him. They were trying to kill him. Everywhere that Paul turned, that was the kind of life that he experienced. He was afflicted. He was squeezed. In every way. But, he says, while he was being squeezed constantly like that, he was not crushed. He was not overcome. He was not defeated. He was not driven to despair. And this is where this becomes such an important place for us to return to in God's Word regularly as we get squeezed, as we experience sorrows and afflictions and hardships in our life, because very often we allow ourselves to be crushed. And that happens when we rely upon our own strength in the middle of the trial instead of upon the Lord's. Very often we become self-reliant, we take matters into our own hands, we try to resolve whatever pain we're experiencing, whatever hardship we're suffering, in our own way. In our own self-sufficient, self-reliant way. And we'll fail every time. Paul says he was never crushed, never overcome, never defeated, never driven to despair, because he was not reliant on Paul in those times. He was always reliant upon his God. Through it all, Paul never lost heart, he said. Verse 16 of chapter 4. So we don't lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed. day by day, and in fact, there's a correlation. It's when our outer self is wasting away by the pressures of the trials and the hardships of our lives, that the Lord is working to renew our inner self. And that's how He can say, for this momentary light 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." So see, when Paul faced affliction, it was agonizing. It's not that it didn't hurt. It's not that it wasn't painful. It's not that he was aloof or cavalier about it at all. It was brutal for him, as it is for you. But through all of the agony, Paul didn't lose heart and drown in despair. Paul didn't give up. Just like Job, in his agony, Paul didn't curse God. Paul didn't take matters into his own hands and do everything that he could to sort of insulate himself from any more suffering and to deal with it in his own strength or try to guarantee himself a life of pain-free happiness and comfort and ease. When the afflictions of his life were impossibly hard for him to bear in his strength, The pain literally felt crushing when the sorrow was unbearable for him. When he was at the absolute end of himself, what kept him from plunging into hopelessness and discouragement and despair and the absolute futility of self-reliance, what kept him from all of that was the reality of the power of God and the glory of Christ that was at work in his life, even in and especially in those moments of weakness. That's what it is. This is what it means to walk by faith. This is what it means to seek first the Kingdom of God. It means to be reliant upon God in the way that causes His strength to be manifested in us in our times of weakness. And so to embrace those times of weakness, those times of crushing affliction, those times of despair, to say, In a sense, even though it's hard and I don't like it, I welcome it because these are the times that God works in me the most. Another friend of mine who's a pastor who's getting near to retirement now said to Wendy and I once, I never learned anything in my ministry when it was easy, when things were going great. when everybody was agreeing, when there were no pressures, when there were no trials, when there were no afflictions. Everything I've learned about living for the glory of God and serving His Kingdom in this world, I've learned from times when it was hard. That's when He teaches us. For Paul, same thing, personal weakness and suffering didn't lead to soul-crushing, paralyzing despair or depression or self-reliance. It led to the opposite. It was an awesome opportunity for the strength and the power of God to shine through Paul's own weakness. So listen again, listen to these familiar words. Same book, but again in chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians, Paul goes so far as to say, look, if I'm going to boast, because he could have boasted as an apostle, right? I'm writing all these books that are going to be canonized in Scripture for all of the ages, and I've planted 20 churches at least, and I've traveled the whole civilized known world. He could have boasted. Jesus picked me. He could have boasted. It would have been sinful, but he could have done it, but he doesn't. He says, if I'm going to boast of anything in my life, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. Isn't that great? And the reason for it is because in chapter 12 and verse 9, he says it's those times of weakness when God's power is made perfect in us. And Paul wanted nothing more than that. Paul wanted nothing more than for the power of God to be what strengthened him, and to be what enabled him, and to be what empowered him, and to be what shone through him. He wanted for people to look at him and not go, what an awesome dude Paul is, but go, what an awesome God is holding Paul up. And so he said, therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may come and rest upon me. for the sake of Christ, then I'm content with weaknesses. I'm content with insults and hardships, persecutions, calamities, for when I'm weak, that's when I am strong. That's walking by faith. That's seeking first the Kingdom of God. And the proof of that priority in the life of Paul was his constant service to God, even though it was going to be a sacrifice for him, even though it was going to hurt. I'll keep doing it even though I know that doing it is going to bring even more suffering and it's probably going to kill me." And it did. Eventually it did. Even when Paul was at his personal weakest, because when he came to the end of himself, that's when he had to walk by faith. That's when he had to trust. That's when he had to lean fully into the strength of his God, because he didn't have any of his own strength to lean on. And he said, you know what, as painful as it is, those are the times I like. Those are the times I prefer. Those are the times when it's real. And so he embraced Christ's strength rather than his own strength. He wasn't consumed with the transient sort of fading temporary things of this world that we can prop up all around us and make us feel like, okay, everything's going to be okay because I have these things in order. As soon as we get them in order, God likes to shake it out of order for us. As soon as we take things like money, or houses, or possessions, or health, or whatever, and prop them up and say, this is the pillar that's going to secure the foundations of my life, God likes to flick them over, doesn't He? To remind us that there is no pillar, there is no foundation other than Him. To keep us fixed on what is eternal and not on the things here. And what a mercy that is. A hard mercy, a painful mercy. but the best mercy. And we need to learn it because this world is not our home. We're aliens here. We're strangers here. We're pilgrims and sojourners just passing through this world on our way to a better place, a better country. As wonderful as this world is, and it is, but it's a temporary world. It's going to be replaced. There's going to be a better world. And our life in this world is a temporary life. And it's going to be renewed and made eternal and immortal. Paul says in Romans 8 that because of the presence of sin and the curse of God's judgment in this world, the whole creation was subjected to futility. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. Futility, right? The whole creation was subjected to futility because of sin, because of the curse of God upon this world. That's what our world is marked by. That's why suffering happens. That's why sickness happens. That's why all of these things go on. We go, what's the purpose of it? If God loves us, why does He let this happen? It's because this world is marked by the curse of sin. And as we behold all those marks, it points us to the better world that is to come, that is only marked by righteousness and grace and life. And so, if our greatest hopes in this life, if our strongest source of comfort in this life is found in this world, in the things of this world, then the only thing we're ever going to know, just like we learned in the book of Ecclesiastes, the only thing we're ever going to know is futility. if we're anchoring all of our hope and our comfort and our encouragement to the things of this world, including our bodies. Because as much value as we may place on the things of this world and on our earthly bodies, our earthly lives, God's Word teaches us that in Christ Jesus, there is a much greater place that we're destined for. It's that place that's unplagued by sin and by unrighteousness. It's a place where there is no sin. There is no injustice. There is no pain or suffering or disease or death. It's a place where the worship of God is unpolluted. It's completely pure. It's completely holy. And it's a place of everlasting righteousness in the presence of our God and our King. Where we will forever be face to face with Him. I can't even imagine what that's like. But that's the hope. And it's keeping our hearts fixed on that hope that gives our earthly lives meaning and causes our worst squeezing afflictions to actually seem momentary in light. They hurt and they're brutal. It doesn't mean that they're minimal. It means they're huge. It's just that the eternal blessings are huger, infinitely. And so all of this, is what Paul has in mind as he takes us into the truth that he unveils for us in 2 Corinthians 5, where he uses the allegory of a house, the picture of a dwelling place, to illustrate for us the great hope that we have waiting for us even as we toil and even as we suffer here on earth. And so what he's doing In these verses, in chapter 5, is contrasting life in this world with the life of the world that is to come if we have faith in Christ. And the contrast is born out of this illustration as he pictures both the life in this world and the life in the world to come as different kinds of dwelling places. So he says in verse 1 of chapter 5, Again, remember everything that he's told us up in chapter 4. All the suffering in this world is comparatively light and momentary compared to the glory that is to come. His heart is anchored to the unseen eternal realities of that glory, of the consummation of all of God's promises in eternity. That's his focus. That's his hope. That's what causes him to persevere all the trials in this world. That's his confidence for because the reason for that confident, powerful hope is this. It's we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building that is from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So those life squeezing afflictions that Paul endured, which were unbearably painful, agonizing, awful, horrible. They were bearable for Paul because they were actually preparing him for the coming glory of eternity with Christ in heaven, which again, as big as his pain was, the glory of heaven was infinitely bigger. This is why he could say in Romans 5 that trials produce endurance and endurance builds character and character produces hope. Because the character that is refined by God's Spirit, through the trials, the hardships that we endure in this life, through all of that, true maturity in Christ is forged. And true maturity in Christ isn't impressed with all of the corrupted and fleeting stuff of this world. It grows up enough to know, fun as this stuff is, it doesn't last, so I better not make it my final investment. True maturity knows that even life itself in this world can't be prized and cherished and treasured too much, because it's not going to last forever. And it knows that because it's confident that beyond this world is where the true life is and the true hope is. So for Paul, even as all of the suffering and all the affliction was literally causing his outer self, his body, his earthly life to waste away, he says. He didn't lose hope, because even the loss of everything in this world, even the loss of earthly life itself in this world, amounts to gaining the glory and the eternal rewards that God has stored up for us in heaven. If the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building. See the contrast? And the building is from God. It's a house not made with human hands. And it is eternal. And it is in the heavens. This world is not our home. Not our final dwelling place. Not the place that we should feel at most home in. Or comfortable in. We're just sojourners here. Our life here, is life in a tent. Tents are temporary by definition, right? Versus permanent buildings, permanent homes. People who live in tents, people who camp, they're not staying in one place for very long. That's why they bring a tent. Because you can break it down and pack it up and put it on your back and move on to the next place. It's a portable home. It can be torn down, it can be set up over and over again easily, so that when it's time to leave, you can do it quickly. See, when you go camping, you don't show up at the campsite with a big flatbed truck full of lumber and building supplies, right? You don't show up and start pouring a foundation and framing walls out of 2x4s, right? Because you're camping, you're not intending to stay there very long. It's not your actual home. It's just a temporary dwelling place. And that's the picture that Paul paints of the life that we live in these bodies, in this world. It's temporary. These are tents. They are comparatively flimsy. They are easily taken down. They are fabric, which great as they are, they aren't designed to last. And so the day comes for all of us when the tent pegs get pulled up, when the cords get cut loose, when the fabric wears out, when the tent comes down, when the body returns to the dust from which it was fashioned. And it's painful for us to think about that. It's frightening for us to think about that. But God would have us, in His Word, not be dominated by the pain, not be dominated by the fear. but be dominated by the great hope of what comes next. The contrast, when these earthly tents are destroyed, we have a building from God that's not made with hands. It can't be torn down. It can't be destroyed. Because it was built by God, and so it is divinely indestructible and eternal. Matthew Henry writes, The happiness of the future state is what God has prepared for those who love Him. It is eternal in the heavens, everlasting habitations, not like the earthly tents, these poor cottages of clay in which our souls now dwell, which are moldering and decaying, and whose foundations are in the dust. In these earthly tents, we long for the building that is from God, and the suffering that we endure, the pain that we feel, the loss of life that we experience, all of that reminds us to put our focus on the building that is from God that is coming. It points us to the great hope and the great joy of the permanent home that God has built and prepared us for. Here's how Christ describes it in John 14. Let not your heart be troubled, He says to His disciples, as He's preparing to die. He's revealed to them that His life in this world is going to be cut short soon, and they're struggling with that. It's hard for them, it's scary for them, it's sad for them, but He doesn't want them to be dominated by the pain and the fear and the sorrow. So he says, believe in me, and believe also in God. In my Father's house are many dwelling places, and if it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you. And you know what that meant in those days. We've done enough funerals in this church to be reminded. That in New Testament times, they didn't do things the way we do them in our day and age. where when the children grow up and move out of the house, they move out of the house. They move at least across town and sometimes across the state and across the country and around the world. But in the New Testament times, often what would happen would be that when the children grew older, the father would simply build a house as an addition to his house. And so as generations went by, the houses grew bigger and bigger and bigger. because they all lived together. And that's the picture that Christ is relying on when He says that in His Father's house there are many dwelling places. He says, the Heavenly Father and I are preparing a place so that when you come and when you get there, you can be with us in our home. Not across the state. Not across the country. Not across the universe. In the Father's house. So some translation uses the word mansions right there in John 14, but the Greek word doesn't mean mansions, it just means dwelling places. The hope isn't that it's going to be this big opulent palace full of all kinds of pleasures. The hope is that it's going to be in the presence of God. He's the hope. A permanent dwelling place in the palace of the King of Kings, in the presence of the Most High God. And it'll be a room, it'll be a place for us there where we won't be treated like servants. We'll be treated as adopted heirs. As the children that we are of the Heavenly Father. That's what we want to long for, see. And as we struggle and groan and feel the pain here and the affliction here, it makes us long for that, doesn't it? That's where I want to be because it's hard here. And Paul uses a word here in 2 Corinthians to describe our longing for the eternal home. The word longing means to groan. It means to be under a heavy burden. Kind of like you could picture walking up a flight of stairs that's rickety, and it creaks and it groans under your weight with every step. You wonder if it's going to hold you up. See, hard as it is for us to come to terms with, that's what Paul says about our earthly bodies, right? They creak and they groan. In this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly calling. And then in verse 4, for while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened. Not that we would be unclothed. Not that He would just strip these bodies away from us, but that we would be further clothed. That He might give us something better. Something immortal. So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. There's your hope. That what is mortal and what is groaning will one day be swallowed up by life. So these mortal bodies of ours are heavy burdens. And the trials and the hardships of our lives are heavy loads. Sickness is heavy disease. And the inevitability of death that causes groaning in us. The overwhelming burden of our sin. The defilement and corruption that stains us, it's a burden. And we long to have that burden lifted. And for the children of God, for those who have been lavished with the grace of God in Christ, the burden has been lifted by the promise and the sure hope of eternal life. In the coming weeks, we're going to get in our study of the book of Revelation to chapter 7, where John sees a vision of a great multitude of people, and they're all clothed in white robes, robes that he says have been made white by the blood of Jesus Christ. It's one of my favorite passages, not just in Revelation, but in all of Scripture, one of my favorite passages, especially in times like this where our hearts are heavy with the pain of loss in this world, loved ones dying in this world. That multitude that John saw in Revelation 7 represents the total number of God's people, everybody that He's redeemed from Adam until you. and everybody beyond that He intends to redeem. Everybody that's been saved by His grace. Every man, every woman, every child who's been chosen by God, who's been delivered, who's been washed whiter than snow by the blood of Jesus. All of us will be in that multitude. You'll be there if you have living faith in Jesus Christ. I'll be there. Ted Pickerel is already there in that multitude, dressed in that perfectly white robe. And while John was looking at all of them, he said, one of the elders addressed me and said, who are these who are clothed in white robes and from where have they come? And I said to him, sir, you know. And he said to me, these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. Remember what that means? It's what this life is. It's what this age is. John said, I'm a fellow partaker. In chapter 1 and verse 9, 2,000 years ago, He was a fellow partaker in the great tribulation. He was enduring it. He was groaning. He was suffering. He was being persecuted. And God's church has been in tribulation ever since and will continue to be until Jesus comes. And all of those who endure it by God's strength, will be among that multitude dressed in those white robes. The book of Revelation is written in the first place to those seven churches that we've been studying in chapter 2 and 3. Those Christians in the first century Roman world who were suffering and who were being persecuted for their faith in Jesus. They were living every day in the great tribulation of Satan's attempt to destroy the church that we're still living in today. And every Christian who's been saved by the blood of Jesus, every Christian who has run the race in His strength and persevered to the very end and crossed the finish line, has come out of that great tribulation and will be standing in that multitude before the throne of God forever. And this is what God says about them. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And therefore, because that's happened, they are before the throne of God and they serve Him day and night in His temple, and He who sits upon the throne will shelter them with His presence. And so they will hunger no more. They will thirst no more. The sun shall not strike them, or any scorching heat to wither them. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." Isn't that beautiful? I could read those words every single day. as we see every single day, and hear and feel every single day the groanings of this world and of our own bodies, and come face to face with the afflictions. While we remain here in this world that is cursed with sin, we know the reality of Paul's words. that it's all groaning and that we're groaning. We know His heart's cry in Romans 7. Oh, wretched man that I am, because of my sin, who's going to deliver me from this? And we know the answer. Praise be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, because He saved us. And He's gone to prepare a place for us where all of the suffering is replaced with the eternal joy of God's presence. You won't hurt anymore there. You won't cry anymore there. You won't hunger or thirst or suffer ever there. You will only rejoice in the goodness and the nearness of your God. And that's what Paul longs for, even as he suffers and continues casting himself into situations so that other people can hear the Gospel and know this hope. And even as that ministry causes his body to wither away, It's fueling Paul's longing, this intense desire for that promised land, for that better country and that life to come, and for that reality of being eternally clothed with that dwelling from heaven. We ache for the day, verse 4 says, when that which is mortal will be swallowed up by life. We ache for the day, like verse 3 says, when having put on the blessings of immortality and eternal life, we will not be found naked. People in this world think, once our bodies go, that's it, there's nothing. Everything that clothes you will be stripped away and you'll be naked, you'll be without anything. But when we get to glory, we will realize, no, no, we're not without anything. We've been given everything. We're not naked, we are fully, eternally clothed. So one writer explains it like this, he says, if we think of death merely as a separation of soul and body, if that's all it is, then it's not so much to be desired, but rather feared and dreaded. But when death is considered as a passage to glory, then the believer is willing rather to die than to live, as Paul says here. To be absent from the body so that he may be present with his Lord. to leave this body that He may go to be with Christ, and to put off these rags of mortality that He may put on the robes of glory. And while we remain here, longing for that clothing and that eternal glory, we trust God with how long we remain here. And for the strength to do it, and to live it, and to remain, and to run, and to endure, and to persevere in a way that brings Him glory, and causes that longing and that hope that we have in Jesus Christ to come pouring out of us and shared into the world of people who need to hear about it. So this is exactly what Paul says in verses 6-8. Again, saying this in the context of constant daily persecution and suffering. He says, so we're always of good courage. Even though he's being beaten. even though He's on death's door, even though He's suffering and agonizing, we're always of good courage, for we know that while we are at home in the body, we're away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We don't walk just focused on the things that we can see here. We walk focused on the things that we know by faith, the assurance of things that are not seen. And so we are of good courage and would rather be away from the body and home with the Lord. He's not suicidal or anything there. He's just hopeful. And he's living according to that hope, and the hope is driving him to live his life the way that he does. Not in a self-destructive way, but in a way of humble service to his God, and humble reliance upon his God. Physical death might strip us of the clothing of our flesh and the comforts of life. Job says, naked did I come into this world and naked shall I leave it. But we won't be found naked in the world that we long for after death. Because that's when we will be robed with the righteousness and the holiness of Christ fully and completely and covered with garments of glory and praise. That's when we will be finally delivered from all of our troubles and afflictions. Now, how can we be assured as we come to a close here? How can we be assured of this future blessing of glorious eternal life in the heavenly household of God? We'll look at what Paul says. Here's how you can cling to that. Here's how you can know it. Here's how you can be assured of it and be driven by it. Verse 5, He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. We're being prepared for that life that is to come, and we're being prepared for it by God Himself during our time on earth, here and now, and it's the trials that prepare us. That's how you need to look at the hardships and the trials of your life. They're preparing you for the glory. Spurgeon said, all who are designed for heaven hereafter are wrought and prepared for heaven while they are here on earth. The stones of that spiritual building and temple above are squared and fashioned and cut here below. I tell you what, when I hear that, I think about my life, my heart, my soul, and then I think about the glory and the contrast between them, and it makes me realize there's a lot of work to be done. to prepare me for heaven, right? And it's surely a work that only God Himself is capable of doing. Yes, that's my wife laughing. Amen. Amen. And often times the tools that God uses to prepare us and grow us and strengthen us and refine us are the afflictions. that we suffer in our lives, that build endurance, that build character, that build hope. The trials, the ordeals, they refine us. They cause all the draughts to come up and be scraped off so that what's left is the gold. When you suffer in this life, you have to suffer knowing that's not God punishing you. That's not God angry at you. That's not God flogging you. That's not God just being sadistic towards you. It's not God neglecting you and letting you suffer something because He's forsaken you or forgotten about you. You've got to know it's love. It's your Heavenly Father loving you as a child. It's His sovereign loving purposes to use the suffering to strengthen you, to prepare you for His presence, to pry your hands off the things of this world so that open-handed you might receive assurance in all that awaits you, to give you hope to persevere when life is brutally hard. Don't doubt whether or not your eternal inheritance is real. It's the opposite. Be assured that your Heavenly Father is using the trials to sovereignly prepare you for that inheritance. Paul says also that God has given us the Holy Spirit who is our guarantee of the life that is to come. And the word guarantee means a down payment. It means that literally, that word means a security deposit, a payment that's made in advance that guarantees delivery and full and final payment in the future. See what he's saying? You have an inheritance that you can't see, that you only know by faith, but your assurance of it is the down payment that God has given you, which is the Holy Spirit. He who dwells in us is our security deposit that gives us assurance of the full payment later. He's the guarantee that we will enter into the final rest of God's presence. because it is His sovereign redeeming work that's given access to that presence in the first place. The fact that you believe on Jesus Christ for your salvation is the work of the Spirit of God lifting the veil from your heart and opening your blind eyes to His glory and transforming you from someone who hated God and only wanted to be self-reliant to someone who says, now I've got nothing other than what you give me and I love you. That's the sovereign work that only the Holy Spirit can do, that only God can do. And Paul says with confidence in Philippians chapter 1, that he who started that work, he who began that good work in you, will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. The beginning of the work is the guarantee of the completion. You say, how do I know that I'm going to be glorified? It's because you are being sanctified. It's because you have already been justified. It's because the Holy Spirit is already with you, and in you, and working through you, that you can be assured that He's going to finish what He started with you. It's a sovereign, divine guarantee. God, who sent His only Son to redeem you, isn't going to let you go now. Isn't going to fail to give you anything else now. God, who sent His Holy Spirit to regenerate you, is at work every day in your heart to cleanse you, to sanctify you, to grow you, to continue to prepare you for the presence of His glory. And the work that He's doing now is the guarantee of that inheritance. And in Paul's life, that perspective translated into a motivation for faithful living while he remained on this earth, even though faithful living was painful living. And so in verse 9 he says, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him, because all of this is true. Not because I think it's going to be comfortable, or fun, or easy, but because I have the Spirit as my guarantee of what He intends to give me and will surely do for me in glory. Because all of that is true, I make it my aim every day that He sovereignly decrees for me to live in this world, to breathe air on this planet, I make it my aim to do whatever pleases Him. Forget what pleases me, forget what makes me comfortable and happy here. What pleases Him? Look what He's done for me. Literally it says, I'm eager to please Him. So what Paul is saying is that when our hearts are so consumed with the hope of eternity, and all of the glorious work that he's doing for us, even now to prepare us for eternity, that's when our lives become consumed with pleasing the God of eternity. Worshipping Him, serving Him, obeying Him. That's exactly how Paul lived his life, right? It was a perfect description of Paul's life. I think it was a perfect description of Ted Pickerel's life. His heart was consumed with the glory of God. You couldn't talk to that man for two seconds without him breaking into tears because of his love for Jesus and how overwhelming it felt to him and was to him to think about all that God has done and is doing and promises to do. And that drove a life of faith and worship and service to God, a life that was pleasing to God, and that's how it works. The word pleasing there means to be well-pleasing in verse 9. It means ultimately to be found acceptable to God. So Paul's saying that if we're living in light of eternity, then our greatest goal will not be our comfort, will not be our own fulfillment of our own ambitions, but will be being acceptable to God. To live a life that pleases Him so that when we get done living it, no matter how painful it was, we'll hear those words, well done. I believe Ted heard those words Friday night. Not because of anything that he ever could have or would have tried to take credit for. Not because of anything great or good in him. He'd be the first one to admit that it was always God's strength working through his weakness. And all of us who knew him, we all know that God's strength was always working through his weakness. that it was only His mind and heart being consumed with the glory of God and the love of Christ and the hope of eternity that fueled the life that He lived. And that's what it needs to look like for us. Not striving in our own strength, not for legalistic reasons or self-righteous reasons, but a life that is consumed with the hope of glory. Consumed with a love for Him who has loved us so much that He's begun this work in us and He is carrying it to completion. And so we want to do whatever pleases Him, no matter what it costs us. To stand one day in the presence of our God, blameless, with great joy, made spotless by the blood of the Lamb, clothed in pure white linen, singing forever the praises of our King and our Savior. That's the beautiful reality that the Holy Spirit guarantees us, and that the pain of death promises us. and that the afflictions of life remind us of. Do you long for that? Do you hope for that? Today, we need to pray as Christians in light of painful circumstances, not that God would stop giving us painful circumstances, but that He would use them to free our hearts from being captive to the passing pleasures of this fading life and this fading world. Because it's when we can't have the things that are seen, it's when the temporary things are threatened in our lives and shaken and taken away, that our lives can truly rejoice, because all we're left with is all that matters. You know the story of this song that we're about to sing here? It is, Well With My Soul, written by Horatio Spafford. Most of you do, I'm sure. We've talked about it a lot in this church. We've sung it a lot in this church. Spafford was a successful businessman. He lived in Chicago in the 1800's with his family. And when the great Chicago fire broke out and ripped through the city, and that's familiar to us also this weekend, isn't it, with all that's gone on in the North Bay area. But when that happened in Chicago, It destroyed the Spafford household and everything that he owned. And so at that point, he sort of took inventory of his life. Everything was shaken. Everything was taken. And he decided that he had failed at Christ's admonition to lay up our treasures, not on this earth, but in heaven. He had treasured earthly things too much. And now that they were gone, he was convicted of that. So he decided to move from Chicago, not to rebuild everything there, but to move and to move to Jerusalem so that he could study the Bible in the land of the Bible. He could live in the land where Jesus walked and so many great men and women of the faith lived. And so he arranged for the sale of any other properties that he owned. And shortly before he was to travel with his family, to Europe, he discovered that a part of the sail had fallen through. There was some business to be taken care of still. And so he had to stay behind while he put his wife and four daughters on the boat to go ahead of him across the Atlantic. And he was going to meet them later. And it was during that crossing that the ship that his wife and daughters was on was struck by another ship and sank to the bottom of the ocean. And in Chicago, Horatio Spafford, having already lost his home and all his possessions, received just a telegram, and it was signed by his wife, and it just said, Saved Alone. All four daughters were lost. And as he made his way across to meet his wife now with his heart full of grief, when his ship reached the point where their ship had sunk. He had the captain tell him, and he went out onto the deck of the ship, and he looked out over to those waters, and he wrote these words, when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well. It is well with my soul. Amen? Father.