Take your Bibles now, please. And let's turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We'll read verses 1 through 11. Now hear God's word. 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. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others, but what we are is known to God, and I hope is known also to your conscience. Grass withers, the flower fades. God's word stands forever. Let's pray together again as we come to God's Word. Our Father and our God, we're grateful for Your Word and for the assurance, for the confidence, for the encouragement, for the comfort that it brings to us. We ask for Your help this morning to be able to understand Your Word rightly, And we ask for your Spirit's presence with us this morning, not only to help us understand, Father, not only that we might be hearers of your word, but that we might more and more be doers. Father, help us to live faithfully, help us to walk by faith and not by sight in this world. Help us to live in light of eternity and not simply for the treasures and the pleasures and the things of this earth. And so, Father, use your word this morning powerfully as the double-edged sword, which it is, to transform us by the renewing of our minds and to continue the work that you have begun in us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So this morning, rather than continuing on in our study of the book of Acts together, we're taking a pause just in order to focus our minds and our hearts on the great comfort that our God gives us, especially in times like this when the painful reality of death impacts us. Our God is a good father. And part of his goodness is to give us living truth, to bolster us up, to encourage us, to comfort us, to strengthen us, and to carry us through the hard times in life that are an inevitable part of life in this world, the painful times, the sorrowful times of our lives. And so 2 Corinthians chapter 5 is one of those passages and one of the most important places in God's Word that helps us to endure, that helps us to persevere, that helps us to make sense of the difficult times that we face in this world. Now, it goes without saying, 2 Corinthians 5 is coming right on the heels of what the Apostle Paul has said before it in 2 Corinthians 4. And in that chapter, he's talking about the hardships and the difficulties and the afflictions that he himself endured and experienced and suffered in his own life in this world. Look, for example, up in verse 8 of chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians, where Paul says, we, and when he says we, he means I, he means talking about himself, he's talking about his own life. 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. And again, that's his own life that he's talking about there. And we know from our own study of the book of Acts, and we'll get more into it, but already we've seen Paul have to deal with the realities of suffering and persecution. We know that Paul was no stranger to suffering in his life and in his ministry for Jesus Christ. He talks about, throughout the New Testament, how difficult it was to live life in this world in general, but especially as an apostle of Jesus Christ and a messenger of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Suffering and hardship and affliction was a regular and constant part of his life. He talks about that over in chapter 11. Just listen for a minute. We've heard these verses before. Just listen as Paul chronicles some of the things that marked his life as an apostle, as a bond-servant of Jesus. This is 2 Corinthians 11 and verse 24, he says, Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes, less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. 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, danger in cities, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, 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." How many of you could say that that was a description of the normal tenor of your life, the normal character of your experience in this world? That's the kind of thing that had come to mark the daily life of the Apostle Paul. This is what he came to expect. in his life. And this is exactly the kind of thing that he's got in mind when he says, we are afflicted in every way. If you can conceive of, if you can imagine a way to suffer in this world, Paul says, I've been there. I've done that. And you may remember that the word afflicted that Paul uses here in chapter 4 and verse 8, that this word afflicted means to squeeze something. You can picture squeezing a ripe piece of fruit. To expose something to intense pressure so that it feels like you're literally being wrung out. To cause immense suffering physically. Emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. That's the essence of this word, afflicted. Paul says, that's how I feel most days. I just feel wrung out. I just feel squeezed all the time. And your life may not be exactly like Paul's life was, but in this life there will be tribulation and affliction and suffering. And we know that because we all experience it. Again, maybe not to the degree that he did, but we do experience it and we do know people that experience it and it's hard. It's not a life of ease. It's not even necessarily going to be, even in this country in the 21st century, a life of liberty and the pursuit of happiness all the time. and your experience is not going to always be the American dream all the time. Paul's life most certainly didn't look like that. Paul's life didn't look anything like our lives. It didn't look anything like my life. At this point, when he's writing 2 Corinthians, Paul has long since given up any hope, any aspiration of living in a nice house, with good food, with money to spare. with the regular experience of comfort and ease that was once in a while and occasionally interrupted by some kind of suffering that he could just get over and move on with his life of comfort and ease. Paul's given up that ambition. He knows that's not how life is supposed to be in this world that is groaning with sin as we follow in the footsteps of the suffering servant. Paul's life all about sleepless nights and cold and exposure, going hungry for days on end, not knowing where his next meal would come from, and constantly expecting to be persecuted. He didn't have the privilege of being surrounded with people who meant well for him and who loved him and cared for him and always did good things for him. He wasn't a man of many friends that he could turn to for support and help. He was on his own oftentimes. Everywhere he turned, people were out to get him. His own family, his own Jewish countrymen. Even people who called themselves Christians. Even people calling themselves his brothers in Christ were persecuting Paul. And by persecuting, I don't just mean rolling their eyes at him and mocking him and laughing at him and calling him a fool. They were actively causing harm to him. They were inflicting pain bodily upon him. They were trying oftentimes to kill him. And everywhere that Paul turned, that was the kind of life that was waiting for him. He was afflicted, he was squeezed in every way. But, he says, though squeezed often and constantly and in every imaginable way, not crushed, not overcome. not defeated, not driven to despair by the regular daily experience of crushing affliction in this life. Through all of it, Paul never lost heart. He said, verse 16, there of chapter 4, So we do not lose heart, even though our outer self is wasting away, Our inner self is being renewed day by day. How? How can we have that same experience in our life that even though we're facing the crushing sensation and experience and reality of afflictions and sufferings in this world, we say we are not crushed, we are not driven to despair. We are being renewed day by day even when we are withering away physically and outwardly. Here's how Paul says, that's possible. This momentary light affliction is preparing us for 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 when Paul stared affliction in the face. It was agonizing. It was horrible. It was painful. But through all of the agony, he didn't lose heart. He didn't drown in despair. He didn't give up like Job in his agony. He didn't curse God. He didn't take matters into his own hands and do everything that he could to try to insulate himself from having to suffer in this world. or to try to guarantee himself a pain-free life of happiness and ease. When the afflictions of his life were impossibly hard for him to bear in his own strength, when the pain felt crushing, when the sorrow was unbearable, When He was at the absolute end of Himself, what kept Him from plunging into hopelessness and discouragement and a sense of futility or self-reliance was the reality of the power and the glory of Christ that was being manifested in His weakness, which comes from being assured of the realities of eternity. This is what it looks like. to live in light of the eternal realities of eternal life, of the unshakable kingdom that will be our inheritance and already is through faith in Christ Jesus. This is what it looks like to walk by faith in this world and not by sight. It looks like suffering. It looks like being wrung out but not crushed and not despairing. For Paul, Personal weakness and suffering didn't lead to that paralyzing sense of despair or depression, didn't lead to self-reliance. For Paul, what it led to was opportunity for the strength and the power of God to be manifested in the season of his weakness. And so he would say all the way over in chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians, if I'm going to boast about anything in my life, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. Not as if to make himself out to be something special because he suffered or to get people to feel sorry for him or to curry a sense of pity. Now he said that because chapter 12 and verse 9, when he's weak, God's power is made perfect. And that's the reality that God wants us to understand. That God wants to manifest. That God ordains seasons and times of weakness for in our life. Not to punish us. Not to hurt us. Not because he's sadistic. But because in weakness, his strength can be made known. And Paul wanted nothing more than for the strength and the power of God to be made known, and to be what strengthened him and not his own strength. So he said, therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. And for the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities, because when I am weak, then I am strong in the strength of the Lord. That's walking by faith. That's seeking first the Kingdom of God. And the proof... of that priority that Paul was first and foremost always about the kingdom and not his own ambitions or his own comfort or his own pleasure in this world. The proof of the priority of the kingdom and the life of Paul was in his constant sacrificial service to God even when he knew that that service was going to mean suffering. Bring it on, Paul said. Because that's when the strength of God shines most brightly in my life. even when Paul was at his personal weakest, because when Paul came to the end of himself, that's when he walked by faith. And that's why God in his grace brings us to the end of ourselves so often, isn't it? So that we, like Paul, can embrace Christ's strength rather than our own, and not be consumed with the transient and fading and temporary things of this world that are not worthy to bear our hope. and suffering prepares us for the eternity that is to come by convincing us that nothing in this world can sustain us and is worthy of our hope. We have to remember, right, that life in this world is definitionally a temporary phenomenon. We don't live forever here. It's not possible for us to. Now, that doesn't mean our lives aren't precious and valuable. They are, because they are created in the image of God. But God's Word tells us and teaches us very clearly that we are aliens, it says, in this world. Strangers, pilgrims, sojourners. These are the words that God's Word uses to define the reality of our lives in this world. We're passing through this world on our way to a different place, to a better country, to a promised land, even as the Israelites were wandering through the wilderness. That wasn't their home. They were on their way to the promised land. This isn't our home. We're on the way to the new heavens and the new earth. As wonderful as life is in this world, and it is, but this is a fallen world. This is a temporary life in a sin-cursed, groaning world. That's exactly what Paul would say over in Romans 8, isn't it? 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. That's what characterizes this world as beautiful and glorious as it is, as the creation of the all-glorious God. It's been subjected to futility because of sin and the curse of God who is holy. And that means that if our greatest hopes and our strongest source of comfort is found in this world, on this earth, in this life, then all we will ever ultimately know in our lives in this place is futility. Because as much as we value Our lives here in this world, in as much value as we place even on our earthly lives, which we should, God's Word tells us that in Jesus Christ there is a far better place that we are destined for and that has got to be our constant focus. The place we're destined for, the promised land that we're meant to inherit, isn't a place that's plagued by sin or unrighteousness. It's a place in which there is no injustice. It's a place that is free from pain, free from suffering, free from disease, free from the ravages of death. It's a place where the worship of God is unpolluted, unhindered, holy and pure. It's a place of everlasting life in the presence of our God. It's a place where we will forever see Him. face to face and live in the reality of His perfect love. And it's keeping our hearts fixed on the great hope of this coming eternity that gives our earthly lives meaning here and keeps us from succumbing to the futility that comes from living for the things of this world. It's this hope of eternity that causes even our worst afflictions to seem like, Paul says, like momentary light afflictions compared to the eternal glory that is stored up for us. All of that is what Paul is pouring out here and pleading with Christians to grasp here in the book of 2 Corinthians. And here in chapter 5, he uses the picture of a house, of a dwelling place, of a residence, to illustrate the great hope that we have waiting for us even as we toil and suffer in our lives here in this world. He's contrasting life in this world with the life of the world to come. And he's doing that by illustrating both of them, life in this world and life of the world to come, as different kinds of dwelling places. So, verse 1 of chapter 5, he says, for we know, again remember, he's coming off of everything that he said and proclaimed in chapter 4. All of his suffering in this world, he says, everything that he's gone through is like a momentary light affliction compared to what's coming. And those momentary light afflictions are preparing him for what's coming, for an eternal weight of glory, he says in verse 17. His heart is anchored to that. His hope is anchored to that. This is his focus. This is his hope. This is what enables him to persevere and remain faithful and walk by faith and not give up. And so he says, for, he says, because, The reason to have this confident, powerful hope is that we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we know we have a building that is from God, a house not made with hands, that is eternal in the heavens. So all of the life-squeezing afflictions that Paul endured, which were unbearably painful and awful and agonizing to him, those were able to be bearable for Paul because they were actually preparing him. He knew by having this focus, they're getting me ready for the coming glory of eternity with Christ in heaven, which as great as my pain is in this world, Glorious reality is infinitely greater. This is why he was able to say in chapter 5 of the book of Romans, in verse 4, that trials actually produce endurance, right? Normally we think the opposite. When you go through hard things over and over, it wears you down progressively until you've got nothing left. Paul says, no, no. Through faith in Christ, the opposite happens. The trials actually build you up. They increase your character. They make your hope grow and thrive. Because true character that is refined by God's Spirit through the fiery trials of life, true maturity in Christ, is not impressed with the corrupted, fleeting junk of this world. See, because by faith, my hope is in heaven, not in the things of this world where moth and rust destroy. And for a life like that, even life itself in this world, in these bodies that we live in in this world, isn't prized too highly, isn't cherished too much. Because the life of faith is confident that beyond this world is the true life, the true hope that God builds that is eternal and incorruptible. And so for Paul, even as all of the suffering and affliction were causing his outer self to be wasting away, he didn't lose hope. Because even the loss of everything in this world, even the loss of earthly life itself, amounts to the gain of eternal life and the consummation of all of God's promises. That's why he says, if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building, see the contrast, that is from God, a house not made with hands that is eternal in the heavens. Again, as Christians, this world is not our home. This is not our final dwelling place. This is not the place where we should feel most at home, where we should feel the most comfortable. We're sojourners here. We're passing through. And that's the essence of the imagery here of a temporary tent versus a permanent building, a permanent home. I mean, you get it, right? People who live in tents, are typically, and this was especially true in ancient times and places like where Paul lived, people who live in tents are people who don't tend to stay in one place very long. They're nomads, they're sojourners, so that they can pack up their home quickly and move on to the next place. By definition, a tent is a very temporary dwelling place, right? It's a portable home. It can be set up and it can be torn down very easily, very quickly. When you go camping, you don't show up with a flatbed truck full of lumber and building supplies, right? You don't show up at the campsite and start pouring a concrete slab and building walls out of two-by-fours. Because you don't intend to stay there very long, right? It's not your actual home. It's just a temporary place for you to reside and dwell for a little while. That's the picture that Paul paints of life in this world and life in these bodies of ours. Temporary and comparatively rather flimsy. They're fabric tents, which as great as they are, and they are, but they're not meant to last, not in this world, not until they're changed and made imperishable and immortal in the world that is to come. Here, in this world, we all know the painful reality that the tent pegs start to get pulled up, that the cords tend to fray and get cut, that the fabric tends to wear out. The body will return to the dust from which it was fashioned. And that's hard, but it reminds us of the contrast, right? When these earthly tents are destroyed, we have not another tent, but a building, Paul says. And not even like the buildings that we build here in this world out of concrete and out of wood that can last a very long time. Now the building that Paul's talking about is, he says, from God. Not made with human hands. And what he means is that it can't be destroyed. It's not subject to decay and corruption. It's divinely indestructible. So it's eternal. And that is what our life will be, our home will be, our bodies will be in glory. Matthew Henry writes these words, he says, the happiness of the future state is what God has prepared for those that love him. It's eternal in the heavens. It's everlasting habitation, not like our 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 are meant to groan and to suffer so that we will long for the building that is from God, the permanent and indestructible home. So see, this is Paul's encouragement to us. It's that the pain of the temporary tent coming down is on purpose and is meant to point us to and make us savor more the great hope and joy of the permanent building that God is preparing for us. And again, he doesn't just mean the permanent home that heaven is and that the new heavens and the new earth will be. He means, and especially in these verses, he's referring to the building that will be our bodies in eternity. compared to the bodies that we have now. This is a massively central part of the great hope that the Bible gives us, that God reveals to us as mortal human beings who die in this world and whose bodies do return to the dust in this world. Part of the hope that keeps us from despairing is the reality that these bodies will surely be raised and made indestructible. That's why Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, which we read at funerals all the time, that even though when somebody dies, we grieve, but we don't grieve as those who have no hope. And the reason we can grieve with hope is because we know that there is this coming day when the Lord Jesus will return with a shout of triumph, with the voice of God from heaven and with all of the angels When the trumpet of God blows for the last time, He will return. And the dead will be raised from their graves and made imperishable and given glorified bodies. And anyone who hasn't died yet and is left and is in Christ will be changed and made imperishable and fit for heaven. And Paul says there in 1 Thessalonians 4, I want you to comfort each other with these words as you watch your loved ones die and as you march inexorably towards death yourself. It's not the end. In fact, in that passage, he uses the word sleep on purpose to talk about people who have died. Don't worry, it's not the final chapter. because they will be raised. And in Christ, they will live in glory forever in incorruptible bodies, in an incorruptible new heavens and new earth. Here's what he says about it in 1 Corinthians 15. He says, Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. Some people will die, but there's coming a day when Jesus will return and some of us will experience that day. But we shall all be changed, he says. transformed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall all be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable. This mortal body must and will put on immortality. And when the perishable puts on the imperishable, and when the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? That's gonna happen, that will happen. As surely as God is God, our bodies will be changed and raised and become imperishable and become immortal. They won't know anything of the groaning anymore in that day, of the aging, of the sickness, of disease. They won't know anything more of the sting of death. in that day. Because in eternity death will be swallowed up in the victory of imperishable, immortal, eternal life. And here in 2 Corinthians 5, Paul is describing this and he uses a word to describe our longing for that eternal life in that home. And the word that he describes means to groan. It means to be under a heavy load that makes something groan. like walking up a rickety set of stairs that creak and groan with every step, and you wonder if it's gonna hold your weight or if you're gonna fall through. See, as hard as it is for us to come to terms with, that's what Paul says our earthly bodies are like. We groan in these earthly tents, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, verse 4, being burdened. Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed. See? Not that we would just be stripped away of physical bodies entirely and our souls would be set free. No, no, no. That these bodies that groan would no longer groan. That we would be further clothed with imperishable, immortal, renewed bodies. That's what we long for, isn't it? That all of the weight of sin and decay and corruption would be marvelously transformed into all that is gloriously imperishable and immortal, that we might dwell in the presence of God forever. This is what Paul groans for, longs for, wants more than anything. Even as he suffers and his life withers away, It's not causing him to think, what I really wish is that I could stop suffering here. No, it's, you know what? All of this suffering is making me long for what I know is coming. It's fueling this longing, it's fueling this intense desire for the promised land, for the better country, for the life that is to come. It's fueling a passion to be eternally clothed with our new bodies and our eternal dwelling in 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, verse three, when having put on the blessing of immortality and eternal life, we will not be found naked. We will be permanently and eternally clothed in perfect bodies, physical bodies housed by sinless souls that will live forever in the glorious presence of God on a new heavens and on a new earth that you can't even imagine. That's what we long for. One writer says this, he says, if we think of death merely as a separation of soul and body, then it's not to be desired, it's rather to be dreaded. But, when death is considered as a passage unto glory, then the believer is willing rather to die than to live, rather to be absent from the body that he may be present with the Lord, rather to leave this body that he may go be with Christ, rather to put off these rags of mortality that he may be clothed in the robes of glory for eternity. And I believe that's exactly what Paul is saying here, especially in verses 6-8. Again, saying this in the context of constant suffering, persecution. He says, we are always of good courage. For we know that while we are at home in the body, while our souls are at home in these mortal bodies, we're away from the Lord. We're here and we're not in heaven. We have to walk by faith in heaven. We can't see it. We're not walking by sight yet. But we are of good courage. Because we would rather be away from the body in order to be at home with the Lord. Physical death might strip us of the clothing of our flesh and the comforts of this life, right? Job said, naked did we come into this world and naked shall we leave it. I came in here with nothing and I can't take anything with me when I go. but we shall not be found naked in the world which we long for after death because there we will be robed with the perfect righteousness and holiness of Jesus Christ with the garments of praise and glory and with bodies eventually that will be made perfect and immortal and imperishable. We will be delivered finally and fully from all of our troubles, from all of our afflictions. We will be clothed with immortality. Imperishability in life that is everlasting. And we will be sheltered by the presence of God and we will sing his praises and experience his glory for endless days. That's where our true home is. That's what we were ultimately made for. That's what we were redeemed for. That's what we are all longing for. The household of God, the place that Jesus has gone to prepare for us. That's where Marge Gunn is. Right now already, absent from her body for a time until it is raised, but right now already present with her Lord. Hallelujah. Now, how can we be assured of this future blessing of glorious eternal life in the heavenly household of God? How can we know? Paul says, I know. I'm not just hoping in some vague sense, I know. How can we know? Well, He says two things. Look at verse 5. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. We are being prepared for the life that is to come by God Himself during our time on earth here and now. Charles Spurgeon said, all who are designed for heaven hereafter are wrought and prepared for heaven while we are here. The stones of that spiritual building and temple above are squared and fashioned and hewn here below. And as I think about my life, my heart, my soul, and as I think about the glory and the holiness of heaven, the purity of that place, It makes me realize there's a lot of work that's got to get done before I'm ready for that place. And I can't do it. Certainly not on my own. That's a work that God has got to do. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you. And oftentimes the tools, see, that God uses in hewing us and preparing us and growing us and strengthening us and refining us. The tools that he uses are the hammers and the chisels of the afflictions that we suffer in our lives. If we're too comfortable here, if it's too pleasant here, then we're content here. Then we tend to think that we're gonna put down roots here, that we're gonna stay here and we don't long for our real home. The trials and the fiery ordeals of life are sovereignly ordained by our God who is good in order to test and refine our faith and produce in us an eternal weight of glory, an eternal groaning for glory. What kindness God gives in causing us and allowing us and ordaining us to suffer. When you suffer in this life, it's not God punishing you. It's not God flogging you or neglecting you or forsaking you. It's the reality that this is His fatherly love in action for you. It's His sovereign loving purpose to use suffering to strengthen you, to prepare you for His presence. And it gives you the growing hope to be able to persevere. So when life is brutally hard, don't doubt whether or not your inheritance in eternity is real. Be assured that your Heavenly Father is sovereignly using these trials to prepare you for it. That's why this is happening. The Christians in Afghanistan are saying, we're not heading for the airport. We intend to stay here and we fully expect to see Jesus' face in about two weeks' time, they're saying. Man, their hope is in glory. Secondly, Paul says that God has given us the Holy Spirit who is our guarantee of the life that is to come. And the word guarantee means literally like a security deposit. A down payment made in advance, a non-refundable deposit guaranteeing delivery of full and final payment in the future. Paul is saying that the Holy Spirit who indwells us is our down payment which secures the guarantee of the full payment of eternity later. He is the guarantee that we will enter into the final rest of God's presence. Because He who indwells us is the one who is sovereignly working to give us access to that eternal presence in the first place. The very fact that you believe on Jesus Christ for your salvation is the work of the Spirit of God. which is lifting the veil from your heart and opening your blind eyes to be able to behold His glory. That's the sovereign work that only the Holy Spirit does. And Paul says with confidence over in Philippians chapter one, that he who began a good work in you will surely bring it to completion on the day when Christ Jesus returns. You can bet on it with every penny you've got. That's a divine sovereign guarantee. God, who sent His only Son to redeem you, sent His Holy Spirit to regenerate you. And He is at work every day in your life to cleanse you and sanctify you and grow you and prepare you for the presence of His glory. And the work that He's doing now is the guarantee of the inheritance of that glory that our hope is fixed to for eternity. And see this eternal perspective. Paul calls it fixing our eyes on the eternal things that are unseen. Instead of being all enamored with the transitory things of this world that we can see with our physical eyes. He calls this walking by faith in this life and not by sight. As good as seeing something is, faith is better. The assurance of things that are unseen is way better. looking beyond the passing pleasures of this world, beyond the suffering of this world, beyond all of the injustice and hardship of our lives in this world, beyond our comfort, beyond our circumstances, to the great promises of eternity, to being sheltered by the presence of the living God in the fullness of His glory forever. This eternal perspective is what brings us comfort in this life. is what brings us hope, is what brings us courage to persevere in this life. And that eternal perspective then translates into a motivation for faithful living while we remain here. Well, if it's so great, why doesn't He just get me out of here now? Because He has work for you to do here in order to tell other people of this great hope. and this great grace and this great redeeming love that guarantees that hope. Verse nine, Paul says, so whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. Not to find the most pleasurable existence for yourself in this world. If God's going to take me home, then it's going to be in order to sing His praises for eternity. But if He's going to leave me here, it's not going to be about me. I'm going to make it my aim to please Him, literally to be eager. He 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, then our lives become consumed with pleasing the God of eternity, with worshiping him and with serving him. That's a perfect description of Paul's life, right? I think it was a perfect description of Marge Gunn's life, wasn't it? Man, a heart consumed with the glory of God and the hope of eternity that drove a life of faith and worship and service to her God. A life that was pleasing to her God. The word pleasing in verse 9 means to be well pleasing. It means to be found acceptable by God. To please Him, to hear those words, well done. my good and faithful servant when we finally pass from this life and enter into his presence. The very last words that Marge spoke in this world were very early on Saturday morning when Gil was by her bedside and some of the other family were there. and telling her how they loved her, and for one moment of lucidity, she opened her mouth and said, and Gil was able to hear her with those ears that don't hear very well, praise God, she said, I love you. And those were the last words she would say, and not very long after, she would draw her last breath, and then the very first words that she heard was her Lord saying, well done, my good and faithful servant. Not because of anything that she could take credit for or boast in, right? Because her life was consumed not with her own strength, but with the power of God, with the glory of God, with the hope of eternity, and that fueled a life that was pleasing to the Lord. So what Paul is describing is a life that is absolutely dependent on the Lord That's the life that is ultimately pleasing to the Lord. This is why prayer is so important. This is why worship is so important. Confession of sin is so important. The reception of grace is so important because it's the life that is utterly dependent on God that is ultimately pleasing to God. Because He's the one working in us. Because He's the one who will finish the good work that He's begun. Because He's the one who is our guarantee of the eternal hope of heaven. To stand one day in the presence of God, blameless, with great joy, made spotless and pure by the blood of the Lamb, clothed in pure white linen, no more sin, no more stains, no more fleshly words or thoughts or feelings or desires even. But to stand there in perfection, singing forever the praises of our great God and our Savior and our King. That is the beautiful reality that the Holy Spirit guarantees to us and that the pain of suffering and affliction and death promises us. So ask yourself this morning again, do you long for that? Or is your longing for that a foreign concept? Something that you keep struggling to have to understand. When we say, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints, you go, that doesn't make any sense to me because I hate death. Maybe it's because we're so consumed with life in this world and the things that are seen that our concept of the far greater realities of eternity seems elusive and far off and foreign. That's what we have to hope for, and may God free our hearts from being captive to the passing pleasures of this world that has fallen, this world that is fading. When we can't have the things that are seen, when the temporary things are threatened in our lives, when they're shaken and removed, can our souls still rejoice? I did another funeral recently just this past week for dear Priscilla Ortega over in Santa Clara. And I had to park at the front of the funeral home and it was this massive graveyard and I walked. Good thing I got there early because it was a long walk to get down to where her grave site was. Past hundreds and thousands of headstones. All of them hewn out of rock. or forged out of concrete, made to last, made to be permanent, and they'd been there for years. You know how I could tell? Because almost all of them were crumbling. Even the tombstones don't last, everyone. Nothing in this world lasts. It all fades. It all decays. You can't put your hope in any of it. So when you feel these things being shaken and threatened, even your own body, it should cause you to rejoice in what does last, what is built by God, what cannot be destroyed, what cannot crumble even or oxidize even, which is permanence. Our hearts need to be full of joy, even when, like Paul, we have nothing in this world, nothing in this life. He had nothing. He didn't own a home. Even when the things that we love, our money, our homes, our possessions, our earthly treasures, shake and quake or get taken away or crumble and get destroyed, when our health is threatened, when the people that we love suffer, when they die, Can we say with Paul in Philippians 3 that in our hearts, as much as the things of this world are blessings from God, that we count all things ultimately as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, gaining Christ, being found in Christ. And so we come and we're gonna sing this wonderful hymn. that we love to sing at all times and especially times like this when we lose somebody that we love. Page nine of your bulletins, it is well with my soul and you know I'm sure the story, I've told it many times and you've read it many times behind the writing of this hymn. Horatio Spafford who wrote it was a very successful businessman in this world who lived in wealth. and in a position of prestige with his family in the city of Chicago in the 1800s when the Great Chicago Fire broke out and raged through that city and destroyed almost all of what Horatio Spafford owned and had built up in this world. And at that point in his life he sort of took inventory and he decided that he had failed at Christ's admonition to lay up our treasures in heaven and not on this earth. And so he decided that he was gonna pick up and move his family to Jerusalem so that he could study the Bible and live in the place where all of the great men and women of faith had lived. And so he arranged for the sale of all of his remaining property. And while he was attending to all of those affairs, and preparing to travel with his family to Europe, he discovered that a part of the sale of property had fallen through, and so he stayed behind in order to attend to that while he put his wife and four young daughters on a boat to head across the Atlantic. And you know the rest, right? During the crossing, that ship was struck by another ship, and it sank to the bottom of the ocean, and most of the people on board died. including his four daughters. Only his wife was saved. And he received a telegram signed by her back in Chicago, which just said, saved alone. He lost it all. They all, his daughters all drowned, and so he then got on a ship and made his own way across the sea to meet his despondent wife, and when his ship reached the point on the Atlantic where his daughters had died is when he wrote the words to this hymn. When peace like a river attendeth my way, or when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, You have taught me to say, it is well with my soul. That's an eternal perspective, see? That's living by faith and not by sight. That's storing up your treasures in heaven and not on earth. So let's pray together today that God will lay that foundation in our own hearts and in our own lives, even as we contemplate the painful reality of death in a fresh way today, that we might not be captive to the temporary things of this earth, that he might give us the faith to walk by faith in a way that pleases him, no matter what the circumstances or trials or afflictions of our lives are. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we love your word because it gives us comfort and it gives us hope. It gives us meaning, it gives us purpose. It helps us to understand who you are and it helps us to understand what's going on because you are the sovereign one and you are good and you are merciful. And so Father, we praise you for the mercy that Marge Gunn experiences right now, that she has been set free from suffering and from death. that she is face to face with you, that her body will one day be raised, that she will inhabit the new heaven and the new earth, body and soul, sinless, immortal, imperishable, forever in your presence, and that we all will be with her. Father, as we suffer, as we experience loss, as we feel the birth pangs and the tremors and the groanings of this world and of our bodies, of our lives, God, may they all serve as reminders that our true home and our true inheritance is laid up in glory. And may you continue the work of focusing us on Christ and all that is unseen and training us to walk by faith and not by sight and teaching us to live our lives in ways that are pleasing to you and not to ourselves. And so, Father, we thank you, and we give you praise, and we receive comfort from your word, in Jesus' name, amen, amen. Let's all stand together as we sing. Together.