02.28.2016 2 Cor. 5 - Ways to Set Your Mind on the Unseen Stuff

2-28-2016 Focusing on the Unseen from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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Lord, thank You for the opportunity to be in Your presence – to be together as a community, sharing in worship – giving You honor and praise. Thank You that You are pleased with our worship and presence and attention – may our hearts and minds be fixed on You. Help us hear the things You’d like to say – help me to hear from You – that Your words would be spoken. Help us to have t he humility to know that You are the initiator in our relationship
2 Cor. 4:16-19
Paul is doing compare and contrast to show the Corinthians HOW they view their spiritual lives. We need to let the Bible challenge our views and positions – both secular and religious – we have all been formed by the things we have heard and how we grew up and the things we have learned. There are things we have learned and ways we have been formed that are not good, and what we need to let happen – to let the Bible challenge it all.
Is there anything that I hold dearly that I need to let go?
Sometimes it is things I think are good – but God needs to say it is good.
He is contrasting and comparing – Physical body and inner person – the physical body is wearing out.
10-15 years ago, I would believe that theoretically. Nowadays, it is becoming more and more real. The physical body is wearing out! But he compares it to our inner self – our soul – which is being made new – renewed on a daily basis. Therefore we do not despair. Physical struggles and difficulties – because of growing old or circumstances we have no control over – it is the natural thing to lead to discouragement and despair.
We do not lose heart.
When we are going through difficult things, the natural tendency is to lose heart or become discouragement – and Paul is saying that the only way to counteract that is to zero in on our spiritual health – the inner person. Some of the circumstances will never change – but even then, we can still be renewed on the inside. We can experience a sense of getting younger and younger.
We would all love to get younger - In one sense – you can – spiritually, on the inside. Your inner person can grow young and healthy – even as the outer decays.
We all have some experience with this wearing out – but the second part – growing inside, I don’t know that we have all experienced this – it is easy to get stuck in the inner person – to come to a place where we stop growing – and I believe God wants us all to be growing consistently and regularly – these should be blossoming every day – renewed every day – no matter what we face in life. That is what Paul is telling them.
How can we do this? I thought about this
Steve Austin – the 6 million dollar man – we can rebuild him – we have the technology – we can do it! You know the story. This is the mentality of this world – and it has produced a false hope – that modern technology can solve the world’s problems – but it will never happen. The reason – we ignore the inner life – we focus on the externals, but the core is the internal.
Momentary light suffering – what he calls momentary light suffering – read chapter 11 – a list of his stoning and tortures are referred to as momentary light suffering. I get a hangnail and my wife thinks I think I’m dying.
He compares that with the eternal weight of glory – Eternal Weight of Glory – by CS Lewis – everyone should read it.
There is no contest between the two – far beyond comparison. No contest. It is over before it begins – like one of us playing Steph Curry in basketball.
Paul’s inner man is renewed day by day because he focuses his life and purpose on the unseen world... It is natural to focus on the seen world. But Paul says you will not have a renewing of your inner person unless you can focus on the unseen world. That is hard to do – because we can’t see it.
How do we focus on the unseen world?
1) stop focusing so much attention on the things that are seen. Health – beauty – money, stuff – technology = none of these are bad in themselves - God wants us to have and enjoy these things when we have them – HOWEVER – if any of these things become valued in any way at or above the level of our relationship with God – then we have a serious problem. – that is when the inner man stops being renewed.
With health – I really believe – we should try to be healthy. I think it is good to exercise – to have healthy practices – but even if we lose our health and there is nothing we can do about it – we can still keep our focus on the inner man and the unseen things – and this changes our perspective.
Paul talked about these momentary light afflictions not because he was so tough, but because he was focused on the eternal and the unseen.
If our hope for ultimate good in this life is placed in anything other than God – even in good relationships – it is futile.
In fact – anything we put our ultimate hope in becomes an idol. Even our family can become an idol – something we worship above God – even a job or money or health. That is the test – not that any of these things are bad – God wants us to enjoy His creation – but He wants us to put it in the right perspective.
A simple test – how much of your resources and emotions and strength go into the seen world versus the unseen world.
2 Cor. 5: 1 For we know that if [a]the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked.
We will get rid of these old stinky clothes and will put on the new – and we will say – now THAT’s what I’m talking about! We will be floored by them! That is the hope of the resurrection. Like Rick talked about – there is no concept of the resurrection in the early days as floating around. Jesus has a body – and we will have a new body too – we will be like Him. He is the first fruits of the resurrection – and the others will come in kind. A cherry tomato plant will produce cherry tomatoes!
4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.
Isn’t that cool? This is mortal – and it will be swallowed up by life. When we die – it will be swallowed up by life.
5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a [b]pledge.
6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by [c]sight
How do we see the unseen? V 7 – we live by faith. We need to learn to live by fat
Hebrews 11 says none of those heroes received the promises in this world. We have an incomplete view of living by faith. We hear these amazing stories of answered prayer, and we think – that is faith. Or we hear of great risks for God – and we think if we had that faith – taking that risk – then we would have real faith. But God is saying faith is in the person who can receive with joy, thankfulness, and hope – the struggles and difficulties and the great losses this life gives – because of their hope in the unseen world – that is where faith lives - that is what it means to walk by faith. The person who can see the eternal stuff over the stuff here – even the stuff here that appears to be spiritual.
It is great to read Hebrews 11 – and to hear of the splitting of the sea – but the ones who lived by faith left this world without ever receiving what was promised.
4 ways to set your mind on the unseen stuff.
1) develop consistent habits of engaging in practices that help you enter God’s presence. Learn to live in the continual awareness of God’s nearness. Prayer – reading and studying the bible – solitude, worship – devotion – things that people have been doing for centuries!
They are the things that allow us to live in the presence of God – to live in the unseen and eternal.
As I am going to physical therapy – I have learned to use my shoulder wrong -
I stand against a table and put my hand in my back pocket – and there are all these other things I am relearning – it is no different in our relationship with God living in this unseen world – it is about living everyday paying attention to where God is in my life. When I am going to work, driving in my car, having a meal with the family – learning to zero in – how is God near in this situation.
Having a time where we read the Bible and pray – as much as I harp on these things – it is just critical – it is the only way. We repeat these practices – not to check them off the list –t hat is meaningless – but to retrain our thinking to focus on the eternal and the unseen world. That is what time in the Bible is all about – it opens our eyes to the unseen world d = that is what prayer does – solitude and silence. That was a continual habit of Jesus – how often do you do that?
You know how you wake up early – sometimes I think that is God saying – just get up and have some time with me. No one is up at 4 in the morning – it is really quiet – I am not saying you should get up at 4 every morning – but take some time to focus on the things that matter.
2) learn to live with eternal purpose regardless of the troubles we face. Troubles cause us to lose heart. I get so distracted until something is fixed. Those are simple little things – but they take our minds off living with purpose. Yes, you need to get it fixed – but in a bigger realm, the troubles of life distract us from the unseen world.
3) We need to learn wholly for others as a servant. That is another way to enter the unseen world – it is not “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good” – living in the unseen and eternal is living in the space of serving and living for others. Paul – lived for others – death in me, life in you. Take up the cross and follow Jesus. Take up your cross means giving your life in service for others.
Very simple. And the basic way to work this out – not making use of or holding to our advantages, privileges, rights, or leverage in every situation for the benefit of others. This is what it means to take up the cross.
An example – we were talking about coaching – coach-pitch baseball. Some knew what they were doing – two kids who could catch every ball – and the kids who knew little. I had certain advantages and leverages – I could have zipped it by them every time. But I would toss in such a way that they would hit it. At some point I had to aim at HOW they swung the bat. They didn’t hit the ball – the ball hit them! We need to lay aside. Putting aside our self-interests.
Now, we all understand that there is a level of self-interest that is required to be healthy. There are some who don’t have that level – but most of us have – and we need to move beyond selfish interests.
— 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for [d]his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
4) Perspective. We will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ – we will be evaluated for how we lived. We will be evaluated by someone who loves us! He will not be waving his finger at us – but how we lived will become evident – like the student who wants to get the A and please the teacher and parents. What we are looking for – to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. When we stand before Jesus – our focus should be on hearing Him say those words – well done.
Let’s pray.
Lord, thank You – I ask that we would all be good and faithful servants – you can make that possible – all we need – from this point on – to set our hearts – to determine in our hearts to live in a way – to do our best to serve You – and even if we fall – to come back to serving You faithfully – and in doing that – to be assured that when we stand before You