Christs life and ministry is well pleasing to God through our...

Let's take a look at 2 Corinthians 5 verses 5-8. Last week Bob covered 1-4 and so I'm actually going to read out loud starting at verse 1 of chapter 5 because Paul's continuing his thought from there and he's going to mirror some of the ideas as we take a look at 5-8. So join me in 2 Corinthians 5-1.

For we know that if 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. For indeed, in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. And as much as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. 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. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God. He who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

So as as you read along with me, I hope I think you probably observed some repetition of theme there. So you'll you'll notice that this is probably the shortest handout I've produced. But I still am worried that we'll run out of time because there's actually a lot of meat in here. We have to remember the context for this.

Paul is continuing his letter to the Corinthians. He has been defending his not having come to Corinth and he has been defending the not coming to Corinth in an effort to try to establish that his ministry to preaching the gospel, to establishing the church, has been the priority. And in fact, earlier he says, it was for your sake that I didn't come to Corinth a second time. So he's continuing defending those things.

But there's a lot of good truth in here that is true of Paul, but also the believers. So as we take a look at this, we'll be able to identify some valuable truths that are in here. The reason that Paul is taking this arc is he started with this really important principle of loving them and preaching the gospel wherever he went, and he's moving somewhere graciously and lovingly and caringly.

So that their focus would not be on him, but instead focusing on having a heart for the lost. At the very end of chapter 5 here is possibly... Roger, I don't know the schedule, but I think it's probably going to be you that gets to teach this pinnacle passage at the end of chapter 5. where we get to talk about being made a new creature. And so Paul is moving, he's transitioning them from an earthly focus to a heavenly focus. And he's using his own trials and sufferings on his missionary journey as the medium for communicating that message.

So let me ask, I want to ask this important question because it's something I was thinking about this week as I was churning through the text. Have you ever had to make a decision as a believer that you had to explain to others because they were upset but the Lord made it clear it was the right decision? Have you had that experience before? I don't find it always that everybody has had that experience and if you haven't had that experience then that's a blessing on your life.

Tom? Yeah, it was my older brother, John, who currently, because of the wishes of his wife, goes to a Messianic fellowship. It's something he'd rather miss out on, but it's something where his wife, who's an ex-Christian scientist, might have benefited more unexpectedly from that than a regular Bible church. Okay.

So when my family moved to Colorado, It was really hard for our friends in Texas to have us depart. And they're like, why are you guys leaving us? We love you. And we're like, we love you too, but the Lord has made it really clear that we need to move to Colorado.

And it was really hard because the Lord had made it clear, but other people were upset. And this is not to say that I can just easily put myself in Paul's shoes, but there are times when the Lord will call us to do something that we have to defend to others that this is what the Lord has done. So as we take a look at this, Paul starts out by saying, now he who prepared us for this very purpose is God.

So they've been prepared for a purpose, and I think When we say that, we better turn back to Acts chapter 9 and look at verse 16, because in Acts 9.16, God is actually speaking not to Paul, but to Ananias. So let's turn back there.

So Acts 9.16, Well, we'll start in 15 just because we can.

Ananias, but the Lord said to him, being Ananias, go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake. So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake.

He sure did. He did. God prepared Paul for a purpose. And that is something that, if I'm honest, I think the thing I wrestled with the most when I was a teenager, maybe you experienced this in your teens or even after that, I always wrestled with what's the meaning of life or what's my purpose, right? And so Paul knew, without a doubt, at this point in time that God had a purpose for him that involved this suffering aspect, right? And if you turn a few more pages, turn to Acts 20 verses 18 through 24, let's see what Paul says, because I think this is even more humbling in light of And if somebody else gets there, go ahead and read verses 18-24. Acts 20, 18-24.

And when they had come to him, he said to them, You yourselves know from the first day that I set foot in Asia how I was with you the whole time, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, with trials, which came upon me through the plots of the Jews. how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, bound by the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me. But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course in the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.

Alright, so here's Paul, and he's writing to the Corinthians about the fact that God prepared him for this purpose. But this has not been a one-time statement from Paul. He's been carrying this message with him, and it's a weighty thing, but it's valuable.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11.1 that we should imitate him. So we have to ask an important question of ourselves, and that is... Do we imitate him in going and looking for places of persecution? No. What do we imitate him in? We imitate him in abiding and walking with the Lord, right?

Because if we ask the question that's there on your handout at the end of this section, I had the question, does the Holy Spirit make it clear for every believer what their purpose is? Paul knew that it was God who prepared him for this purpose. Does the Holy Spirit make it clear to every believer what our purpose is? Sometimes we don't get it until the whole experience has passed him behind and we say, well that's what that was for. But the Holy Spirit works in the ways that work best with each individual. Yeah, so we know the Holy Spirit reveals truths for us in our lives as believers.

Romans 8.28, if we keep going back there, but I think it's really critical that we do. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. He has a purpose for us, but we don't always know clearly what it is. We know that the Holy Spirit will use us in the body in a specific way. He's gifted at us in a specific way.

I remember when I was going to the Charismatic Church, everybody needed to know what their spiritual gift was and you were really hoping that you had tongues or healing or one of those, right? Something that would give you a little glory, right? Because you'd look pretty cool if you were healing people and stuff. For the record, I actually never saw anybody get healed in any massive way, but that's a side story.

But the idea that the Holy Spirit has a purpose for you may come in gifting. His purpose may, in part, be your gifting in the body of service, of administration, or whatever else it is that he's gifted you in. Sometimes we don't get this really clear declaration that, hey, you're going to suffer for my namesake, like Paul got. But we have a purpose that the Holy Spirit will reveal in our lives if we're doing what? What's the one thing we need to be doing to know that we're doing this purpose?

Keeping in fellowship with Him. Okay, keeping in fellowship. I like to use the word abiding or just because I think it's what Jesus used in John 15 and I think it's a good clear illustration. But if we're abiding, He will guide our purpose. So we don't have the same purpose Paul had, necessarily, right? No apostles in the room. But we are called to a purpose, if we're abiding, we'll walk those things out.

Ephesians 2.10 tells us that, and we can trust that promise. Randy, also I think that, kind of amplifying that, The Holy Spirit will show us through scripture certainly that we will suffer. Paul said believers will suffer. He shows us a whole bunch of different truths that are true of us. I see that in a way as Paul is a unique person. There is only one Paul. But believers sees in scripture his mission, if you will, is to walk by faith, trusting where you're at.

We don't necessarily have to look for some great gift. By looking at scripture we can see the plan for God for every believer and that in itself. So I think you can get off on it. Some people are like, I just have to know what God's purpose for me. They're looking for something like a Paul experience when the Lord says, well Paul was a person special. I have a very straight forward purpose for you. To know me and to walk by faith and yes there will be trials, yes there will be this and that. Just to accept the normal ministry that every Christian has. Yeah. And not necessarily have to look for some wild thing. Yeah.

What's funny in my own life is I always wanted, coming from the charismatic background, for a long time I wanted to have this big miraculous thing or these big powerful, oh boy, look at Randy, sort of a thing that the Lord did. And often what I think was funny looking back is that times that I didn't see anything in where the times God used me in other people's lives to the point where I remember in college, I had a friend come and say, I became a believer because of you.

And I was like, really? I don't remember ever presenting the gospel to you. She goes, no, I just saw something was different. And then when somebody presented the gospel, the Lord brought you to mind. And I was like, man, here I was looking for this big, strong, powerful testimony and all this.

And it was like, the Lord was like, how about you just be humble? And I'll use you in humility rather than your arrogance, which is, well, let's be honest, when you're a teenage male, you want to put your mark on the world, right? You want to go out there and be the star quarterback or whatever it is that you're going to do. So the Lord has a good sense of humor in those things.

But the trials and the suffering, you know, if we go look at 1 Peter 1.7, we see in the trials and the suffering that for the believer that God uses that to show us the quality of his life in us. So the trials and suffering are definitely a thing that the Lord uses and we don't want to ignore that.

So the next section of this here, Paul says, "...who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge." Now I have added to the back of your handout there a supplement, which is something that Hal Malloy actually put together, and I try to use that as often as I can because I think it's one of the best resources we can have to understand the Holy Spirit and the life of the believer.

Specifically, one of the reasons why I became charismatic, actually, was because No one had properly taught me about who the Holy Spirit was and his involvement in the life of the believer. And so when someone came to me and said, this is who the Holy Spirit is, I had no scripture to respond to that by. I just merely had a void, a blank spot where I knew the Holy Spirit was part of the Trinity and that was it. And so when somebody said, oh, the Holy Spirit's going to do this, this, this, this, and this, and this, and this, I was like, oh, cool.

And so my goal as a teacher is to make sure that when we talk about the Holy Spirit, you know who He is, not just technically, but in your own personal walk with Him. So we're going to just quickly run through these. We're not going to look at all the Bible verses, but I want to make sure that we observe that the Holy Spirit is a pledge and he's doing so much more in our lives.

So the Spirit dwells in believers. The Spirit gives believers access to the Father. The Spirit has fellowship with believers. The Spirit teaches believers. The Spirit reveals the glory of Christ to believers. The Spirit transforms believers. The Spirit manifests His fruit through believers. The Spirit gifts every believer for ministry.

We just talked about that. There's a purpose there, right? The Spirit fills believers. The Spirit desires against believers sin, nature, or flesh. That's one that I wish that someone had taught me a long time ago. Galatians 5, 16, and 17. The Spirit controls the mind of the new man. The Spirit frees believers. The Spirit guides believers. The Spirit intercedes in prayer for the believer.

And that's one I'm going to just go back to briefly and say when Roger taught that in the main service I thought it was one of the most powerful things that no one had taught me. It was just a great lesson. I'm not just saying that because Roger is here.

The truth that God is praying, the Holy Spirit from within you is praying and interceding. God wants to answer prayer. Otherwise, why would he be praying? Why is the Holy Spirit interceding on our behalf? So that's a powerful truth there. The Spirit is God's guarantee of His promise to the believer, and that's what we're looking at right here. The Spirit is the agent in the believer's sanctification. The Spirit assures believers of their salvation. The Spirit glorifies Christ through believers. The Spirit can be grieved and quenched by the believer. The Spirit is the means by which a believer walks, and the Spirit perfects the believer.

So that's 22 items which should be its own study, and I'm going to let you guys do that at home. Please do. I mean it. Take a few minutes to look at each one of those Bible verses and meditate on them and look at what's there. I've done a few studies on the Holy Spirit throughout my adult life after getting into the charismatic, it was post-charismatic stuff, okay? And I kept thinking to myself as I learned these truths, I kept thinking, I wish someone had taught me who the Holy Spirit was properly. Because, you know, what's funny is the Charismatic Church thinks that we're really stuffy in the Bible Church arena. You guys don't really understand who the Holy Spirit is.

Actually, I would argue that we do. And when we say walk by the Spirit, we mean something much more deep than just being able to speak in tongues or healing somebody. So Paul, now that we've taken that slight rabbit trail, but because I have to just take a chance to push that document on you, I'm going to. So Paul says the Holy Spirit is a pledge. And he had already told the Corinthians that.

In 2 Corinthians 1.22, he had already said that.

2 Corinthians 1.22 he says, who also sealed us and gave us the spirit in our hearts as a pledge.

So what's a pledge? A down payment. Okay. It's like the earnest money when you transact real estate. Okay, earnest money. So the thing about a pledge is that we tend to think about a pledge in a transaction that has a really final quality to it, right? This is a pledge that is finite. When you go to buy a house and you have the earnest money or the pledge money or there'll be certain other things where they'll want some money to reserve a space for a cabin or something like that if you're going to go on a vacation. They want this little piece that says, I'm committed. But what's different here? with the Holy Spirit being a pledge versus a financial transaction.

Abiding results in the present with eternal impact. Okay, yeah, the Holy Spirit as a pledge, that's part of the triune God, right? And who made the payment for the transaction to actually take place? Jesus. And then who's the pledge? The Holy Spirit. And the pledge and the work were there to bring communion with God the Father. So all three parts of the Trinity are involved in this transaction and we just are beneficiaries. And I think that's a rich truth worth meditating on and thinking about.

I wanted to take a moment, since we looked at that list of truths of who the Holy Spirit is as believers, to also take a look at the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Because if you were a Jew who is receiving this letter, you're in Corinth, you grew up in a Jewish household, you would have viewed the Holy Spirit in a very different way. You would have viewed the Holy Spirit in an Old Testament context. Because the Holy Spirit is in the Old Testament. I remember the first time I heard that, I was like, wait a minute. The Holy Spirit is in the Old Testament. So I had to look it up and do some research, which benefited me. I've got a list here of bullet points of examples of this.

God, when he gave Moses the law in Exodus 31, 1-5, gives Bezalel the Holy Spirit. He is indwelt by the Holy Spirit to lead the craftsmen to make the decorations for the temple. And I think that's kind of awesome, because we tend to think of, maybe if you're like me, you might think of Saul, who runs around with the prophets when he's anointed to be king, or chosen to be king. But God wanted his temple or his tabernacle, because remember it's a tent, it was before the temple, he wants his tabernacle to reflect his creativity and his perfection.

And Bezalel can't do it, right? He's not capable. He may be gifted as a craftsman, but God indwells him with the Holy Spirit to let him craft these things. But then what? The Holy Spirit goes, right? The Holy Spirit uses him, his body is a vessel, and he's done.

If we look at the elders of Israel, God tells Moses, pick out the 70 elders from Israel, in Numbers 11, 25-27, and they're going to prophesy, and then God says explicitly, and they will not do it again. The funny part of that story is not all 70 showed up on time. Apparently their watches weren't in sync. And several of the elders were actually mixed in with the hoi polloi of Israel, and they started prophesying, and it was freaking out all the Israelites. They were like, whoa, we like God's moving over there, not in our midst. It was scary.

Balaam is filled with the Holy Spirit. Remember he talked to his donkey? Balaam was hired to curse Israel. The donkey fights him, the angel shows up, and then Balaam is filled with the Holy Spirit and blesses Israel instead. Man, that king did not get his money's worth. The whole book of Judges, every judge comes up and it says God filled the judge with the Holy Spirit and then they went and did something to try to restore Israel to following God. King Saul was filled by the Holy Spirit but then was tormented by an evil spirit from the Lord. The Lord took his Holy Spirit away and tormented him with the evil spirit because Saul was focused on himself.

In King David, the psalmist, in Psalm 51.11, and this is one of the songs that we used to sing back when we didn't know better, when I was a teenager.

King David says, take not thy Holy Spirit from me, in Psalm 51.11. Can we lose the Holy Spirit as believers? So in an Old Testament doctrine, the Holy Spirit could come and go. In a New Testament doctrine, that is not the case. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit.

He's not going anywhere. and he's a pledge. So let's talk about another element of the pledge. When God makes a pledge, how halfway is he about this pledge? So let's talk about loss of salvation. If you get a pledge, and the pledge is the Holy Spirit, is God going to renege on His promise?

Well, part of his, you could call it a kind of copyright phrase, was that he will abide with you forever. That's right. His pledge is permanent. And so, when we take a distinction, when we look at the Old Testament and the New Testament, this would be shocking for someone who grew up in a Jewish household and saw the Holy Spirit coming in these very special moments for very select saints in the Old Testament. Paul is telling them this shocking truth. And he's saying it a second time in this letter.

The Holy Spirit is a pledge in the life of the believer. Not only in Paul, but all believers. So the Holy Spirit is not just an intercessor, not just a helper, but he's a pledge. A pledge is a security given on a loan or a promise, and all three parts of the Trinity are involved with our salvation. The Holy Spirit is in part a pledge.

So why is it significant to have all three parts of the Trinity involved with salvation? There's a lot of answers to this, and I'm not going to say any of them are wrong in particular, but I just want us to think about that. God so loved the world that he gave his only son, his only begotten son, right? Roger, go ahead. I thought the eternal covenant too. Yeah, the eternal covenant that God had, in Hebrews chapter 13, God had an eternal covenant that he was going to establish this church. The Holy Spirit is actively empowering us to do amazing things on account of what Christ did so that God gets the glory. The Holy Spirit is a pledge, so we don't have to worry about losing our salvation. If we're not worried about losing our salvation, where's our mental energy going to go? Where's our emotional energy going to go?

We're free to focus on the Lord. We're free to be abiding. We're free to be walking in grace. We're free to be walking in liberty, because the pledge is there. has shared with us this truth, and part of me wants to just stop right there, but I have an assignment of more verses. So we're going to keep going. But it's a rich truth to consider and wait and meditate on the idea that there is a pledge that is the Holy Spirit, and we can rest in that confidence. Alright, since we have to keep moving, since I've technically only gone over one verse out of four, I guess we have to keep going right here. Verse 6, Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.

So, what does it mean to be courageous? He's of good courage. He's of good courageousness, if we were to expand that. What does it mean to be courageous? Totally dependent and trusting on what God can do. Okay. That's half the answer I'm looking for. When you think of courage, do you think of somebody sitting next to a pond and fishing? Does that sound like a risky situation?

When we think of courage, we think of risk and trials. Like when you think about World War II veterans who were doing things, or Vietnam veterans, or people who were veterans of war. My buddy Abe talked about doing things in Iraq and Afghanistan where they were out there moving, making sure the roads were clear. And it was not uncommon for there to be the explosives, the IEDs on the side of the road.

And he talked about a few events that happened with he and his, shoot, I'm going to use the wrong term, platoon or group. See, can you tell I wasn't in the military? He was like, he had a job that allowed him to sit behind a desk and administrate. And he was like, I couldn't just sit behind a desk. Not when those people were risking their lives.

He felt like it was the right and courageous thing to do to go with them. But when Paul is talking about being courageous, he's out there, we just read in Acts, the Holy Spirit kept telling him from town to town, the next place is going to be hard too. the next place is going to be a threat to your life. So Paul says, therefore, being always of good courage, because he and his entourage were constantly being persecuted, they were carrying with them this known threat, but they were of good courage. They were pushing through. Action despite fear.

Okay, we can maybe define it that way. And he's going to repeat that sentiment in verse 8. He says, we're of good courage, I say. So while we see tension between the points of despair that he wrote earlier in 2 Corinthians 1, 8 and 9, where he says he despaired of life, he says we're still of courage. We have these opposing ideas here.

The idea is that Paul is being transparent. But despairing of life doesn't mean lacking of courage, does it? So on the surface they may look like they're opposing, but in reality they blend together. Paul knows that the Lord is going to use the trials and his blessing despite the trials, and that he should have courage despite the risks. So Paul, if he's a model of courageousness and evangelism, should we all be courageously evangelizing? And if not, how might we describe a courageous outlook biblically?

If we're walking with the Lord, the Holy Spirit, if Ephesians 2.10 is true, and I would argue passionately that it is, The Holy Spirit may take you into the lion's den, but he also may take you into the Christian bookstore, where it turns out somebody really needs to hear a truth that God has taught you.

When I worked at the Christian bookstore in college, I was stunned by how many people did not know God's Word. Funny is that now as an adult at almost 40, I realize how little I knew then. But I knew then more than maybe the average person who was walking into the store. And so you may, God may call you into the Christian bookstore so that you can be a witness to what is true because they don't know.

So being courageous may mean walking across the street to share the gospel with your neighbor. Being courageous may be posting something on Facebook. There we go, the courageous Facebook post. But from a biblical standpoint and a biblical outlook, courageousness is not always that we're being threatened with our very lives, but it may be that the world around us.

How many of you are aware this week that Senator Bernie Sanders made some very strong anti-Christian statements? He's a senator. And he's very socially and politically liberal, right? But he is very antagonistic towards Christianity. And that's becoming more and more normative in the political forum.

And so as believers, I think we've been blessed post-World War II with much prosperity and a lot of acceptance towards Christianity, but that's been waning. And so we as believers need to be aware that courageousness in sharing the gospel may be a much more realistic thing in our first world America. Because they hate us. Just like Paul was hated. Just like Jesus was hated. He told us, right? He told his disciples they'd be hated.

So continuing on with what Paul said here, "...knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord." So earlier in verse 4, Paul wrote, "...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." He longed for the eternal state with the Lord, that this body, this earthly tent, as he described it in verse one, is no longer the case. So Paul has described our body as a clay vessel, which I think Roger got to talk about. He's mentioned in 4.16 that his body was decaying, and then in 5.1 his body was a tent.

So in the last two chapters here, this chapter and a half, He's been pointing out the temporary nature of our conditional mortal coils, and I think that's a phrasing from a hymn, the mortal coils, but it's one of my favorites, so I like to bring that up when I can. But Paul knows that conditionally, being alive, he's absent from the Lord. Now, is that a position or a condition statement? It's condition, right? Because our position is secure, right? He's seated in the heavenlies with Christ at the time of this writing.

But he knows that when he dies, whenever that is, because remember, he's just finished in chapter 4 and chapter 5, he's been defending the fact that he doesn't know when the Lord's going to take him home, right? But he knows as soon as this body fails, if the Lord doesn't resuscitate him like he did in the book of Acts, that he's going to be with the Lord.

So how do we reconcile the idea, since this principle here is If our bodies fail, if our bodies die, our heart stops, and our brain stops having blood to it, our personhood on this earth ceases, how do we reconcile that with the idea of being absent with the body, with the rapture?

Because the rapture says, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead will rise first, and then those who are on the earth. There's a chronological gap. How do we reconcile that chronological gap? Well isn't it talking about actual death whereas rapture is something when you're alive you'd be taken up. Well no the rapture describes the dead will rise first.

Well that too. Right so but let's say just for the sake of argument that The rapture doesn't happen while I'm alive, and I kick the bucket. You guys are still around because you guys are going to live forever. Nobody in this room is just kidding. But the rapture happens, and it's been 45 years. I'm picking a random number because it could be 450 years. I don't know. How do we reconcile that time gap? Because Paul says here, if I'm in the body, I'm absent from the Lord. But the opposite statement is that Once I'm no longer in this body, I'll be present with the Lord. How do we reconcile a time gap?

Theologians have argued about this for years, so I'm going to bring it to your table here. it's happening. We're the ones that are in this time. So we're locked in the time space continuum while we're breathing with a pulse, right? But when we die in that time, it says we'll be with the Lord.

Now, I asked the impossible to answer question by revelation here. My personal understanding of this, and this is my best guess, because I can't take you to a Bible verse for this other than here, is that we escape the time-space continuum as soon as we die, and God moves us forward in time. There's a teaching of something called soul sleep, where we just go into kind of a hibernating space. before the rapture, and I don't think that fits in alignment with what's here. I think God just fast forwards us to the rapture and we raise first.

That is my opinion, and I'm going to call it that. It's an opinion. There are some who've taught the idea of people going down to Sheol while they wait, and I think that if we look at Sheol in greater depth, it's an Old Testament concept for hell. I don't think that's a good explanation of things.

I always like to think about, you know, someone ignores this issue, but, you know, absent from the body, present with the Lord. So it takes away trying to resolve this issue, because we don't have detail on that, but it says, I'm going to be absent, present with the Lord. So that's the very best it could be. So who cares whether, I think it seems long, you know, who cares about time? I'm present with the Lord, so it's good. Someone ignores this issue. Well, and I think the reality is what is revealed, what we can exposit, is we'll be present with the Lord.

How? In what manner? We don't know. I like to think of the fast-forward theology, but I'm going to trust that God knows how to work this out and I don't have to. But I wanted to ask that question because I think it's worth just kind of looking at. Here's a gap in what is revealed in specifics. Go ahead.

Once you're dead, you're not aware of anything anymore. So maybe you're just in this time between when you die and when the rapture is. This indicates that we'll know that we're present with the Lord. Yeah, but maybe the next time you're aware, you are present with the Lord.

Yeah, it's possible that the Lord has us on ice spiritually, right? But the thing is that theologians have wrestled with this for hundreds of years, at least, if not thousands of years. at least 2,000 years since the New Testament was written, plus or minus. I ask that question just because I think it's interesting to discuss.

I'm not trying to cause division or contention, but I think it's something here that we do know for sure that if we're absent of this body, we'll be present with the Lord one way or another. The impression this verse gives us is that our bodies will die and our soul will be present with Jesus. Our bodies will die, but our personhood will not be done away with. The question that I have here is the last part of this section.

What are the things that this earthly life tries to distract us with so that we don't mind the body so much? Are we not presented by marketers constant distraction of things like hey this earthly life is really worth holding on to but Paul He realizes that this earthly life is temporary and he has an eternal perspective All right.

So Paul says for we walk by faith and not by sight now Walk by faith not by sight. I've heard this verse thousands of times easily. And so it's easy to see this and then just kind of zoom over it or hit the familiar. But as I was churning on this, one of the things I thought about is that Paul says, not by sight. And sight is actually something special for Paul because Paul's had problems with his sight. We just read in Acts chapter 9 where Paul was blind. Paul had to completely rely on outside people to get him moving around for a few days.

But then we see the idea in 2 Corinthians 12.7, this idea of the thorn in the flesh. Paul asks the Lord three times, deny them.

And then in Galatians 6.11, he refers to the size of the letter. See with what large letters I'm writing you.

We think that Paul's sight was kind of messed up. based on some of these indicators. So when Paul says we walk by faith, not by sight, I think it's interesting that he was writing that. His personal experience with sight was that it was maybe not as good as it could be. And so for him saying this, there was probably a bit more significance in the idea. I've met Paul. I've talked with him, like the Corinthians had. And he says, I'm walking by faith, not by sight. They might have gone, huh, there's Paul with one of his eye jokes.

But the reality here is that we often think about our own personal experience. And I have, by the grace of God, 20-20 vision. Except for every time I go to the eye doctor, she tells me my eyes focus slowly. Like, but I have 20-20 vision. Yes, but your eyes focus slowly. Well, what can we do about it? Nothing. Why do you bring that up every time?

But I have 20-20 vision, but that doesn't help me abide by itself, does it? So Paul is talking about we walk by faith. He himself is talking about Every trial they go into, the Holy Spirit is leading them to difficult trials. The Holy Spirit has promised that from town to town. But we as believers still are called to the same thing, right? We're still called to walk by faith. We're called to be abiding.

Ephesians 2.10, that we would live out the righteous works. So Paul could not account for things that were natural in his vision. But that's not the focus here. The focus isn't just vision. The idea is to be abiding. The idea is to be walking from city to city, in this case, in Paul's journey that the Holy Spirit was directing him.

Other believers were panicking. Do you remember that? When you read the Book of Acts? And if you can't remember that, we're going to go through the Book of Acts in the main service so you can hear it anyways. other believers were panicking. Story after story, he's going from town to town, and they're like, hey Paul, don't go there.

And he's like, no, the Holy Spirit's taking me there. It's going to be stinky. I can't wait. He's walking by faith. So the question I've got for this section, because we're almost done anyways, is what is the difference between walking by faith and walking in the Spirit? Is there a difference? I put this in as a trick question because I think they're synonyms, but I wanted to make sure that we connected that dot. The Holy Spirit is going to direct our steps.

So Paul says here in this last section, I'm skipping over because we already went over the good courage principle. So we're going to skip over the first part of eight since we talked about that. Other than to say Paul is reiterating himself. He says, and we prefer to be absent from the body and to be home with the Lord.

So Paul really had an eternal perspective. You don't go suffer like this for Jesus, presenting the gospel for Jesus, and not really love Jesus. He loved Jesus and he wanted to go be with the Lord. With some hesitance, I referred to in the handout there, much like Christ at the Mount of Olives, when Christ is praying after the Lord's or the Passover there, he says, Lord, or Father, take this cup away if it's your will. And God said, no, my will is this. And similarly, I just want to be careful, Paul and Jesus are not the same person, and I'm not trying to ascribe deity to Paul.

There is this hesitancy, but this obedience. But Paul would much rather have been home with the Lord. I've got the question on here, and this is absolutely not for us to answer. literally, but just for food for thought. What does your heavenly home look like? Christ. It's in Christ. Christ is preparing a mansion, right? A place for us as his bride. Our heavenly home is with Christ, and that's important. So, in closing, as believers ourselves, we should be considering things in light of eternity, just like Paul was.

That's why the rewards spoken of in 1 Corinthians 3.12, for the works that God prepared beforehand in Ephesians 2.10, or the values of trials and suffering, proving out our faith in 1 Peter 1.7, all matter.

These truths have an eternal context, and we have an eternal context. We just have to remember that, that we have an eternal context. Because the world is constantly reminding us of the shiny, shiny, right? So how does our eternal context impact our earthly life?

This is important. We should all be able to answer this question. Does our position inform our condition? I think it does. We are seated in the heavenlies, as Paul tells us in Colossians 3 and Romans 6. We're seated in the heavenlies and that heavenly context informs our earthly context. We're all looking forward to eternity when our position and our condition will be unified. Paul has been reiterating that over and over through the last two chapters.

But we can have that same hope, that same encouragement, and that same looking forward to eternity, just like Paul had. Any other thoughts or questions? Otherwise, I'm going to end right before the bell. It'll probably go off while I pray. All right, let's close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we come before you. We're so grateful for the truth of your word. We're grateful for the example that Paul was. We're grateful for your Holy Spirit. being a pledge, and that we can walk in confidence because of that. We pray for a heavenly mindset in our walk day-to-day, that we may encourage those around us with it, as well as make righteous, Holy Spirit-empowered decisions, moment-by-moment, walking in you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.