I'm going to start reading 2 Corinthians 4, verse 16, through chapter 5, verse 10. But our sermon this evening will focus on chapter 5, verses 1 through 5. So if you remember all that. 2 Corinthians 4, starting at verse 16. Praise God for His encouraging word. So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary 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 For we know that if the tent that 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 His 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. Praise God for His most holy and encouraging word. Let's pray as we ask the Lord to bless our time as we look at these verses this evening. God of Jesus Christ, give us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Christ, so that the eyes of our heart might be enlightened. Help us to better know the hope to which you have called us, the hope of the resurrection, through Christ our Lord. Amen. As we've been going through 2 Corinthians, we remember that one of Paul's primary goals is to help all Christians grow in our understanding of the role of suffering in the Christian life. 2 Corinthians is really a handbook on how Christians should view suffering. Up to this point, Paul has taught us that Our suffering has a purpose, and one of those purposes is that we're able to come alongside and comfort others when they suffer. He's told us that we suffer because Jesus suffered, and our suffering is evidence that we are united to Christ and that we belong to Him. He's told us at least two different times that the Lord uses our suffering to make Christ known, and in our last sermon in 2 Corinthians, we learned that the Spirit of the Lord uses our suffering as a tool of sanctification, as a tool to make us more like our risen Savior, and that as we're made more like Jesus every day, we're being further prepared for an eternal weight of glory. Well, tonight Paul gives us another encouragement in the midst of suffering, and it's not really just another encouragement. but it's really the key to better understanding our suffering, and that's to look at it in light of unseen eternal things. And the very next invisible and eternal thing that Paul looks to, the thing that he can't see yet, is the bodily resurrection. Previously I mentioned that Paul is obsessed with the resurrection and that he couldn't go many verses in most of his letters without referencing it in some way. And in 2 Corinthians 5, 1 through 5, Paul explains that one of these invisible things that he looks to in faith not by sight, invisible things, is the hope of his bodily resurrection. So to summarize what we're looking at here tonight and what we want to do and think about and examine in our own mind and heart, let's summarize tonight's message saying, Paul's confidence in his future resurrection causes him to long for resurrection glory even in the midst of present trials. So as we go through our passage, you want to reflect and also ask ourselves, is that what we're longing for in the midst of our trials? Are we longing for resurrection glory or are we longing for something else? We have two points. The first point is we know. And the second point is we groan. So in order to help us as we come to this passage, we need to do a little bit of basic doctrine first, a little catechism. We need to be reminded what the Bible teaches about death, about the intermediate state, and the resurrection before we can really understand what Paul's getting at here. So, we can find a summary of what the Bible teaches on these topics in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. If you want to look along, the Shorter Catechism questions we're looking at are 37 and 38. It's on page 970 in the back of your Trinity Psalter hymnal. You're also free to just listen. So here's what we need to keep in mind as we come to this passage. Question 37. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death? Answer. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection. Question 38. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection? Answer. At the Resurrection, believers being raised up in glory shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the Day of Judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. So question 37 is especially relevant tonight. In this question, we see a summary of what the Bible teaches that happens after we die as believers. So at death, the soul of the believer is separated from the body. The soul is then made perfect in holiness, no more indwelling sin, and is with the Lord. but our body lies in the grave. Our body is buried, but it is not forgotten. Even in the grave, our body remains united to Christ until the day of our resurrection. This means that after the death of the believer, there's a period of time when our soul is not united to our body. We are with the Lord, but this is an intermediate state, a temporary state where we're waiting for the resurrection. So we need to keep this in mind as we come to these verses. Now we can look at verse 1. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." So Paul begins by saying, we know this, for we know. Well, what exactly is it that we know? Well, Paul's already spent a lot of time teaching the Corinthians about the resurrection. He spent a whole chapter on it in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And just a few verses ago in chapter 4 verse 14 of 2 Corinthians, Paul reminded them of what they already know, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence. That's what we know, and Paul's expanding on this truth of what we know about our future resurrection by using an illustration from his own life. Paul says, if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, So a lot of you, most of you probably remember that Paul had an earthly vocation, that he was a tent maker. And tents, we know, are our temporary housing. It's housing that's only meant to last for a little while. And as those of us who have gone on extended camping trips, we definitely understand the temporary nature of tents. We can only live in a tent for so long. Oh, the stories that Gwen could tell. about this. And if we reuse this temporary tent year after year, we know what happens. The stakes get lost. Poles get bent or broken. Zippers stop zipping. So, tents are designed to be temporary housing. So the tent Paul's referring to here is our current body, our this creation bodies, and our this creation bodies are weak, and they're temporary, and due to the fall, they're prone to injury and to illness. So Paul's saying, well then, if we die, then what happens? We have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So the building from God then, that Paul refers to here, is our new creation body. It's our resurrection body. When Paul says this is a house not made with hands, He's not saying that our current body was somehow made with hands. He's contrasting the construction materials here of our earthly body and our spiritual body. And when we say spiritual, we say spirit, we mean capital S as in Holy Spirit. See, our earthly bodies, our earthly tent was formed by God from the dust, from the materials of this earth, of this creation. from the materials that were never meant to last forever. But our eternal heavenly house, our new creation body, is made by the Spirit using eternal construction materials that will never decay, that will never fade, but will be kept in perfect condition by the Spirit of God forever and ever. So by using this tent illustration, Paul is saying, essentially, if our temporary decaying and this creation bodies, if they die, if we die before Jesus comes again, don't worry because we have a body made by the Spirit that will last forever and that's designed to live in the new heavens and the new earth. So we wonder, okay, how can we, this sounds great, but we can't see it, how can we be sure? Well, we can be sure as we look to our union with Christ and His resurrection. And just as our Lord's earthly body had some continuity with His resurrection body, they recognized Jesus when He was raised. He kept them from recognizing Him for a while, but after He pulled those scales off their eyes, so to speak, they knew it was the Lord. They recognized Him. There's some continuity there. Well, we can expect that same continuity for us. Our earthly bodies in death will lie in the grave, but they are still united to Christ until that same body, then, is made brand new by the Spirit of God. In Philippians chapter 3, Paul gets at this. He says, but our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself. Paul teaches this again in 1 Corinthians 15. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed 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 be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. This is what Paul says that we already know. We know that we have a new heavenly dwelling made by the Spirit of God in reserve for us. Next, we ask, how should this knowledge cause us then to view our future? How should this affect our thoughts and our feeling in the present, especially in the midst of suffering? Because that's the context here. And as Paul meditates on his resurrection future, he groans or he longs to be clothed with this glorified body. Verse 2, he says, 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." And so on. So Paul groans. Now this groaning, we usually think of groaning as you're suffering and in pain, and there's certainly some of that here, but Paul's groaning is a groaning of anticipation of his bodily resurrection. He can't wait for this to happen. One commentator describes Paul Groening saying, Paul's confidence in the future resurrection expressed itself in deep longing and anticipatory groans. Paul's groan is one of anticipation, of looking forward to, of longing for what is to come. It's an eager looking forward to future glory and it's going to be so glorious that he wants it and he wants it so much that he's groaning for it. He's pining for it. He's pining and longing to put on his heavenly dwelling. That's what we are longing for. And not only are we longing for the resurrection and the new creation, but this creation is also longing for the resurrection because at the resurrection, this creation will also be made new. We read of this in our call to worship in Romans 8. For this creation waits It says waits a lot in that passage. For this creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. This creation is waiting for our resurrection. Verse 21, Romans 8 21, that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. This creation is personified waiting for the resurrection because at the resurrection the entire curse of the fall and everything that's been wrecked and ruined will be made brand new and incorruptible. This polluted creation joins us in longing for the resurrection. Paul goes on in Romans 8 to say, and not only the creation but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons for the redemption of our bodies. So together with creation. Paul and all Christians are longing for the consummation. We don't only groan because of the weakness and the suffering of this body, but we groan because we know that the resurrection will be so much more glorious than we can possibly imagine that we can't wait. We eagerly await it and groan for it. And again, verses three and four, we read these again. He says, 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 Paul mentions that we don't want to be found naked and that we're not desiring to be unclothed, but we want to be further clothed. Well, if we remember, back to our catechism, question 37. Remember that at death the body and the soul are separated. The soul is with the Lord and our body is in the grave. So even though our soul is with the Lord, it's still in some sense naked, so to speak, because our body will be in the grave. We're created to be both body and soul. And so when our soul is disembodied, That means we're not complete, and there's something lacking there. Even without our bodies, it's still better to be with the Lord in glory, but it's going to be even better to be in the new heavens and the new earth when we are reunited with our resurrection bodies. That's something that we're going to be further clothed. So we don't want to be naked, meaning disembodied souls, but yet we're looking forward to being further clothed. We're looking forward to the resurrection. Paul's saying that we're not just groaning and longing for death. We're not just sitting here saying, this life is so hard. I want my trials to be over. I want to be with the Lord. It will be wonderful to be with the Lord, but just being with the Lord in a disembodied state, there's still something better that awaits believers, and that's the resurrection. The end of verse 4 says this, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. thinking of by life, that's eternal life. Paul's looking ahead to the great consummation, that moment in redemptive history that's described in 1 Corinthians 15, 54, and 55, when the perishable puts on the imperishable, 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 your victory? O death, where is your sting? He's longing for this. He's looking forward to it. That moment, He's looking forward to this moment with the martyrs in Revelation chapter 6. We're there in the heavenly places right now, but they're longing for it. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth. Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. So Paul's longing to be clothed not just with the righteous robes of Jesus Christ, and all believers are already wearing these robes of Christ's righteousness, but he desires to be further clothed because he desires the resurrection of his body. So here, now on earth and at death, while our body is in the grave, what are we doing? Well, we won't be, we'll be with the Lord. But at this period in time, in the intermediate state, when our body is in the grave and our souls are with the Lord, what will we be doing? We'll be waiting. We're also waiting right now. And all of creation is waiting. And the saints that are already in the intermediate state, they're waiting. And all the angels in the heavens, they're waiting. They're groaning. They're longing for resurrection day. Together, all who love the Lord Jesus are longing for the entire plan of redemption, to see God's great rescue plan entirely completed. And even the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Himself, is looking forward to Resurrection Day. In 2 Corinthians 5, what we see, we see the key to Paul's perspective then in the midst of suffering is that he has resurrection on the brain. His current reality is formed by his view of future glory. He's focused on God's redemptive plan coming to consummation at the visible return of Jesus Christ when the dead shall be raised imperishable. This longing and groaning for this is what keeps Paul going in the midst of suffering. This is why he can keep saying, we do not lose heart. So now what we need to do is think of our own hearts. We need to do some examination. In the midst of our own suffering, is our focus and confidence on eternal unseen things on our resurrection? Are we longing to be glorified and for God's work to be completed? What are you longing for? Sometimes we're just longing for our current trial to be over. Sometimes that's what we want. We just want this trial to stop. We want this pain to stop. Well, the absence of pain, is that what you're longing for? I just want it to stop? Or are you just sick and tired of sinning and we don't want to struggle anymore? Well, we are sick and tired of that. We don't want to struggle anymore. When you think of the Christian life and the hardships of your own life, do you just want to lay down and die? To just quit? To just give up? I know I often do. But to think this way, to just long for it to end, this is to put our hope and our comfort in temporary things. If we're honest with ourselves, this is where we find our hearts most of the time. Looking to temporary things or just wanting whatever hurts to stop hurting. That's where most of us are. Well, Paul does not call us to long for our earthly circumstances to change so the pain will stop. He doesn't call us to long for just more money to fix our financial problems. He doesn't call us to long for our health to improve so we'll just feel better. He doesn't call us to just long for our kids to grow up or for that day when we can stop working so hard and retire. That's not what we're longing for. It's not what we're supposed to long for. To long and groan For these things, in the midst of our trials, is to keep looking to the temporary things of this world for comfort and for hope. Paul calls us to something far better and far greater. He calls us to see where we're headed and to see that these trials that we're experiencing, they're helping us to get there. He calls us to eagerly long for God's glory, to long to see Jesus face to face. He calls us to long for God's glory to be on full display as his great plan of redemption is finally completed in the new heaven and the new earth and the people of God that will dwell with him in it. This truth that God has prepared a place in glory for us is so amazing for us that it's hard for us to even comprehend and believe. And it can be especially difficult for us to think of these eternal unseen things in the midst of our suffering because we're constantly weighed down by pain and guilt and doubts. The evil one wants us to think something like this. Well, that sounds really amazing, but how does that help me right now? That sounds really great, but that can't be what's waiting for me because I don't deserve it. That future is too good for me. It can't be mine. Can it? It can be. And it is yours if you trust in Jesus Christ. If Jesus is your resurrection future, it is yours. And Paul says that your resurrection is a done deal. It's been closed. In verse 5 he says, he who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. If you know, believe, and rest in the truth of the gospel, then you have the Spirit of God already working in you, preparing you for glory, and the current work of the Holy Spirit in you is a down payment of future glory. It's a guarantee that a resurrection future waits for you. The plans for your heavenly dwelling, they have already been drawn up. They've already been approved. Everything that's needed to build it has already been acquired. And it's already been purchased and paid for by Jesus Christ. Construction will be finished and completed in the blink of an eye when our Lord returns. And what we do now is we wait. We wait with the martyrs of Revelation 6. We're waiting until the number of their fellow servants and brothers should be complete. And when that very last sinner, chosen by God to be his before the foundation of the world, repents and believes, then Christ will come. Then we will get our keys and we'll move in to our glorious resurrection house in the neighborhood of the new creation. But until then, we wait. And while we wait, we do not lose heart, but we wait with an eager longing and anticipation and groaning for what has already been won for us. It's already been promised to us. It's already been prepared for us. Our heavenly dwelling, we will dwell with Jesus and see him face to face. This is what we long for. Let's pray. our God and Father of our risen Savior Jesus Christ. In the midst of all our daily trials and sufferings and pain and things that just seem to go on and on, it is really difficult to just not want it to end. We do want it to end, but even more than wanting it to end, Let us lift our eyes even higher to the unseen things. Let us lift our eyes higher to the resurrection, to the new creation, remembering that Christ is already raised, we are united to him, so we are raised, and the Holy Spirit working in us now guarantees us of this blessed future. Let us think on these things and not lose hope. In Jesus' name, amen.