An eternal weight of glory

Good morning, and a blessed Mother's Day to you. We are going to be moving into the last passage here in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. And as you have on your handout, those first couple of verses have a poetic pattern. They're kind of structured things, and for those who can see it, colored things. so that you can see the pattern there in verses 13 and 14.

He has in verse 13 this phrase, the same spirit of faith. Now, Paul had the same spirit of faith as the author of this particular psalm, 116. We're not given the specific author of that chapter, so I'll just leave it at author of psalms. Psalms is Israel's national hymn book, a collection of songs gathered among the nation of Israel from about 400 BC and then backwards up to the time of Moses, about 1400 BC. So this one here is 116.

Paul is making reference to that 116th Psalm when he was inspired, both Paul and the author of that psalm, and they had the same spiritual faith or spirit of faith here. Paul quoted there, I believe, therefore I spoke directly from the Greek Old Testament version of that psalm. About two centuries before the birth of Christ, The Old Testament was translated into Greek because there were a great many of the Jews who had lost the ability to read the Hebrew language that had been the Old Testament pattern for so many years. And so the Old Testament was copied into Greek or translated into Greek. And so Paul quotes from that Greek Old Testament in this passage.

That passage in Psalm 116.10, as well as this one, speaks of affliction and God's deliverance from death.

Now one of the things that Paul addresses here is what faith is and what faith isn't. What do I have faith in? What do I have confidence in? Are you required to just simply have faith? Blind faith? Is that what God asks? In fact, one person was asked, well, what's faith? And the response was, oh, faith is believing what you know isn't true. Well, that's not quite the right definition, is it? Faith is not believing what you know isn't true. It is not a leap of faith. God does not ask for that.

Faith, however, is faith in what the Lord has revealed in His Word. That's clear. That is what it means for us believers to have to be walking by faith. It is faith in what God has written in His revealed Word. Our walking by faith is always in the Lord and by what He has written in His Word. One of the phrases that's been used is faith in the revealed facts, or sometimes just faith in the facts. Faith is not something that we arbitrarily claim on our own, then say that we are believing God for that to happen.

I had this instance when we were first planning on going over to Uganda. And that was over a year ago now, a year and a half ago almost. We were first planning on going to Uganda. And I had contact with one of the fellows over there who was pastoring a church.

And he had said, well, we're going to have the money to fund a great big PA system for our New Year celebration. And he says, and I'm believing God that he'll do that. And I wrote back to him and I said, when did God say that he was going to give you the money for a big PA system? Right?

And so that's not faith. Faith is not just taking some sort of an idea or a concept and saying that God's going to somehow do that. That's not faith. Faith is belief in what God has deliberately and definitely revealed. What Paul makes reference to here in verse 13 is speech based on faith in God.

As Paul wrote and as he spoke in the same spirit and the same way that the author of this verse in Psalm 116.10 had, his speech was based on the faith that he had placed in the Lord. Just like when we gather together here As a church body, we speak to one another, and even what I'm teaching up here had better be based on faith in what the Lord has revealed, trust and confidence in what God has deliberately and distinctly revealed for us and for our benefit. That same pattern here then makes sense for us in our own speech. Based on faith in what the Lord has revealed, we also walk in fellowship with Him. and as His life is lived out in us.

Faith is according to what is written. It's not just simply faith in faith. It's not simply faith in a feeling. It's not faith in something that I arbitrarily grab hold of. It's faith in what has been revealed because God has had it written for us. It's confidence in what He has clearly told us. He says in verse 14 this, he says, knowing this, that's faith-based knowledge. There are those who say that we cannot know what the Bible says or means. Ever heard that? There are those who will say we can never know with certainty what God revealed or intended. We can't know. People have ideas, but we really don't know.

God's Word, however, has a consistent and repeated pattern of saying that you certainly do know, because you know, of course you know. Knowing this or knowing that occurs about two dozen times from the book of Romans all the way to 2 Peter. The Greek grammar in that indicates because you know in many cases.

Do you not know? It's interesting, that is repeated in Romans many times, in 1 Corinthians, and also in the book of James. The Greek grammar and additionally sometimes the context spells out that there is a yes answer to this question. Don't you know? And of course you do, is the implication. So we have repeatedly throughout the New Testament, you know, because you know, of course you know. Do you not know? Of course you do. Paul writes in Romans 7, for I am writing to those who do know the law. Do you not know? Here in Romans chapter 6, he has a pattern every three verses. Do you not know? And the implication of the grammar there is, of course you do. Knowing this in verse 6 is because you know. The same with verse 9. Knowing that. It is a certainty. It is things to be lived out, things to be trusted, things to put confidence in, because you know, because there is a certainty.

The idea that you can't know things that are spiritually stated in Scripture is not from Scripture itself. Scripture repeatedly states, assumes, and clarifies that we can in fact know things again and again. It's in fact because we can know God's truth with certainty that we can live out the Christian life. And that's the basis for these, because you know, or do you not know? Of course you do. The next statements are, this is how you're going to live the Christian life. Christian life is lived by knowing with certainty. We can also know the Lord with certainty. To know Him, that is eternal life. we can have certainty about that. Now in verse 14 there's also this pair of words, he who, and I'm not being silly. He who, right? Exactly who is the he who? Boy, that sounds weird. Anyway, exactly who is the he who here in verse 14?

The answer is God the Father who raised Christ from the dead, That's made clear from Romans 6.4.

It's made clear from the very first verse of the book of Galatians. And it is the Father who will also raise us up from the dead on that day when the Lord calls us home. All of us, that is all of us from the church up from Acts chapter 2 all the way up to the rapture, the day when the Lord calls us home, will be presented to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now here's a point to make quite clear. This presenting is a reference to being Christ's bride. One of the teachings that starts at the end of the Gospels, particularly the end of the Gospel of John, and continues on into the book of Revelation, is this theme, the Church is the Bride of Christ. The Church is to be the Bride of Christ. If you're a believer here this morning as a part of the body of Christ, your current marital status is betrothed. Okay? Betrothed. And the Lord's not going to break it off. In New Testament times, a betrothal was a legal process. It was not simply an informal status as we have it in our culture.

Here we have on 2 Corinthians 11-2, where it's a chapter we're going to get to, And Paul writes this to the believers there at Corinth, I betrothed you to one husband so that to Christ I might present you. See that word present? I might present you as a pure virgin. Notice the pattern here. This verse is based on the Jewish wedding customs in New Testament times. And we've got more to say on that. It shows up on your slide. Among the Jewish wedding customs in New Testament times, when a bride was betrothed, it was considered the solemn duty of the bride's family and friends, of the father of the bride, and even the bridegroom himself, to be able to present the bride to the bridegroom as a pure virgin, holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

That's why we see in 2 Corinthians 4.14, He will present us with you.

We will be presented to the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is amazing, that is going to be a grand and momentous event. He will present you to the Lord Jesus Christ as the Bride of Christ. That will be on the wedding day for the church, when the church is wedded to Christ. Right now, As we walk this planet, we're betrothed. That's our position.

We have also, and you also have it on slide on page one, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love.

How was a bride and bridegroom matched up in New Testament times? The Father chose the bride. Guess what? This is telling us exactly that message. We were chosen as the bride for Christ. When? Before the foundation of the world. To be holy and blameless. Notice the repetition. We were chosen to be holy and blameless before Him in love. And then in Colossians 122, in order to present you, here's that word presenting again, to present you as the bride of Christ before him, holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

There's a picture of a Jewish wedding ceremony with the chuppah covering everyone there. In New Testament times, the traditions were somewhat different. In fact, let me back up a little bit to that. You see here a Jewish bride. Now, in our traditions, the purity of the bride is symbolized in white. In New Testament times, it was blue. Go figure, right?

In New Testament times, it was blue, but there was still this presenting of the bride. by the family, by the friends, by the father of the bride, and even the bridegroom to himself. This presenting was an important thing. Everybody there at the wedding was there to present the bride. Everybody. Now, see also Ephesians 5, 25 through 27. I have a slide here. You don't have it, but you might want to make note of it.

Ephesians 5.25-27 says this, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Christ paid the bride price for us with his own life, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself. Here's that presenting again. the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be what? Holy and blameless. There's that phrase again. This presenting of the bride to the bridegroom is a big deal in the New Testament. As we step into verse 15, it goes like this.

There's this chiasm, and we have explained before, but just in case, chiasm is the idea we have in this picture a sort of a mirror image. The mirror, the reflection, is not identical to the initial image, but very similar. And so there is this mirror image with the line about there. A chiasm in writing is a mirror image. It's a mirror image in writing.

That's what we're talking about here. Now, this chiasm starts with what God's grace has caused to happen on the human side. For all things are for your sake, so that the grace which is spreading, that is, it ultimately causes thanks and glorifying to God, to more and more people may cause, that's the result, and the end The giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. So the middle verse focuses on what's on the increase. Starting with grace and ending with glory. Spreading more and more. Abound. The idea of increasing. Increasing grace, increasing glory. In verse 15, it says, whatever is for your sakes. And it doesn't just end there.

All the difficult things that Paul and his companions were going through, and we'll take a look at a more thorough list before long here. All the things that his companions were going through for the sake of the believers in Corinth benefited the believers in Corinth. Paul went through some incredible times. We have recorded in Acts one shipwreck, but when we read later on in 2 Corinthians, that was just one of them.

He went through a few of them. He had times when here he was trying to spread the gospel, and he ended up getting run out of town. In one case, they stoned him to death, or so they thought. They left him for dead. Other cases, he was beaten, imprisoned. He went through all these difficult times for the benefit of the believers, including those in Corinth. The benefit didn't stop there. Why do we say the benefit didn't stop there? It's because we believers are living by grace as the reigning principle. This is Romans chapter 5.

Grace is the reigning principle that we are living under. You as a believer now are breathing an atmosphere of pure grace. We are breathing in an atmosphere of pure grace. That's how we live. That is how the believer lives now. As death had once spread to all from Adam's sin then spreading to all mankind, now grace spreads to all through us who believe in Christ. Grace is the reigning principle.

Grace to all. He goes from abounding grace to abounding thanks. God's amazing and abounding grace is intended to result in thankfulness in all of our hearts. And by the way, if it's not amazing, it's not grace. God's amazing grace is intended to result in thankfulness in our hearts.

That's to be our motivation, not threat. You'd better do this or else God's going to get you. You'd better not do that. Or else God's going to be after you. No, that's not the point. It's grace that is to motivate us. It is grace that is to be the thing that draws us to all the things that the Lord calls us to. It's thankfulness for God's mercy and God's grace that are to be our motivations. Not fear. The Lord does not intend that you just go around in fear and trembling all the time. It is thankfulness for his mercy and grace. That is the motivation that he intends.

Since the grace is abounding, and matter of fact, we can easily say infinite, so ought to be our response in thanksgiving to the Lord. Oh, thankful. Lord, I can't pay you back. Isn't that great? Okay. Thankful. That's all we can be. Therefore, that ought to be the motivation for action in this life, a response to the Lord's amazing grace. That's what he has in mind.

So he says, we do not lose heart. Now, this is a phrase that he's used earlier in the chapter. Paul wrote the words, we do not lose heart in verse one, and there he associated it with God's mercy. And like bookends now here towards the end of the passage, he associates we do not lose heart with God's grace. And so he's appealed to mercy and grace.

Now, at times, we may be tempted to think, well, mercy and grace are kind of all the same thing, aren't they? And I would say, no, not exactly. Let's go to some basic word definitions. This is not in your handout, so feel free to look up here and write what you like. Mercy is when God withholds negative consequences that we do, in fact, deserve. I want to tell you a story about my favorite patrolman.

Not quite 40 years ago, this is back in the time when Nancy and I didn't like each other. Not quite 40 years ago, I was driving south on Highway 101. I was in Marin County, north of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge. And it was late at night, it was pouring rain.

I was driving in the inside lane. There were not that many cars on the freeway, which was a good thing considering what was about to happen. I was driving along, there was a passenger next to me and three in the back seat. The seats, all five, were full. Everybody was sleeping except me. Honest, I wasn't.

And suddenly, the car, when we hit a big ponded puddled area, just kind of went diagonal and went across four lanes of traffic, hit the berm at the edge and did a complete flip and landed right side up. But because we couldn't get over the berm, I had to get a tow truck.

Now, because that happened, a patrolman came by and he had me get in the back of the car. He said, well, you were very lucky. You obviously lost control of the car and fortunately landed back on the wheels. That was very nice. He says, however, while I could give you a ticket, I won't. And the reason I won't give you a ticket is I totaled a patrol car at that exact same spot last week. Right? OK.

So what it amounts to, he was very merciful. Of course, he had motivation for his mercy, having totaled a patrol car. I hope his commanding officer gave him similar mercies. Anyway, so that's mercy. Mercy is withholding. something that is deserved in the way of a judgment or a punishment or a consequence.

Grace, however, is not the same, even though it's a complementary idea. Grace is when God blesses us, even though we don't deserve it. See the difference there? They're complementary things, both centering around deserving. Mercy withholds some negative consequence that we deserve. Grace blesses us when we don't deserve it. If somebody demands to get what they deserve, uh-oh, because mercy would withhold a punishment, a negative consequence. Grace blesses when we don't deserve it.

So in addition to the insight provided in each context, our appreciation of God's mercy and grace would be essential, based on what this passage spells out, to our not losing heart in the course of ministry, in the course of life. Why? Why do we not lose heart? Because of God's mercy. Why? Because of God's grace. It's because of the Lord that we don't lose heart. Now you have on page two, a half-page slide here. Here's a poetic pattern here.

Therefore we do not lose heart is the first line and after that, it's interesting, there are four contrasts, if you will, that show up here. And so we have this, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. while we look not at the things that are seen, but we look at the things that are not seen. That sounds kind of strange, doesn't it? For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. Let's take a look at those. That first one, though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. That first line above, the outer man, oh, for most of us might not need too much explanation and elaboration.

And I would venture to say that the older you get, the less explanation you need of what that is all about, right? But some of us even at younger ages, you know, figured out that the outer man is decaying. I figured out in each season of football that something broke, right? So that got the point across to me.

We can and ought certainly to do things that support good health, but the reality is all that means is healthy aging. It's not going to put away entirely the principle that the outer man is decaying. That's just simply not the way things are. Paul makes a good point here, however. For those who are in Christ, the inner life can and ought to follow a very different principle.

There is a renewing process that the believer has available to him or her. Now, I was talking to my grandpa one time. Oh, this was a while back, because he went home to be with the Lord in 1987. But anyway, I was talking to grandpa one time. He died at age 97.

But as he was getting more towards the end than the beginning, He told me, he said, you know, for an unbeliever, life is like a funnel with the wide end at the start and getting really narrow towards the end for the unbeliever. But he says for the believer, it's the opposite way. There is a widening that goes on for the believer. The funnel gets larger. The funnel is reversed, if you will. And here he was telling me, I know my grandpa seemed to age pretty well. But obviously, even though in his 70s he was playing football with us, he was getting older and it was apparent. But here he had the right idea.

There is a renewing process spiritually taking place, even though what's going on on the outside may be headed downhill. Ultimately, what is that renewing process? That renewing process is revealed for us. Romans 12.2 talks about it. We are transformed by a renewing of a mind.

Ephesians 4.23 also makes reference to it. What is the renewing process? It is beholding the Lord through his word and thereby being transformed. It is a work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. as we behold the Lord through his word. That's the renewing process.

That's the funnel getting bigger that my grandpa was talking about. Oh, and this is the height of hyperbole. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. So what's Paul picturing for us? Something really very lopsided, but in a good way. Lopsided a lot of times you think is bad. This is a good lopsided, right? He calls the horrific trials that he and his companions are going through, oh yeah, being, you know, escaping from the city by being dropped down in a basket, being shipwrecked several times, having people run you out of town, being stoned to death, being beaten with rods, you know, that kind of light momentary affliction stuff.

That's what he calls it. He says, this is a piece of cake. This is nothing. Why? Those afflictions, they're not senseless, but they are productive. In fact, very much so. He says, for all the troubles we go through, they result in an eternal weight of glory.

This word for this weight is baros. We get our word barometer from it. Heavy. Heavy, substantial. You've got this really lightweight affliction. You know, this beating to death with stones and rods and whipped and all that stuff. That's lightweight. But the eternal weight of glory, that counts for something. That's substantial. That's significant.

He says the reward is way out of proportion with the things we're going through right now. I remind you as we're going through various things, and I don't say that naively. I've been through all sorts of things and I'm not done. This is something that Paul could say, not unrealistically, but with a full sense of what was ahead, a full understanding of what was in front of him. You have on your handout this chart here. We certainly won't go through all of it.

What the New Testament makes clear for church believers, it identifies in several passages five crowns, five crowns and three rewards. In some cases we have some question about exactly what that means. In other cases it's a little more specific. I think particularly in this one he's referring to a trial crown. That is the various trials have a reward termed a crown.

So all these crowns and rewards are spelled out in at least one if not more places in the New Testament. And what are those crowns and rewards for? Does that mean when we go to be with the Lord we get a mansion and we get to pile up a bunch of gold bricks in the corner? In our heavenly vault? No. Here's what I submit that means.

It's pointed out in Revelation 4.10 that the 24 elders will fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him, who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns, the implication of both the culture and the Greek there is a repeated casting.

What is the Lord going to reward you with but a capacity to glorify the Lord? It's not selfish. I'm not hoarding a reward. It is a capacity to glorify the Lord forever. That's what these rewards and crowns are about. It's not selfish. It's not about me. Oh, I've got my reward. I'm going to keep it. It is instead an ability, a capacity, a dimension of glorifying the Lord himself.

So here Paul says, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, which sounds at the face of it to be almost contradictory. Paul says that he sees what others don't see. Others have no visibility of it. He sees the things that are unseen by most, he sees them through faith.

Faith in what God has revealed and so having spiritual eyes. A part of it is here is what I read in God's Word. The other part of it is because a person believes they have their spiritual eyes opened. There is a visibility. We've made the point before that In the same way that there are five senses in the physical realm, there are also a corresponding five senses in the spiritual realm. This is one of them, sight, that he's referring to here. He not only sees a spiritual reality in the present, but also a spiritual reality in the future. He has spiritual visibility. Now, another story if you can endure it.

My dad had a small plane when we were growing up. It was one of those tail draggers. And hopefully the airliners that you have aren't tail draggers. But anyway, it was one of those tail draggers. And so from the time, I'm told, I was two weeks old, we would just go flying all the time. We used to complain about it even. Dad, do we have to go flying all the time? None of the other kids on the street have to go flying all the time. How come we have to go flying? And so we would gripe and grouse and complain.

But one of the things I do remember, and believe me, some things were a little distorted because I was a kid, but one of the things I do remember was my dad getting on the microphone and talking about, oh, I have about 10 miles visibility here, right? And he'd talk about how far he could see. And what Paul is talking about, he says, I have spiritual visibility here. I have visibility into the spiritual realm and I have visibility into the spiritual future. Through the eyes of faith he sees both eternal time and value that this world doesn't see at all, has no way to see, not a chance.

You have a diagram like this on page three of your handout. It shows on one side the physical realm and on the other side the spiritual realm. The believer has a capacity for seeing both physically and spiritually. If you want to call that double vision, okay. The believer is given the ability to see things in the spiritual realm that the unbeliever simply cannot. It's a visibility that goes along with his being a believer.

Then he takes that vision in the spiritual realm and goes one step further. For the things which are seen are temporal, they're stuck in time, but the things which are not seen are eternal. The world that we see and everybody we talk to, for the most part, as an unbeliever, they're locked into and limited by time. As far as a great many are concerned, the grave is the end. That's as far as you go. You're done. No hope. Nothing else. You're through. But the spiritual realm is eternal. It's not locked into or limited by time as we know it.

It's the spiritual realm that our eyes, these eyes, are not designed to see. But we have visibility in the spiritual realm because it is the Lord's doing to reveal to us and to open our eyes and to use his word to give us insight into things that otherwise could not be seen. One of the things I think is critical as we look at this and think about the spiritual realm is the concept of how the Lord looks upon time.

Imagine what the Jews thought when Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. Whoa, what does that mean? Before the mountains were born, or you gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. We human beings are stuck in a time tunnel. The Lord is not. The Lord is not stuck in the time tunnel. He sees all times as now. All times as now.

You know, when He's coming again in the future, to Him that's now. You know, right now, how we're here in this room, and you're enduring what I have to say, right? To Him, He sees that as now. And remember when Christ died on the cross? And when he was buried and resurrected, he sees that now too. To him, all times are now. Before the foundation of the world, before everything was created, before he said, let there be light, that was also now. In God's eyes, he lives in the eternal present. All times are now.

He's not limited to a time tunnel like we are. So that as he sees it right now, We've been identified with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. He sees it all at once. Right now, he is plenty sufficient and he is not limited by time when it comes to dealing with the relationships that we have that count. Right now, he is plenty sufficient for dealing with the difficulties that take place in our lives, the things that we encounter.

The things that we don't know about next because we're in the time tunnel, he's not. He has all the resources and is not limited by time for dealing with these things. There will come a time when we won't be either. We won't be either. He's completely sufficient for these things. Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at this passage here, We thank you for the visibility that you've granted us into some spiritual things. Thank you for the visibility about what is presently taking place, about what has taken place, and about what will take place. Thank you for the visibility of the great value, the immense, amazing grace that is there for us now and forever. We just give you thanks for these, in Jesus' name, Amen.