Introduction: This series of posts is from a sermon series I preached last year that I continually find effective in my life and faith. It is a five part series about the Gospel. In life, we’re given a choice: we can have all that God offers through Christ in the Gospel, or we can try to find all of that in the world and end up with nothing. The choice facing everyone of us is this: Gospel or Nothing. I used five sermons to describe the Gospel and then point out four major, significant, life-changing ways the Gospel offers everything and the world offers nothing, four things we’re all searching for in life: hope, love, purpose, and joy. So let’s continue this journey together with the Gospel and hope.
For the first part of this series, click here.
Read 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.
Question: How do you know you’re a Christian? Some would say a profession of faith, some say ethics, some say experience, you might say something else. One of my favorite preachers, and probably one of the greatest preachers of all time, is Martin Lloyd-Jones. He was born in the late 1800s. He brought up each test and showed that each was necessary and good, but not sufficient to answer that question.
He put all of them together and proposed the “acid test”: the hope of glory. He said that when everything else fails, when our tests fall apart, when we doubt, when we have to look ourselves in the face and ask, "How do I know I’m a Christian?" this test would still hold true. If you want to know how to know you’re a Christian, ask yourself, "Do I have this hope of glory?"
Do you know what text he went to in order to see this hope of glory? 2 Corinthians 4. It begins with “So we do not lose heart.” We, Christians, do not lose our hope. So we’re going to see from this passage what is this hope of glory.
If I may preface it this way as well: If you’re reading this, and you would say, "I have no hope of glory, all of my hope is contained in this life, this world," then this sermon is to offer you that hope.
If you’re reading this, and you would say, "I have hope outside of this life, this world, I have hope in Christ," then this sermon is not so much to give you hope, but to show you your hope.
Here’s how we’re going to delve into this passage: three contrasts in observing the text and then three encouragements in applying the text. And my prayer is that you leave here today knowing and trusting this:
Truth: The hope of glory found in the Gospel is exceedingly greater than the hope we find in this world (read that again).
Observations:
In this series, Gospel or Nothing, we have put two competitors into a ring, and we have said, fight it out, let’s see who wins. I imagine Paul was doing the same exact thing as he was writing this passage. If you look at just these three verses, we have what the Gospel offers vs what the world offers. It’s so beautifully contrasted here. There’s three big rounds going on here for your hope:
I. Outer decay vs Inner renewal
II. Light momentary troubles vs Weighty, lasting glory
III. Temporary seen vs Eternal unseen
Let’s look at these one at a time:
I. Outer decay vs Inner renewal
Read verse 16. This outer self vs inner self is not just a body vs spirit/soul contrast. We are a soul-body partnership. We don’t say one is bad and one is good. Instead, outer self vs inner self is looking at our existence from two different angles. The angle of outer self would look at the whole person from the standpoint of our creaturely existence, our mortality. We are going to die. We see the process of decay and deterioration already at work. It has been said that history is simply a conveyor belt of corpses. When we see the reality of that, we see what it means to part of the outer self or old self.
The angle of inner self is different. Our inner self is a new creation. We can look at our whole being from the standpoint of being created new. Colossians 3:9-10 says, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” This new creation is that inner self Paul is talking about here.
And so this contrast, this battle between what the world offers in the outer self and what the Gospel offers in the inner self is set up very clearly. The outer self is wasting away, decaying, deteriorating, and that’s all we have to look forward to in this life. If someone asks you if you’re dying, you can always tell them yes. Because do you realize from the moment life begins in the womb, it is a slow death until the grave? The world offers this: Well, we’re all going to die, we don’t have much time, I guess die the best you can.
But the Gospel counters with the inner self and its renewal day by day. The inner self of a Christian from day one in the womb is being renewed day after day after day until the grave. Just a chapter before this, Paul explained it: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”
So the world throws with its first punch the outer self and its continual decay. But then the Gospel counters back with the inner self and its continual renewal. Round number one goes to Gospel.
II. Light momentary troubles vs Weighty, lasting glory
Read verse 17. Here Paul contrasts the light momentary troubles of the outer self with the weighty and lasting glory of the inner self. I could spend a couple of minutes explaining why glory is better than troubles, but I’m not sure there’s a person here that doesn’t believe that already. Because Paul is not just saying glory is better than troubles. He is saying so much more than that.
Look at the adjectives: light, momentary against weighty, eternal. Will there be troubles? Yes. Do Christians still have to face troubles in this life? Yes. Paul is not denying that. But he’s looking at these troubles as light and momentary. There might be someone reading this who is offended by calling your troubles light and momentary. I don’t want to minimize your troubles. But I want you to see the comparison being made here to understand how Paul could call them light and momentary. Imagine if you put a child on a scale, and then you put me on a scale. You would say that child is light. But then you put an elephant on a scale. You would then say that I am light. But then you put a blue whale on a scale. You would then say by comparison that the elephant is light. Look what you have done: you have called an elephant light. Comparison can make your troubles seem so much smaller if they are compared to weighty, lasting glory.
But Paul does not just say glory is better than troubles because it is weighty and eternal. He takes it one step further. He says our troubles “are achieving” for us an eternal glory. Our troubles are working for us for our glory. Our troubles are enslaved to our glory! I love the way Jonathan Edwards describes this image here. He said that sufferings are the sharp whittling tool that God uses to carve a bigger cup for us so we can hold more future glory. Yes, sufferings hurt because they are sharp. But what if the sharp feeling your soul feels is actually serving you?
So the world throws with its second punch our light, momentary troubles. But then the Gospel counters back with the eternal weight of glory. Round number two goes to Gospel.
III. Temporary seen vs Eternal unseen
Read verse 18. This one is simple: we have hope because we can tell time. The seen is there, but we know it’s temporary. If we just base our lives on what is seen, we have an incomplete picture. Tangible things seem more real than immaterial. But tangible is temporary, immaterial is eternal. It is simple and clear and when we see the immaterial in life and faith, it’s obvious. But it’s so hard!
CS Lewis says this: “What is concrete and immaterial can be kept in view only by painful effort.” It’s difficult to look at the seen, tangible things around us and say, my whole life is not going to be based on that. That is not easy. But the Gospel says this loud and clear: “There is more to life and there is greater life found in the unseen.” Why? Because if we live this life on the seen, we’re doomed. A belief in the Gospel automatically comes with it the confession that what is unseen is greater than what is seen. So let’s use that painful effort and “FIX our eyes on the unseen.”
So the world throws with its third punch the temporary seen. But then the Gospel counters back with the eternal unseen. Round number three goes to Gospel.
Ding, ding, ding. This match is over. By unanimous decision, your champion is… GOSPEL!
Applications:
So what can we learn from this? How can we see this hope in our lives? How can we strengthen this hope in our lives? I hope to encourage you in three ways:
1. Be honest about the signs of death you see and feel.
Don’t ignore death, deterioration, decay, destruction. Christianity is not a flight of fancy. See that things that come with the outer self and it’s wasting away.
Don’t respond with anxiety (wear out), anger (lash out), or escapism (drown out).
The Gospel can hold up under the weight of these things. The Gospel and the Christian can honestly deal with the sting of death in this world. It is simply a more urgent invitation to run to our sanctuary.
2. Don’t minimize the signs of life you see and feel.
There are also signs of life here. Sunrises, smiling children, tears that don’t come from sadness but from laughing so hard you cry. There are good things here that can be part of our inner renewal that God gave us to be enjoyed.
Enjoy the signs of life you see around you, but also enjoy the signs of life you see within you. When darkness closes in, you still have that inner light of hope that has not been extinguished.
3. Don’t forget that God sees more than you see.
Yes, God sees what you see. He sees the circumstances you are in and the situations that are getting you discouraged. But don’t allow cynicism and hopelessness take root in your heart because God isn’t changing those circumstances. We find hope in the fact that we are finite because we cannot see all that there is to be seen. God sees far more than we see. He sees the secret things that no other eyes can see.
If we were take God’s perspective, we would also take God’s outlook. Listen to this, the future never looks bleak to God. So it should not look bleak to us either. Jonathan Edwards prayed, “Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.”
These three points of encouragement can strengthen that hope of glory within you. It can show you why the hope of the Gospel is so much greater than the hope of the world.
Conclusion: CS Lewis said, “All joy emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings. Each longing or hunger we have corresponds to something that God made. God designed something to satisfy hunger: food. God designed something to satisfy thirst: water. But if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
You see, the point of pilgrim longings is to point to the place where all the beauty came from. To point to that person, Jesus Christ. These longings, these desires, they are an acknowledgement that there is something good about this world, but there is so much wrong with it. But when we are pointed to Christ, that is a realization that in Him, we find our eternal hope.
I started with a quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Did he pass the acid test? At the end of his life, he reached a point where he asked people not to pray for his healing because he could not handle the thought of being held back from the glory. When he lost all ability to talk, he still testified to the power of this passage. His daughter was reading her Bible by his bedside, and he pointed fervently and excitedly to this passage about the eternal weight of glory.
Do you have that longing? Do you have that hope? Are you fiercely resting in the gospel as your exclusive hope for future glory? Colossians 3 says, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Let’s cling to the hope of glory together for the glory of Christ.
Amen.
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