WHERE IS GOD WHEN IT HURTS?
GLORY FROM SUFFERING

2 Corinthians 4: 16-5:5

INTRODUCTION

This is now the ninth sermon in our series considering the place of suffering in our lives as Christians.  (Write down questions.)  I want to begin this morning by reminding us of two of the reasons we are spending so many weeks on this subject.  First, in Matthew 13:17 in Jesus’ explanation of the parable of the Sower, he says that the man who is represented by the seed sown on rocky, thin soil “has no root in himself, but when trouble comes or persecution because of the word, he immediately falls away.”  In other words, suffering has the potential of destroying faith and so keeping you from going to heaven.  More than one person has forsaken Christ and abandoned faith in God because of suffering or the fear of it.  I want to read for you one man’s brutally honest description of how suffering destroyed his faith.  Philip Yancey recounts this story in his book, “Disappointment with God.”

The man, Richard, wrote a book on Job for which Philip Yancey wrote a forward, an endorsement of the book.  A few weeks prior to the release of the book Richard asked if he could see Philip.  He said he had something very important to tell him.  Let me read to you what he told Philip Yancey.  Read pp. 28-33.  I don’t want what happened to Richard to happen to you.  It is my ambition, through these messages to prepare you for suffering, to understand God’s purposes in it.

A second reason I am so eager to talk about suffering with you is because I know that the thing that is keeping you and I from loving others the way that God wants us to is because love always requires suffering.  It is the experience of suffering and the fear of it that keeps us from loving people.  The value and greatness of Christ is most revealed when we eagerly love others in spite of the suffering it brings into our lives.  I want nothing more than for the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ to be revealed in our lives and that will only happen when we love one another and those outside of our church.  We will only love when we are convinced that the benefits we will receive from the Lord are greater than the costs we will pay in order to love.  This is what Jesus says in Luke 6:35, “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.  Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” 

In 2 Corinthians 4:16 the apostle Paul repeats what he said at the beginning of this chapter.  He says that he does not become discouraged or lose heart because of the suffering in his life.  He gladly perseveres in faith, worship and love for others in spite of the enormous pain it brings into his life.  He gives us three reasons for why he gladly endures suffering.

MAIN POINT

Christians gladly endure suffering because…

I.  Their inner man is being renewed (vv. 16-17)

Paul begins this section exactly as he began chapter four.  He uses the word “therefore” to point us backwards in his letter for the reason he doesn’t lose heart.  In verse one the reason he does not lose heart is because as he looks upon the glory and greatness of Jesus Christ in the gospel the Holy Spirit transforms him into what he is seeing.  He endures suffering because he is so amazed at Jesus and all he is for him and so delighted to become like him.  In verse 16 he does not lose heart because of what he knows in vv. 14-15.  He knows that he is going to be raised from the dead to be with Jesus forever and to join in the great chorus of praise to Jesus.  Paul feels the same way that a teenager who has a ticket to see his favorite band with all his friends feels.  The teen does not grow discouraged because of the money he has to spend or having to drive two hours to get there or having to stand in line for two more hours in order to get in.  His mind and heart are full of eager anticipation to join in the joy of seeing, listening to and applauding his band.  In the same way Paul is full of eager anticipation to join in the joy of seeing, hearing and worshipping Jesus.  The trouble he experiences in order to get there cannot dull his enthusiasm or cause him to become discouraged.

In the second half of v. 16 Paul describes what he does rather than becoming discouraged.  He describes his experience while he is living right here on planet earth.  On one hand his outer man is wasting away.  Paul is not just talking about his physical body.  He is describing his entire experience of living in this world of sin and trouble and sorrow.  The word, “wasting away” is the same word Jesus uses to describe what moths do to clothe.  This is life here.  His physical body is subject to illness and full of the aches and pains that are the result of the beatings and the hunger and the sleeplessness he has experienced through the years.  His heart is wounded by the betrayals and misunderstandings that have occurred in his relationships.  He is referring to all the times he has had to redo and repeat things because things and people keep falling apart.  He is talking about the burden of caring about others and being grieved at the enormous amount of suffering that others in the world are enduring.  Anyone who views life in this world as something they hope to experience for a long time is not really paying attention to what is going on.  Life on planet earth, in this age, is a “wasting away” experience.

But notice that he says, even though life on planet earth is like being a piece of cloth being eaten away by the moths, yet my inner man is being renewed day by day.  What does Paul mean by his “inner man” and what does he mean by “being renewed”?  Just as “outer man” does not simply refer to his physical body, so “inner man” does not simply refer to Paul’s inner life, his soul or inner psyche.  This refers to Paul’s new life in Christ.  It is the eternal life, the very life of Jesus that is living within him and for which he lives.  It is the new life that he is living.  He is living for Christ and in Christ and with Christ and it is this life that is being renewed every day.  This renewal simply means that he is daily growing in his participation in the life of Jesus.  His behavior, emotions, thinking, relationships, work, everything about him is revealing the life of Jesus more and more and causing him to experience the life of Jesus more and more.  Paul is daily growing to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings.

Let me see if I can help you understand what Paul is saying.  Let’s say you are a 35-year-old man who from the day you graduated from college with a degree in economics you have been working in a bank.  You’re tired of working in a bank.  What you really want to do is to become a master carpenter.  You envision yourself owning your own woodworking shop and creating fine, handcrafted furniture that are more works of art than things to sit on.  In order to obtain your goal you have to go to trade school and then become an apprentice.  You get the training, quit your job as a banker and become the apprentice of a master carpenter.  Those first weeks on the job are grueling and disheartening.  You think often of how pleasant and secure was your banking career.   Your muscles ache; your fingers and thumb on your left hand are swollen from being hit by your hammer.  You’re helping to frame a house and you’ve already had to take apart three walls you’ve built because you did it wrong.  You’re just sure you’ll never make it.  But you persevere because your dream is so real and so valuable to you.  As the weeks and months and years go by you find your skills improving.  Every time you find yourself making a wall more quickly and with higher quality your joy increases and your determination to obtain the goal grows.   You finish your apprenticeship and become a journeyman and begin working with a master carpenter who actually makes furniture.  Each day that goes by you can see that you are increasingly becoming like the carpenter you want to be.  Each day that goes by you are so happy to have left banking behind and to be in pursuit of becoming a master carpenter. 

This isn’t an exact metaphor but I think it shows how Paul views his life.  While his life considered from the viewpoint of planet earth is not pleasant, yet he is daily growing towards his ultimate goal of being with and being like Jesus.  He is being renewed daily in his life with Jesus and that is the only life that matters to him.  If your goal in life is be with Jesus and to be like Jesus then every time you experience being like him and with him in your day to day experience, the more encouraged you are to press on.

Christians gladly endure suffering because…

·        Their inner man is being renewed

·        And because…

II.  Their troubles are insignificant compared to the glory that is coming (vv. 17-18)

Verse 17 is connected to v. 16 by the word “for”.  In other words, v. 17 gives us the reason that Paul’s inner man is being renewed day by day.  There are two ways that the very troubles and experience of living a “wasting away” life contribute to his daily renewal.  First, notice that the troubles themselves are producing or achieving an eternal weight of glory for Paul.  In a moment I’m going to talk about the future experience that this is pointing to.  However, I want you to notice that Paul uses a present tense verb.  All the trouble in Paul’s life is, while the trouble is being experienced, producing glory for Paul.  What does this mean?  I want you to look down at 5:5.  Notice that Paul says, “Now God is the one who made us for this very purpose…”  The verb translated “made” here is the same as the one translated “achieving” in v. 17.  God is the one who is, through the troubles, making us experience more of his glory in the present.  God uses the trouble to make us more like Jesus right now and to give us more of Jesus right now.  You cannot be like him or know him more now without the trouble that God sends.

If your desire is to be more like Jesus and if your desire is to know more of Jesus, then you will welcome the trouble that God sends to accomplish this in your life.  How does the trouble, in God’s hands, achieve glory for us in the present?  First, it shatters our trust and hope in the pleasures of this life.  Let’s say that the way you get through your days at work is by thinking about how much you’re going to enjoy retirement.  You’re 55 and one day you discover that your entire retirement account is gone because the guys managing it had all of it invested in Enron.  Then, later that same day, you also discover that you have bone cancer and while you are going to survive it, you have to have a leg amputated in order to do so.  In just a moment, all your hopes for joy in this life are shattered.  God uses trouble to shatter our hopes for happiness in this life.  As long as your hopes for happiness are centered in this life, you will never experience the joy that Christ gives. 

Second, he also uses the trouble to increase our faith in Christ and our hope in his salvation.  The joy that Jesus offers cannot be taken away when the stock market crashes.  Eternal life cannot be taken from you when your health is gone.  God uses trouble to teach us how certain and secure is the life that Jesus gives.  I was thinking about this again when I was with Jared yesterday.  His life and our lives are not going to be what we thought they were going to be.  However, this accident did not affect the work of Christ or the promises of Christ to us.  Our eternal destiny is still secure.  His life is safe and he cannot be harmed.  We are safe in Christ and cannot be harmed.

But the present experience of glory is rooted in the infinite glory that is coming and that the present sufferings are making greater.  Notice the comparison.  Our present, “wasting away” life is momentary, light and temporary.  The future life is eternal, heavy; beyond all comparison.  When Paul calls the troubles of our “wasting away” life momentary and light we need to remember who it is that is saying this.  Paul never married or had children.  For at least 30 years of his life he was constantly on the road, never sleeping in his own home.  He received 39 lashes on five different occasions, was beaten with wooden clubs and was stoned and left for dead.  He daily lived with the wounds of these beatings.  He spent many years in prison, yet he never did anything illegal.  His life was a life of risk and danger and trouble and yet he calls these sufferings momentary and light.  How can he do this?  He does it in the same way that Olympic athletes who win gold consider three years of non-stop, daily, boring training no big deal.  There has never been an Olympic gold medal winner who has ever said, “I regret all the suffering I endured in my training.”  Every single one knows that the cost in suffering is not even worth comparing to the joy of having the gold medal.  Every single one knows that there is a direct cause/effect relationship between the amount of suffering endured and the winning of the gold medal and the joy they now have.  There is a direct, cause/effect relationship between the suffering of this life and the weight of glory in the next.  The more suffering endured in Christ and with Christ, the more glorious heaven will be.  The eternal happiness that will belong to all who endure suffering for the sake of Jesus will be infinitely greater than all the trouble endured to get there.  Please do not miss what Paul is saying.  There will be no one in heaven that did not experience suffering.  It is the suffering that is producing the glory.  No suffering, no glory, it’s that simple.  Suffering cannot harm us; it works to make heaven a better place for us.

Is this automatic?  Is it true that everyone who professes to be a Christian and who suffers is having the suffering produce an eternal weight of glory?  The answer is no.  The people for whom the sufferings are producing glory are those whose attention is not riveted on the suffering but on the glory.  Look at v. 18.  Paul is not saying that he does not notice the sufferings of his life.  He doesn’t live in denial.  However, he doesn’t fill his mind and heart with the suffering but with the glory.  His mind isn’t fixed on the fleeting pleasures of this world.  The verb translated “fix our eyes” is a very strong word.  It is the word used to describe how people pay attention to their own needs.  It describes how watchmen keep watch for the enemy.  It’s the word that describes how a novice pays attention to his instructor/mentor in order to learn some kind of skill.

Paul is after maximum pleasure.  He’s no fool.  He has weighed the options.  He realizes that he could have 70-80 years of a good life on planet earth enjoying prestige and bodily comfort and all the pleasures of earth if he would deny Christ and go back to his life of being a religious professional.  But he also knows that along with that life is a life of eternal suffering in hell.  So he has chosen to endure, with Jesus and for the sake of Jesus, 70-80 years of suffering in order to obtain an eternity of joy and happiness with Christ.  He views everything in light of eternity.  He is living for heaven and the joys of heaven, not earth and the joys of earth.  His mind thinks much of Christ.  He meditates on the joy that will be his, not on the suffering that he is now enduring.

My dear friends, we have to ask ourselves a very difficult question.  What are our eyes fixed upon?  Are we gazing upon this wasting away life, both its troubles and the fleeting pleasures it offers?  Or are we gazing upon the eternal Christ and all he promises to be for us forever?  The only people who are being made more like Jesus every day and whose sufferings are producing glory are those who have their eyes fixed on the permanent and eternal kingdom of God.  As I talk to you and as I live with myself I know that the source of much if not most of our joylessness, our hopelessness is that we have our eyes fixed on the fleeting pleasures of this wasting away life and the momentary and light troubles in it.  Fix your eyes on Jesus.  Here is why we read our Bibles; why we gather our families to read and worship Christ; why you come to church; why you join a small group.  You must fill your mind and heart with the riches of Christ and with thoughts of all he is going to be for you so that your mind isn’t full of fear over losing pleasure here and lust for the pleasures to be had here.

Christians gladly endure suffering because…

·        Their inner man is being renewed

·        Their troubles are insignificant compared to the glory that is coming

·        And because…

III.  Their old house must be torn down before they can get a new one (5:1-5)

I’m not going to take all five of these verses apart.  I want you to concentrate on vv. 1 and the end of 4 and beginning of 5.  Verse one actually begins with a “for”, not a “now”.  Paul is giving a second reason for fixing our eyes on the unseen Jesus and his coming kingdom rather than this visible world and its pleasures and sufferings.  The reason is because this earthly life is being torn down with the result that we are going to be given a new home, made by God that is eternal in the heavens.  You cannot get the new house that God wants to give you, that is eternal and is in heaven without your old house being torn down.  At the end of v. 4 and beginning of v. 5 he uses a little different picture but it is the same idea.  What we have here is mortal, that is, it is going to end.  We are going to die.  But what God is going to give us is immortal, eternal life.  God is preparing us for this experience of life, of living in an eternal home in heaven with him.  He is doing it by tearing down this mortal existence.  He does it through suffering and disappointment and finally death.  You cannot have the new house, the new life God wants to give you forever unless he tears down your old life, your old house.

Our family is getting ready to add a room onto the back of our house for Jared.  Right now we are in the process of designing what the room will look like.  When we finalize our plans we will begin building.  However, the first thing we will do is to destroy what is there, not build.  We will have to remove a three-season porch, take down a retaining wall and bust up a cement slab that is already there.  We will have to pull out or transplant quite a few bushes and flowers and remove over 500 cubic feet of dirt.  We will have to take apart part of a roof of the house and take out a patio door.  We’ll have to put a hole in the foundation to bring plumbing and wiring through.  In short, the only way we can make a room for Jared is to take down a lot of other existing structures.  We will have to destroy before we will be able to build.  This will be painful, dirty work.  If a person was unaware of our plans and simply saw us tearing our house apart it would be easy to think that this was senseless and stupid.  A person who did not know what we are planning to do could not comprehend that the destruction we are wreaking upon our home is going to result in anything good.

My dear friends, you cannot have a new home in heaven without having this old life ripped down and destroyed.  God wants to give you an eternal home in heaven, made without human hands.  He wants to give you something better than 70 years of trouble free life on planet earth.  In order to give you this home he has to tear down the shack you are currently living in.  So, if you belong to Christ, you can count on often being disappointed in this life.  You can count on often feeling like your life is being ripped to shreds.  You can count on suffering.  However, the home you are going to receive in exchange for this life will make all the dirty, painful work of tearing down seem as nothing.  The way that you endure the painful process of having your house ripped down is to remember and think about and love the house that God is going to give you in exchange for this old house.

I don’t know if you were paying very close attention to how Richard described how he lost his faith but it is quite clear from his own words that Richard never had a true faith in Christ.  His testimony is an excellent description of how natural man loves the world and not God.  His disappointment with God is due to the fact that he was not interested in loving God but in using God to get what he really loved.  He came to Christ expecting a better life on planet earth and when God didn’t give him what he wanted, he found no use for God.  He wasn’t looking for “a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.”  He was looking for a nice pad on planet earth outfitted by God with all the fixtures that this life can afford and so he could see no reason to endure having his house ripped down.  How you respond to suffering reveals whether you love God or are simply using God to get what you really love.  If you love God then you love the home he is planning to give you and you rejoice when he tears down your old house.

Christians gladly endure suffering because…

·        Their inner man is being renewed

·        Their troubles are insignificant compared to the glory that is coming

·        Their old house must be torn down before they can get a new one