Homesick For Heaven
October 3, 2021 • 2 Corinthians 5:1–10
Audio Transcript:
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Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church on this wonderful communion Sunday, the beginning of October. If you're new or visiting, we're so glad you're here. And we'd love to connect with you that through the connection card that you can pick up in the back, if you fill it out legibly, just leave it at the Welcome Center, you'll actually get a gift there and get a gift mail.
And if you don't want to talk to anybody, which we understand, social anxiety is a real thing, then you can fill out the connection card in the app or on the website, and we'll reach out during the week. With that said... oh, one quick announcement. I've been highlighting this for the last couple of weeks. Next Saturday, we are celebrating our 10th anniversary as a church. It's our birthday party. It's also a banquet. You can't have... it's not a party without food.
So, we will be getting delicious food, we're getting catered. We just need to know how many people are going, so do please RSVP if you are coming. Who's invited? Anybody who loves Mosaic Church and anybody who wants to be part of the next season of building the church, and building the church for centuries to come. You're welcome to join us. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's Holy Word? Heavenly Father, we pray that you today impress upon our hearts the brevity of our life.
Life is but a breath, your Word tells us, we're here, we live, we love, and then we're gone. And I prayed today that you show us that we do not die, that our soul does not ultimately die. Our soul is eternal. And I pray, Lord Jesus, that you save any soul listening to these words that is not yet redeemed, has not yet reconciled, by grace through faith, draw them to yourself. Lord, show us that when we do die, as believers, we go into your presence.
And in your presence, we long for the day when you return to earth in the Second Coming, and you redeem everything, and you resurrect us and give us glorified bodies. Right now, our bodies are just tents, but tents. And we long for that building that house of the glorified body that is immortal, that is perfect. Just like Christ has a redeemed body now. And I pray, Lord, that you impress upon our hearts that a vision for Heaven isn't just Heaven as a destination.
But the more clear we see Heaven, and we see the future, it's a motivation for us to live with every fiber of our being for Your glory and service to You and in service to our neighbors. Pray, fill us with the Holy Spirit. Give us a vision for our lives to aim and to please you, live lives that you command. And when you welcome us into our eternal homes, you will say, "Well done, good and faithful servant. This is the son or the daughter in whom I am well pleased."
Give us that vision for our lives. And we pray all this in Jesus' name, amen. We're going through a sermon series through 2 Corinthians. We are calling this Prodigal Church Season Two. Why we're calling it Prodigal Church? Because every church in some sense is prodigal. And that they walk away, we waver from the Holy Scripture. So, we turn our attention week after week to the Holy Scriptures to remind ourselves where we wavered and to hold fast to the way that God has for us. The title of the sermon today is, Homesick for Heaven.
We'll start with some facts. Fact number one, you were born. Fact number two, you are alive. And fact number three, you are going to die. Just here to encourage you a little bit with the truth. That's true. So, we as believers, we need to meditate on that fact. And when we die, our bodies die, our souls do not. Our heart testifies the fact. And also, anytime you go to a funeral and you look at the body, the first thought that comes to mind is, "Oh my, it's not the person I knew.
Where do they go?" Well, that's because the soul is gone. And honest life, any honest life should be lived in the frank acknowledgement that this is true. Therefore, we need a theology or framework of death. We must think about death now and often and always. And our theology of death must shape our outlook of life. If you don't know what happens when you die, then you don't know how to live. The meaning of life lies in our understanding of death.
So, we need to meditate on death. Ecclesiastes, he says, "There's more wisdom that is gleaned in the house of sorrow than the house of joy." Most people don't think about it, most people don't even really believe in their own death. Everyone's somehow convinced of immortality, or we just push it off. We just pretend it doesn't exist. And that's why we're always surprised when someone that we knew or know or someone from our social network dies.
And it's just a stark reminder that this isn't home, that people do die. Our loved ones die, our bodies wear out, society changes and rose on with time. And the text before us today gives us one of the most complete views of death, what happens to the believer when they die? Yes, Christ has vanquished death in all its powers. Therefore, we as Christians have a completely different perspective on death than non-believers. There is a joy even in it, but it's still changed with sorrow. St. Paul here looks death straight in the eye.
And he lives with expectation of it. And this realism, instead of making him morbid or depressed, actually changes the way that he lived. Because he understood that Heaven wasn't just a destination, it's a motivation for living now in service to God and neighbor. It stimulated, galvanized him to be most fruitful and most useful. And this view should have the same effect on us. So, St. Paul in this text was trying to do, is cultivate a homesickness for home, for Heaven. We're just sojourners. We're just pilgrims.
We're just travelers, we're passing through. But as we do, we are also agents of change, ambassadors of God. We are to work for reconciliation and redemption. So, today, we're looking at 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. Would you look at the text with me? "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 should 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 the 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." This is the realm, God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word may write these eternal truths about upon our hearts.
Five points to frame up our time, and this is St. Paul, is using all of these operative verbs to help cultivate in us homesickness for Heaven. Verse point one is we long, second is we groan, third is we know, fourth is we aim, and fifth is we appear. If you're a little OCD like I am, you're asking how come points four and five don't have an O sound. I need to either articulation or rhyming, or similar sounds or something, and I'm right there with you.
I wrestled all week, and English just wouldn't let me do it. In the Greek, the verbs is to end with the same O sound, and I wanted to give you Greek points, but not everyone speaks Greek. So, it's just a sign that English is a fallen language, really is. And all the international said, "Amen, that's true." So, point one is we long, and that's verses one through three. Here in the context, St. Paul has been outlining some of his hardships as an apostle of Jesus Christ.
He has suffered in order to do the work of the ministry in order to plant the gospel in the city centers, and he would go from city center, city center, proclaim the gospel, evangelize, and then get a core group together and plant churches. And as he did, there was a physical toll from physical persecution from opponents of the gospel. And on top, so Satan tries to destroy the church from without, but Saint also tries to destroy the church from within.
And he said, "From within, critics arose." Critics who added, exacerbated his physical hardships with psychological, emotional and mental hardships through criticism. These critics came in, they weren't believers, and they saw something that God had built using St. Paul and the other ministers of the gospel. And these are people who, instead of taking their time to build something of their own, building is hard, spent their time destroying, or criticize or deconstructing, or dismantling, or dividing. And this spirit of destruction or deconstruction comes from the evil one. Because Satan does not build, God creates, Satan counterfeits.
And sometimes, when Satan can't counterfeit perfectly, he also wants to destroy what God builds. So, St. Paul is dealing with that, and he's talking about this as a momentary affliction. So, he ends chapter four with this text, and I'm going to read it because it seamlessly transitions into our text. He says in 4:16, "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 for us 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." It says, "We live in a body that's wasting away. There's death in us and there's death around us. Outwardly," he says, "everything we see on the surface, it passes." But he, it finds encouragement the fact that there will be glory. In the momentary affliction is outweighed by the glory. So, St. Paul strengthens his soul, fortifies himself by the hope of what is coming, hope for the future reality sustains him to endure present troubles.
Present troubles that will soon come to an end, because everything that is seen is transient. It passes, it's ephemeral. And everything unseen is eternal. So, he says, "I've focused my whole life, I build my life around what is unseen." Now this for many people is a very foreign concept. Because most people, well, all of us, we live in the physical realm, we see with our eyes, and whatever we see, that's what we focus on. Most of us live most of our lives focused on what's seen. But he's saying... he's not saying, "Don't live like that."
He's saying, "Don't live for that. Don't live for that which is seen. Because if you live for that which is seen, it will all pass and you will end up with nothing. Live for what is unseen." And what is unseen? It's God, it's his glory. It's the kingdom of God is eternal souls, live for that which is unseen. John 6:27, "Do not work," Jesus says, "for the food that perishes." "Don't only work for food," that's what he say. "But for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has set his seal."
So, dear Christians, don't buy into this lie of the world that we are here to accumulate as much stuff as possible, or have as many experiences in the physical realm as possible. The more stuff you get, the more you actually have to lose when you pass. Instead, focus more of your energy, attention, your thoughts, your energy on the unseen. Focusing your attention on Jesus Christ, who is life, who is our greatest treasure.
Because if Jesus is your greatest treasure, then nothing can touch your greatest treasure. So, nothing, no one can do anything to you in this life to take what's most important away. So, when you even, even if you sacrifice the ultimate sacrifice, which is your life, for the sake of Christ, you actually don't lose anything, you gain everything. And then, he transitions to verse one. He says, "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, the tent he's saying is our physical body. Our physical body is like a tent. And in Heaven, God is going to give us a building. It's a building from God, when the earthly home, the tent your body is destroyed, God is going to give you a building. It's a house not made with hands, it's eternal in the Heavens. And he uses the word, "If here," it's only a matter of speaking, he's not saying, "Maybe this is going to happen," because then he brings in the present tents that we already have, we have present tents, a building from God.
He's so sure the future reality, he used the present tents. But if this allows for the possibility that if Jesus comes back when St. Paul is alive, then things are a little different. So, the Heavenly home, he's not going to receive, the glorified body, he's not going to receive. In Heaven, he's going to receive it when Christ returns. But here, this distinction is made between this body and the body that we will get, a glorified body. A lot of people have a hard time wrapping their minds around this because they think Heaven is just a spiritual reality.
It's not. Heaven is a physical reality. It's as physical as this world is. That's what Heaven will be. Eternity is in the new Heavens, in the new earth. It's a physical reality. We will have physical bodies that will be different, they will be updated. They were the greatest versions of our bodies, the bodies that we were supposed to have before the world fell into sin. But he says, "We have this temple, and then this temple will be destroyed."
So, what he's doing in the very beginning is bemoaning the fact that our bodies are our tent. Who wants to live in a tent? Nobody, no one in their mind. The American dream is not to have a tent with a white picket fence. That's not the American dream. No one imagines, "I want to live in a tent." And this is why I don't even understand camping. I don't get it. My wife and I, we've been married for 15 years, and we approached our first anniversary.
I said, "Honey, let's do whatever you want. What do you want to do on our first anniversary? Where do you want to go?" And she said, "I love nature. I've never been camping, but I heard it's great. Let's go camping on our first anniversary." I was like, "All right, baby, happy wife, happy life. Let's do it." And we were living in Virginia. We got the tent. And we drive over the camping ground which you have to pay money for. I still don't understand that. So, we go there.
It started off great. She made some lamb kebab. We had some Yuengling juice. It was tremendous. And then, it started getting a little dark. We get the campfire going. It's romantic. I love it. And then, we pitched the tent. And as soon as I got on the tent, I'm like, "The ground is pretty hard." We didn't bring a mat or anything. I was like, "All right. Okay. All right, go on and sleep." And I fell asleep, sleeping like a bear in the middle. And I hear shriek piercing through the night, and it was my wife. "We should wake up." I said, "What?"
She said, "There's bears outside." I was like, "I know. We're in the middle of nowhere. And our only protection is a little piece of plastic." And then, she's kept me up the whole night. And it was terrible. And then, it started raining. It was awful. It was all... I still have a little PTSD from that. We didn't even save any pictures. I was like, "I don't want to remember that. Let's do this all over again." So, when people tell me, "Hey, Jan, let's go camping." My response is, "Do you know how much I pay per month not to?"
There's just, "Why would I go camping? I have a home. There's a bed in my house. There's a mattress, my favorite place in the whole world." And that's what St. Paul is saying. He's like, "This body is just a tent." There's no foundation. It's vulnerable. We're susceptible to disease. We're susceptible to the aging process. We're susceptible to death. That's what he's saying. St. Paul knew tents. He knew tents. He spent every night after preaching the gospel, he would go home, and he would make tents. He's like, "This is all the body is.
It's not permanent. It's not built to withstand the elements long term. It can't take storms." Just like our bodies, it will not take the ultimate storm which is death. And St. Paul always knew the theology of tents. In the Old Testament, Moses and the people of Israel, after Lord, had led them out of Egypt. They had a tabernacle, it was basically a tent. It was a setup and teardown church service. They had this tent, it was impermanent, and they would go there, worship God.
They would carry it with them. And then, that was just a foretaste of something permanent. And that was the temple. And St. Paul says, "In the same way that the tent, our body is impermanent. Building the God will give us of our glorified body will be that much better." Philippians 3:20-21, "But our citizenship is in Heaven. And from it, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body," the tent, "to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to themselves."
So, when a Christian loses his body, when a Christian dies, there's a hope that God will send an upgraded version of the body. And that's expounded in 1 Corinthians 15. So, in the meantime, we long for Heaven. And this is verse two and three, "For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our Heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on, and we may not be found naked." He's using the word longed here. The same word that he uses in his letters, when he says, "I yearn to be with you. All these churches that you planted, I longed to be with you.
I longed to be in a reality that I'm not in right now." He says, "In the same way, we longed to put on our Heavenly dwelling a redeemed body." He longs for Heaven, he longs for the new Heavens, new earth because it will be that much better. And we as Christians, one of the reasons why we're not Heavenly minded enough, is because we don't think about Heaven enough. You can't be Heavenly minded if your mind isn't occupied with Heaven.
And one of the ways to do this, really, practically, is you walk around life, and you just look at things as they are. And you imagine the best version, the absolute best version. And if you're a perfectionist, you already do this. You just imagine, you see all the things that are wrong with whatever, and use to imagine the best version, that is Heaven. The best version of food there will be food, the best work version of work that will be work, the best version of friendships that will be friend, the best version of our bodies.
We know when we look in the mirror, our bodies are not perfect. And we work hard. But in Heaven, everything is perfect. Everything about you that you want to change, it will be perfect. You will be the perfect weight. You will be the perfect percent body fat, no imperfections, no wrinkles, no pimples. Hair day, always perfect, always perfect. And if you're like, "I don't have hair," then you will have a perfect bald head. I don't know. I don't know.
I was meditating on the height thing. How tall are we going to be in Heaven? I don't know. I don't know. But there won't be planes. So, 6'2 could be a possibility because 6'2 here is a fallen height, because you can't fit in a seat. But in there, there's none of that. St. Paul says, "We are to think about Heaven." It's like, we're building in this world with Legos. And then, in Heaven, you have is the new earth, God just builds everything, and He builds it perfectly.
Colossians 3:1-4, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above not on things that are on earth. 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." Do you want to go to Heaven? Do you want to go to Heaven? Do you want to be in the presence of God?
Do you want to be in eternal bliss where everything is perfect? Do you want to be there? Do you want to be there now? "Oh, I'm ready for Heaven, just not quite yet. I just want to have a little more fun. I just want to have more experiences. Just not quite yet." Well, if there's any hesitation to your sake, as shows that there is an attachment to the physical realm, that perhaps it's misorder. St. Paul says, "Look, I'm here. I'd rather be with Jesus, but I know I still have work to do. But I can't wait for the day."
I was meditating on that this week. I'm like, "Am I ready right now? I think I am. I will have to preach a sermon on death, just be in the presence of Jesus where now my faith is turn to sight. I see the face of Jesus Christ, you can reach out and touch His face. I can't wait. All of your problems go away. No more bills. No more taxes. No more government. Praise God." No more of that, just the practical questions of like, "What is happening in this world that I don't even recognize in the past 18 months?" I can't wait. And that's what St. Paul here is saying.
He's like, "I can't wait to go to Heaven." And he starts mixing metaphors. He says, "The tent is our body, and we will get a building home." He's talking about the body. So, your body is like a home. So, in Heaven, you're not just given a home, your body is a home. And what he's saying with this imagery, he says, "You put on this body." It's like a clothing. It's like, wherever you go, your body gives you everything you would get at home.
All the best things you get at home, which is rest. You can refresh yourself with food. Everything you have, you have security of provision, you have protect. You have everything. He says, "You will have that in your body because your body is perfect, your body is immortal. Your body won't have any needs. Yes, there will be food, but you won't need to eat food to exist. There won't be threats to your body. Everything will just be perfect."
And he goes into this language about nakedness and being unclothed. And we'll get into that, but what he's talking about is in the meantime from this death, the tent dies, the soul goes to the presence of God. Before we get glorified bodies, we're in this intermediate state. But that's point two. Point two, we groan... verse four and then verse five. Verse four, "For a while we are still in this tent, we groan." Why? Because we're burdened.
"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." What's he talking about here? He's saying, "There is the state before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, where when you die, your body goes in the grave, your soul goes into the presence of God. But that's not your final state. That's not your fullness of life, you are still disembodied. You're in the presence of Jesus Christ who has a glorified body. And then, at the resurrection and Second Coming of Jesus Christ, you will get a glorified body, but you have to wait for it.
And because you have to wait for, he says, "We groan," because we know that's not the ultimate state. What is groan? It's an involuntary expression in face of undesirable circumstances. And to really understand what he means, because he's infusing this word groan with theology. And we can glean that theology from elsewhere. What does he mean by this word groan? In Romans 8, we have three instances of groaning. We have the groaning of creation, we have the groaning of the Christian, we have the groaning of the Holy Spirit.
Look at the text with me, Romans 8:18-23, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation is subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 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.
For we know the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." Creation is sick with sin. And he says, "It's groaning, because it doesn't want to be subjected to futility. It doesn't want to be subjected to sin and evil, and sickness, and disease, and corruption. It longs to be redeemed to its initial state before the fall."
And then, he uses the imagery of childbirth, in the pains of childbirth. So, it says, "If creation is pregnant with a new creation, and the closer you get to the moment of the birth, the more powerful the contractions are." So, anyone who's had a child understands this process. You get a contraction. You're like, "Oh, baby's coming soon," and time elapses. And there's another contraction. And then, you watch the time between the contractions.
And the shorter that window becomes, the closer you are to the birth of the child. So, this is the imagery of, in the end times, you feel contractions. A little time goes by, and you feel contractions again. And then, less time goes by, and you feel more contractions. So, you have one cataclysmic event that changes everyone's lives, that changes the whole world. And then, you have another one, and then you have another one, and then you have another one.
And you don't even realize how the world has changed within 18 months. Does that sound familiar? I'm not saying this is the end times. Well, I'm not saying it isn't. It might be. The creation is groaning. And with creation, we are as well. Verse 23, "Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit," we have the Holy Spirit, but we ourselves are groaning, "groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."
Yes, we are adopted as children of God. We are redeemed in our souls and our hearts and our spirits, but our body has not yet been redeemed. When you repent of your sin, and you trust in Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, you have a brand-new heart, you are filled with the Holy Spirit and dwelling the spirit, but your body is still fallen. Your body is still sinful. Your body is still prone to death. This is why Christians get sick. This is why Christians die.
And that shouldn't come as a surprise. And there are heretical, errant streams of Christianity that teach otherwise. That if you come to Jesus, and if you have enough faith, you will never have sickness. That's just not true. The followers of Jesus Christ got sick, followers of Jesus Christ died. Romans 8:26-27, this is the third groaning. "Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." He says, "The Holy Spirit groans as he is praying for us."
We have the Spirit in us. You ever have a moment where you sit down and you're about to pray, you just don't know what to pray for. You don't know what to pray for. You have a situation in life, it's like, "Lord, I don't know which way to even approach this. I know all my will is, but I don't even... let's just skip to your will, Lord." And the Holy Spirit groans and prays on our behalf, with groanings too deep for words. And by the way, this is a very important practice.
And once in a while, you should actually practice this in your own prayer life. Where you go into your prayer closet, you close the door, and you're just one on one, you find silence, you find solitude, and you say, "Lord, I don't know what to pray for. I'm still before you, I know that you are God. You are my refuge. You are my strength. Holy Spirit, pray on my behalf." And he does. This language about the being unclothed, and this is where we see that St. Paul himself is groaning about the prospect of not having a body for his soul.
And one of the things that he's doing here is, he's answering the heretical teaching of the Gnostics. Gnosticism is that anything physical is wrong, it's evil, is tinged with evil. Therefore, we just forget the physical. We can't wait till our spirit and our soul is freed. And St. Paul says, "No, no, no, I want a body. God created everything. He created everything as physical, as material. I want a body. We're created to be body and soul, psycho and physical.
So, believers in Christ will be made perfect forever, in perfect union, body and soul." And St. Paul says, "I can't wait for that. But if I die now, I will be in this intermediate state, and it feels like nakedness." And this is the part of death that actually causes St. Paul some turmoil. Because this is the part I do not look forward to, that there will be time. If I die now before the Second Coming of Christ, there will be time, which I won't have a body.
I don't know how time passes in Heaven. I don't know if it's the same as here. I don't know if it's in the blink of an eye. Who knows? But there will be appear, and St. Paul, what's fascinating is, he faces death in a very matter of fact way. There's no sentimental sappiness here. He understands that there will be a time where he's in a state that's not final, that he's not looking forward to. And what he does is, he points out that Christians should view death as an enemy.
A lot of Christians, they would pass, "Oh, if the person was a Christian, they died, they went to Heaven." That's true. That's true. But his death is still painful. And death until the Second Coming of Christ, it does take away strength and vitality and energy, and it does break homes. It does break families until everything is swallowed up in death. So, he views death as an intruder. He understands that until the Second Coming of Christ, we get a half-life.
So, in the meantime, we regret that our souls will be in one place where our bodies are in other place. And the reason why he has this tension in his heart is because he loves life, because Christianity loves life. God loves life. Christians life affirming, not death affirming. And we see just a glimpse of this in the heart of Jesus Christ. When his friend Lazarus dies, and Jesus knew that Lazarus was sick, and he intentionally didn't come when Lazarus was sick because he wanted to resurrect him to glorify God. So, he knows Lazarus is going to be resurrected.
He comes and he meets with Martha and Mary, and you get the scene where he knows exactly what's about to do. But it says, "He wept." He knows that he's about to bring Lazarus back from the dead, and says, "Jesus wept." And the verb there for weep is the same word that's used when Mary Magdalene washes the feet of Jesus Christ with her tears. He's just weeping, these tears streaming down his face, not because Lazarus was going to stay dead, but because Jesus feels in himself. He feels in his heart the pain that death causes to all of humanity.
2 Corinthians 5:4, "For while we are still in this tenant, 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." St. Paul talks about death as death swallows up everything that is living. It's as if, death is a monster, a huge monster swallows up the living. So, St. Paul says, "There will come a time when the mortal that which dies will be swallowed up by life."
Just to give you a graphic image, we'll go to the animal kingdom, the animal. A lot of people just have a very rosy perspective on life. And if you do, I just want you to study nature a little bit. And I followed this one account on IG called, Nature is Metal. And it's just little videos of animals devouring each other. There's one of a snake that just swallows up a bunny. And all you see is a little cotton tail. Lions just descending on gazelles, which isn't very different from nature. I was thinking about it. Whenever I bring the rotisserie home, or rotisserie chicken home, my daughters just descend upon it like little lionesses.
And I'm like, "Where'd the chicken go?" She's gone, hardly a bone left. So, that's when he's talking about, life will come and swallow up everything that is mortal. So, now everything that remains becomes immortal. We get an articulation of this in 1 Corinthians 15:50-58, "I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 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. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, 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?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." So, if you die as a Christian, to die as a Christian, as a believer in Jesus Christ, a follower of Jesus Christ, your soul goes to be with God in His presence. And then, when Christ returns, your body will be resurrected, no matter how you died, no matter how you were buried, no matter if you were buried in the ground, or if you were cremated, or if you dry. No matter what happened to your body, God will resurrect it, the same God that breathed life into us.
There's nothing impossible for him. He resurrects your body. If you're alive at the Second Coming, and by the way, I pray that's what happens to me. Because I think it shows me so much better. So, what happens is, everyone that's dead is raised to life. So, you watch this, you're like, "Oh, my. Hey, Grandpa," it's like, "everyone's getting raised to life in a glorified body." So, at some point, your grandpa actually looks better than you do because he's got a glorified body. And you're like, "Hey, Jesus, where's my glorified body?"
And then, you're brought up with him. And this is the 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep," dead, "that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that those who are alive, who are left until the coming of Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord himself will descend from Heaven with the cry of command and the voice of an archangel, and the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words." So, Jesus is coming back in a glorified body. And in the process, he raises the dead, gives them glorified body, catches us up and gives us a glorified body.
What will the glorified body be like? We can learn some attributes of the glorified body from the glorified body of Jesus Christ. He has a body that's glorified. It's a perfect body. And in the perfect body, Jesus came back and he ate with his disciples. He had Easter breakfast, in John 21 he has. He eats his breakfast with the disciples on the beach, he has broiled fish. He met with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and he shaped shifts.
So, they didn't recognize who he was. And then, he goes, "He has dinner with them." Another time, the disciples all in the room, he walked, the door is close, the windows are close, he walks through the door so he can walk through physical objects, and then he just disappears, which is awesome. And I think we might be able to fly in our glorified bodies. Because Jesus ascends to Heaven as glorified body. I'm not sure, but that would be awesome.
And this is how God operates. He imagines the greatest possible thing. So, what I'm saying is, Heaven is going to be awesome, and you need to be there. So, if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, just believe in Jesus Christ, repent of your sins, and you get to go to Heaven for eternity. The glorified body is the new improved version of you. It's a redeemed body. Whatever it was meant to be, you'll be clothed the beauty and power forever. 2 Corinthians 5:5, "He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the spirit as a guarantee."
So, the moment you repent of your sins and trust in Jesus, he gives you the Holy Spirit. In dwelling the spirit, it's a guarantee. The Greek word means down payment. Not just like a down payment a house, like this is what you have to pay in order to get a mortgage, what he's saying is, it's like a down payment, if you go buy a car, used car, you go and you say, "Okay, I'm going to buy this car. Here's some money as a down payment to show you that I'm serious about coming and bringing the balance."
Another instance of this word is used, it's talking about inheritance ring, where a father gives an inheritance ring to a son, and he says, "When I die, you get a portion of my inheritance." Another instance of this word is used, is talking about an engagement ring. When a young man falls in love with a woman, and he wants to marry her, he proposes. And he proposes with something, this is a cultural thing that we do. He proposes it with something.
He proposes with a ring. "I guarantee that I will marry you, that I will be faithful to you, that I will love you and serve you, and lead you, and provide for you, and protect you. I am guaranteeing something." And if you don't understand the guarantee part of marriage, then that's probably why you're single. Young men, there's a guarantee, a woman wants to know, he's going to guarantee something. And the Holy Spirit is the guarantee that God is going to redeem us, give us a glorified body. He's going to bring us into Heaven, and he's going to give us eternal life. This fulfillment of life, body, soul together is God's purpose.
And it passes because of the Holy Spirit. We know it will pass because of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:11, "If the spirit of Him who raised Jesus," the Holy Spirit raised Jesus, "from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." Third is we know. 2 Corinthians 5:6-8, "So, we are always have good courage." We're confident, we know this truth. "We know that while we are at home in the body," in the tent, "we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.
Yes, we are of good courage," same phrase, again, we're confident, "we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." We know this with certainty that when I die, I will be with the Lord. Same phrase he used in verse one. "For we know that the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands." Do you have the same certainty? Do you have the same certainty that if you die today you will be in the presence of God, you will be at home? Do you have that certainty?
The reason I ask is because you can have that certainty. And if you are believer, you should have that certainty. You know this is a fact, this is the foundation that I'm building my whole life on it. If I die, I will be in the presence of God. How can we be certain? We can be certain because our salvation does not hinge on our performance. Our salvation is found in the performance of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
A lot of Christians in the world, in churches where the Bible isn't open, where it's not expansive, where it's not explained, a lot of Christians, you ask them, be a Catholic background or Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox background, if you ask them, "Hey, if you die today, do you know that you are going to Heaven?" And the response usually is, "I hope so. If I do more good works than bad, perhaps." Well, friend, that's not how God operates. One sin is enough to banish you from the presence of God for all of eternity. That's how Holy God is.
Just pick one of the commandments, you break it once. That's it, you're guilty. And there's nothing you can do to atone for even that one sin, well, friends, each one of us, we've broken all of the commandments, all of them, because Jesus summarizes the commandment by, "Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." No one's done that perfectly. We've all sinned, we've all fallen short of the glory of God.
We've all misaimed. What is the word sin means? Just missing the mark. You have missed the mark, you have missed the point of life. One thing, as I was meditating on this week, anyway, I come to the second service, it just gets more material. I was meditating on the fact that most people shape their worldview, shaped when they're young in school, maybe in college, you read a little philosophy, you read a little of the word religions.
And then, as soon as you start working, you're like, "I have a couple days a week to do what I'd like, and I'm not going to read world religions." Most people don't do that. So, you just inherit this worldview that you've been given. And by age 22, it's like solidified, and then you never go back to it to question if what they taught you was even true. What I'm telling you is, you need to question what you were taught. And if you're alive today, you got to be asking, "Is what I believe about everything isn't true?"
And I know that cognitive dissonance. I know the emotional pain, psychological pain, the trauma that you feel when you get to a point where you're like, "Oh my goodness, I was wrong." It's like what Bill Belichick is going to feel today when Tom Brady's back. "I was wrong. I was so wrong." But times 10 million, you know I'm saying? So, what I'm saying is, it's never too late to reassess things. "Does God exist? Who's he like? Is this guy, Jesus Christ, who impacted the world like nobody else is Jesus Christ. True, is he God?
And then, what do I need to do with it?" And when you... Jesus Christ say, "You can know. If you trust in Jesus Christ, you repent of your sins." Jesus said, "Whoever believes in me has eternal life. You have it now. You can know that you are going to Heaven because you already have the guarantee within you." And he says, "Look, I rather be at home with the Lord."
I know if I pass away, I will be at home with the Lord. For me to live is Christ, to die is gain because I get more of Christ. St. Paul is in this limbo of like, "Okay, I want to need to do as much as I can for Jesus, but not for you because I want you to know Jesus, but I'd rather be with the Lord. I'd rather be home." Do you know the feeling of homesickness? Like the ache deep inside? There's not even a good word. In Russian, there's a word called toska, which is just this annoying. It's just, it's like an anxiety, it's kind of a depression. It's kind of, "I don't belong." It's kind of a loneliness. It's like a homesickness or homelessness.
You just don't belong. I felt this my whole life, this whole thing of not really belonging here. I'm from the Soviet Union. My parents immigrated here in 1989. I grew up in a public-school system where English was my second language. I was an ESL until third grade. Because it was more fun than regular classes, so I just pretended I have a Russian accent. I still don't understand what's going on. I just didn't belong. And in the United States, everyone's like, "You're Russian.
Now go back to Russia." You're like, "You're American." I just never belonged. But Christians, we know our citizenship isn't here. We belong in Heaven. St. Paul says, "I want to go home. I've been here longer, I want to go home." Because he's been in ministry for so long, most of his friends probably passed. And the longer you live, you get to a point where you have more friends in Heaven than you do here. Where you have more family members in Heaven than you do here.
And you're like, "I think I'm ready to go." Three of my best friends died tragically in a very formative years of my life. My best friend growing up was a guy named Pete, he died. His brother was driving, they're both driving on the... They were driving to my house for bible study, and they hit black ice, and crashed. Pete died. And then, right after that, I went to Moscow for a study abroad, and my best friend there was Constantine.
And Constantine and I went to a prayer meeting together. And we do this every Wednesday. It was the two of us and three older ladies, and we had a tremendous prayer meeting. But when you pray for someone, and you do that repeatedly, you get really close to them. After I left, Constantine got married, and he and his wife, couple years later, died in a car crash coming from a Christian conference. Then, at seminary, my best friend there was a guy who struggled with mental illness, for love of the Lord.
And then, after he graduated seminary, he had a deep, deep doubt bout with his mental illness and died. And I'm meditating on like, "Why? Oh, God, what lessons are you teaching? What are you teaching me through that?" In those years, was particular really is, I think number one is this, "Jan, you got to learn to love people that are going to be gone. It's the only way to truly love someone without stiff arming them, without hedging your emotional bets."
Like, "I will love you to an extent, but you might leave." Oh, Jesus Christ love to the death. We have to love people even knowing that they die. And it's easier when you're Christians, because when you leave, if you die, we're going to see each other again. It's the only way also to stay in Boston long term, because people that you love move away. And that's a form of death. And maybe they'll come visit every once in a while. But you'll see them in Heaven.
But it's also the only way to live where you understand that God gives you this gift. You love these people while they're here. And then, you'll see them again. St. Paul says, "While we're not at home with the body, we'll be with Jesus." And that's why he says, "I'm ready to die, are you?" And you're not really ready to understand life and how to live life unless you're ready to die. And so, Paul understood this because he understood the theology of being a pilgrim or sojourner. We're just traveling through. Heaven is the destination.
Because Heaven is destination, it's the motivation for us to live for the glory of God here. And the key to travel is learn to travel light. Everyone knows how miserable travel is with suitcases. And it's miserable even with carry-ons. Travel light. Take things with you that you don't mind losing. And it makes things more enjoyable. Point four is we aim. 2 Corinthians 5:9, "So, whether we are home or away, we make it our aim to please him." He says, "This is my purpose in life.
This is what gives me passion. I don't live for myself. A lot of people are so miserable in life." Are they bored in life because they think that the point of life is to live for yourself? That's too small of an aim, too small of a goal. And St. Paul says, "I have an aim to please God. I want to get to a point where God sees me. He walked with me into Heaven." He says, "Well done, good and faithful servant." He says, "It's my aim. Sin is when we missed the mark. We missed the aim. Living for the glory of God is, I want to please God."
Some of you have heard that, if someone's Heavenly minded, they're of no earthly good, which is true in some cases. Some people when they hear, but the reality of Heaven or Jesus coming back, they check out from life. I had an uncle like this, who racked up credit card debt and would just pay the minimum because he's like, "Jesus is coming back soon, why am I going to pay?" So, I don't think he understood what Heaven is. Heaven is a physical reality.
We're going to work there. And so, we might as well start working now here. Honestly, the most spiritual people I know, the most Heavenly minded people I know have also been the most practical. The most Heavenly minded people I know understand that this world is just passing. So, they manage and steward their finances well, they understand relationships, how love people really well because they do it from perspective of eternity.
They just understand life better. And that's what St. Paul is talking about here. A lot of us, we need to transition from just praying, "Please God." You know you haven't matured yet and you're still a baby Christian where all of your prayers are, "Please God, please God, please God," and you give God your wish list. You know you begin to mature in the faith where instead of praying, "Please God," you start praying, "God, how can I please you? God, what can I do to please you?
What can I do to obey you? What can I do to bless you and bless the name of Lord?" And finally, point five is we appear. And this is verse 10, "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." Every Christian needs to understand that there's two judgments. The first judgment is, when we die, we're going to stand before the white throne of Jesus Christ.
And the judgment there is, what did you do with Jesus? Did you obey Jesus? Do you repent of your sins and believe in Jesus? If so, then you enter the presence of God. If not, you are banished from the presence of God, and you go to a place called eternal Hell of eternal conscious suffering. I had a conversation recently where the person was like, "I don't like all these churches. I talked about Hell because they tried to scare people into loving Jesus." It's not the intention.
But you don't get mad at meteorologists, when they say, "Hey, a storm is coming. Prepare." Thank them. There's a storm of God's judgment coming. And the good news doesn't make any sense at all, unless you understand the bad news. There is Hell, there is eternal damnation. Jesus Christ went through Hell so you don't have to. You just need to trust in Jesus Christ, and you are saved. And you go and spend eternity with the Lord. Now, if you... and the first judgment, if you're a Christian, you now are moved to the second judgment.
And it's called the bema, or the judgment seat of Christ. It's like a court date where you give an account for the life that you lived. You're getting account for what you did with your time, your talent and your treasure. It's not about salvation because you're already saved, but it's about service. What did you do for the Lord? It's like a performance review at work, where you get evaluated for how you work in the past quarter. And if you are nervous about your performance review, there's probably a reason that you are.
You didn't work so good. But if you're excited about, you're like, "Finally, my boss recognizes how hard I worked. I worked more than 15 hours a week like my co-workers. I actually worked, and I want to be recognized for." That's what St. Paul said. So, the second judgment is like the podium in the Olympics. It's just, "Okay, now we discern who did the most gold, silver and bronze." In God's angels, there's distinction, there's rank between the angels.
Same with us in Heaven, depending on how we live, depending on how we build. 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, "According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw," he's talking about building materials in value in descending order, depending on value.
"Each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burnt up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire." They're saying, "What are you... are you giving God your best? Or are you giving God your leftovers?"
You're just a Christian because the fire insurance, "I don't want to go to Hell." Or do you actually care about God, his glory, his work/ And what's the most important work in the world? It's glorifying God, serving him, loving him, serving our neighbors, helping them meet God, helping them learn. Your home, it can be fixed with the glory of God. Your family, your relationship, everything can be fixed. God is helpful for all of that. But your home is not the ultimate home.
The ultimate home is in Heaven. Jesus Christ left his Heavenly home. John 1 said that he tabernacled with us. He took on the tent of mortal human flesh. Live the life where Jesus didn't even have a house. He didn't have a place to place his head. He didn't have a place of his own. So, he lived in this homeless state here on earth that he created. Everything is his. And then, he goes to the cross. And on the cross, he experienced this cosmic homelessness, cosmic homesickness, cosmic loneliness where he cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus went through all of that to provide a way home for us.
And all you have to do to know that you are going home is repent of your sin, "God forgive me," confess your sin, and ask for the Lord Jesus Christ to save you, and submit your life to him as your Lord and Savior. This time we're going to transition to celebrating Holy Communion. And Holy Communion is given to us as a tangible reminder that we are to partake in a regular cadence. Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me." To remind ourselves that we need a savior.
That we're sinners. And that Jesus is that Savior. He provides the means for our salvation. For home is Holy Communion. Holy Communion is for repentant Christians. So, meaning, you have to be a Christian first, you have to repent of your sin and trust in Jesus. If you're not a Christian, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service, or become a Christian today by repenting and believing. Welcome, partake. It's also for repenting Christian.
So, if there's unrepentant sin in your life, right now is the chance for you to repent. Ask God for forgiveness, ask God to free you from that sin and to give you power over it. And if you don't, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service as well. I'm going to pray. And then, we'll partake together. As I'm praying, if you want to partake in communion, and you haven't received a cup and the bread, raise your hand.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this reminder that life is temporal, that we're femoral. We thank you for the remainder of the brevity of life, that we're here, then we're gone. Everything we see will pass, and only that which is done for the name of Jesus will last. We thank you for that remind. Jesus, we thank you for living the perfect life and then going to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. Thank you that you died, that you bore the wrath of God.
And we thank you that you didn't stay dead. We thank you that you came back from the dead, victoriously over death. Jesus, we thank you that your body was broken, and it was broken to heal us. We thank you that your blood was shed, and your blood was shed to cleanse us from our shame and our guilt. We pray that you bless our time in Holy Communion, and we pray that you bring to mind any sins right now that we haven't repented of.
We take some time to repent of pride, of selfishness, of folly, of rebellion, of self-reliance. And we thank you, Jesus, that you did everything to accomplish our salvation. Bless our time in the Holy Communion. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
