Christians are optimists. During a midsummer beach vacation, for example, there could be a cold, steady, and what most would call a mean-spirited wind for two of the five days away from home. On both stormy days, the Christian is out of the sand, dressed as best as possible (because who packs rainwear when going to the beach?). We lovers of the Word joyfully and appreciatively experience God in the gusts, sand blasts, and rain darts. Oh, and the agitated ocean churns a potent, dead fish smell.
Awful? No, this is just another way to experience God’s presence and power.
In the second of this four-part series, we begin to look at this week’s sermon title, Shine where there is darkness.
We live lives with glasses half full because we understand and embrace what Paul shares in the June 9th text that continues from last week.
Yes, we do experience darkness—vacation days or not! But focus first on the last verse of this passage as we move to Sunday, June 9th. The power, presence and positivity from Paul makes any rainy, stormy day far more bearable because we know who we are, and, even more beautifully, we know where we are going.
This week, take the last verse first, 5:1. "For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
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OUR JUNE 9th TEXT IS 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1, NLT
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13 But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.”[a] 14 We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus,[b] will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. 15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are[c] being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
New Bodies
5 For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.
Footnotes
4:13 Ps 116:10.
4:14 Some manuscripts read who raised Jesus.
4:16 Greek our inner being is.