Well, I don't know if you are one of those kinds of people that likes to read the last chapter of a book first, just so you know where it's going. Well, I'm going to give you the last chapter first this evening. Here it is. Ultimately, hope is not so much a matter of your circumstances, but a matter of your eyes. Now that doesn't seem right. It seems like people who have good circumstances would be the most hopeful people, and people who have bad circumstances would be the ones who struggle the most with hope.
Those Who Suffered Most Hoped Most
But if you study people who have hope, you'll find that many of the people who have the most hope, who were the most motivated, and the most productive, were people who suffered the most. Look, if you would, at page 9 in your 'Order of Worship.' I really do want to start at the bottom of this passage; (I Corinthians 4), look at verse 16: "So we do not lose heart." Wouldn't you like to be that kind of person? Wouldn't you like to be the kind of person, that no matter what you face, no matter how dark, no matter how difficult, no matter how much those things would push you beyond the normal range of your strength, and the normal range of your wisdom, the normal range of your ability to figure it out, the normal things that you would depend on, all of those things gone, yet, you would not lose heart?
Wouldn't you like to be that kind of person? Well, notice what Paul says in verse 18. "...as we look not to things that are seen but to the things that are unseen." Now, think about this. Clearly, in that sentence, Paul is talking about something other than your physical eyes. Because I don't know if you have figured this out or not, but your physical eyes cannot see things that are unseen. They are called unseen because you can't see them. And so, he's talking about something else. Actually, as a human being, you have two vision systems that the Bible talks about.
You have your physical eyes, and then you have the 'eyes of the heart.' That's that particular lens that you look through life at. The inner eyes are what determine what your outer eyes happen to see and pay attention to and notice. A psychologist calls that 'perception.' We don't all perceive life the same way. My sons were skateboarders, and they, as teenagers, looked at life through the lens of a skateboarder. I would look out the window; I would see a building with railings and steps, and I'd be sort of looking at the architecture.
My sons would see skateable turf because that's the lens that they were looking through. That was valuable to them and of enjoyable importance in that point in their life, and so life was skateable turf. I remember once after listening to these conversations, driving through the city of Philadelphia and looking out the window, and saying to myself, "You could skate that," although I've never skateboarded in my life, the influence of my sons. Something is conditioning the way that you look at your world.
And, Paul is talking about this magnificent, mysterious, dangerous ability that all of us have to somehow have this lens that we look through that sort of interprets what life is to us, what life means to us. Now, back to the question: Wouldn't you like to be a person that doesn't lose heart? Paul says, "We don't lose heart because of what we're looking at. We're not fixing our eyes on just the 'seen' world, but on what is unseen." What are those unseen realities that Paul says you have to get a hold of if you're ever going to live in this fallen world and not lose heart?
Well, look at the beginning of the passage, verse seven. Here's the first thing: If you want to not lose heart, you need to remember that you do not need to be afraid of your weaknesses. You do not need to be afraid of your weaknesses, but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Hear this. You were never hardwired to be independently capable, independently strong, independently wise. You were never created to have hope based on your strength and your wisdom.
Created for Dependence
If you are a human being, and you're here because you are, you were created to live in a dependent relationship with God. Adam and Eve were not capable of independence even though they lived as perfect people, in a perfect world, in a perfect relationship with God. To be human is to be weak; to be human is to be needy; to be human is to need something bigger than myself upon which to depend. Your weakness is not an obstacle to true and lasting hope. Here's a second thing: Not only do you not need to be afraid of your weakness, you can know if you're God's child that God's power is with you.
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. If you were actually holding a jar of clay, a weak vessel that, if you dropped it, it would break, and it was filled with gold, what would you be excited about? Well, clearly, the answer is you would be excited about what is inside of the vessel. God is willing for your weakness to show in order that you would remember that your hope is not in your strength, but your hope is in this miraculous thing that happened.
God has not only forgiven you, God has not only guaranteed for you a future, but, (Hear this!) God, by the gift of His Spirit, has come to live inside of you. God, in His power, now lives in you. Did you live last week like you believe that?...That the surpassing power of God lives inside of you, power that was given for those things that you face in your marriage, power that was given for those inner struggles that you don't seem to be able to conquer, power that was given so you could properly respond to those huge disappointments and relationships that everybody faces some time in life in a fallen world, power to face the obstacles and difficulties of this world that doesn't operate the way that it's supposed to, power to deal with your children when you're exhausted, you don't know what to do, and you don't know what to say, power to deal with ways of hopelessness and despair that hit you in ways that you haven't expected, power to deal with those circumstances that you never thought you would have to deal with, power to deal with the difficulty of physical sickness?
Do you say to yourself, "Power has been given to me because this God of glorious power, power that surpasses anything I could ever imagine, this God now lives inside of me?" Third thing: You can rest assured that God will not lose you to your circumstances. Look at what Paul says, We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
God would not have sent His son to suffer and die for you, to provide for you the grace that you need, to not only be adopted into His family, and not only be guaranteed an eternity, but to live between then and then, and lose you to difficulty. God is with you; the life of Jesus lives inside of you. And although it may seem like life just marches toward death, but you're always dealing with suffering, and disappointment, and brokenness, and rejection, surprises that you do not want to deal with.
Paul says, "Don't you understand that the life of Jesus is being manifested in all of those things because, as your weakness is revealed, His strength, His grace is shown forth?" There's a fourth thing, this is an amazing thing. You need to know that God will use your suffering to bring life and hope to others. Look at verse 11: For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.
Pressed Beyond Wisdom and Strength
This morning, as our pastor was speaking to us, he gave story after story of people who were pressed way beyond their wisdom, way beyond their strength, and continued to believe. The suffering of those people now becomes reason for hope for us. God wants to do that for all of us. God wants to use you as a case study of hope in the life of other people. So God will do something that you may not be excited about; God will push you beyond your wisdom; God will push you beyond your strength so that He will be able to show His grace through you.
I think we sort of want to be the painting that people look at, and they will look at us and say, "Oh, if I could just be like this person." Here's what God actually has in mind; He wants you to be a window to His glory, so people look through you, through your weakness, through your failure, through your struggle, through your confusion, and what they see is Him, and they're brought to put hope in Him. A fifth thing: You need to know that the grace of renewal is working in you daily. Look at what Paul says, "So we do not lose heart.
Though our outer nature is wasting away, (verse 16) our inner nature is being renewed day by day." John says, "The spirit that is given is like rivers of living water bubbling up inside of you." God is alive inside of you, and He is renewing you day by day. God is growing you; God is changing you. If you would just do this for me, turn in your Bibles; you have to get them out of the pew there, to Isaiah 55. This is an amazing word picture here, verse 10. 'For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it spring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. (Now, listen to what it says.) Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.' Now, think about the word picture here. Think about the kind of renewal that God works through His Spirit, through His Word in our lives.
Now, think about this weird metaphor. Normally, when it rains on a thorn bush, and that thorn bush takes in the rain, you actually get (what?) a much bigger thorn bush. When it rains on a brier, what you actually get is a much bigger, brier. But that's not what this passage says. It says, "Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle." This is not renewal that just grows you. This is renewal that radically changes the content of who you are. This renewal means that foolish people become wise; fearful people become bold; sinful people become holy; selfish people become givers; angry people become peaceful.
When God renews you, the result is a radical, personal change. And yes, this outward man is decaying. If you haven't noticed, it is. And, we don't like that, and we fear that. But the reality is that, as that outward process of decay goes on, something amazing is happening by God's grace. You are becoming, by the progressive work of His Spirit, a different person. Praise him! I will confess to you. The people who live with me know this. I don't need just to grow; I need to change; I need to become a different person; I need to become more loving, and more kind, and more peaceful, and more committed to giving, and serving.
I need to love God more than I love myself; I need to love His law more than I love my will and my way, and so do you. And when Paul says, "Yes, the physical self is decaying, but inwardly, we are being renewed," he's talking about an amazing process of radical, personal change where the content and character of your heart changes. You're not a bigger rendition of you; by His grace, you are a renewed, different rendition of you. How's that for hope? And, I have to say this, because I'm your pastor, "Ten out of ten people in this room need that kind of renewal; you need it."
A Sixth Thing
If you doubt me, ask the people who live with you. They will give you empirical evidence of your need. Back to II Corinthians 4, there is a sixth thing: If you're going to have hope, if you're not going to be a person who loses heart, you need to know that this present struggle isn't all there is. You need to celebrate your future. Paul argues very powerfully in I Corinthians that Christianity makes no sense without eternity. If only in this life we have Jesus, we are of all people most miserable.
Christianity needs an eternity where all of the suffering, and all of the sin, and all of the sorrow will be forever over when God finally renews all of creation, and we will live with Him, and will be like Him forever. Now here's what he says, "For this light (slight) momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." Now, there are some in this room tonight, you may hear this slight and momentary affliction, and you may say, "I take offense to that. I don't know what this guy is saying, because, Paul, what I'm going through seems neither slight nor momentary.
I wake up in the morning, and I don't know how I'm going to make it through, and it seems to me like what I've been going through has been going on forever. I'm tired of it. What in the world can he mean when he says, 'This is slight and momentary?'" Paul would not for a moment denigrate your suffering. Scripture doesn't denigrate human suffering. In fact, the Bible is very, very honest at moments, shockingly honest about the things we face. But Paul is asking you to put on these glasses that give you the final chapter of the story.
You cannot understand this story if you are trapped in the experience of the here and now, and you can't see the past, and you can't see the future. You will never ever have a proper perspective on the here and now if all you have is the here and now. And so, he says, "In light of eternity, in light of the glory that we will face, that actually goes beyond anything we have the ability to comprehend". If you could comprehend the most beautiful, peaceful scene, way beyond anything you ever would expect to experience, it still doesn't capture where we are going.
And that unbelievable future, that future that you can't comprehend will go on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, forever. And from the perspective of forever, these 70-80- 90 years that seem like they would never end, will be like a vapor, like a flash, like a brief dream that's gone when you awake. Hope is about grabbing on to the future with both hands and not letting go till you are there. Now, here's the discipline, and for this, we need grace. Paul says, "The reason we don't lose heart is because we fix our eyes on these realities, the reality that I don't need to be afraid of my weakness, the reality that God's power is always with me, the reality that God will not lose me to my circumstances, the reality that God will use my weakest moments to shine forth His glory in the eyes of others, the reality that I'm daily being renewed, the reality that, if I'm God's child, I have a future that's guaranteed.
This is not all there is. And so, what we must do is discipline ourselves to look at the physical circumstances of the here and now with all of their disappointment, with all of their confusion, with all of their suffering, through the lens of these things that are true. Now, I want to make a distinction for this is very important. This passage is not a call to deny reality. Denial of reality never leads to hope because it doesn't work. Reality has a way of pushing at you. This is not about denying reality.
Do You?
This is about a way of looking at reality that believes the truths of the Gospel. Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you lose hope when you can't figure things out? Do you lose hope when you feel like you've gotten something you don't deserve? Do you lose hope when you can't escape emotional or physical pain? Do you lose hope when you're at the end of your personal and material resources; you don't know what's coming next? Are your eyes dominated by what is seen so that you forget the unseen realities that are given to you as a child of God?
You see, you can't think of this passage without thinking about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, about His life, His suffering, and His death because Jesus, not only suffered and died and rose again for your past forgiveness, and for your future with Him, but for the things that you face in the here and now. So that in the midst of weakness, in the midst of suffering, in the midst of the harsh realities of life in a fallen world, you would not have to lose heart because He is in you; He is with you; He is for you; He is renewing you, and He is marching you to something that's so wonderful, we can't wrap human thinking around it.
When is the last time that you lost heart? You can be a person, by God's grace, who does not lose heart even though you're way beyond your wisdom, and way beyond your strength because of God's amazing grace. Let's pray: Lord, for some of us this evening as Your children, we would have to confess that we often fail to look at our lives through the lens of these realities. We often act like we are alone, and we do panic. We do run; we try to deny, and we try to avoid, but we always end up hopeless and feeling helpless.
Lord, I pray that we would, with celebration and discipline, remember who we are and what we've been given, remember that although we're weak, we were never meant to live independently. And, although we lack power, Your power has been given in the presence of Your Spirit. And, although our circumstances sometimes are very weighty and very difficult, You fight for us, and You renew us in the midst of those circumstances, and Your grace is with us and, not only are You growing us, You are changing us along the way.
And, sometimes, Lord, in our weakest moments, we become our most effective as Your instruments of hope. And, all of this is marching us toward something that is too wonderful for words. We forget. Oh, Lord, help us to remember, and in remembering, may we be strong in heart. Lord, maybe there are people in the room this evening who have never trusted You, who have never come to that realization that they were never meant to live by themselves and for themselves, that they were created to live for You and to live through You.
That's the nature of the human life. And, Lord, I pray if for the first time they're hearing these truths, I pray that they would reach out to You, that they would reach out for Your forgiveness and for Your grace, and that they would know the kind of hope that can only be known when life is in Your hands. And, we thank you for Jesus; we thank you for His willingness to subject Himself to this kind of suffering, to subject Himself to a broken world that doesn't work the way it's supposed to, to subject Himself to torment and mockery and physical torture, even Your rejection so that this kind of hope, this kind of strength of heart could be our actual experience between the time we come to You and the time we go home to be with You. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for His grace. May we have sturdy hope. In Jesus name, Amen.
