God is changing my story of prayer through Tim Keller’s book on prayer.

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Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:4-9.

INTRODUCTION

Most of us in Michigan have been on at least one camping experiences that ended up soggy and cold. It always starts off so bright and happy but all it takes is one summer storm to wipe out our tents and soak everything. We try to persevere for the sake of the kids, but we’re absolutely miserable and so are all the other damp adults in the campground. Unhappy campers, we’re just longing for it to be over so we can get back to our warm homes and cozy beds.

In 2 Corinthians 5:1-5, the Apostle Paul says Christians are unhappy campers, longing and groaning for home. He uses camping language to explain the connection between our present earthly experience and our future heavenly experience and how we should relate to both. So, how should we feel on earth about heaven?

BACKGROUND

In chapter four, Paul gave six reasons why the Corinthians should not lose heart in the midst of their sufferings. The last few reasons were focused on the increased heavenly glory that awaited them after earthly sufferings.

In chapter five, Paul continues to focus the Corinthians on what that ultimate heavenly glory will look like, by zooming in on the glorious resurrection body that God had prepared for each of them and guides them in how they should feel about that.

How should I feel on earth about heaven?

1. WE GROAN FOR GLORY (1-4)

Paul uses three illustrations—camping, clothing, and eating—to help the Corinthians develop a healthy relationship with their present earthly bodies and their future heavenly bodies.

We groan for a glorious new home

Paul compares our present earthly body to a tent and our future heavenly body to a building. 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 (1). As a tentmaker himself, Paul knew that, like a tent, our present body is frail, temporary, vulnerable, unstable, and will eventually be torn down. In contrast, our future heavenly body is a building from God, a building constructed by God, and is as eternal as God. ‘We have’ indicates that God has already designed this body for us.

How does that future body affect our present experience? Paul combines great confidence (We know…) with great groaning (for in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling). His great confidence about his future body brings with it deep groans of anticipation while still in his present body (Rom. 8:23).

We groan for glorious new clothes

Staying with the same truth but changing the picture from a new building to new clothes, Paul says, 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 would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed (3-4). We are clothed with our present body (our earthly state), we will be unclothed when we die (we have no body in the intermediate state), and will be clothed again at the resurrection (eternal state). We don’t just groan for a new tent, but for a new set of clothes.

We groan for a glorious new life

Paul introduces a third picture, that of something smaller being eaten by something bigger. So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life (4). We’re like little fish swimming along happily when a much bigger fish (death) swallows us in one gulp, only for that bigger fish to be swallowed up immediately by the biggest fish of all (eternal life). Earthly life is swallowed by death which is swallowed by eternal life. We groan for this too, not to be swallowed by death but for death to be swallowed by life.

CHANGING OUR STORIES WITH GOD’S STORY

We groan in our tent, in our old clothes, and as a little meal being prepared for death’s swallow. But we also groan for God’s building, our new clothes, and for death to be swallowed by life. As such it’s not a despairing groaning but a hopeful groaning, a positive groaning, a groaning not just to escape the tent but to get into our heavenly body. We groan like children waiting for Christmas with impatient excitement.

How can we be sure that our groaning will end?

2. WE’RE GUARANTEED GLORY (5)

God prepares us for glory

He who has prepared us for this very thing is God (5).

God is preparing two houses for us. The first is heaven itself (John 14:2-3) and the second is our resurrection body. The latter preparation involves not only preparing a body for us, but preparing us for that body. When he brings us together with that body we will fit it and it will fit us perfectly. That’s so rare isn’t it. We’ve never had a house, or new clothes, or a meal that’s been just 100% perfect. But this will be a perfect fit and part of that fitting, that preparation, is the groaning that we experience here on earth as we await our resurrection bodies.

God guarantees glory

God….has given us the Spirit as a guarantee (5)

We’ve all had the experience of preparing for something that doesn’t actually happen. It may be a meal, or a trip. We can’t wait for a vacation but then something unexpected happened, like COVID-19, and all our preparations were in vain.

How can we be sure that all our groaning and all of God’s preparations will result in glory for him and for us? How can we be confident that we will get the new body, the new building, the new clothes, we’ve been groaning for?

The groaning itself is the guarantee. ‘Guarantee’ is the word for an engagement ring that secures the relationship until the marriage. Groaning for glory is the guarantee of glory because it’s evidence of the Spirit’s work in preparing us for glory. God guarantees us a glorious resurrection body by preparing it himself in heaven, and preparing us for it on earth. Spirit-worked groaning in our tent is the downpayment on the building God is constructing for us.

CHANGING OUR STORIES WITH GOD’S STORY

Every time you groan for your glory-body, God is guaranteeing your glory body. Every groan here below is a Spirit-worked deposit that assures us of a secure home above. God gives us groans for glory to assure us of glory.

SUMMARY

PRAYER

Give me groans while I camp, to guarantee glory when I’m torn down.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How would you describe your changing relationship with your present body?

2. What’s the difference between groaning and moaning?

3. What does Romans 8:22-27 teach you about who groaning?

4. What do you most look forward to about your resurrection body?

5. How can you increase your groaning?

6. How can you increase your spiritual confidence and assurance?

PDF of Sermon Notes

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever felt down and out? So down and out that you’ve thought you’ll never be up and in again? You had great hopes and dreams, but now you feel like a nobody, doing a nothing job, with a nothing future. Life is hard, worship is cold, loneliness is your only friend. You’re down and out. How do we get up and in when we’re down and out? I’ve asked that question more than once in my life.

No one was more down and out that Moses. Turn to Exodus 3:1-10 and watch as God helps him up and in again.

BACKGROUND

Exodus 1 ends with Israel suffering cruel oppression under a new Pharaoh. Exodus 2 ends with Israel crying out to the Lord in agony. Exodus 3 opens with Moses shepherding sheep in the desert. All looks bleak and hopeless both for Israel and Moses.

How can God help people who are at their lowest point? 

1. GOD COMES DOWN (1-6)

Moses was down

Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God (1)

It’s forty years since Moses fled from Egypt in Exodus 2. He was a prince in Egypt and now he’s a poor shepherd in the desert (1). He’d fallen from a great height to a great depth. He’s 80 years old and his life and usefulness looks over.

God came down

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush (2)

God came down at the most unexpected time and in the most unexpected way. Although Moses did not realize it initially, this was the Son of God who came down to the deep hole he was in. How do we know this was the Son of God?

• The narrator (Moses) writes that it is God (4, 7, 11)
• The Messenger says he is God (6)
• Moses calls him God (13)
• Moses required to remove his shoes in the presence of God (5)
• Moses is afraid to look at God (6)
• Deuteronomy 33:16 says it was God present with good will towards his people.
• God only communicates with people through his Son (Jn. 1:14, 18; 14:6; 1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 1:3).

This was God, yet he came down to a desert bush. He didn’t speak out of a stately cedar, out of a beautiful flower, or out of a fruitful tree, but out of a desert thornbush, the kind of worthless bush that Moses had grown so familiar with in his 40 years of shepherding in that barren wilderness.Other Old Testament passages use branches and bushes as emblems of humiliation (Jd. 9:15), and especially of the future Messiah’s humiliation (Isa.11:1; 53:2; Jer. 23:5, 33:15; Zech. 3:8).

As Moses asked the meaning of this bush that burned without being consumed (7), so must we. Fire was a frequent evidence of God’s presence (pillar of cloud and fire), but also of God’s judgment. Was this perhaps a prophetic picture not only of the Messiah’s humiliation but of his suffering God’s wrath?

CHANGING OUR STORIES WITH GOD’S STORY

No matter how far down we are, God can come down to our level. He comes to where we are, he comes in a lowly condition, he comes to our level. How amazing for the Son of God to experience this ‘coming down’ even before he came down at Christmas. What insight he must have gained into his great future work as he humbled himself and was burned without being consumed. How encouraging for all of us who are down that Jesus comes all the way down to us.

What does God actually do when he comes down?

2. GOD COMES NEAR (7-9)

Moses had powerless pity

Moses asked many painful questions as he wandered the wilderness for 40 years. He had seen the awful conditions of God’s covenant people in Egypt. He had heard their bitter cries under the lash of their tyrannical Egyptian masters. From meeting in the wilderness with those who travelled through Egypt, he would have known that, forty years on, conditions were no better only worse. Where was the Lord? Did God not see this? Did God not hear? Did God not know about his people’s sufferings? And if he did see, hear, and know, why was He doing nothing about it? Moses had lots of pity but no power. He could come near in his heart but not with his hands.

God had powerful pity

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them…And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. (7-8, 9).

God answers Moses’ questions right away. “I’ve seen, I’ve heard, I know, and I’ve come.” He saw, heard, and felt every lash, every pain, every cry. He had not forgotten them but he didn’t step in earlier because he wanted them to get to the point where they all wanted to leave Egypt and never return. Now the time was right.

But he didn’t only pity, he also exercised his power. He not only saw, heard, and knew, he was now acting to deliver them. Having assured Moses, of his eyes, his ears, and his mind, he now assures them of his almighty hand. He could not only feel pity like Moses he could do something about it (unlike Moses).

Moses is sitting back, saying, “Great, I can’t wait to see this deliverance!” But God says, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt” (10). These were the last words Moses expected to hear. Instead of, “Come, watch me deliver Israel,” it was “Come, I will send you to deliver Israel.” God could do this himself directly but instead chooses to save through a go-between. When everything’s broken, God sends a broker.

CHANGING OUR STORIES WITH GOD’S STORY

Some of us lack pity. We find it hard to enter into others’ suffering. Instead of drawing near, we run away and avoid. Instead of putting our arm round the suffering, we give them a hand-off. Jesus is the most sympathetic person that ever lived, even more so now that he’s actually lived in human flesh in our fallen world. The pity and compassion that brought him to earth, and showed on earth has been multiplied by his time on earth

We all lack power. We can have lots of pity but be unable to help. Our hearts are moved but we can’t move a hand to help. Jesus combines perfect pity and perfect power (Heb. 4:15-16). There’s no lack of pity or power. He has the power not only to deliver from the slavery of sin but to bring us into the freedom of worship (Ex. 3:12; Lk. 4:18, 19:10; Heb. 4:15-16). Pity without power is as bad as power without pity. Christ had and has both.

SUMMARY

PRAYER

Super Sympathizer, come down to our low level, and come near with your powerful pity, so that the down and out can get up and in.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What Bible passages have helped you when you’ve felt down and out and forgotten?

2. What message was the Son of God communicating by choosing to be in the burning bush?

3. When have you felt powerless pity?

4. How can you increase your sympathy for others?

5. Why is Jesus’s powerful pity such a comfort to us?

6. What does Christ coming before Christmas tell you about Christ’s coming at Christmas?

PDF of Sermon Notes

Jo bought a house this week and learned a valuable spiritual lesson about termites.

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Reading: Matthew 12:43-45

Jo De Blois is Chief of Staff at Puritan Reformed Seminary

If your story is dominated by ‘To do’ lists and ‘If only’ lists, Meribeth has a liberating message for you.

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Reading: Hebrews 9:14

Meribeth Schierbeek is a biblical counselor for woman.

As Christians, we often struggle with speaking the truth in love and hearing the truth in love. I recently came across a business book which has helped me with both.

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Reading: Ephesians 4:15; Proverbs 27:5-6.