KEEPING OUR FOCUS ON THE ETERNAL

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 27, 2024 under 2024 |

Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message from October 27, 2024 from 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Theme: We will not lose heart in our Christian life and service if we keep our focus on that which is eternal.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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Therefore we do not lose heart.
Even though our outward man is perishing,
yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,
while we do not look at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporary,
but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

* * * * * * * * * *

Consider those first few words: “Therefore we do not lose heart …” In them, the apostle Paul affirmed that he and his co-workers in the ministry of the gospel didn’t get discouraged in their walk with the Lord or quit in their service to Him. But at the time that he wrote those words, he had a lot of reasons—humanly speaking—why he might have been tempted to lose heart.

You see; at the very beginning of his second letter to the Corinthians, he told the Corinthian believers that he and his team had experienced terrible trouble in their ministry. He said, in fact, that it was so terrible that they were burdened beyond measure, and were suffering above their strength to cope. He didn’t say what that trouble was, but he said that it was so terrible that they “despaired even of life” (2 Corinthians 1:8). Whatever this trial was, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to survive it; and perhaps was even tempted to give up on life altogether.

He immediately affirmed that God strengthened him and saw him through. But when you consider his whole story, it’s hard to imagine someone who suffered more in his service to the Lord Jesus Christ than Paul did. Later in this letter—in Chapter 11—he affirmed that his integrity in ministry was proven by the many things he suffered along the way:

… in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness—besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation? (11:23-28).

If someone were to try to make the case that serving Jesus will lead to an easy life, they certainly couldn’t use the apostle Paul as an example of it. When Jesus called him to Himself, He even said, “I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). It certainly seems as if the Lord did show that to him! And yet amazingly—in spite of it all—Paul was able to say, “Therefore we do not lose heart …” He didn’t become discouraged and defeated. He didn’t quit; but—in spite of the troubles—he kept on serving the Lord joyfully and sacrificially.

And in this morning’s passage, he shows us the secret to his ongoing encouragement in the service of the Lord.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now, think of what he said—that he and his co-workers didn’t “lose heart”. In the original language of Paul’s letter, the word that he used—egkakeō—means ‘to become despondent’ or ‘faint-hearted’ in a work or task of some kind; to basically ‘lose one’s motivation’ or ‘zeal’ and to ‘grow weary’ …particularly in the service of the Lord. And as it turns out, this is something that the Bible warns us about repeatedly.

Let me share with you a few other places in the New Testament where this same word shows up. The Lord Jesus, for example, once told the parable about the persistent widow who sought justice from an unjust judge. And in Luke 18:1, the telling of the parable was begun with these words:

Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart… (Luke 18:1).

The apostle Paul used that same word in Galatians 6. He had told the Galatian believers to remember that we reap what we sow—that if we sow to the flesh we’ll reap corruption, but if we sow to the Spirit we’ll reap everlasting life. And then he said—in Galatians 6:9;

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart (Galatians 6:9).

He used this same word in Ephesians 3. He wrote to his brothers and sisters about all the things he had to endure in bringing the gospel to them—even to the point of suffering imprisonment for them; and told them, in Ephesians 3:13;

Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory (Ephesians 3:13).

In 2 Thessalonians 3, the apostle Paul had something very interesting to say about this. He was writing to the Thessalonian believers about the problem of some within the church who were responding to the promise of the Lord’s return in a very wrong way. They had become lazy and were simply looking up to the sky … no longer working … no longer living productively. He told the Thessalonian believers not to let that happen to them; telling them,

But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good (2 Thessalonians 3:13).

So you see; this is a very serious danger in the Christian life. The hardships that often come with following Jesus in a fallen world—the trials and tribulations that we might undergo—and even the distractions of life—can tempt us to let the fire of our zeal for the Lord go out; and we can ‘lose heart’ in our walk with Him. We’ve all known professing Christians to whom that has happened, don’t we? They used to be on fire for the Lord—excited to tell others about Him—greatly motivated to live faithfully for Him; but somehow, ‘life happened’ to them in such a way as to cause them to lose heart. It might be that they started out laboring hard for the Lord, but over time felt as if they hadn’t accomplished anything. It might be that they found out that walking with Jesus in this fallen world seemed to have brought more troubles in their lives than they expected. But however it came about, they ‘lost heart’. In the days to come, there might be even more hardship and trials that come our way because of our faith in Jesus … and the temptation to ‘lose heart’ might become even greater.

And that’s why we should pay particular attention to Paul’s words; “Therefore we do not lose heart …” In this morning’s passage, the apostle Paul tells us how it was that—in spite of all that he and his co-workers suffered in their labors for the Lord—they didn’t lose their zeal. They didn’t become weary and quit. They didn’t lose heart. In fact, they even had an experience of ongoing enthusiasm and encouragement in their service to the Lord. I want that too; don’t you?

In 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Paul tells us that the secret was in what he habitually kept his focus upon.  He tells us that it was a matter of knowing what God was doing in his inner being, of trusting in what God was producing through trials and afflictions, and of deliberately—intentionally—choosing to keep his gaze fixed on unseen spiritual realities in Christ.  Together, this shows us that we will not lose heart in our Christian life and service if we keep our focus on that which is eternal.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Now; let’s look at these three ‘habits of focus’ that we need to put into practice. First, in verse 14, we see that Paul wrote, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” And this teaches us that we keep the right focus by …

1. KNOWING THAT OUR INNER MAN IS BEING RENEWED.

Consider carefully the word “therefore”.  It’s meant to point our attention backward to the thing that Paul had just written. And what he had just written about was his sense of how he carried out the ministry of the service of the Lord in a frail human body. In verse 7, he wrote;

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us (2 Corinthians 4:7).

The ‘treasure’ he had was the glorious ministry of preaching the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. It’s the greatest message any human being can ever proclaim; because that good news is “the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16a). It’s the greatest life-transforming force in the world. And yet, Paul recognized that he fulfilled this glorious ministry in a frail, weak, mortal body. He had this unspeakably great ‘treasure’ in ‘an earthen vessel’—a precious commodity that was stored up and carried around in a frail clay jar.

But this, he affirmed, only served to show forth the greatness of the power of the gospel itself—and of the mighty God who empowered that gospel. He went on to say;

We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh (vv. 8-11).

And so; he rejoiced that—even though his ‘earthen vessel’ underwent ongoing struggle and decay and death—the Lord was working through him to cause the gospel to go forth and to powerfully transform lives. “Therefore”, he and his co-workers didn’t “lose heart”.

And notice how he applied this to himself in a personal way. He went on to say that even though his ‘outward man’ was decaying, his ‘inward man’ was being renewed ‘day by day’.  His ‘inward man’ speaks of that spiritual aspect of his being that related directly to the Lord. And it was constantly being renewed; even though the ‘outward man’—that aspect of his physical being that could be seen, and that could be touched, and that lived in the midst of the troubles and afflictions of this world—was undergoing continual destruction.

We should be very careful how we understand this. That ‘outward man’ is not something bad or in opposition to the ‘inward man’.  The apostle Paul once wrote about putting off the ‘old man’ and putting on the ‘new man’ in Christ; but that’s not what he’s talking about here. The ‘outward man’ is something that God made. It’s an essential part of our whole personhood before God. It’s that frail ‘jar of clay’ that God has given us in which to live for Him on this earth, and in which to serve Him in this world. But in its present condition, this ‘outward man’ is only meant to last for a while. Unless the Lord Jesus returns soon, it will die and will need to be placed in the ground. It is destined to be raised up one day in glory at the coming of the Lord. But for now, it is weak and frail; and it sometimes burdens us with hindrances. Many of the things we suffer in it can discourage us. The apostle Paul wrote about it in Chapter 5—calling it a ‘tent’.  A ‘tent’ is just a temporary structure; and he wrote;

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:1-8).

Now, dear brothers and sisters; the aspect of our being that, when ‘absent from the body’ is ‘present with the Lord’, is our ‘inward man’.  And we’re to make sure that we know—with absolute confidence of faith—that even though our ‘outward man’ is continually growing old, and is suffering trouble and affliction, and will eventually die, our ‘inward man’ is in a continual state of renewal every day. The outward troubles we increasingly experience in the body cannot in any way halt the ongoing growth of our spirit before the Lord. As Paul put it in Romans 8:35-39;

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39).

And so, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; do you know this? Do you really ‘know’ it? Are you ‘persuaded’ of it?  If so, then even if you do experience some periods of discouragement, you will not ultimately ‘lose heart’ in your life and service to the Lord Jesus.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; Paul then went on to say, in verse 17, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory …” And this brings us to another ‘habit of focus’ that we need to be putting into practice; and that is to be …

2. TRUSTING THAT OUR AFFLICTIONS PRODUCE GLORY (v. 17).

Now; in these words, Paul speaks of how something is being used by God to produce something else in our lives.  And there’s an amazing symmetry to the way in which he tells us this.  He speaks of something ‘light’—that is to say, ‘not heavy’ or ‘not substantial’—that then goes on to produce something ‘weighty’ or ‘heavy’ or significant’.  He also speaks of something called ‘affliction’—that is to say, some kind of distressing circumstance or trial—that then goes on to produce ‘glory’.  And he speaks of something that is ‘for a moment’—that is to say, something ‘temporary’ and ‘fleeting’—that then goes on to produce something ‘eternal’.  He is telling us that the momentary, light affliction that we may suffer in our ‘outward man’—our ‘earthen vessel’—is actually being used by God to produce for us an eternal weight of glory that will far surpass it.

Think of what the Bible tells us about this. In Romans 8:28-30 for example, Paul wrote;

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.  Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified (Romans 8:28-30).

This teaches us that our good heavenly Father is in absolute control over the things that come into the lives of those who are redeemed by the blood of His Son.  They are loved by Him, and He won’t let anything into their lives except what will accomplish His good purposes for them.  Even the hard trials that afflict us are used by God to perfect us, and to bring us into conformity with the glory of His precious Son Jesus.  Those trials are used by Him to produce an ‘eternal weight of glory’ in us.

We see the same thing expressed to us in 1 Corinthians 10:13. There we’re told;

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Every trial—every temptation—every affliction that may come our way in life—must pass our heavenly Father’s approval; and can only come into our lives if it’s something that He knows we can endure with complete faith and trust in Him. He will only permit something to impact our ‘outward man’ if it will be useful to Him in strengthening our ‘inward’ man toward that ‘eternal weight of glory’.

And this is something that you and I are called upon to ‘trust’.  We show that trust by looking beyond the ‘light momentary affliction’ to the ‘eternal weight of glory’ that God is producing in us through it, and by submitting to His good will through it. As Pastor James wrote in James 1:2-4;

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James 1:2-4).

Now, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; do you trust that this is so? Do you count it as fact that the ‘momentary light afflictions’ that God has allowed to come upon you are truly producing an ‘eternal weight of glory’ for you?  If you do, then those times of affliction will not ultimately defeat you; and you will not ultimately ‘lose heart’ in your faith and service to the Lord.

* * * * * * * * * *

So; Paul has shown us two important ‘habits of focus’ that keep us from losing heart. The first is by knowing that our inward man is being renewed; and the second is by trusting that our afflictions are producing glory. A third and final habit is found in verse 18. Paul writes, “while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

In other words, a final habit we need to practice is that of …

3. CHOOSING TO KEEP OUR GAZE FIXED UPON THE UNSEEN.

Now, that sounds like a strange thing to try to do; doesn’t it?—to ‘not look at the things which are seen, but to look instead at the things which are not seen’? Is Paul telling us to pretend that the troubles and afflictions we see aren’t really there? How can someone look at what isn’t visible to the eye?

We shouldn’t think that Paul was telling us to become unrealistic about the painful afflictions and trials that burden us. We have to look at those trials. They’re real—and what’s more, they’re really painful. But instead, what we should understand Paul to be telling us is to make sure that the priority of our focus isn’t on those trials, but rather on the eternal realities that God is bringing about through them. It’s hard not to automatically fret about those trials and afflictions. But the key is what we do when we begin to feel ourselves fretting. We’re to change our focus and view those trials—that we see with our eyes—in the greater light of the things that we can only see by the eyes of faith.

A good way to understand this is from what Paul wrote in Colossians 3:1-4. He wrote;

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:1-4).

That’s what Paul meant when he said we’re to ‘not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen’.  We’re destined for eternal glory in Christ; and we’re to set our minds—not on the temporal ‘seen’ things that we suffer—but rather on the eternal ‘unseen’ things that God is bringing about for us in Christ through those trials. Those ‘seen’ trials are necessary for God’s purpose for us; but they’re only temporary.  At the time that we’re going through them, of course, they seem to be very long and very hard.  But as Paul once said;

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:18).

The glory that will be revealed in us when Jesus receives us to Himself was what Paul kept the focus of his attention upon.  He made a conscious decision to keep his gaze upon that ‘not-yet-seen’ eternal glory.

And dear brothers and sisters in Christ; is that what you do? Is that the choice you habitually make? Do you choose to focus your main attention, not on the things you suffer presently, but on the glory that will be enjoyed with Christ eternally? Do you choose to see your ‘momentary light afflictions’ in the greater light of the ‘eternal weight of glory’ that is being produced through them? If you do—if that is your intentional ‘habit of focus’—then you will not lose heart in your Christian life and service.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; that’s what Paul and his co-workers did. That was his secret to ongoing encouragement in his hard labors for the Lord Jesus. It was how he kept from ‘losing heart’.

But we would have a right to ask Paul, “Did it work? Did you really stay encouraged all the way to the end? Is it true that you didn’t ‘lose heart’ and give up?”  Well; let’s read what he said at the end of his life on this earth. Just before he laid down his life for the Lord Jesus, he wrote;

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

I’d say Paul didn’t lose heart; wouldn’t you? He remained faithful to the very end; and for the past nineteen and a half centuries, he’s been blissfully enjoying the glory of the Lord. And dear brothers and sisters, you and I will also not lose heart in our Christian life and service—and will stay faithful and joyful to the very end—if we too keep our focus on that which is eternal.

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