Here's a segment of a sermon I preached two weeks ago at Grapevine in Lyle's absence. My thoughts were taken out of 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:5:
Paul makes a beautiful comparison here between earthly things and heavenly things; between the temporary and the eternal. However his words hit me hard, because if I asked a show of hands of how many in this room want to go to heaven, without a doubt every hand would be raised. But if I asked you for an honest answer to the question how many of you want to go right this very moment…how many of us, myself included, would hesitate, because we got something "really important" to take care of first.
Scripture tells us that God has place eternity in the hearts of man, that He himself dwells in the temple of our hearts,. And yet it seems to me that we’ve put Jesus on air mattress and shoved him in the back guest room, like we do that cousin at Christmas who annoys us. We push him aside instead of ushering him to the front door of our lives and, recognizing that this world is just temporary, a tent we live in. Anyone ever went camping before. I don’t care who you are living in a tent is fun for like a day, maybe a weekend, but after that you want to go home. You want indoor plumbing and air conditioning. Paul says that should be our attitude with the world we are living in, though so many of our lives don’t reflect that.
He pleads with us not to focus on all the junk and possessions and worries that crowd our lives. He says as an ambassador we groan, not out of complaint, but out of an eager expectation, for our future home. We should be longing for heaven, craving the glory of an eternal dwelling. When God created Adam and Eve he created them to live in a perfect place of paradise, in Eden. Now sin messed all that up, but it is important we understand that too is where we were created to live and we should be hungry and yearning to get there, back to the constant presence of God. An ambassador carries this lifestyle, this mindset with them wherever they go, for all to see.
When you view this world as temporary, when you fix your eyes on the unseen, everything else starts to fade into the margins and the world can’t help but notice a difference about you. And we get so focused, almost obsessed, with heaven that we make it our life’s work to bring everyone we can along to their true home. We invite them to join in the triumphal procession that Christ is leading us in.
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pic of the day:
2 comments:
whoa... bring it dude! wish i could've heard the whole thing. There's nothing like a fresh jolt of perspective from God's word!
a deep thought that when dwelled upon only gets more simplistic... thanks for the much needed and poignant reminder. I needed it.
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