Read 2 Corinthians 5:1-10
We continue our exploration of faith, so let’s review the defining verse from the King James Version.
Today, we look to the Apostle Paul for more on this subject of faith. This man who counseled men 2000 years ago as well as us that the old person doesn’t want to let go of us. We are made new. We are a new creation, but the old man, the old self, those old clothes just won’t go away.
In parallel analogy, he notes that there is some dissonance in our lives. We want to be with the Lord. We want to join him now in his heavenly estate, but we are hard wired to live. We have a mission set before us.
We know that if we die or are killed in action—doing the Lord’s will—we will be with him. This earthly tent, this jar of clay, this body will cease to function, but it won’t matter to us. We will be with the Lord.
We sing I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back, but we sometimes would like to add a verse that says, I’m catching up, I’m catching up. We want to be with him now.
Sometimes, there is dissonance in our lives. I really want to be with the Lord, but I have his work to do here. I’m ready to be there and for him to wipe away every tear, but I want to stand before him knowing that I was faithful to the end.
That is the human condition for the believer. We want to be there, but we have stuff to do here—purposeful things to do here. Consider what the apostle had to say in the previous chapter.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
That sounds like a good time to consider our verse.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
We fix our eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen. What is seen is temporary. What is unseen is eternal.
But we live among these things that we see. We live in a world of tangible things and processes and events and rulings and schedules and broken bones and basketball games and the flu. How do we not get wrapped up in these things? They are very much parts of our lives.
But they are not central to our lives. Our lives have a governing purpose—a God-given purpose. These things and a thousand more like them each day are surely part of our lives, but they are not our life.
Living to love God and love others and bring good news of God’s love that we know in Christ Jesus is our life, but we are still going to the basketball game and the doctor and Walmart and Sonic.
But we want to be with the Lord! What a crazy composition our lives are. Most of our lives would have confused Pablo Picasso. Why would God leave us to contend with this mess called life?
Why would he die for us so we could live with him forever and then leave us all alone to figure out this life? He didn’t. He didn’t leave us alone, that is.
God gave us his Spirit as a good deposit on what is to come. Let’s do our verse once more.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
We see and are right in the middle of all of this tangible stuff, but we navigate life according to God’s Spirit that lives within us. This is God’s own Spirit that knows what is to come and knows how to get us there.
Paul’s words to describe this trust in the Lord, especially in his Spirit that is alive within us are: We walk by faith not by sight. We live by faith not by sight.
We see everything that goes on around us; yet, we trust our navigation to what is unseen. We have the ultimate GPS. It is God’s Spirit that lives within us and if we will listen, we can live out: Trust in the Lord with all of you heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.
We will walk by faith not by sight and the Lord will direct our paths. Faith lets us press on towards the goal as if we could see it directly in front of us. We walk, we take steps, we do, we live by faith not by everything that we see around us.
The world doesn’t like this model. The enemy doesn’t like this model. Sometimes, our own selfish nature doesn’t like this model.
What model would they choose? Fear. You should look all around you and be afraid. The model that the world wants to use to conform you to its pattern is fear.
The driving force with the Lord is trust, faith, and belief. So much so that we can step out in faith. We can walk in faith. We can live in faith, knowing that what is unseen is what is eternal because the Lord told us so.
God said so. I believe it. I will live it.
Almost 30 years ago I went to driving school. No, I didn’t get a DUI. It wasn’t defensive driving school. It was evasive driving school. Why should you care? If you were working 30 years ago, then your tax dollars paid for it.
It was a school that taught me how to steal a car, drive really fast, make bootlegs and J-Turns, ram other vehicles, and all those things you hoped that I would use your tax dollars for—it was a blast.
Why do they have schools like this? Because it is easier for the State Department to pay a couple hundred thousand in damages for what you did to get away in a place where they don’t like you and you are all alone than it is to negotiate to get you back.
So, all of us going through the course were not only having fun but paying close attention. There was one drill that was essential to most of the other maneuvering that we did. It was driving through cones.
Orange cones were set up at intervals in the center of the racetrack. You would approach them head-on at about 50-60 miles per hour. As you got close, the instructor would say right or left. You veered and then started negotiating the cones by going back and forth in a high-speed serpentine fashion.
The cones were too close together to do this at 60 miles per hour, so you had to turn, brake, turn, and accelerate to successfully get through the cones. It was a challenge. Once you were into the body of the course, you maintained about a 35-40 mile per hour rate.
It was impossible if you looked at the cones. You had to know where they were, but you had to focus on the empty space in between. If your focus shifted to a cone, you would hit it. You had to aim at empty space—at something that wasn’t there.
I hit my share of cones before I got the hang of it, but you can get the hang of it. You can trust what you were taught and successfully navigate the course, which was fundamental to doing the rest of the stuff.
We can get the hang of focusing on what we can’t see. We can keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. We can trust the urgings and promptings of God’s Spirit which lives within each of us.
We can walk by faith not by sight. We are not blind to what is going on but we navigate according to the prompting of God’s own Spirit.
We live in these jars of clay but one day we will shed these mortal coils (that’s Shakespeare’s metaphor not biblical) and be with the Lord. In the meantime, we walk by faith not by sight, trusting that the Spirit that is God’s good deposit given to us so we know with certainty that what he has in store for us is real.
This is believing is seeing. Consider our faith verse once more.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
And because of this, we live by faith and not by sight. We trust in what is not seen.
Think of the no-look pass in basketball. You pass the ball to where you know your teammate will be without looking. Why would you do something this crazy? Because you know he will be there.
God calls us to trust him in the same way. Know he will be there. How can we do this?
We have his own Spirit within us as a good deposit as to what is to come.
We know he will be there because he is already here living within us.
Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
So let us live more and more by faith and not sight.
Amen!
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