2 Corinthians 4:16-18 The Message
16-18 So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.
Word of God for the Children of God
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/experience-category-5-hurricane.htm
No Room for Despair
A fundamental lesson for believers is to learn that we need not despair but always be filled with hope.
Even in the extreme cases of addressing the death of loved ones, the apostle says, “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).
The reasons Paul did “not lose heart” is because he knew certain truths about God and His wonderful work—truths which are also true with us as believers.
Each of us can and should also master this lesson of “no despair.”
No one needs to lose heart.
Yes, each of us at specific points will be tested, tried, perhaps even tempted to give up our hope to live (like Paul 2 Corinthians 6:9), but we need not lose heart.
Losing heart is similar to losing hope.
We no longer possess the spirit to persist, endure and do our best.
“Lose heart” describes a perspective of the world where one no longer sees a way forward that works.
If we look around and live by sight, we can understand how such conclusions are made and accepted, but those that live by faith live in light of eternal truths and need not despair.
In Light of Eternal Truth
There are several steps to resist the loss of hope despite what trials one faces.
The first is to admit to our weaknesses.
Acknowledge Our Weakness
I don’t think we realize the importance of admitting to our weaknesses, but this is exactly where Paul began: “but though our outer man is decaying” (2 Cor 4:16).
The outer man no doubt refers to our physical bodies, though perhaps it also includes other things such as those elements that are linked to our bodies like our minds and emotions.
The secularists only consider the existence of our physical bodies and our life experiences, denying the spiritual world, but this aversion to spiritual matters was not true back then.
In any case, we can fully understand what he means.
One friend just fell and broke her ankle. Others still face seasonable allergies.
Still others, including me, are aging, and our strength, alertness, and memory, year by year deteriorate. Paul used the word decaying, which represents a daily decline and worsening of what otherwise was an excellent working system.
By recognizing our weaknesses, though Paul does not elaborate on this point, we can find the strength that we need.
Before something can be fixed, we need to study what is wrong, perhaps x-ray a broken part. This is the reason doctors take X-rays. I remember looking at my left hip’s X-ray depicting the 7 individual fragments all around the head of my femur. My hip was fixed with a partial prosthetic not a full complete prosthetic .
22 years later for MRIs; Helpful advice necessarily mentions one’s weaknesses.
This is true spiritually too because we need faith to come into God’s presence.
Satan seeks to make us doubt God’s good intention or His control of the world’s affairs so that our prayers—the real change agent—are ineffective.
On the other hand, when we trust God, by fixing our minds on God’s promises, it allows the Spirit to strengthen and nourish our faith and enable our souls to turn on the Light of Christ, entrust our souls to our true Creator (1 Peter 4:19).
By glancing—not staring—at our weaknesses, we can acknowledge them and aggressively seek out our Lord’s strength.
When we hide all our weaknesses, we tend to unwisely support our complaints with doubts and excuses about our passive pursuit of resurrection refreshment.
When this doubt is put aside, however, and we admit our weakness before the throne in faith, then we can sincerely ask Him for help.
Our peace with God (Romans 5:1) brings us to the place of extraordinary faith which in turn leads to awesome fortitude.
Romans 5:1-5 Living Bible
5 So now, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith in his promises, we can have real peace with him because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. 2 For because of our faith, he has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be.
3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us—they help us learn to be patient. 4 And patience develops strength of character in us and helps us trust God more each time we use it until finally our hope and faith are strong and steady. 5 Then, when that happens, we are able to hold our heads high no matter what happens and know that all is well, for we know how dearly God loves us, and we feel this warm love everywhere within us because God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.
Our Strength
Without understanding how we get our hope and strength, we will be confused at Paul’s statement, “yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (1 Cor 4:16).
Paul reveals the operation of this renewal process in the previous verses of Romans 5:3-5.
Paul was well-acquainted with his tribulations—a term which includes every affliction common to the human race.
Paul has somehow come to exult “in our tribulations” (Romans 5:3). He continues to express how this works in verses 4-5.
When troubling times come, the great, all-encompassing love of God is poured out through the Holy Spirit. This awesome love provides comfort and strength in our souls so that we persevere in our faith, seeing all sorts of fine fruit.
Paul, like us, did not seek for such trials, but when they come, we, like him, if and as we move forward, will also discover a shower of extra grace from God.
Paul refers to this renewal process when he mentions the inner man.
https://www.blueletterbible.org/esv/2co/4/16/t_conc_1082016
While the ability of our bodies can walk, swim, bike, run, defend, or otherwise help our distressful situations, God brings in His abundance of other resources to outfit our souls—which he refers to here with the term “inner man.”
Ezekiel 34:25-27 New American Standard Bible
25 “And I will make a covenant of peace with them and eliminate harmful animals from the land, so that they may live securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. 26 I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing. And I will make showers fall in their season; they will be showers of blessing. 27 Also the tree of the field will yield its fruit and the earth will yield its produce, and they will be secure on their land. Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have saved them from the hand of those who enslaved them.
Paul did not seek such trials, but when they came (and they did come with a hard vengeance) we, like him, also discover a shower of extra grace from God.
But Paul doesn’t speak about improved circumstances here. There were no improved circumstances that helped his inner spirit.
It was while Paul was in a Philippian jailhouse that he instructed us to “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4).
The joy does not come from expected, unexpectedly good or easy circumstances but from the Lord Jesus Himself even though he is unjustly chained in a jail cell.
Nehemiah 8:10-11 New American Standard Bible
10 Then he said to them, “Go, eat the festival foods, drink the sweet drinks, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your [a]refuge.” 11 So the Levites silenced all the people, saying, “Be still, for the day is holy; do not be grieved.”
Faith, trust, hope in the indelible message of truth of God’s Word confers onto Paul a key biblical mindset that allowed him to discern his true circumstances.
One cannot see the spiritual world, at least usually, but it doesn’t matter.
He makes a comparison only possible through a deeper spiritual understanding of reality, including a picture of the spiritual world and all future tomorrows.
For example, Paul could only speak about his trials as “momentary, and light affliction” because he knew his suffering, though difficult, was quickly passing in light of eternity. The truth of the eternal age, adorned by its glory, makes all the events on earth, especially the difficult ones, as of minute consequence.
The little discomfort (though it doesn’t feel that way when enduring it) is seen in the light of the great rewards of the future.
The accompaniment of pain can produce an “eternal weight of glory far beyond comparison” if rightly lived out by faith. No pain, no gain—the old adage goes.
And so, by faith and trust, we see a greater set of truths enclose and swallow up the miseries and injustice experienced on earth.
This biblical perspective demonstrates the dramatic way truth can positively affect our lives. By situating each element side by side, which we experience on earth with the eternal, the suffering becomes incomparable or immeasurable.
In other words, we need not be overly concerned with the enormous pain like childbirth for the following joy will eclipse the momentary pain experienced.
Something Greater Here
In conclusion, I want to identify the greater principle(s) from these verses.
Paul first allows us to be genuinely broken and humbled by our circumstances.
Our true identity doesn’t come from how people mistreat us but by how God will treat us in the future.
Nor is our worth measured by what we have or don’t have here on earth for our circumstances are temporary.
They are momentary when viewed by the greater picture of the eternal world.
Besides, God will greatly reward us in the age to come for properly enduring the brief difficulties we suffered here on earth.
So we can use our sickness, trauma, loss of limb, fraying mind, and dire poverty to do the previously unthinkable, unrecognizable, action to bring glory to God.
They all become special opportunities to give praise to Him.
Let me give an example.
Maybe my arm starts troubling me as I get older.
I do what I can to lessen its pain and to make it better, but it remains troubling.
So for that indefinite time, God gives me the opportunity to especially praise Him by using my weakness as a prop to praise Him. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
If I live in faith, recognizing His great reward (Heb 11:3), then I can bring glory to His name through the use of my arm.
Though I admit my arm hurts, instead of complaining and living focused on its discomfort, I am cheerful and I am as busy as possible serving others.
When I see the Lord, my arm’s pain will become a relic from the distant past, but the Lord knows that I sacrificially used it in pain and faith to comfort or otherwise help other brothers and sisters.
And so the seeming ignoble times become glorifying moments, a time to wrestle our hearts, trust, and minds into a victory of trust in our Lord issuing forth eternal blessings.
I don’t run away, walk away, retreat, forget, minimize the present blessings of comfort and joy within these times of trials, but my focus is on the eternal here.
In a blink of an eye, time will end, God completely erases tears from your lives.
God will give His people their new bodies and kindly reward them (which is also pure grace).
We need to follow up this theological perspective by making life commitments to live by faith, so prepare to embrace any difficulties with the sword faith (Eph 6:17).
Our lives become marked men and women of faith, consciously journeying with the others listed in Hebrews 11, taking each hard moment and translating it into a beautiful, God-glorifying picture further ushering in God’s eternal kingdom and finds eternal remembrance in the rewards you obtain.
Conclusion
No believer’s situation, no matter how difficult or unpleasant, disables the believer from mastering these special opportunities to secure these eternal rewards. Difficult circumstances enable God’s people to gain these rewards at a quicker pace. No one but you and I can exclude ourselves from these rewards.
Jesus in John 15 speaks about bearing fruit.
We don’t live for the fruit, but it remains an important part of the image of every healthy fruit tree.
I know it’s too easy to get down over our circumstances, blame God for our problems, but the truth—heightened affliction increases our opportunities for eternal reward—lives on.
Instead of being glum, we can, like the eagle flying low in the valley, feel the rush of warm air and rise up in faith trusting that, one day, all will be good.
- Think of one or two people around you, maybe you, who have lost heart. What characteristics best describe them?
- Would you say, “lose heart” is the same as lost hope? Explain.
- What is our “outer man” (4:16)?
- Describe our “inner man.”
- How does one’s inner man become renewed?
- Why does our inner man need renewing?
- Why does Paul use the word “momentary” in verse 17?
- Was the “light affliction” light?
- Have you ever been hurt or received unjust treatment? How did you respond? How might your experience, if it was not by faith, differ if you responded in faith, considering it as an opportunity to gain reward?
- Give three personal examples to prove that you live for the eternal world which cannot be seen rather than this earthly world.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Praying …
The Works and the Word of God.
For the music director. A Psalm of David.
19 The heavens tell of the glory of God;
And their expanse declares the work of His hands.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
4 Their [a]line has gone out into all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
In them He has placed a tent for the sun,
5 Which is like a groom coming out of his chamber;
It rejoices like a strong person to run his course.
6 Its rising is from [b]one end of the heavens,
And its circuit to the [c]other end of them;
And there is nothing hidden from its heat.
7 The Law of the Lord is [d]perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether.
10 They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much pure gold;
Sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
11 Moreover, Your servant is warned by them;
In keeping them there is great reward.
12 Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.
13 Also keep Your servant back from presumptuous sins;
Let them not rule over me;
Then I will be innocent,
And I will be blameless of great wrongdoing.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 