II Corinthians 5:7, "(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

This morning, the "image is everything" motto is alive and well.  People seem – more than ever – drawn to aesthetically pleasing things.  Whether the pursuit is the looks of youth, wealth of the world, or the praise of men, society today desires above all else to have those things that are perceived by natural sight.  Young people today look for the best looking person to date/marry.  Young adults look for the highest-paying avenues to amass personal wealth and fortune.  While having a spouse that is naturally good-looking or a well paying job are not sins, those characteristics upon our lives should not be what motivates us.  Rather, the Bible repeatedly tells us to look upon things of an inward, hidden nature.  Therefore, having a job that adequately provides the needs of our families while also being a situation and environment that is conducive to our spiritual walk should be the factor when selecting employment.  Having a God-fearing spouse should be the motivating and driving factor in our decision to marry.  In all things in life, we should seek to avoid the "image is everything" motto.

Recently, I personally encountered two situations that made me ponder the verse above.  One was listening to talk radio, while the other was a personal conversation with a work colleague.  Both circumstances made me realize just how great a blessing the true knowledge of the gospel is for our daily walk and warfare here below.  The talk radio comments that I heard dealt with encouraging people to visit the land of Israel in the middle east, while the personal conversation dealt with the subject of death.  Two very different subjects, yet our study verse gets to the heart of the answer for both situations that I encountered.

The radio DJs were emphasizing how important a trip to Israel would be.  Both of them had gone, and both of them encouraged "every Christian listener" to their program to call this number, sign up, and travel there.  Now, at the outset, I will say that if someone wants to go there, I certainly have no problem with that.  I have always enjoyed travel and delight in the memories I have of seeing far off places and other countries.  However, some of the promotions that they gave for this trip included statements like "church life and reading your Bible will only give you the black and white picture of the Christ.  This trip will enrich your faith by painting everything in color for you.  To be there, you will then see faith in a way that you never could unless you go."  To be perfectly honest, these types of statements give me the willies.  Compound that with the fact that the strip of land known as Israel is commonly referred to as the "Holy Land" makes me shiver all the more.

If seeing the spots of ground that Christ walked on was tantamount to our faith and proper walk of discipleship in this old world, reason states that Christ would have commanded it somewhere would he not?  Yet, the story of Christ that the Bible declares shows a very different mindset.  He told a Samaritan woman that proper worship was not regulated to a spot of ground but rather a methodology of spirit and truth. (John 4:20-24) He inspired Paul to pen the words above that our walk of faith is not bound by sight.  Furthermore, the land that Christ walked – if it was ever holy – ceased to be holy when His feet left it for glory.  The only spots of dirt that I deem to call holy are the places where the Spirit of Almighty God overshadows His people while met together in the proper way.  Church life is the holy ground when the assembly meets.  It is holy because He is holy and sees fit to visit with us.

In the conversation I had with a co-worker, we talked about the common fear of death.  He talked of his feeling that a "celebration of life" would be more fitting for someone before they died rather than after.  Rather than stand around a casket and talk about how good a life had been led, he felt that those close to someone should gather round before the death and make them feel better by telling them that their life was not in vain for all the impact that they had had on those around them.  Again, at the outset, I have no problem with family gatherings and visiting with those on death's door to encourage them and cheer them up, but his whole thinking for the purpose of doing it was so that they would not fear death and die with more feeling of comfort. 

If having a celebration of life was what made death bearable, one would have no hope of bearing death should they have no family or friends at hand during their last mile.  Rather, death is made bearable when we consider that the very Person of Christ holds our hand through the whole journey.  Though we are constantly in death's shadow, yet He ever abides near and close to us.  He never leaves us nor forsakes us.  When that final moment comes for our eyes to close in death, His face is the first and immediate one that we see.  To get to the point of comfort in that trying and difficult hour, we must look to things that these old eyes cannot perceive.  While He is near unto us, we still need to feel after Him, and not those things that we see. (II Corinthians 4:17-18)

Taking these two fresh experiences and coupling them together, how do they relate to our verse above.  What is interesting about the verse above is that it is a parenthetical quote set in the midst of a longer sentence.  Therefore, the thought contained within the parenthesis is directly infused into the main point.  Paul's main point(s) have to deal with death and how we labour before eventually meeting that death.  The very thing my two circumstances relate to.  If someone constantly pursues the perishable things of life, what will happen to them during their final hour when all their natural things have dried away?  Paul has asserted at the end of the 4th chapter that the affliction will not seem light and but for a moment.  Rather, it will seem like an impenetrable mountain.  I told my colleague that my hope was not that my friends and loved ones would celebrate my life before I died (or even after it for that matter).  My hope was to be able to say what Paul did in his final hours/days. (II Timothy 4:6-8)

To have the confidence that we will meet our final chapter honorably, we should attempt to live our lives between now and then chasing and pursuing hard after godliness. (I Timothy 6:6) Do I need to literally see Jordan's River, or do I need to naturally experience the sights and sounds of Jerusalem?  Heavens no!  Do I need to perceive the sights and sounds of faith in God's house congregated with His saints?  Heavens yes!  This requirement lays upon us the task of standing in beliefs that the Bible declares.  Some have said that the doctrines of grace are only fit to die by.  Well, I am thankful that they are fit to die by, but I am equally thankful that they are more than suitable and sufficient to live by as well.

Paul tells us in the same sentence as our study verse that death should be thought of as preferable to us.  We should rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.  However, we can be present with Him here in this old world.  Notice the contrast that Paul makes in verses 6 and 8.  Absence from the body equates completely with being present with the Lord.  There is no in between.  However, the converse is not true.  Paul did not say that presence with the body equated to absence from the Lord.  Were that true, we would never feel Him here in anything in our lives.  Rather, Paul employs the term "at home" in the body equates to absence from the Lord.  If we are at home with this old world (pursuing after those things that we can see in the world), we will find absence from the Lord and His comforting presence.  Walking by faith is so foreign from being at home with this old flesh.  The two are polar opposites to each other.

Friends, Paul lived his religion and died in the full assurance of what he had preached.  My hope is that I will be able to do the same.  I may never see – and really do not intend to – the land where Christ walked and talked while on the earth in flesh.  I have seen and hope to see many times over again the land where Christ's Spirit meets and greets the people of God engaged in worship.  I rather hope that I am never thrown a celebration of my life.  My preference for my funeral – should the Lord not return first – is for the ministry to simply talk about how good God was to me rather than any service I may have rendered to Him.  May our walk never seek to depend or trust those things that we see.  To do so, we should not fear coming death, and we should equally not fear the things of life between now and then.  Walking by faith centers upon One that is unseen to the natural sight but who is greater and more powerful than all things whether in life or in death.

In Hope,

Bro Philip

II Corinthians 11:28, "Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches."

This morning, life can be much like the songwriter declared a "tangle of toil and care, doubts and dark fears so hard to bear."  Satan's devices today are the same as they were at the beginning.  Oftentimes, adversaries and opposing forces have to change tactics, but Satan has had little reason to change his, for they remain – regrettably so – as successful as ever.  The more anxious, fearful, discouraged, and confused he can encourage someone to feel, the closer they are led to defeat.  Satan delights and takes great pride when confusion abounds in the life of God's children, for that confusion will deter their fellowship with God and lead them into paths of destruction instead of righteousness.  Truly, it would be a great comfort to know that Satan is prevented from the courts and house of God.  However, he lingers around and comes through the gates on the minds and doubts of the congregants.  If he is successful at taking up abode, he will find the pinnacle of his success here in the earth when a local church dries up and eventually dies.

Paul, in the context of our study verse, lays out a list of things that he endured for the sake of the gospel and the Lord's people.  The list basically has two categories that he briefly outlines in our verse.  Everything he has mentioned to this point is a thing "without."  The rest of the verse deals with things "within."  Those things that were without that Paul so heartily endured were vicious and frightening to the flesh.  No one welcomes a stoning or a really effective beating.  No one wishes for perils from all those that he is around.  Yet, Paul laboured faithfully in the face of all these things and gloried in the Lord in the midst of all his tribulations. (Romans 5:3) And yet, as discouraging as all those things must have been for him at times, they do not equal or compare to the endurance it takes to deal with the things that are within.

While I – nor any minister that I am personally acquainted with – has ever endured these outward tortures of the flesh, all ministers to a man freely confess that they feel a kinship with Paul about the labours and enduring that come with the care of the churches.  We pray that the day never comes that outward torture becomes a reality in our lives (though it might), but make no mistake, there will never be a day when the care of the churches is not evident and manifest.  Something just always seems to be going on.  As a dear elder once said, "Preaching and pastoring might be easy if there were not people involved, but it sure would be a lonely affair."  Perfect churches do not exist.  People without problems do not walk this earth.  Emotions spring up at all times in all seasons.  Therefore, churches will always need care.

Since we have noticed above that this care is never out of season – it happens daily – what does it mean to have "care?"  The word here for care comes from a word that bears connotations of thoughtfulness, being memorable, and accompanied by anxiety.  So, Paul's care of the churches required a great deal of thoughtfulness that came with remembering them.  However, it was not without some anxiety involved as he contemplated and meditated about what the best course of action was in certain situations and prayed about how to approach different things.  So, the care of churches is not always a pleasant thing, but the effort is worthwhile when considering the glory that accompanies it. (Verses 30-31)

One of the things that I never understood – even as a boy – is how people thought that being a minister somehow was a glamorous life.  Being the son of a minister, I saw firsthand how painful being a minister could be at times.  Many days I watched my father and saw him give his very heart in situations only to discover that certain people simply did not appreciate the effort (at least not at the time).  I watched him labour faithfully to teach and preach those things which are most surely believed among us only to end up broken in spirit on occasion when people just seemed "to not get it."  Furthermore, I experienced the sacrifice that he made when time he planned for us had to be forgone to help people with marriage problems, talk people out of suicide, try to mediate between offended brethren, and many other things that one would desire never be found in the church kingdom.

As a minister now myself, I have not experienced the level of care to which I witnessed my father endure, but I do now share a feeling of kinship with him that I previously did not.  Reading passages like this from Paul give a feeling of brotherly labour with the apostle.  What pains he must have endured knowing that not one but many "churches" looked to him in that fashion!  Whether churches that he visited or helped constitute, he had thoughts, feelings, meditations, and some anxiety over them when he considered their state.  In his farewell to Ephesus in Acts 20, he mentions his warning to them about wolves coming in after his departure.  Yet, his warning was not just a sermon coupled with the attitude of "here it is and hope you get it."  Rather, Paul's warning was both night and day accompanied by tears.  Paul told the Thessalonians that they were dear unto him, and his attitude toward them was like a nurse cherishing children. (I Thessalonians 2:7-9)

Any minister worth his salt cares for the people that he serves.  Even when the anxiety mounts as he has doubts about whether they understand the preaching, heed the instruction, or whether certain matters of confusion will ever resolve in peace, he cares.  As I have told younger ministers before, the man sometimes experiences sleepless nights coupled with a heavy heart and burdened soul.  When the minister sees Satan at work in the lives of the church folks (including himself), he earnestly desires that all such influences be removed and trouble not the flock.  One of the greatest heartaches a minister can have is to see Satan's influence rob some sheep of the joy of the gospel, particularly when he feels that the Lord blessed him to preach.  A greater heartache though stems from looking out at hungry faces, only to know deep down that Satan has had the advantage over him, thereby impeding the gospel food to go forth in power.

Moving into some of the more pleasant fields of labour in the care of the churches, consider why Paul willingly and joyfully endured for the glory of God in the churches.  One of our hymns has a borrowed line from Scripture "one day in His courts is better than a thousand beside."  When a minister labours and endures these hardships and anxious moments in the church, it is all worth it when he sees the glory of the Lord coming forth in the lives of the sheep within the courts of Zion.  Sleepless nights disappear from view when they come forth brilliantly and vivaciously as mature plants in the church of the living God.  Burdened souls can be lightened in short order when it seems that folks finally "get it" and see the beauty of the kingdom a little clearer and let loose of the worldly things a little more.

The Bible teaches us that the church is much like a family.  Sometimes it is compared to a single body, while at other times, we see familial connections being made – such as calling one another "brethren."  The church is described in Scriptures much like a mother-figure to us (Galatians 4:26), and the Bible also teaches that mothers forget about labour pains when children come forth. (John 16:21) Putting all of this together, we see that all the labours of the minister for the family's sake can be quickly forgotten when the man child comes forth.  While the child was already alive long before the hour of travail, so the sheep are born again long before all the travail and pains of labour in the kingdom.  However, when the tender plants go through those growing processes, all the pain, care, and anxiety is well worth the effort to see them standing as sturdy trees to the glory of Almighty God.

Friends, the church is worth the effort.  Like the man who bought an entire field for the treasure within it (Matthew 13:44), we have to buy a lot of things (field) for the joy of God's house and service (treasure).  No matter how bleak things appear at times, there is great joy and hidden treasure to be found.  As I have told people across the country, "The worst drought in the house of God beats the best plenty out in the world."  If you are a minister, may these thoughts serve to encourage you in your care of the portion of the Lord's vineyard that you are in.  If you are not a minister but going through a rough season in the house of God, may these thoughts encourage you to keep seeking the joy and blessing to be enjoyed in the Lord's church.  May all of us be renewed in our mind to seek to advance the Lord's name and see the beauty of His holiness with all of its associated glory.

In Hope,

Bro Philip