This Life Expires Soon!

4th Sunday after Pentecost, 6/17/18
2 Corinthians 5:1-10


This Life Expires Soon!
I. And so we live with a burning desire.
II. And yet we live with a solid confidence.


We live in a world of expiration dates. Just take a look at the products in your home refrigerator. I’m certain that well over half of them are stamped with a date—either a “use by” or an expiration date. Milk, orange juice, yogurt, cream cheese, bricks of cheese, coffee creamer, sandwich meat—they all have expiration dates. And so do most of the products on your food pantry shelf.

But it’s not only food whose freshness expires; so do product offers. You can book this flight for the amazing price of $199, but this offer expires at midnight tonight. You can buy this carpet for the amazing price of $2.99 a square foot, but you gotta come in before Wednesday night at 9.

Expiration dates are also a part of daily business. The business world depends on contracts, each with their expiration date. Both sides agree to live up to their end of the deal, but only until 12/31/18.

And contrary to what jewelers would have you believe, even diamonds will expire. The Bible assures us of that.

But most impressive of all expiration dates are those etched in stone—the stones placed in cemeteries. Those dates are harsh reminders that each one of us has an expiration date.

Pretty somber, isn’t it? It’s almost enough to make you go home and sit in depression for the rest of the day. But the Lord doesn’t want you to leave here depressed. He wants you to leave here with the heart full of hope, joy and confidence. He wants that for you even though the truth he shares with us through St. Paul’s words this morning seem rather somber. That truth is this: This life expires soon. How can there be any hope, joy or confidence in that? Join me as we search God’s word together this morning for that hope, joy and confidence.

Part I.

In the opening section of this morning’s sermon text, St. Paul talks about a groaning. Usually we groan about things that we’d rather avoid: paying taxes, doctors’ appointments, yard work on steamy summer days. But Paul uses that word to refer to a burning desire, a wish that lives in all of us. Just what is he talking about?

Well, he’s not talking about the burning desire that lives in the people of this world. Just what is the world’s burning desire? At its very base, it’s the most damning delusion there is. It’s the delusion that this life is all about one thing: enjoying as many pleasures as you can. It’s a daily fare of hedonism, materialism and humanism. It’s the idea that I am the center of my world and the world exists to give me every pleasure that I can get my craving hands on. You’d have to confine yourself to a hole in the ground not to notice that world-view or be affected by it. Nearly every ad ever created makes the claim that this product is something you need so that you can finally begin enjoying this life. That’s our world’s burning desire—a burning desire that’s based on a bald-faced lie.

But Paul isn’t writing these words to the people of “this world.” He’s writing them to Christians—Christians in Corinth and Centerville and around the world throughout history. He’s writing them to Christians who know the truth about this life. We know that nothing in this life lasts forever. Paul mentions the destruction of the earthly tent in which we live. He isn’t speaking about our bodies. We know that the Lord will raise our bodies from the dead on the Last Day and glorify them. Instead, Paul is speaking about everything in this life. Almost everything in our world was made in one way or another by human hands—homes, cars, money, jobs, even our forms of recreation. Just look at how much of it you’ve seen come and go in your lifetime. How much of what we have right now will be here 100 years from now? Very little. In fact, the day will come when it will all be gone.

We know that truth. And because we know that truth, we groan. Paul states, “Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.” Have you ever done this? You plop yourself into your favorite easy chair at the end of a long day and, instead of feeling contented with all that you’ve accomplished that day, you’re exhausted and frustrated because you worked so hard but seem to accomplish so little. You groan inwardly and outwardly. You groan because you know that for all your running here and there, you really accomplished nothing that will last. And so you groan for something better.

And your groaning is heard. It’s heard by our loving God who wants for us exactly what we want for ourselves—an eternal home. And our God supplies it. Paul says, “We have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands.” As the familiar hymn states: “I’m but a stranger here; heaven is my home.” It’s an eternal home. We’ll live there forever. The joys of living there will never end. Instead of being plagued by death there at every turn, as we are in this life, our existence there will be wrapped up in life. Yes, this life expires. Thank God it expires! We know that it does and so we live with a burning desire to live in our eternal home.

When you have a layover at an airport, do you enter a restroom, frown at its décor, and then stand there and make plans for how you will redecorate it? Of course not! You’re only there for a short time. That airport is only intended to be a brief stop on your journey somewhere else.

Then why do we spend so much time agonizing over how we’re going to redecorate our lives on this earth? In the grand scheme of things, this life is only a short stop on our journey somewhere else. And yet look at how much time and effort we spend focusing on this life compared to how much time and effort we spend on focusing on the end of our journey—our eternal destination of heaven! Why is that? Because we live in a world with the opposite focus and that focus infects us, smudges us, distracts us. And yet we groan. Not a day goes by in which we don’t groan. Turn those groans of dissatisfaction with this life into groans of longing for a better life, a blessed life, a perfect life with your Savior in heaven. He has gone there to prepare a place for you. He wrote your name in the heavenly reservation book with his precious blood shed on Calvary’s cross. He won that life for you. He offers it to you freely through faith in him. It’s yours. Long for that life with him because you know that this life expires soon.

Part II.

An eternal home. Sounds wonderful. Sounds dreamy, doesn’t it? But don’t consider that life to be a mere dream; it’s a reality. It’s our confidence.

And that’s what Paul speaks about next in our text. We can be confident as we hear the truth that this life expires soon. How? How can we be confident?

Listen to what Paul says, “Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” God has made us for this very purpose. What purpose? Of living with him. It was God’s intent ever since he formed Adam and Eve from the dust of the ground to live with them and their offspring in bliss eternally. He enjoyed that life with them for a while in the paradise of Eden. But sin destroyed it. And yet God didn’t let his intentions die. He announced his plan to save us through the life and death of his Son, Jesus Christ. That Savior won eternal life for us.

But how can I be sure that we possess it? Could it be that someone else has that gift of life with God but not me? Listen to Paul answer that uncertainty. “God…has given us the Spirit as a deposit.” He made the down payment on our eternal home for us. Not with money, but with his Holy Spirit. That Holy Spirit lives in us by faith in Jesus as our Savior.

And that means our life with him is certain. Paul says, “We are confident.” No matter what we face in life, heaven is our home. No matter what gets taken from us in life, heaven is our home. No matter what we must yet suffer in this life, heaven is our home. This life expires, but heaven is our home.

And we show that confidence as we live our life of faith in Jesus. The Bible calls those “fruits of faith” and Paul speaks about them at the end of our text. It almost sounds as if Paul is saying that people who are good will go to heaven and people who are bad will go to hell. That’s not what he’s saying. He’s talking about good works as the fruit of our faith in Jesus—works that we and others can see. He’s also speaking about the absence of the fruits of faith. Those who have no faith in Christ don’t produce any fruits of faith in their lives. Our faith in Jesus as our Savior builds in us a confidence that heaven is our home. As we live in that confidence, we show our faith with our works. Yes, this life expires soon, and yet we live with confidence.

So, what’s your preference? To stay here and hope things get better before they get worse? It isn’t going to happen. As Moses declared more than 3,000 years ago, “The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10). You can live like the world, denying that this life expires soon. Or you can embrace that truth by faith in the One who conquered death with his death and rose again to share his victory with you. He won life for you—eternal life! Yes, this life expires soon and yet we live with a solid confidence knowing that our eternal life is certain. May your hearts be filled with hope, joy and confidence as you ponder that truth and live in it! Amen.