Rooting Everything in Holiness

When we look at our eternity and the eternal body that God is preparing for us, you can never afford it. You would get laughed out of the room to get financing for it. But what he's telling us is that the Holy Spirit has made our down payment. [Music] But hey, if you have a Bible, go ahead and open 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And that's where we are going to land today. If you have been with us, uh, we've been studying through the book of 2 Corinthians in this series called Rooted in Holiness. And we've talked about what does holy living look like? What is encompassing and kind of rooting all that we have in the holiness of God so that we're ready for whatever life throws us? And I think this is especially relevant topic as we kind of come into our current age where if we're honest, it is very easy to live compartmentalized lives. I don't know about you, but a few years ago, Apple kind of came with some different focuses on their phone. So, you can have a work focus, you can have a home focus, you can have a pretending you're work, but on social media and scrolling Instagram focus, and you can set your phone to be the type of notifications, the type of person that you want to be. And it's almost like that has bled into any so many aspects of our lives. I grew up going to church and one of the things we did on Sunday morning as my dad came in singing and waking us up is we had to put on our church clothes. Anyone remember some church clothes, you know, growing up is you had to wear your Sunday's best and we had to make sure you know you can't have rub ripped jeans or whatever. Now we're like whatever. Um we say come as you are. We had Spider-Man last week and it was awesome. All right. I'm hoping for Captain America next week and we'll assemble the Avengers through church. I don't know what's going to happen, but maybe even you have some things of when you're getting ready for church or when you're ready is like there's some stuff happens. Uh I I my church clothes look a lot like my regular clothes, but I do only preach in Devon Booker shoes. All right. And there'll be different colors. Someone in first service said she had no idea who Devon Booker was. And the sermon got 40 minutes longer as I unpacked all the stats of who Devin Booker is as the leading all-time scorer of the Suns franchise. But all that to say that it is easy for us to live our lives in silos, to be one way at work, to be another way on the road, to be another way at home, to be another way at church. And today as we dive into 2 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul is going to introduce us to how this Christian life is something that is holistic, something that is bigger, something that encompasses all areas of our lives. And what we're going to learn today is that Christianity is a lifestyle that encompasses various elements of our life. And we're going to walk by kind of one through one of what Paul unpacks here and talk about how that impacts us. But as we dive in thinking about how does this whole knowing Jesus and Christian walk affect us. Recently about last year I I read a book called Outlive by Dr. Peter Aya. And it's actually a a book on holistically living your life in a way that can get you to live to a 100red years old. and he literally goes through exercise and nutrition and medicine. And it was honestly so much that I just decided at the end of the book, I'm not living to 100. That that was my biggest go from it. I'm like, too much work. Uh it's it's not worth it. All right. But but sometimes we can easily structure our lives to make sure we're reaching these goals, to making sure we're living this way. But Paul's going to give us today a manual for how do we holistically live not to live to a hundred but to live for eternity with our Lord. And it starts in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 starting in verse 1. He says this, "For we know that if our earthly tent we live in is destroyed, that we have a building from God, an earthly eternal dwelling in the heavens not made with hands. Indeed, we grown in this tent, desiring to put on our heavenly dwelling. Since we were when we were clothed, we will not be found naked. Indeed, we groan while we're in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed so that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Verse 5. Now the one who prepared us for this is this very purpose is God who gave us the spirit as a down payment. As Paul unpacks this, the first category and the first way we see is how does this holistic life encompass everything as it encompasses us as our spiritual life. Paul starts here with a spiritual reality that defines everything else about us. He talks about this earthly tent and and and this earthly tent is referring to this current body that we all have. This flesh and blood, the makeup of cells that you are sitting in right now. And and he said one day that fleshly, earthly, mortal body will be destroyed. But he says we have a building from God awaiting us in eternal dwelling in heaven. You see, this isn't just nice poetry. These are foundational truths that shape how we live every single day. And here's the first part as we begin to break these apart as we look at this spiritual element. The first thing Paul is showing us in this truth he is laying down is that we have an eternal soul. We have an eternal soul. You're like that that might seem basic if if you've read the Bible. That might seem basic if you've been around church, but it is such a core truth. You see, Paul is reminding us that we have these eternal souls that are temporarily living in these mortal bodies. And here's what's so fascinating. He's going to tell us in a minute that our souls long for something greater. We're going to get into a second, but you just think about this and and think of your body as a tent. This past week, I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw one of our my friends and and someone who goes to our church and they also have four kids. So when I see they're doing something and I have four kids, like we have a special bond. Like you know, we're like our lives are miserable together, right? I actually found an article that I sent to my wife that I think AI made up and put in my feed, but it said the ideal number of kids to have a happy marriage is four. I sent it to my wife and she said that ain't right. Okay. I was like, I don't think that's true. But anyway, I saw they they posted and in and in this uh church, this awesome family in our church, they have four kids, like five and under. They're dumb like us. And they went camping with all the kids. Intense. And I thought about it. I'm like, man, two weeks ago or something like that, I went up to Sedona to go in a creek for a day. And I was so happy to come back to my house, sleep in my bed, sit on my couch to watch TV. And I'm like, I could not imagine camping in a tent with my children. And some of you are in the same ways. And then others are you're like, I'm a cowboy. I can do it. Whatever, dude. I don't care. I'm a city boy, so I cannot. All right. But Paul is telling us that this tent, this earthly thing we have, it's okay for now, but it won't last through the storm of time. And Paul is seeding in our mind that we have an eternal soul that is so much greater than this body. And this kind of goes to this next part of this, that our eternal soul longs for an eternal body. In verse four, I I love this. It says that we groan in this tent. That he's telling us our eternal soul longs for eternal body because it uses this word groan. This word groan in the Greek means a deep collective sigh. And and this this sigh this groan was often used in this language in relation to childbirth and death. I guess that's the same sigh in childbirth and death. Those are overlapping of how you feel and how you grown through those. But Paul is saying is there's this deep groan that this physical flesh it's temporary that our eternal soul is groaning for an eternal body. But the good news is in verse 5 is that God has already made the down payment on our behalf. You know, some of you, we see those cars we want that we're like, I could never afford that. We see that house we want and maybe some people I feel like this is maybe more of a woman thing than a man thing. I don't do this, but I know my wife does it of just randomly looking at houses we never could afford, right? Like let me just look at Red and look at a $10 million home. Like not ever going to happen, right? Um, but it's like there's those things that we look for in our world that we're like, I can never afford that. When we look at our eternity and the eternal body that God is preparing for us, you can never afford it. You would get laughed out of the room to get financing for it. But what he's telling us is that the Holy Spirit has made our down payment. that God is preparing that body not by what we have done by what he does on our behalf which we will get to in a second but you see not only does this Christian lifestyle encompass the spiritual aspects of our lives but he keeps going in verse six and he says we so we are always confident and we know that while we are at home in the body this tent we are away from the Lord for we walk by faith and not by sight in fact we are confident and we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Therefore, whether we at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Here's the next part of this is not only does this Christian life encompass our spiritual, but it also encompasses our physical. As Paul continues down this chapter, he shifts to talk about our physical existence. He says, "While we are home in the body, we are away from the Lord." Paul makes very clear that we have this physical body that our is our current home that it means something. But check out this defining trait of his body. And I love this little this little kind of tag in verse eight. He talks about we are confident, but look at this. He says we would prefer to be away from the body is our soul prefers to be away because our soul knows that this is simply mortal. And and this leads to kind of our first subsection under this idea of physical is we talked about the spiritual we have an eternal soul but under the physical is we have a mortal body. So some of you are very aware that you have a mortal body. When you get up it hurts it aches. Sometimes you groan. I recently started a pickle ball group in Surprise. I used to have one in North Phoenix. And by group I mean like three other dudes like and I don't even like to have like odd numbers cuz then you're like sitting out and I'm like then you need more quarts whatever. But I I finally found three other guys in our church and we started playing pickle ball. And and here was the thing is I was the oldest one out of all of them. I didn't play with high schoolers. Okay, I know that's what you were thinking but I was the oldest one. And as I was playing, I I when I found that note out, I said, "I can complain about my back hurting all night long because you don't know what it's like to be this old is what I told him." And sometimes we we we feel it. We feel how our mortal bodies, they are here, but they're breaking down. That sometimes we have issues that they hurt, that we groan, and no matter how much we push them, no matter how fit and in shape you are, one day your body will break down because it is mortal. But notice he doesn't say, "Hey, just because this body's mortal, it doesn't matter." Instead, he says, "The physical does matter." And look at verse 10. And this is such a weighty verse that is just so much packed into this. And just should kind of bring us to a fact of we need to reflect on this. But verse 10, he says this, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each may be repaid for what he has done." What? in the spirit, in the realm, in all these other things. No, no, no. What he has done in the body, the physical, whether good or evil. You see, not only do we have this mortal body, but our mortal body determines our eternal result. Did you catch that? Our mortal body determines our eternal result. what we do in the flesh, in the physical, in this temporary skinny little body I have, our physical actions, our physical choices have eternal consequences. This is a crazy thought actually that Paul was speaking to at this time. It unpacked for you a little bit of what Paul was up against almost 2,000 years ago when he wrote this to a church in Corenth is is some of the prevailing thoughts is there was this thing in Greek culture called dualism is they believe you had a spirit and you had a body but that they were separate that they never interacted and they kind of worked on different planes. And that Greek dualism slowly eaked its way into the church and there was this false narrative that came up and this false doctrine of this thing called gnosticism. And and this is what nnosticism believed. It says you can pretty much do anything you want in the physical body because there is so much grace from Jesus that it doesn't matter that Jesus will forgive you and you'll be good. So live it up in the body cuz your spirit is okay. And and we might not use the wordnosticism anymore, but it still has practical effects today. Did you know that 50 Cent is a Southern Baptist? 50 Cent grew up in the church and and I don't know the heart of 50 Cent, so don't take that the wrong way, but I see the actions and the fruit of 50 Cent over his life. And I think there needs to be a little more Jesus in that picture if we're being honest. But but 50 Cent, I remember him speaking directly. This was years ago. Yeah. Kind of quote. He's like, "I grew up in church. I know Jesus saved me. I can keep on sinning because the grace is going to keep on coming." And maybe we're not so outward with that. But if we're honest, our world and inside our churches, we come to church, we we hear the songs, we sing the songs. If we're really spiritual, we hear the sermon, we check our box, we confess, we feel like, "Yes, Jesus, I I feel convicted. I know I need to do something different." But then our actions keep on sinning with no remorse, just hoping that the grace of Jesus will cover it. And the grace of Jesus is sufficient. We're just saying that it is all sufficient. But what we also need to see is that our actions show what our spiritual lives truly believe. In one day, both spiritually and physically, we will sit before the judgment seat of Christ, and he will weigh what we have done in these bodies. I don't know about you, but that's terrifying. Well, we're not in an age really of as much fire and brimstone. And if I did fire in brimstone, maybe you're like, you you don't have enough uncction. I don't know. But it is a fire and brimstone passage there that we will stand before Christ. But you see Paul as he's setting this stage as as he's showing this as he's getting the weight of this passage, he's saying guys, Christianity, it affects our spiritual lives. That's a given. But it also affects our physical lives. But he keeps going in verse 11. And as he continues on, he says, "Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your consciences. We are not commending ourselves to you again, but we're giving you an opportunity to be proud of us, so that you may have a reply for those who take pride in outward appearance rather than in the heart." Verse 13, for if we are out of our minds, it is for God. And if we are in our right ma mind, it is for you. You see, Paul continues on that not only does his Christian life, this holistic lifestyle encompass our physical and our spiritual, it also encompasses our mental. Paul talks in this these three verses. He mentions the fear of the Lord that we understand it, we know it. He mentions persuading people and then he talks about being out or in our own mind. And here's what Paul is getting at. He's getting at that our minds, our thoughts, our reasoning, all of that is supposed to be rooted in something holy, too. Think about this is we say it all the time and you tell your kids it that what you think ultimately leads to what you will do. uh Jesus got enough to the root of our heart and our mind which were often synonymous in scripture that it's going to lead to our actions and and we teach our kids like hey make sure you're not saying bad things or thinking bad things because all of a sudden the actions are going to follow that but if we're honest sometimes we don't follow our own advice and Paul here is trying to get us to understand of what do we need to focus on he starts in verse 11 and he says since we know the fear of the Lord now this word fear it doesn't mean to be scared of God. Like you're scared of a monster or you're scared of the dark. How my kids are scared of the dark and need a sound machine and a light and and white noise. And I think I need a sound machine and a light and white noise now to sleep because of my children over the years. But he doesn't mean that type of fear. Instead, it's having a proper understanding of who God is and living in a reverent awe of his power and holiness. Think about this for a second. If we believe the God of scripture, the God of the Bible, it tells us he is the creator of the universe, that he spoke everything into existence, that he is the sustainer of the universe, that he keeps it going, and he is ultimately the savior of the universe, and if he wanted to end it all, he could. And one day he will end our kind of what we know as the heaven and earth and bring in something new. But if he truly is that powerful of a God, we should have some healthy fear and reverence for him. But too often, I think we're less scared of what God thinks about us, and more scared of what Bob at works thinks about us, more scared of what our spouse thinks about us or our kids think about us or our neighbor thinks about us or that dude who cut you or you cut off thinks about you. You don't really think about them. You just cut them off and keep driving past you, right? But it's like we're more worried about what people think about us than what the God of the universe does. And Paul is showing when we have this mindset where all of a sudden we understand we have this fear of the Lord. We know the fear of the Lord, it starts to change the way we think and it unlocks some things underneath this banner is it kind of tells us of how our minds are wired. The first thing we see is we have a we have a mind that mirrors God. You think about this passage for a second and it makes me think of my daughter is is my one-year-old daughter Alice. She is just adorable. She's about 15 months old and she's walking which is terrible cuz she gets and everything but she's also really cute and she's really smart and and I don't know if I just don't remember my other three kids when they were that age or she's just like smart and they were dumb but she seems smarter. Okay, I don't know if that's true or not, but I'm like, "Did you see what she just said? Did you see what she just did? Like, she's waving, she's talking, she's doing this. Like, she is a genius is what I tell my wife all the time." And she's just so cute when she does all of it. And and I was thinking about this and as I'm reading this passage and and how God talks about how our mind works, it also came to this thought is my 15-month-old daughter is smarter than any of your dogs. No matter how smart you think your dog is. All right? And that's a controversial statement to some of you. definitely smarter than your cat. You just need to open up the door and let those things run into the wild and get taken by a coyote. Um, just get rid of it. But my daughter is smarter than your animals and smarter than all the animals in our world, despite what people might say. And why? Because we have a mind that can reason. We have a mind that can think. We have a mind that is so much more advanced than any other creation. Because it is a mind that mirrors God. a mind that he specifically gave for us. And as we look at his creation, as we look at this passage, God is showing us that we have this mind that mirrors him. Verse 13, it says that uh sometimes this makes us might look out of our mind to the world around us, but it's okay because when our mind is rooted in holiness, we're striving for his values and the world might think we're crazy, but we're moving towards what God is moving us to. But this continues on. Why sometimes then okay we have a mind that mirrors God but why does this mind at times look different than other people around us and I think this is important because our minds also long for godly things you know one of the interesting things I think we have in today's world is in 2025 there are so many statistics to back this up but is easy to say we are the most anxious depressed and mentally messed up time in human history as we have more people with anxiety disorders and things and maybe it's we're just now actually putting names to things, but we are mentally a messed up culture. This is worldwide. And the crazy thing is when you actually look for success by worldly standards, we're also the most flourishing time in history. In the 1980s, 40% of the world lived in poverty. That number is less than 10% today. Do horrible things still happen in our world? Absolutely. But overall, our world is thriving in a way we have never seen in human history. Yet, we're still depressed. We're still anxious. We're still angry. We're still fighting. We're still mad. We're still so screwed up. Why? Because no matter how much worldly success we get, it is not enough. Cuz we have a mind that wants something eternal. We have a mind that wants something greater. That the more money you get, the more success you have, the more powerful you become. There's always that wanting more and more. that our minds long for godly things that are eternal, not temporary things that are here today and are gone tomorrow. And Paul is building this case that this spiritual side of our lives, this physical side of our life, the mental side of our life, it all comes and is all part of this Christian experience and it all flows from one central reality. Look at verse 14. He says, "For the love of Christ compels us since we have reached this conclusion that one being Jesus died for all and therefore all died. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for the one who died for them and was raised." You see, this Christian life is not just spiritual. It's not just physical. It's not just mental, but is also sacrificial. And as Paul gets into this last section here and we ask, what does it mean for us to live a holistic life that includes this sacrificial element? Well, first he points in verse 14 to this truth. And and this language is so awesome that he says, "We've reached this conclusion. This is the early church. This is the apostles. This is those who walked with Jesus. This was the conclusion that they reached that one died for all and therefore all died. And then he continues in verse 15. And because they died, he was also raised and they will be raised. Here here's what Paul is saying in the sacrificial aspect is that Jesus died and was raised again. This is the core truth of Christianity. This is what everything that if that didn't happen, nothing else matters. And Paul is unpacking, hey, this all-encompassing life, he here's what it's rooted in. It's rooted in the fact that Jesus sacrificed his life for you. That he died and was raised again. That he really was God. He was fully God. He was fully man. That he really came down here to earth. That he lived a perfect life. That he unjustly was crucified on a cross to take on our penalties and our sins. And he was raised again to defeat those sins. And he's saying here that is so important because nothing else matters if we don't get that. But why did Jesus do that? Well, Paul builds on that so that we may then die and be raised again. You see, this is why Christianity is so holistic. It's not because we're trying really hard to be good people. It's because instead the love of Christ compelled Christ to come and died in our place to give us a new life. But it also compels us to then live sacrificially for him in this new life. And you see church, when we really understand what Jesus did, that he died our death so that we could live his life for eternity, it changes everything. Every area of our life gets all of a sudden reoriented around this central reality is Jesus died and was raised again so that we may die and be raised again. We die to our old way of living, the selfish, compartmentalized, worldly way. And we're raised to this new way of living, this holistic, Christ centered, eternal focused way. And all of this isn't about trying harder or doing better. It's being so overwhelmed by the love of Christ that we can't help but live differently. I mentioned my daughter Alice, and she's the theme illustration kid of today. That's all I got. Okay. But recently, she's been walking around our house hugging everyone in our family, like just all her brothers and sisters, even when they're jerks, and me and my wife. And she hugs them, and then she lays her head on them. And like, it's the most precious cuddle that you could ever have. Like, my heart is like overflowing when she does it. And then when I see her do it to her brother, I'm like, "This is just adorable." And I'm like, "Why is she hugging us all and cuddling with us? We didn't even do anything to deserve it." But in Alice's little brain, here's what I think is happening. If she knows her family loves her and she loves her family, that her little baby body can't help but just go cuddle with her family. And when we fall in to this lifestyle of following Jesus, what we realize is our God loves us so much that we can't help but to live holistically and loving the people around us. And all of this leads to as we kind of land this plane of how the this chapter just shapes our lives, how we live holistically for Christ and what he has done. Here's what I want to lay on your heart this morning. And I want this question to be a reflection that you're honest about that you just don't kind of check your box and say, "I'm good. That's great. I moved on." But here's his holy reflection for you today is are you living holistically for Christ? Are you living holistically for Christ? Does he matter to you? Is he changing you? Is as you reflect on this both now in this room and as you leave this today is are you living holistically your whole life reoriented around what Jesus is doing in your life? I didn't share this in first service, but I didn't like my exit and my outro as much. So, I decided to change it for this one. And I'm going to just be honest with you a little bit. Having four kids, sometimes, you know, like life comes at you and you get stressed a little bit. And my wife said to me this past week, she's like, "Can you just be a little happier sometimes?" I'm like, "I am happy. That's not good." She's like, "Can you just be fun?" I am I am having fun and I got a lot going on, okay? Like there's some stresses in my life and there's some things that are happening. I'm preparing for this. I'm leading this. I'm doing this and like all these things and I and I want to just ramble off all I have to do. And she's like, "Can you just be church Andrew?" I'm like, "Whoa, wait, what?" She's like, "Fun, happy hugging people, Andrew." I'm like, "I am that Andrew right now." She's like, "But are you?" And I'm like, I'm reading a passage that's all about about to preach on a passage that are you the same here is when you leave these doors. Are you living holistically in your spiritual life, in your physical life, in your mental life, and are you sacrificing that when you leave here, are you the same person in the car, or all of a sudden you're an angry jerk? I'm preaching to myself on that one, okay? is when you go home and the life and the stress of all that is happening. Are you the same person there that you are when you're smiling and pretending to be happy when you're wiping kids boogers in children's ministry? Are you the same person at work when your boss has made your life miserable and you're so stressed out as you are when you're singing worship songs? Are you the same person in every aspect of your life? because this whole Christian thing is holistically pointing to him. And church, as you leave this place today, my prayer for you is that you don't just check your church box and move on, but you ask, "Am I living this way where it encompasses every single aspect of me that I can't help but be compelled to love the world around me?" In just a minute, we're going to need a reminder and a physical act of why we do that. But before we do that, I I want to speak to maybe the skeptic in the room. Speak to the person in the room where maybe you haven't fully engaged with this. Maybe you feel like something's moving in your heart. You feel like something's missing. You feel like you've chased the success of the world and there's something that's not there. And maybe you got drugged to church. Maybe you do it out of habit. Maybe you do it just because maybe a family member is getting baptized and you're like, I got to go clap. I don't know what's happening. This might be a cult, but like, okay, this is cool. But maybe you're sitting here and that's you today. And you know something is missing in your life. What's missing is the savior, the God, the one that we know through the Bible. His name is Jesus Christ. What's missing is that he wants to be the Lord and Savior of your life. He created you. Your sin, just like my sin, separated, severed that relationship. But your father wants you to come home and to live for him. [Music]