Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
This fall, we're studying the book of Second
Corinthians. Second Corinthians is a heartfelt
and practical book calling us back to the life
of the cross. We, like the Corinthians, so often
pursue glory, admire eloquence, shun suffering,
hide hurt, and hoard our goods. And yet the gospel
of Jesus tells us that resurrection comes after
a cross. that comfort comes after being crushed,
that the way up is the way down, that the way
to glory is through suffering, that His strength
is made perfect in our weakness. We'd love to
meet you and we hope you'll consider coming and
joining with us each Sunday morning at 10 a .m.
in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You can find
us online at secondcitychurch .org and on Facebook,
Instagram, and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this
sermon. God bless. Let me pray. Lord, thank you
for our time together. Thank you for worship
and just the joy that it is to be your people.
Lord, thank you for the young and the old alike
that you call to yourself and that we together
are bound together to one another because we
are yours. Brothers and sisters, made brothers
and sisters, not by blood, but that which is
thicker than blood, the waters of baptism. the
reality of belonging to You, having Your mark
placed upon us. God, I pray, I thank You for
this text that we've been in, 2 Corinthians,
and I pray Your blessing upon our time in it,
our last time in it now, in this hour. Bless
us, Lord. Give us a greater and deeper faith
in You, a greater desire to put sin away and
to live in the reality that You have come and
that You will come again. I praise You in Your
name, Lord Jesus. Amen. Okay, so one of the Christmas
time traditions in the Rowan household is to
make a gingerbread house and to absolutely cover
it with candy. Lots of candy. And so, you know,
we did this this past week and I will say we
had lots of candy. I mean... many large cups
full of candy. And we had all kinds of different
candy. Gummy bears, gummy trees, red and green
trees, little gumdrops. If there's a theme, it's
true. We are a gummy family. You know, I feel
like you have hard candy families and gummy candy
families. We're a gummy candy family. But we
did have some hard candies too. We had those
little spiraled, you know, red and white. peppermints
we had a lot of those and we had neko wafers
that could kind of you can make you can make
a really nice gingerbread roof out of neko wafers
pro tip y 'all um we had little you know like
little skittle drops that you could like decorate
with um lots of candy and lots of icing to stick
the candy to said gingerbread house right And
children, you who are still present here with
us, the adults might not know the answer to this
question, okay? So you might need to help us
out with this. What do you do with candy? What
do you do? What do you do? Yeah, okay. It's clear.
What you do with candy is you eat it. That's
exactly right. So here's, of course, what happens
is that when we get it all out and we place it
on our dining room table, The inclination is
to go, let's eat it all. Take it in in the moment.
There's a problem with this though. If you are
the attentive gingerbread house maker, there's
a problem with this because you kind of, the
candy's for the decorating. You're not gonna
actually achieve the whole goal. If you eat all
the candy, I know I sound like a Scrooge, but
that's what it's there for. What you're there
to do can't be done if all you do is live in
the moment. Grab and take. Live as though what's
in front of you is all there is and who knows
what's going to happen in the future so you might
as well eat it all. There is rather a level of
discipline, which is one of the fruits of the
spirit, children. A gingerbread house decorating.
There's another problem, of course, to that approach,
and that is that you get sick, which isn't very
pleasant. This is going to seem like a transition,
but I'll hopefully bring this back around. In
Christian theology, there's the understanding
that God is both transcendent and imminent. God
is both overall, beyond us, Outside of our understanding,
His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not
our thoughts. He is the Creator, and we are the
created. Think of Psalm 113. Who is like the
Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks
down on the heavens and the earth? Transcendence,
1 Kings chapter 8. But will God indeed dwell
on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest
heaven cannot contain you. How much less this
house that I have built. Transcendence. Or think
of our Lord Jesus' own words in John chapter
8. He said to them, you are from below, I am
from above. You are of this world, I'm not of
this world. The transcendent reality of God.
the God who exists beyond us and over us, outside
of our understanding. But also Christianity,
Christian theology would say that God is not
just transcendent, but he's just an immanent
reality to God. Jeremiah chapter 23, can a man
hide himself in secret places so that I cannot
see him, declares the Lord. Do I not fill, it
doesn't just say heaven, but it says heaven and
earth. God present. Psalm 139, where shall I
go from your spirit or where shall I flee from
your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you're
there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell
in the uttermost parts of the sea, even your
hand shall lead me and your right hand hold me.
Eminence, God present to us. Paul says to the
Athenians in Acts chapter 17, in him we live
We exist, you might think. But it also says,
we move. In Him we move. We have our being, the
reality of God present with us, allowing even
our movement. And of course, in 1 Corinthians
chapter three, you'll remember that Paul says
that we are the very temple of God. God making
His holy habitation within us. And then if you
think of the beginning of John chapter one, or
in the beginning of John in chapter one, which
we always read together on Christmas Eve, the
word became flesh and dwelt among us. Transcendence
and imminence. God not only takes on flesh as
one of us in his incarnation, but he also says
he's actually with us always. That's what he
says at the end of Matthew when he's about to
ascend heaven, I'm with you always. Spirit abiding
with us so that what is said of the temple of
old, God's descent upon the temple in the holy
cloud, what's said about Mount Sinai of old,
the descent of God there to give the law, said
to be true of us. His law is now written on our
hearts. We are very, the very reality of God
within us. Emmanuel, God with us, transcendence
and eminence. God both beyond us and yet with
us. God beyond us and within us. To give what
is certainly not a complete analogy, children,
you might think of it as Parents are above you.
They're outside of you. And yet you are so intimately
connected to them. You are theirs. They're present
with you in your life. Maybe you've heard this.
I hope you've heard this. But over the last few
centuries, the world has increasingly moved,
sort of ceaselessly moved towards seeing the
world as purely what is imminent. sort of exists
around us is what is. This time, some have called
the secular age, which is to say, you think back
on Descartes, he says, I think therefore I am.
I is what is real. What is here is what is the
real world. The world is all there is. God is,
as some have said recently, the great delusion.
And so we block out the transcendent. In fact,
what happens is actually the world becomes the
transcendent, that which gives us our meaning
and our purpose. We've rejected the divine transcendence,
said we've grabbed on to the eminence not of
God being present, but the world being present,
the physical world being present. Our life is
all that there is. Of course, as As we've sought
to find our meaning in this, it's done a rather
poor job. Cornelius van Til, a theologian in
the last century, he said, sinners hate the idea
of a clearly identifiable authority over them.
Something that's beyond them, that transcends
outside of them and yet can still speak into
their life. They do not want to meet God. They
would gladly make themselves believe that there
is no clearly discernible, identifiable revelation
of their Creator and Judge anywhere to be found
in the world. And that's sort of just the waters
we swim in. God is not close. He's not beyond
us. Find your meaning in the here and in the
now. I want you to think of what happens when
we do this. So if you open up your Bibles to
2 Corinthians chapter 13, or your Bible app,
or grab one of those Bibles in the pew in front
of you. What I want you to do first, I'm gonna
give you a moment to turn there. One of the big
emphases of this last section of 2 Corinthians
is Paul's coming to the Corinthians. But he begins
that really in the end of chapter... 12. So if
you look at chapter 12 verse 20, this is what
he says, of the impurity, sexual immorality,
and sensuality that they have practiced. Okay,
so here's what's happening, right? Paul is distant
from them. And the fact of Paul's distance from
them, actually the Corinthians are acting not
just as though Paul is distant, but though as
God is entirely distant, right? And here's what
happens. So they quarrel and they're angry towards
one another and they're hostile. That's some
of the language that's used. uh which what happens
is that they're buying into this idea that they
must win they must win the argument they're angry
at others must win the day they're hostile towards
each other their quarreling has led to a point
where they say i must win this because so often
winning is what gives us our our meaning in life
you've got to win in the here and now and if
you don't man fire gets going It says they're
jealous over others. They want what others have.
Because, of course, what you have now, your possessions
now, is what gives you meaning in this sort of
secular age. If the world is all there is, then
what you have is what defines you. They're jealous
over the life of others and want to grab onto
it. They slander because you going down often
means that I get to go up. And I need to establish
myself in this world now, because now is all
there is. They gossip. Why do people gossip?
They just kind of get a feeling of, I'm in the
know. I am in the know. There's this sort of
reality of you get some kind of earthly high
and buzz and you've got to do that because In
our age, and the temptation was then, it's all
about the now. This world is all there is. You
better get it while the getting is good. They
live a life of sexual immorality and sensuality,
because again, you might as well take in all
of the sensual pleasure while it's there for
the taking. This world is all there is. Live
it up. Enjoy while you can. You see, this eminent
frame that this world and what is right before
us now is the reference for meaning, says that
this is all there is. Take it while you can.
Take the argument while you can. Take the special
knowledge while you can. Take the sensual pleasure
while you can. Be jealous of those who have when
you don't. Because having now is what gives you
life meaning. Which is to say, eat the candy.
The candy now. If you look down in verse two
of chapter 13, you see Paul say this, I warned
those who sinned before. and all the others,
and I warn them now while absent." And if he
actually, if you went back up, he says to verse
21 of chapter 12, I fear that when I come again,
my God may humble me before you and I may have
to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier
and have not repented of their impurity and all
the rest. And if you think back to the sins of
the Corinthian church and First Corinthians,
you see the same dynamic at play of living in
this imminent frame, this secular age of God
is so distant, let's take it now. They not only
practice sexual immorality and sensuality, which
is a big theme in First Corinthians, but they
also take one another to court because they've
got to win. You've got to win the argument. You've
got to establish yourself. Or you think of 1
Corinthians chapter 10 and chapter 11. And the
big thing that is happening, one of the big dynamics
that's happening over the Lord's Supper, you
know, this table of communion is a table of disunion
because a bunch of the people were coming first,
particularly the well -to -do, and they were
eating it all. Seems like such a strange thing,
right, to us. But isn't that exactly what you
would do if all that you're living for is the
here and now? Take it all. Take it all. Right?
Come and grab it. Don't leave anything for anyone
else. You've got to establish yourself now. And
of course, what has this rejection of God done
in our world? Right? In the world that we live
in now that says, God is a delusion. It is simply
the physical reality now that is on offer for
you for your meaning. What has secularism done
for our world, this secular age? Do we live in
a world where people are eager to listen to others'
opinions, to learn from those who disagree with
us? Or do we live in a world where quarreling
and slander seems to be pretty much the norm?
Is our world a place where jealousy runs rampant,
or there is great contentment? Do we look upon
the lives others have and think, I'm going to
rejoice with them? Or do we think, if only I
had, then I would be happy? Has the rejection
of the divine and the belief that this world
is all there is made sexual immorality and sensuality
Something that we hold with joy as a gift, but
not our identity or has it become our identity?
I mean, is it even a question? We talk about
sexual identity all the time. It's become the
thing that defines us because something of this
world has to define you. It has to give you meaning.
The rejection of the idea that the divine is
what gives us our authority and our meaning.
Made an image of God, we've got to grab onto
it. We've got to grab onto it in the here and
in the now. Again, think of our political discourse.
Is our political discourse not filled, I mean
filled with anger and slander and hostility?
Be honest, is your heart not filled with anger
and hostility and slander towards those who you
disagree with? One of the marks of our age, this
secular age, as some call it, is the idea of
exclusive humanism. That the world becoming better
is up to us. You know your heart, you're like,
oh dear. But this is partly why political discourse
is as it is. because if it's up to us, then we
have to figure out how it works best. And my
vision of how it must work best has to be the
one that wins if that's all the hope that we
have. And if you disagree with it, you are not
just disagreeing with me, but you are disagreeing
with the good life and therefore you must be
evil. You must be squelched, squashed, put down.
Do you see this? What Paul is warning the Corinthians,
how he is warning them not to live as though
God will not come back, as though He will not
come back, is in some ways the big warning that
we need, right? This idea that, ah, God is either
so distant as though He is irrelevant or He just
doesn't exist at all. Oh, you're so far off.
We could care less what you think we will live
as we want to now So often what we do But here's
the thing and this is part of what Paul is saying
is Paul's coming back He's it's almost as though
Paul in this chapter is actually living the Advent
life After his first coming actually, it's first
and second coming. He went he visited them another
time and before he comes again And he's inviting
us to actually into this Advent life with God.
God has come and he will return. Which is to
say, God will not be mocked. God will not be
mocked. Or as verse three says, he's not weak
in dealing with you, but he's powerful among
you. His reality is sure. He is present, he knows.
Maybe you could say he sees. He's the God who
is imminent to us. His eminence is part of His
reality, transcendent, and yet in Him we live
and move and have our being. He's as high as
the heavens are above the earth. He's so far
beyond us, and yet He makes us home, present
to us. So Paul gives some advice. He gives some
practical things that they might be on on their
guard. He says a few things to them. And I want
to just kind of walk through a couple things
he says to them. One thing that he says sort
of to help them be ready for his coming is test
yourself. Test yourself. Examine yourself. Look
at verse five. I forget which one of you children
read this for us, but all of you did a really
great job. Very clear enunciation. Verse five,
examine yourselves to see whether you are in
the faith. Examine yourselves, test yourselves.
It means very clear, examine yourself. Are you
in the faith? Test yourself. Take some time to
examine your life. I invite you, I implore you,
take some time. Sit down and examine your life.
Test your life. We often talk about this during
Lent. It's this penitential time focused on this
question of this looking forward to the cross
and the resurrection, but also we sit in this
question of why did God need to come and why
did he need to die? And how awful is our sin
that God Himself would have to die for it? But
now, examine yourself. Part of the dynamic of
looking forward to the coming of Jesus, and we
got this in our Isaiah passage, the day of the
Lord is both a very wonderful thing in the scriptures,
but it is also a day of fear. It is a day of
joy and it is a day of fear because it is a day
of both blessing and a day of judgment. So examine
yourself. Take inventory of your life. Take inventory
of your speech and of your heart, your actions,
your speech marked by hostility and anger. Are
you prone to gossip? Something that is often
condemned in scripture. Do you savor being in
the know, having special knowledge? Does your
heart relish the downfall of those you disagree
with? I think of how you, maybe one way to do
this to examine yourself is how do you engage
with the political news about you? Can you not
wait to hear how some opponent had some other
controversy surrounding them? They are on the
Epstein file list, right? Oh, I hope they are.
Like what's going on in our hearts? Examine yourself.
Are you prone to jealousy? Does your heart sit?
in the thought of what others have or what they
get to do and whatever. Do you scroll through
the feed seeing the joy of others and just ache
that it is not yours? Are you inclined to take
the sexual and the sensual pleasures on offer
now while it is before you? When it's not yours
to have? Are you addicted to what you see on
the screen or the flavors you can have in your
mouth? Do you dream about the next meal constantly?
Mind and your heart fixed on the sensual. Examine
yourselves, test yourself. These are all inclinations
of this imminent frame, this idea that we must
have now. As the getting is good, take it. Paul
goes on from verse five there in 13. Let me read
this for you. Or do you not realize this about
yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless
indeed you fail to meet the test? Right, he's
speaking to a Christian church. I'm I employ
you now where the sisters test yourselves unless
you fail to meet the test Ask examine Are you
walking in the way of the Lord finding his his
law your delight Keeps going he is not weak in
dealing with you, but it's powerful among you
For he was crucified in weakness, but lives in
the power of God. For we are weak in him, but
in dealing with you, we live with him by the
power of God." Do you see what he's inviting
you to do is to test yourself. Are you living
simply for what is before you now? The delights
of this world or what power you can have now
or how others can be put down? Test is Jesus
Christ in you, he asks. That's sort of the first
advice he gives. The second is sort of similar,
but I think it's a little bit different too.
And the second I want to say is the truth will
out. Jesus says it like this in Luke chapter
12, nothing is covered up that will not be revealed
or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever
you have said in the dark shall be heard in the
light and what you've whispered in private rooms
shall be proclaimed in the housetops Nothing
is hidden that will not be revealed So as you
test yourself it's good things the Lord says
he says to us you cannot hide Don't think you're
fooling anybody or Paul says it In verse 8, for
we cannot do anything against the truth. We can't.
But only for the truth. The truth is going to
be what comes out. He's saying that he himself
cannot do anything but the truth. Sorry, he's
not saying that he himself cannot just live in
the truth, but that all of what we do will be
brought out. The truth will always come out.
The truth will always win. And Paul's saying
in some ways that there's a very practical reality
to this, that the truth will always win. And
part of this is do not, today, do not harden
your hearts, right? We heard from Psalm 95. Don't
harden your hearts because the Lord knows your
heart. The Lord knows your motivations. The Lord
knows what you say in private, he says. It's
gonna be brought out. Are you just grabbing onto
this world? Because in the coming of... Christ,
all things will be brought to light. His light
will shine in the darkness. And some of that
we will say, praise the Lord. And some of that
we will say, I wanted to keep that in the darkness.
Right? It's a day of both joy and a day both
for fear. Truth will out. Maybe some of you have
heard this, but when speaking of the world to
come, both the new heavens and the new earth
and the judgment that will be given to those
who do not walk in the way of the Lord. C .S.
Lewis sort of famously says, you always get what
you want. Always get what you want. Children,
how many of you have read the book, The Magician's
Nephew, or heard that book? Okay. Yeah. How many
else have read The Magician's Nephew? Wonderful.
If you haven't, I would be happy to give you
a copy of it. But near the end of that story,
do you remember Diggory flies on Fledge whose
previous name was Strawberry, which I love. It's
a great name for a horse. But he flies on the
horse up to the walled garden and he gets the
fruit, the apple. But who also gets the fruit?
Witch. That's right, the witch. And Aslan says
to Diggory about the witch taking also the fruit.
He says, child, that is why All the rest are
now a horror to her. That is what happens to
those who pluck and eat fruits the wrong time
and in the wrong way. Oh, the fruit is good,
but they loathe it ever after. She's won her
heart's desire. She has unwavering strength and
endless days like a goddess, but length of days
with an evil heart is only length of misery.
And already she begins to know it. All get what
they want. They do not always like it. Which
is to say, if you live in this dynamic of the
thing that gives you meaning and the hope that
you have is only in what is right before you,
that's all you'll get. If you don't want Jesus
now, you don't get Jesus then. You get what you
want. The truth will always out. Test yourself.
Paul really practically says, understand that
you will get what you want and the truth will
be revealed. We can't do anything against the
truth. Light will always shine in the darkness
and the dark things will be exposed. Test yourself.
But there is more that he says. And I want to
say this that he actually ends with a very hopeful
note. in a couple chapters that are pretty hard.
And I think this is really lovely because my
guess is that when we list out, when we examine
ourselves, when we test ourselves, when we list
out how we live without the reality of God, when
we list out these things that He lists out for
the Corinthian church like gossip and slander
and hostility and sensuality and all these things,
when we really examine ourselves, and we are
honest with ourselves, and maybe there's a little
bit of sense of, oh, the truth will out. I better
be really honest, which is what I'm encouraging
you to do. My guess is that you're like, yes,
I live this secular life. I live in this reality.
I better take while the taking is good. I mean,
I see myself in this list. And I think, my guess
is that if you're actually honest, you'll see
yourself in this list. But I also want to suggest
to you that Paul knows that that is for our good.
It's for our good that our examination leads
us to go, oh, my word. Oh, my word, I have been
taking. I've been seeking to find my meaning
and my pleasure and my delight and my joy. Not
in the Lord, but in the things of this life and
the things of this world. He knows that it's
for your good because actually when you come
to that place and acknowledge that is when you
actually begin to turn to Him and to find that
in Him there's a new life on offer. There's true
forgiveness and true peace and a different way
of being in the world is really on offer to you
as you come to an honest place. Your rejection
of him and you're grabbing onto the things of
this world. That is where you find hope So let
me tell you this story then I'm gonna begin to
wrap this up So we don't just eat eat a lot of
candy around Christmas in our house. What are
other times when we eat a lot of candy Halloween
yes East. Yep Easter. We eat a lot of chocolate
only Yeah, but Halloween is one of those ones
where especially if you live where we live, which
is, you know, just a few blocks down on Green
Street, it gets packed. Right. I mean, there's
a lot of candy being given out and the temptation
when you have it is to do what? Eat it. Right.
Thank you. It's to eat it. And I did ask Melissa
if I could share this with you. But one of the
stories, there's a story in our family that goes
around. And we tell it somewhat often, Melyce
mostly tells it because it is her story. It's
a very important story. And it's a very instructive
story. And I'm telling it to you all because
it is very instructive. And I think this is part
of what Paul is saying. When Melyce was a sweet
little girl of age 10 -ish, she and her brothers
went trick or treating around their neighborhood
and then over into another adjoining neighborhood.
And they got lots of candy. And of course, what
do you do when you have candy? Yeah, you eat
it. And the temptation, right, was to say, oh,
I got this. I better eat it now. The joy is before
me now. Whatever my pleasure is before me now,
my meaning is before me now. Well, what happens
when you eat all the candy? It's gone. Thank
you. That's one thing you get home and you're
like, well, I don't have any candy. But you know
what? The candy comes up. That's what happens.
You get sick. And that is exactly what Paul is
warning them about. That's not the way to live.
It's not. There's a proper time to enjoy the
things of this world. There's a proper time for
these things. The proper way to enjoy them is
in light of the Lord. The fact that He's given
them to you. He gives them to you in proper times
to be used in proper ways. So in the midst of
all this warning, as Paul's ending this letter,
he also ends with this, verse 11. Finally, brothers,
rejoice. Aim for, it's just amazing. That's how
he ends after all this. It's like, I'm coming
back. You better get your stuff together. Finally,
brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration. Comfort
one another, agree with one another, live in
peace, and the God of love and peace will be
with you. Right? What is the answer? What's the
answer to all this quarreling and strife and
hostility and grabbing? God will be with you.
And as He is with you, as you live in this reality
of God among you, you can aim for restoration.
You can live at peace with one another. The very
things they weren't doing were on offer for them.
And they are on offer for us also. It's because
God is with us that we have hope. So finally
He sends us out with the very words actually
that so often you are sent out with into this
world. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you because He knows that is your hope.
That God is not absent, but He is with you as
you go out into this world that is saying, grab,
grab, grab, make meaning out of what you have
now. Brothers and sisters, that is the hope that
we have. grace of Lord Jesus Christ, the love
of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
with us. Amen. Lord, thank you for your word
to us this morning. God, thank you that you love
us and that you call us to repentance and you
correct our ways. But Lord, thank you for this
great truth that you are with us and it's because
you are with us that we have hope. We have new
life. We're going to have to find our meaning
and what we can grab and hold on to. and know
in this life, but in you and in you alone. Move
among us, Lord, in this way. Draw us ever into
the great hope of your advent, your coming among
us. In Jesus' name, amen. You can find us online
at SecondCityChurch .org and on Instagram, Facebook,
and YouTube. Thanks again for listening. God
bless.