For We Know

All right, let’s take our Bibles and turn this morning to Second Corinthians, chapter number five, verses one through ten. And I went for just a few moments. We were doing a series of lessons on heaven, although we’ve not actually talked about the glories of heaven and the beauties of heaven, but we’ve kind of building up to it and I don’t know why it’s worked out this way. I don’t know. This was not how I planned for these lessons to go, but but it’s how the Lord has directed and helped me, and I hope that it help you too. The two Corinthians, chapter number five, verses one through ten. Let’s take just a moment in prayer. Father in heaven, thank you. Thank you for loving us when we run. Love well. Thank you for Your great gift of salvation. Thank you, Lord, you saved us, you birthed us into the family of God. And thank you, Lord, for putting us in this local group of assembly believers. Father, thank you for this church, this church family. Thank you, Lord, for the efforts that were put into the Mass, witnessing that was done yesterday. Father, what a blessing that was. I pray that each track that was given, each pamphlet that was given, lord, I know to bring praise and honor and glory to Thee, but I ask your Father to take them and use them. And I pray, Father, we’ll see fruit of that labor, Lord. I pray, Father, that souls will be saved. I pray, Father, hearts will be convicted. And I pray the Holy Spirit of God will go where we can’t go this morning and touch those hearts, plant water that seed that it’s been planted, Lord, that it may grow, we may see folks saved. Lord, I pray for your honor and Your glory. We thank you for what You’ve done for our church, our church family. We thank you for the good reports that we’ve gotten this morning from our pastor of those that are not well in our church family. Thank you for taking care of them, Lord. Thank you for watching over them and being with them. Now, we need you this morning, Lord, as we look into Your word. We need some help, we need some hope, we need some encouragement. Lord, it’s the world we live in, it’s difficult day by day with as many hard waters for us to navigate. But I need help, Father, and you’ve helped me a little bit this morning, and I pray that you’ll take and you’ll help your children, lord, encourage him and strengthening the thank you for what You’ve done for us. Thank you for what you’re going to do, God, and direct us in the next hour, bless the man of God as he presents the word of God to us with our hearts may be open to receive what you have for us. Thank you for what You’ve done this past week and what you’re going to do this next week. In Jesus name, amen. Two Corinthians. I’m sorry. Chapter number five. Let’s look at the first ten verses. The Bible says for we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened not for that we would be unclosed, but closed upon that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now, he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God, who hath who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident I am assay and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord wherefore we labor, that whether we present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. So I want you to note something. The world has a conception of heaven. The world has their view of heaven and how to get there. But we know the truth. I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes under the Father but by me. We know there’s a heaven. We believe it. Why do we believe it? Because of the inerrant infallible word of God. This Bible is more than just a book. This Bible is more than just about history. This Bible is God’s word. God’s promises to you and to me. So when I give you this this morning, the title this morning’s lesson is this for we know we know there are some things that you can be sure of in this life. Amen. More than death and taxes. You can be sure that how about if I just turn this thing off? Buddy, turn the pulpit mic on. Sir. I’ll turn this off. Yeah, we’ll just we’ll put this thing to the side and I’ll not wonder. How about that? So crack a lacken. I’m not crazy about the crack of lacken. Interrupting this little train of thought that I’ve got going. We can know that we’re saved. You can know that. You can know that after this life there’s another life to come. For those that are saved, it’s heaven. For those that are not saved, it’s hell. We can know. The Bible says in the last verse that we read, for we must, we must all appear. We know that there will be a judgment seat of Christ. We know that there are some things in the word of God that we can know. Now, why does God want us to know that? Because God wants us to have hope. I’ll be honest with you. There’s no hope in this world. As we walked I didn’t walk the Oakhill route. I was Pacifying, folks at the Great Blue Box. But as we walked the second round, as I walked the second round, you could see in the faces of the people hopelessness. They’re looking for maybe some candy. They’re maybe looking for some short time entertainment. Maybe they’re looking for a false hope of a red fat man visiting their house in a couple of weeks. But they’re looking for something that’s not going to bring them joy, peace, or contentment. The good news is we were able to give them that. The good news is we were able to show them that they can have hope. This world is full of hopelessness. This world is full of despair. So we need hope, don’t we? We have trial tribulations, our loved ones that we pray for, our loved ones that are sick, our loved ones are in the weather, our loved ones that are grieving right now, that have lost loved ones that have gone on, and they’re here to grieve. We need hope, don’t we? We need that. So the Bible gives us comfort. The Bible gives us strength. The Bible gives us promises. And in these verses we’re going to find some great promises. We’ve looked at some things. We noted that I’ll go through the introduction quickly. We’ve noted we have hope. We noted last week that heaven is a real place. The Bible tells us in Genesis one one, Psalm 124 eight, Psalm 33 six one, Corinthians two nine. The Bible tells us that neither I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered in the heart of man the things which God have prepared for them to love Him. So we know heaven is a real place. Never been there. Up until this past week, our pastor had never been to Arizona. But guess what? It exists. He landed. Didn’t walk on the wings of the plane like he was told not to, but he landed. It’s a real place. Just because you’ve not been there doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. A lot of the places I haven’t been, I know they exist. And I know heaven exists. I know heaven is real. And I want to show you some things that I think this morning will help you and will comfort you. And are those that are sick this morning maybe listening by way of livestream give you some help, give you some hope, but it’s going to help us too. It’s going to help us too. We saw in John 14 last week I want to give you four major sources of encouragement that we looked at last week. Number one, he said you let not your heart be troubled as command from the Lord. We don’t have to be troubled. This world is full of troubles. This world is full of trials. This world is full of heartaches. There’s people in our church building this morning that have been through a lot of heartache. Amen. A lot of heartbreak. But you still see a smile on their face. You know, god’s real. They have comfort. They found comfort in the word of God. So we don’t have to be troubled. He tells us not to be troubled. Let not your heart you let not your heart be troubled. So number one, he commands us not to be troubled. Number two, command us not to be troubled. But he says we don’t have to be troubled. We can make a choice. We can make a choice to stay discouraged, to live miserable, or we can make a choice to put our hope and our faith and our confidence in God. How would you like to have been one of the twelve disciples when the Lord said, one of you is going to deny me? How would you like to be one of the disciples? When they were watching their Lord being crucified, their hearts were troubled. But the Lord gave them something, said let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. So he said it was a command. And number two, he gives us there’s a choice, and we must make the choice to walk by faith. And number three. And that leads us to number three. And that is, he said, you believe in God, believe also in me. In other words, have faith in me. Have faith in my words. Believe the word of God. Let me tell you something this morning. Young people that are upstairs this morning are young men. They’re up here this morning. Let me tell you something this morning. There’s a lot of things in this life that you won’t have confidence in. But there’s one thing you can always have confidence in, that is the word of God. Amen. You can always have confidence in what God tells you. There’ll be people that will lead you astray. There’ll be people that will hurt you. There’ll be people that disappoint you. There’ll be people that turn their back on you. But the one thing you can always rest assured of, brother Andy, is the pages of this book are true and accurate. Amen. God’s word will never fail you. Believe in God, believe also in me. So we must trust him. And then the last thing was always remember this he’ll never forget where you are. He said, If I go if I go and he did, I will come again. He hasn’t forgotten about you. It’s been 2000 years. We talked about Peter, talked about Luke, talked about John last week and how they all died. But I believe they were all looking. I believe they’re all waiting. Sorry I’m going to be crucified upside down. But he said he was coming back after me. For 2000 years, our ancestors, our loved ones have been looking for him. And guess what? He hadn’t forgotten about you. He hasn’t forgotten. I believe his I believe his return is imminent. I believe it’s soon. I believe it’s soon. But guess what? If you don’t come in my generation, he’s still coming. He’s still coming. So that leads us to our surgical lesson. This morning is where we can have some more hope. I want to give you some hope, some help, some encouragement. I want you to look at verse number one. The Bible says, and I put this as my first point here is why we can have hope. Here is why I can have hope. Because number one, the Bible tells us I understand Paul is writing to the Church of Corinth. I get it that there was a man that wrote these words down. But I’m also a firm believer that God gave this man these words for us. These words were inspired of God. This is God’s word for us today. He says, for we know that if our earthly home, this tabernacle, were dissolved, we have a building of God. We can have hope. We can know. You don’t have to wonder what tomorrow is going to bring. You don’t have to wonder about the future. You don’t have to wonder what’s going to happen at the end of our days, whether we go through sicknesses, whether we go through some kind of heartache, some kind of grief. You don’t have to know. You don’t have to think or maybe wonder. You can know that heaven is your home if you’re saved by the grace of God. He says, we can know. We can know. The Bible gives us the children of God. Hope. You say, Brother Mark, does that mean we’re not going to hurt? No, sir. Still going to hurt. Does that mean we’re not going to grieve? No, we’re still going to grieve. We’re in this world of sin. What makes us think we won’t go through heartache troubles, trials and tribulations? What makes us think there won’t be death? What makes us think that there’s not going to be things that we’re going to have to go through? We’re in a world full of despair. Amen. We’re in a world of sin. Amen. This is not heaven. When you get to heaven, don’t have to worry about those things. We got to get our eyes heavenly upwardly and off the things of this world. I don’t think we should be so heavily minded that we’re no earthly good. But I think if we’re the more heavenly minded we are, the more earthly good we will be. We’ll serve the Lord with more fervency because we know that when this heart stops beating, there is an eternity, a heaven waiting for us. We can know. We can know. Will we be saddened in his life? Yes. But the word God, the word of god gives us hope. It gives us hope and it gives us hope to put our faith and our trust in the Lord. He don’t have to wonder. He says, we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, what do we have? We have a building of God. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Now, when the Lord returns, the Second coming, when the Lord returns in the rapture of the church, if our loved ones who have gone on before us, their bodies we’ve planted in the ground will arise. When Jesus returns, their body, their soul and spirit will meet and will all go to heaven to be with the Lord. There’ll be seven years of tribulation and the Lord will come down for it. There will be a thousand year millennial reign. We know what the Bible says. But our loved ones who are there in the grave today, that’s just their body, their soul and their spirit is living in heaven. Now, there’s folks in our church that have been reunited. There’s folks in our church. It’s like, when did you get here? I promise you they’re in heaven rejoicing together. If we could roll back the clouds pastor won’t take a field trip and take us all to Arizona. I’m going to do one better. If we could roll back the clouds and look into the third heaven, just imagine what we could see. Think about your loved ones that have gone on before. Some in our church family, some folks have had babies that were not born. Just think who’s in heaven. Think about all those that have been aborted, that are in heaven. You’re talking about rejoicing. You see, this world is full of despair, hopelessness. We go through sicknesses and we grieve when we lose loved ones. But we can have hope, for we know that. The Bible says if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God and house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. We’ll have a new body. There will be I can’t tell you what the mansions are in heaven. I don’t know. I’ve not seen them. I’ve not been there. I’ve not made the trip. I’ve got a visa to go. My passport is ready. I’m not trying to catch the next plane out. But I know where I’m going and I know where I’ll be. Can’t tell you how wonderful it will be. I can’t tell you because I’m afraid. If I would tell you we’d all want to go and leave here. Now, I know the Lord gives us glimpses of it in his word. I get that. But here’s what I want to give you hope for this morning. You can know that when you leave this life, if you’re saved by the grace of God, heaven will be your home. Know that. Know that. Know this. It’s a blessed promise. It’s a promise that there’ll be no more surgeries, no more bandaid patches. What do you mean by that, Brother Mark? Well, there’s folks that sometimes will have to have stents put in their heart. That’s a Band Aid patch. It just gets you through, right? I was talking to Brother Billy last night. My grandmother had open heart surgery. My granddad had open heart surgery and the Lord saw fit to take him home. My grandmother had it. And when she passed, her heart was I mean, I know the heart has to stop beating for her to pass. I know that. But her heart was strong. It was just her time to go. She had a strong heart. She had a lot of other elements, but her heart was strong, was beating. But you know what? That was still just a Band Aid patch because none of them lived. They all passed. One day there’ll be no more passing. One day there’ll be no more surgeries. One day there’ll be no more bandaid patches getting us through. No, one day there’ll be no more eyesight issues. Chris said I’ve got on green today. I can’t see it. Number one, because we have this warm lighting in our house to make us feel comfy and cozy. And these eyes are old and dim. I couldn’t see that she had green on this morning. I think she was telling me because I needed to match something green. I don’t know. But there’ll be no more eyesight issues. My wife’s rejoicing. There’ll be no more deafness, there’ll be no more sickness, there’ll be no more pain, there’ll be no more cancer, there’ll be no more dementia, there’ll be no more COVID. There you, ben we’ll have a new body, a glorified body. And the Bible tells us, for we know you can know this that if our earthly house of this tabernacle ward is off, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal within heavens. For in this look, for in this we grown. We grown. Why do you grown for that? Why do you grown for heaven inside? Why do we grown for heaven? You know why we grown for heaven? Because the Holy Spirit of God abides inside of you. And the Holy Spirit of God knows what lies ahead for us, what has been prepared for us. So our bodies, our spirits our spirits are growing. Maybe, like I said, I’m not ready to take the next flight out. But I can honestly tell you that if I could take everyone with me, I’d probably choose to check one out. I’d rather go to heaven, wouldn’t you? That’s a fight this world. Why can’t I feel that way? Why can I feel that way in my heart? Because the Spirit the Bible tells us here the Spirit in this we grown earnestly, desiring, to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. Listen, if God made you a promise, it’s a promise. It’s real. Heaven is real. Amen. Now, I noticed I went down through here and I’m getting ahead of myself in the Sunday school lesson, as I often do. If I sent this lesson to you, you wouldn’t be able to follow it anyway because it’s just a formality that I put it together. I never can follow the thing. Heaven is a real place. Heaven is eternal. We groan because the Spirit of God, he gives us an earnest desire to groan. He says in verse number five. Look at verse number five. Now, he that hath brought us for the same thing, self same thing as God, who also hath given us the earnest of the Spirit. Because you’re saved by the grace of God, you have a desire to go to heaven. Now, if that heaven wasn’t real, why would God give us that desire? Heaven is a real place and God’s given us a desire to go there. Maybe not ready to check out right now and go but I promise you if each and every one of you could push a button and take everybody you loved with you, you’d check out now, wouldn’t we? We’d rather go to heaven. Now, why do we want to go to heaven? Because the Holy Spirit of God lives inside of us. He bides us, he’s the comforter, he gives us that hope. So, see, you have hope. There is hope. There’s something to look forward to more than this life. I can’t imagine being in Brother Billy’s place, or Sister Terry, Brother Joel or Brother Randall’s place and folks that are just suffering. I can’t imagine being in a hospital room and constantly dinging and the buzzing and people coming in, taking your blood and poking in 15 different places with 15 different needles. Living a life like that. I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine that. I can imagine it would be discouraging. I would imagine that probably gets kind of hard sometimes. I imagine sometimes there’s just the thinking. People probably think, I just don’t want to go on. But can I encourage you this morning there’s hope. There’s a heaven to gain. There’s life beyond this life. Live the days that God has given you. Give them all to him, the best of your best you can, to his honor, to his glory. Give those days to him. And when God sees fit to punch you out, there’s a heaven waiting on you. There’s a home. None of our loved ones would come back. If they could, they wouldn’t come back. They love you. They miss you. Maybe just a little bit. But they’re not thinking about you. They’re thinking about heaven. They’re thinking about Jesus Christ. They’re worshiping the Lord. They haven’t had condoms. You, Peter and John, who died over 2000 years ago. They’re not thinking about anything but worshiping the Lord to them. It’s been like that. We grieve because of those are left behind, not because of those that have gone on. My soul. Why would they come back? Amen. You see, God’s given us hope. We have hope. We have a natural desire that’s been put into us by the Holy Spirit of God to want to get to heaven, our home. Now, let’s move on because I’m going to try to get through this. I don’t want to push my way through this scripture, I really don’t. But I want to give you a couple of things here, therefore, in verse number six. We are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. That’s a wonderful thought, isn’t it? For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Death is never easy. It’s never easy on any family, any church, any church member, any home. It’s never easy. It’s never easy. And there’s days that our loved ones, when they move on and we’re here behind that, we miss them. We weep, we grieve. And that’s okay. That’s good. That’s good. But know this. Your loved ones this morning are in heaven in a real place, rejoicing praising the Lord, worshiping the Lord. And the more you dwell on how good God’s been to you, the more you dwell on the fact knowing that your loved ones are in a much better place, the more you take covered in those things, the more that spirit of God inside of you gives you a longing to go to that place. Your heart’s comforted. There’s an earnest, there’s an earnest hope. There’s an earnest hope. And our body’s Bible says here, as long as we’re in this body, we’re absent from the one who loved us more than anybody. The more we’re in this body, the longer we’re away from the one who loved us when nobody else did, who took you out of places you never thought you’d get out of, saved your life out of a misery, a life of misery and woe. The longer we’re in this body, we’re away from our Lord, who loved us that much. I want you to take comfort this morning knowing as we talked about heaven there just a little while ago in John chapter 14, the hope that we can have the heart will make its last beat. And when it does, that next breath will be taken in heaven, a real place. For we know that if our earthly houses tabernacle were dissolved, we have a better home awaiting. Amen. We have a better future. Thank the good Lord, we have a better future than what we got right now in this world. Amen. So we can have hope. So I want to encourage you out of this pasture scripture this morning. I don’t know where we’ll go next week. I haven’t looked that far ahead. But I wanted to encourage you. As I was reading about heaven and reading some verses about heaven, this one spoke to me and gave me some help, gave me some hope, encouraged me. And I thought, well, if it encourages me, hopefully it’ll encourage you to. Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus mercy, grace, and salvation. Thank you for a church family. Thank you for a pastor. Thank you for loving us when we were in lovel. Thank you for all you’ve done. But most of all, we’re thank you for the great gift of salvation. Thank you, Lord, for the home that awaits on the other side, for those of us who are saved. Father, I pray, take the message that was given out yesterday. Water the seed, Father, that others may have the comfort and the joy that we have in our heart, knowing that heaven is our home, knowing that we have a destination better than this world. Thank you for what you’ve done. Bless in the next hour, encourage heart, strengthen and help. We pray in Jesus name and amen. the heaven’s a real place. I want you to give you hope this morning out of this passage of scripture. This old body that from the day we’re born to the day we die is breaking down. Every day. Every day. Knees are getting bad, our hips are getting bad. Our back muscles aren’t what they used to be. Our eyesight shore isn’t what it used to be. Our hearing is not what it used to be. We’re still in an old body of flesh and it’s still dying every day. One of these days, it’ll take its last breath and