1 The apostle Paul speaks of the earthly tent we live in. What s he talking about? Our physical body. That makes sense. You know what a tent is like, especially if you ve gone camping. A tent is functional and sturdy. It gives you shelter for the night. But tents are fragile. A tent can tear. It can collapse. It doesn t give total protection. Heavy rain comes, you may get wet. You re not fully safe from predators. Our body is like a tent. It functional and sturdy. It lets us get around in life. But our earthly body is also fragile like a tent. It s prone to weakness. It can collapse. The canvas of your skin can tear, and bleed. But how good is the Lord that he takes our greatest fear and attaches the greatest promise to it. Yeah, maybe I ll get a stroke or a heart attack. Or I ll get cancer that goes all through my system. So be it. If my earthly tent collapses and I die, I have a building from God waiting for me in heaven. We have this. It is ours today. Scripture says. We have a building from God. Not a tent, a building. Not built by human hands, but by God. It is eternal. What is this building from God that we have? Let s talk about that this morning, for this promise really it makes us the people we are today. Oh, When our Tent Becomes a House. Our tent is our body. But realize. When the Holy Spirit uses a picture in the Bible, it can often be understood on multiple levels. When our text mentions our tent, think of your earthly body, but also think of the Old Testament. After God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, they had to wander through the wilderness, living in tents. Their place of worship was the tabernacle, which was a tent that contained the ark of the covenant, and all the other worship furnishings. When Paul speaks of our earthly tent, picture our physical bodies as being like the ancient tabernacle. God dwelt in the tabernacle. He dwells in us by faith. But, like the
2 tabernacle, we are constantly on the move. God in his wisdom, directs us through different stages of life, different experiences, some sweet some bitter. We constantly must pack up our tent, and get on the move. We are wanderers in this unpredictable world. And so we groan. We want stability. We want a house, where we can plant our feet in one spot and worship God with joyous peace, with no problems or sorrows. That day isn t here yet, so today, as we are stuck in our earthly tent, we groan. Our groaning can t be heard by the ears. It s the sound our heart makes as we cling to God s promises. With the apostle Paul, we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. Now, normally you re given a dwelling, you re not clothed with a dwelling. But then again, heaven is no ordinary place. We can see why God would speak to us in this unusual way. The Holy Spirit knows that we are not always secure in the earthly tent of our bodies. If you were in public and you were stripped of all your clothes, you d be embarrassed. A similar dread goes far deeper inside of us. What if my earthly tent is destroyed, and all of a sudden, I meet God today, naked in my sins? Will I be like Adam and Eve in the garden, hearing God s footsteps, finding no place to hide my nakedness? God shows his love for us. He addresses that fear of ours. For look what the Spirit had Paul write. We groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. You see? We won t be found naked. If our earthly tent is destroyed, we will be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. And all because of Jesus. We will be clothed, because he was stripped. Quite literally, Jesus was naked or very close to it on the cross. And that was nothing compared to the shame he suffered in his soul. We say that Jesus put our sins on himself but it s just as true to say, he
3 stripped off his glory for us. For sin is not a putting on, it s a shameful taking off. And Jesus our loving Savior, stripped off his glory, for our sake. As John 1 says. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Literally, it says, The Word became flesh and tented among us. Jesus tented among us. The immortal Lord confined himself to an earthly tent. He willingly took on a fragile human body like ours. He was torn, like a tent. He collapsed like a tent. He was destroyed. But in the ruins of his suffering, he won our salvation. And by the power of his life, death, and resurrection Jesus is building a house for us today. Not by mere human hands, the God-Man is building us a house by his divine power. But what exactly is the eternal house that we ve been promised? Understand our house in heaven as everything God has promised you in the next life, heaven and everything in it, including your glorified body on the last day. As we speak, Jesus is tailoring heaven to suit you personally. When the day comes, we will praise God that our eternal house fits us so comfortably, like perfectly fitting clothes. Oh, when our tent becomes a house. On that day, death will be swallowed up by life. But notice our text doesn t say death will be swallowed up, but rather what is mortal will be swallowed up. I think by using the word mortal, the Holy Spirit is comforting us in the face of dread. Being mortal means that we could death. For us as Christians, the idea of death is more unpleasant than death itself. The dread of knowing we could die at any moment. But we know the loving Lord has already planned out our whole lives. And he promises that when our earthly tent is destroyed, what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Yes, one day we will not be
4 mortal. We will be immortal like Christ himself. We will be unable to die. Death will be as foreign to us on that day as the absence of death is foreign to us today. Today, we are like the grass that withers. On that day, we will be like cedars planted on a high and lofty mountain, as our first lesson today puts it. We will be like tall cedar trees that cannot be uprooted, because what is mortal has been swallowed up by life. How wonderful that will be to be in our eternal house together with our Christian loved ones, and not have to wonder when they are going to die. You won t have to wonder what will go wrong. No more problems. No more sufferings. Just peace. Even as we don t have perfect peace today, we long for that day when we will have perfect peace, and that expectation gives us a measure of peace today. But how do we know that this promise is true? Atheists and unbelievers are quick to accuse us of falling for fairy tales. Well, you want awesome, clear proof that God exists and that his promises are true? Our first proof is holy Scripture itself. Its perfection is the great testament to God s existence. But there s another piece of overwhelming evidence that God is real and his promises are true. What evidence is that? The work of the Spirit in the hearts of Christ s people. I remember one man who was not a Christian. He did not have a Christian background. None of his family were believers. But then he remarried a Christian woman, and through her testimony, he came to faith. A great transformation came over this man. His family was astounded at the change in him. He wasn t as bitter. He wasn t as afraid. He became at peace and happier. What changed? The Holy Spirit set up camp in the tabernacle of his heart. And that s what our text speaks of. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has
5 given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. For what purpose has God made us? For the purpose that we groan. As we suffer in our earthly tents, we groan for our house in heaven. And as we groan, we bear testimony to the world. For we live by God s standards in Scripture, no the world s standards. That s the power of the Spirit within us. And how infinitely generous is God. He has given us the Spirit as a deposit. In other words, as a down payment. You know how that works. When you buy a house, you give the bank a down payment, as pledge that you will pay the rest later. God by his grace, has decided to pay us. He has given us his Holy Spirit in our hearts as a down payment. And that is his pledge that he will give us the rest. God s payment will come to us in full when we step into our house after this life is over. Jesus has bought us an eternal house, not with mortgage payments but with his own blood. What can compare to our hope? And so we groan. We are confident always, as Paul said. That doesn t mean we never get discouraged. But our discouragement is on the surface. Deep-down is our confidence by faith. We are confident always. For, yeah, we would like more money in our bank accounts, but what is money compared to a house not built by human hands? Yeah, not everyone in this world is nice to me, but I can be patient knowing that one day I will be at home with the Lord. Yes, I may have a sickness or an injury, but I can bear with it because one day I will have an immortal body without any pain or weakness. I will walk the golden streets of heaven with my own two feet, and I will see Jesus with my own two eyes. Friends, let s keep groaning, because God is faithful. He has already given us his Spirit. He will give us everything else he has promised. Oh, when our tent becomes a house. Amen.