2 Corinthians 4: Fixing Your Eyes on What Is Unseen

Introduction

"Therefore we don’t faint." This Sunday, Aburayama Shalom Church, in Fukuoka, holds its memorial service for the departed members of the community. Families have come from near and far. It is also the first service of this kind in the new place of worship, completed in March of this year. Pastor Yokota brings a message on 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, titled "Faith that fixes its eyes on the unseen and does not lose heart in any circumstance."

He begins with a simple observation: all of us get discouraged, not all the time, but sometimes. He himself had just been. Two weeks earlier, he injured his shoulder in a fall on the street. From that fall he draws three reasons not to lose heart, taken from the three verses of the passage, and then one last lesson his injury taught him.

This is a message for anyone who sees their body weakening, carries a burden that is too heavy, or mourns a loved one. It opens a larger question: where will you spend eternity?

Message Outline

1. A Fall in Kyoto

On a Friday two weeks ago, the pastor traveled to Kyoto for a seminar. He was pulling a rolling suitcase with one hand and following the GPS on his phone with the other, looking for a hotel he had never been to.
His foot caught on the hotel's parking curb stop and he fell with his full weight onto his shoulder, on the asphalt. The ligament connecting the collarbone and the shoulder blade tore and the joint came out of place.
The previous Sunday, he came to the service with his arm in a sling. The joint remains open, but it was decided not to operate. Thanks to the church's prayers, a week later he can already raise his arm to a certain height. Beyond that, the pain returns.
As he fell, his hand did not shoot out to break the fall. He thought: "So this is what it is." They say that with age, the head and the body no longer coordinate very well. He admits he was a little discouraged.

2. The Outer Person Weakens, the Inner Person Is Renewed

"Though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day" (verse 16). "What a comfort," says the pastor.
When we are young, the body moves as we want it to, and memory and judgment are sharp. With the years, we have trouble remembering, we can no longer decide quickly, and the body doesn't follow. All of this can discourage us.
The inner person is faith in God, the love in the heart, kindness, sincerity, patience. You can't see it from the outside. But even when the outside declines, the inside keeps being renewed and keeps growing.
"It is a wonderful hope." Being renewed day by day, the pastor explains, means that the inside keeps growing.

3. Limits Are a Gift from God

In Kyoto, the pastor had gone to meet someone who told him: "Limits are a gift from God." He had never thought of it that way. For him, a limit suggested negative thoughts: it's over, I won't make it anymore.
First reason: limits keep us sound. We tend to push, to go past our limits, to do too much. Recognizing that we have limits, as human beings and at our age, makes us more balanced.
Second reason: it is easy to think that God also has limits, but he doesn't. When we recognize the limits of human beings, we see more clearly God's infinity, his greatness, his power and his beauty. We begin to wait for him, to believe in him, and we discover his grace.
The example of the young boy with five loaves and two fish: in front of five thousand people, perhaps more than ten thousand, who were hungry, someone said it was useless. Five loaves and two fish feed five people, ten at most. That is the limit. But brought to Jesus, that little was enough to feed more than five thousand, and the power of Jesus appeared more clearly.
Third reason: acknowledging our limit leaves room for others. "I must always hold on" is not the only way. By admitting "here is my limit," we notice the beautiful work of others that we had not seen until then, and what God is accomplishing in us.
First lesson of the passage: the outer person declines, but the limit is a gift. Even decline is "a gift from God."
This injury taught him to value the growth of the inner person and to rejoice in it. He also wants to take care of his body, but anti-aging can slow the decline without stopping it. Inner growth, on the other hand, does not stop, until the end of life on earth. It is the joy of a lifetime: walking on this path where the inside is transformed.

4. The Light Affliction and the Eternal Weight of Glory

"For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (verse 17). This is the second reason not to lose heart.
The one who writes this is the apostle Paul, whose life looked like a series of sufferings. The pastor reads 2 Corinthians 11: labors, prisons, beatings, danger of death.
Five times, Paul received from the Jews forty stripes minus one. The pastor explains: forty lashes could kill, so they stopped one short of death, after striking, wounding and causing suffering right up to that point.
"Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep. I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily: anxiety for all the assemblies."
"If one or two of these things happened to you, what would you say?" We would probably say: why me, my life is nothing but suffering. Paul lived through more than ten. And yet he speaks of "light affliction." You want to ask him: where is the lightness?
The answer is in the rest of the verse. Paul saw further. He knew that this suffering would produce an eternal glory beyond all comparison. Compared with it, his trial became light.
The pastor shows an illustration on screen: on the left, someone carries many burdens and receives only an earthly, passing reward. On the right, there is also the passing reward, but beyond it comes the eternal reward, beyond comparison. When you know this, the same baggage becomes light.
"Living by believing the Word of God, that is what it means." We too carry illnesses and unexpected burdens, and their weight perhaps does not change. But because we know what reward God is preparing, we can confess with Paul that this trial is light.
After his fall, the pain was sharp, even with painkillers. At that moment, the pastor remembered a sister of the church, seriously ill and now with the Lord, whom he used to visit.
The pain came, but when he visited her, she would say: "Pastor, I'm fine." When she was in pain, she thought that Jesus' pain was beyond comparison with hers, that he had suffered for her. Remembering this, she bore her own pain.
"That is impressive," he told himself. He is in pain too, but what immense suffering Jesus bore, nailed to the cross for him? Thinking of it, he receives courage.
And that is not all: the reward God is preparing is an eternal weight of glory, beyond all measure. That is why we can carry this burden on earth and still say that it is light.

5. Looking at the Unseen

"While we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (verse 18). This is the third reason.
Many of the difficulties of our contemporaries come from this: we think that what can be seen is everything, that the time of this life is everything. So when trials come, we think we cannot bear them.
When our eyes are opened to the unseen, to the invisible world and the invisible God, this world takes on a different look.
The unseen things are first of all God, then faith in God, then heaven, where we will go one day. Our eyes of flesh can't see it, and we wonder where it is. But God teaches it clearly through his Word: he promises that heaven exists and that Jesus will welcome us there. Whoever sees this changes the way they live.

6. A Race That Ends in Peace

Before the congregation, the photos of those who died this year are lined up. Each of these lives knew joys and sorrows. But the Bible teaches clearly that those who believe in Jesus go to heaven.
Among these photos is that of the pastor's father, called to the Lord in April. Struck by illness, he had lost all physical function and ended his life bedridden, he who had been so energetic.
A doctor who came to see him at home said he had never seen such a peaceful person. Why this peace? For the pastor, one thing is clear: "He knew where he was going."
The pastor's older sister, who cared for him with devotion, would say to him in the moments when he was struggling to breathe: "Dad, just a little more, just a little more, the finish line is near." He was in the last turn of the marathon. At the finish line, Jesus was waiting to hand him the crown of righteousness.
She added, with humor, that her father's spiritual mentor and other beloved pastors who had gone before him were also waiting for him at the end of the race and encouraging him by waving, and she imitated the way they called him by name. So, knowing that Jesus would welcome him and that his elders in the faith were waiting for him, he ran the final stretch. "What a blessed life," says the pastor.
What is seen is passing. More important still are God and heaven. This life is like a preparation: seen from eternity, eighty years pass in an instant. "If everything stopped after eighty years, how sad that would be!" But we will live forever, and the question is where.
God's desire is that we live eternity in heaven. For this, he sent Jesus Christ to earth. Anyone who believes in Jesus can go to heaven. The elders whose photos are on display reached the goal in this way.
The pastor speaks to the families present: he hopes they too will believe in Jesus, so that we may go to heaven together. There is nothing to accomplish. It is enough to say: "Jesus, I believe in you. Lead me to heaven." The Bible promises that Jesus welcomes anyone who puts their trust in him.

7. Letting Go of the Phone

In closing, the pastor returns to his fall. Thinking it over, he understood another reason for his injury. He was holding his suitcase and his phone. As he fell, all it would have taken was to let go of the phone to catch himself with his hand. He kept hold of it.
"When I think about it, I tell myself I was foolish." A phone can be replaced. Had he fallen on the roadway and a car had come, "it would have been straight to heaven." Fortunately, no car came. He still wonders why he didn't let go.
We too often refuse to let go of what we hold, and we lose what matters more. This is true for heaven: we don't let go of a little self-esteem, pride or vanity, because we believe it is important.
Isn't eternal life more precious than the phone, self-esteem, position or the opinion of others? If something like this is holding you back, the pastor invites you to let go of it, to receive Jesus and to receive life.
He concludes with a prayer: that the inner person would keep growing to the very end, that our eyes would be lifted toward the glory prepared for us, that we could say of our trials, compared with the cross, that they are light, and that one day in heaven we would find again those we love.

Key Takeaways

The outer person weakens, but the inner person, faith, love, patience, can grow until the last day of life.
Limits are a gift from God: they keep us balanced, they reveal his power and they leave room for others.
Paul calls his sufferings light because he compares them to the eternal weight of glory God is preparing, and to what Jesus suffered on the cross.
What is seen is passing. Whoever looks to God and heaven changes the way they live and face trials.
To go to heaven, there is nothing to accomplish: you need to believe in Jesus and let go of what holds you back.

Personal Application

Which limit of your body, your memory or your age are you experiencing right now as a defeat, and how could it become a gift?
What does the growth of your inner person look like this year: have your faith, your love and your patience grown?
Which burden seems too heavy to you today, and what changes for you when you set it beside the eternal weight of glory?
Do you know where you will spend eternity? Have you already said to Jesus: "I believe in you, lead me to heaven"?
Which "phone" are you refusing to let go of: your self-esteem, your pride, your position, the opinion of others?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "our inward man is renewed day by day" mean?

For Pastor Yokota, the inner person is faith in God, love, kindness, faithfulness and patience. You can't see it from the outside. The body, memory and judgment weaken with age, but the inside can keep growing until the end of earthly life, and this growth becomes a joy.

How can Paul call his sufferings "light"?

In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul lists the prisons, beatings, shipwrecks and dangers he went through. Yet he calls them light because he saw further: these afflictions produce an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Compared with that glory, and with what Jesus suffered on the cross, they become light.

What must you do to go to heaven according to this message?

The preacher insists: there is nothing to accomplish. It is enough to say to Jesus: "I believe in you, lead me to heaven." He also invites everyone to let go of what holds them back, pride, vanity or the opinion of others, in order to receive eternal life.