Change The Frame

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2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Change The Angle

Change the Frame

God gives us a new frame of life to see through and live through

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

INTRODUCTION

Life's perspective changes amazingly over time

We pursue life through the frame by which we see life.

As I get older I realize that my perspective changed.

When I was younger, I was excited to get mail
When I was a little boy all i wanted to do was grow up
When I was younger I wouldn't say I liked nap times
When I was younger, I thought that if I got married, everything would be alright.
My first time buying milk.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (ESV)

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light

momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are

seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

QUOTE

66 Main Idea: God gives us a new frame of life to see through and live through

CONTEXT

2 Corinthians is Pauls second letter to the Church in Corinth

He is writing as a defense of himself and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as some "Super Apostles" (Avengers) (11:5) have come in and proclaim a different Gospel.

They devalue Paul in the eyes of the Corinthian Church so that the Church will throw away his Gospel

Paul is much like a Doctor in his work as a doctor cleans the wound and then bandages the would for healing

Paul uses the real-life experiences of the Corinthian Church to expose the contamination of the false teaching of the "Super Apostles" but comes back with the simple but powerful truth of the Gospel.

In hopes of encouraging the Corinthian Church not to turn away from the Gospel that has saved them he calls him to be encouraged with the truth many different paradoxes of the Christian walk.

The paradox of the plight of the Christian

Comfort in affliction
Rich in poverty
Strengths in weakness
Promise in uncertainty
Confidence in the invisible

By the time Paul gets to Chapter 4 he is addressing the suffering of the and those like him but how they have seen this suffering through a different perspective, and it encourages them to press forward in this truth.

This is why our perspective is important
If we do not see God and our situations correctly, we will leave too soon.
He is stressing why it is so important to have the right perspective.
Today we can see what Paul says to the church and how we can Frame our life.
Everybody thinks they are a good photographer .
A good camera does not make a good photographer.

Change the Angle

EXPLANATION

2 Corinthians 4:16 (ESV)

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. Change the Angle - Change the perspective - You are not changing the thing you are changing the way you see it.

NFL - Each game is a major production, with broadcasters deploying 12 to 20 cameras and 150 to 200 employees for regular-season contests. In 1939, NBC was the first network to televise a pro football game, using two cameras and about eight staffers.

The 2023 NBA Finals will feature 55 total cameras, 15 of them being Super Slow-Mo. The broadcasts will have a Steadicam, a Skycam, live drone footage, Augmented Reality graphics, optical tracking, and live shot distance displays.

At times, a play needs to be reviewed, and the benefit of these cameras allows for them to see it from a different angle.

What it looked like in real-time from a different angle can offer a revealed truth that could not be seen one way.

Paul is expressing the suffering of the other followers of Christ. He is primarily addressing physical suffering. O Paul suffered beating, flogging, arrest, shipwreck, bit by a viper, betrayal, and just flat out getting older.

O Paul says there is another angle to this suffering.

He is being renewed in his inward self as he wasting away in his outward self.

Watching Sports used to be two cameras now we have.

Romans 5:3-5 (ESV

3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Changing the angle means moving the perspective by which you see the same subject.

It is not changing the subject, situation, hardship, suffering, or disappointment.

We often want God to the subject but we must learn to change the angle.

We often we simply want God to make things easier. We want a faith absent of persecution, frustration, disappointment, or opposition.

It is not denying the truth of suffering

2 Corinthians 1:8–10 (ESV)

8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from

such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. We often like to act like nothing is happening

Do not let this Joy that I have to confuse you into thinking there is no suffering.

How I am living does not mean I have things going on in my life; I can just see multiple angles of how it is working in my life.

Billy Sunday

"What we see as we go through life greatly depends on where we stand to look"

The perspective you have will shape how you live

2 Corinthians 4:7–10 (ESV)

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

If you are going to respond to life's challenges in God's way, you are going to have to see them in God's way.

One sees great things from the valley, and only small things from the mountain top - G.K. Chesterton

As a Small Church I rememberd thinking that if we were a big church we could do so much more.

God had to help me realize there were somethings that we could do that larger churches just could not pull off.

As a smaller church we were agile, personal, and flexible.

2 Change the Zoom

EXPLANATION

2 Corinthians 4:17 (ESV)

17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,

0 Paul changes the size of his frame

The Glory that is to come is way greater than the momentary light affliction.

This is for right now.

0 I can be encouraged in this momentary affliction when I see the eternal glory.

His motivation for his perseverance is that he sees a bigger picture than what is presented at the moment.

Romans 8:18 (ESV)

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Paul compares the present to the eternal.

One of the things that happened to me as a child was that I could make anything everything.

It is tempting to see the moment as eternal.

We cannot be so fixated on the minor and forget the major.

You can not compare the input of affliction with the output of Glory

Paul paints a picture that when you look at the big picture you realize that this is a light and momentary affliction.

0 We can not bring our focus to the temporary when, as believers, we are called to the eternal.

This, again, is not a denial of the temporal; it's realizing that it's not eternal.

This momentary thing is real, but it's not all.

Zooming out helps me to look at the Gospel and see what Christ has already done for me

Zooming out helps me remember that my identity is at the foot of the cross.

Zooming out helps me realize that my life is not valued by likes, hearts, and followers but by love, sacrifice, and resurrection.

We can only see the benefit of present suffering in light of an eternal perspective.

A part of this comparison that we have to keep in mind is that we know the end of the story.

Peloton illustrustration - Working out with my family in mind.

We must Zoom Out

Picture Illustration

3 Change the Light

EXPLANATION

2 Corinthians 4:18 (ESV)

18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Paul does something amazing by looking at the entire truth.

He looks to the promise of the future in Christ Jesus that will lead us to Glory.

Frame for Life - Pictures Slides