Haven Today - Eyes on Eternity

On paper, Iran has allies.

But other than factions of Hezbollah in Lebanon, they are getting no actual help from those

allies.

China and Russia are superpowers voicing opposition to the conflict, but they've stayed

out of the fight.

How far will this conflict go?

When will it end?

Will the people of Iran rise up and make a new beginning?

Or will the sun of Ayatollah Khameini manage to keep the regime intact?

And if that happens, what will it mean for the world?

At this point, we can only say nobody knows.

No AI model can predict it either.

However, we do have to qualify that, don't we?

There is one who knows.

The one who declares, I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the

beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand.

And I will accomplish all my purpose.

Welcome to Haven today.

I'm David Wolland sharing the great story that's all about Jesus.

We're continuing in a series called Why Heaven Matters Now.

I mentioned earlier in the series that this topic is coinciding with a personal situation

in my family.

I marvel at the Lord's timing.

The Haven Ministries team didn't choose the topic or resource with any prior knowledge

of what would be happening, but these messages are as much for me and my family as for all

listening.

And what you hear today, I recorded yesterday.

So this is very current, real and raw.

We'll be opening up Paul's letter to the church in Corinth, 2 Corinthians, chapter

4.

And today we'll be diving into one of the most hope saturated verses about heaven and Why

Heaven Matters Now.

Personally, I needed this book by Matthew McCullough.

I needed it this week more than I could have imagined weeks ago when I first read it

or when I interviewed him last week.

But the Lord is so good, so kind, so present and near.

He really does go before us in every way.

This book remember heaven, meditations on the world to come for life.

In the meantime, it is a God sent.

And I truly mean that sent by God into a moment when this message needed to be heard.

That's true for me and my family, but I am certain we're not the only ones needing

to take hold of our hope in Christ today.

And I don't know that I could give a book a higher endorsement than that.

But you should know, it's not written as a book of hope for a moment of Christ's

per se.

It's for all of life in the meantime.

It's for seasons of peace, stability and joy.

And if that's where you are today, praise the Lord.

The point, though, is greater joy.

And of not feeling stress about such moments slipping away.

Such moments must do that, this side of heaven.

And this is a book that talks about heaven.

It addresses common questions like, what will it be like?

Who will be there?

What will we be doing?

But again, the point isn't to know more than the Bible reveals.

It's to understand what the Bible reveals and how it's meant to help us right now in

every season of life.

And so I would love to send you your own copy of Remember Heaven.

It's our way of saying thank you for your much needed ministry gift and you can choose

the amount.

And as you do, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for standing.

With me and all of us at Haven in this message that we get to share every day, pointing

others and pointing ourselves to Christ.

It truly is all about him.

The number to call is 865 Haven, 865 Haven.

Don't forget to request the book Remember Heaven as you give.

You can also do that online Haventoday.org Haventoday.org.

This is Haventoday.

I'm David Wollen.

It's hard to believe the Winter Olympic Games wrapped up only a couple of weeks ago.

So much has happened in the world since then.

Now personally, I enjoy the Olympics.

The competition is fun to watch, of course, but part of the fascination is the athletes

who have devoted their lives to excellence in their sport and who have sacrificed so much

just to get there.

You have to admire their determination and discipline.

Typically broadcast networks are on the hunt for good stories of Olympic athletes.

A way to make their race or event even more personal could be the classic underdog story

or some kind of adversity they had to overcome on the way and they'll produce a story.

Do a little interview before the games and they'll ask about motivation.

Why did they do this?

What do they hope to achieve?

Now some of the stories really are inspirational, but I have to admit for me, this is often

the part where for me it all falls flat.

So often when asked, why did you do it?

What made you willing to sacrifice so much?

The answer is I want to go out and prove to the world what I can do or I want to know

and prove I'm the best in the world or I did this for me.

I don't know.

Maybe it's because of the contrast with people like the Apostle Paul that testimonies

like these false so flat when I hear them.

Can you imagine the Apostle Paul saying something like that?

So Paul, what was your motivation?

All these decades of hard work and sacrifice.

What drove you to endure so much suffering and affliction and what do you hope the world

remembers?

Well, Paul did think of his calling like running a race competing for a prize, but it wasn't

about himself.

He wasn't trying to make a name for Paul.

In fact, he saw himself as the chief of sinners.

Paul ran his race for the glory of another for Christ and he made himself a servant to

Christ's church, genuinely caring for and shepherding God's people.

And you can see his love for them, splashed all over the pages of his letters.

And in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, Paul gives his answer.

What was the motivation?

How did he manage to keep going and keep preaching the gospel boldly despite opposition?

He says, verse 14, we speak knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us

also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.

So one, Paul was motivated by the hope of the resurrection.

This is what Christians believe and proclaim.

It is key to the gospel that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, never to die again.

And because he rises every believer may have confidence, they also will rise.

That's a huge motivation for Paul, but there is another ingredient in the mix.

Did you notice?

Paul is also motivated by the fact that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also

with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.

Paul wasn't only thinking about himself, his own personal individual future.

He was thinking about his companions and the churches, like the one in Corinth, the

family of God there.

The resurrection will be the greatest family reunion ever.

All believers together with those we knew and loved this side of heaven with all the

saints and brought bodily together into the presence of Jesus.

That is what was on Paul's mind in the midst of all his troubles.

He had something to look forward to that no one could take away and Paul underscores that

in verse 15.

He says, for it is all for your sake.

So that is grace extends to more and more people.

That may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God.

Our God wants the banquet hall full.

And it was Paul's calling to help call people, invite people in to come in faith and repentance

to Jesus Christ and come into God's family to live in the future new creation for eternity.

Pastor and author Matthew McCullough made such a powerful point on the program.

Last week it's become the main idea of this series.

But you believe about your future will powerfully shape the way you live your life in the meantime.

And we see that in the aged apostle.

Imagine what Paul must have looked like at this point in his life, having been exposed

to the elements for so many years, enduring hardship and physical abuse, imprisonment

even torture.

Sometimes if you look closely at someone's face, you can catch a glimpse of what life

has been like for them.

And you can see their countenance either because of or despite this.

So what might have we seen on Paul's face?

My hunch is Paul would have been a fascinating paradox, a contrast of seemingly opposites,

a weathered man, his body beaten down, perhaps with physical ailments at this point,

and yet also a man always with a spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye,

a sense of joy and peace, a heart-exuding kindness and love for people that he had every

reason to hate, and even under obvious suffering and undeniable optimism about the future.

Paul, I think, would have been one of those people who always seems to know something.

Have a confidence that most others do not, and you didn't have to guess why.

Paul would tell you he was bold to speak of Christ and to preach the gospel.

He did not lose heart in the face of opposition, and Paul would say,

this should be true for all who are in Christ.

Verse 16, so we do not lose heart.

And now in verses 16 through 18, Paul gives us three reasons why he did not lose heart.

And not only him, he says we.

These are three reasons why Christians in every age do not lose heart, including you

and me today.

First, Paul says, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed

day by day.

It's that same paradox.

Those contrasting opposites which are simultaneously true in the same person.

For Paul, now laid in life, the outward self was wasting away.

That was obvious, no way to hide it.

And the same will be true for all of us in time if the Lord gives us those latter decades

of life.

But Paul isn't merely talking about outward appearance or physical deterioration or

cognitive decline.

Our outer self in the Greek, it's actually man, our outer man.

It's everything about this life inherited from the first man, the first Adam, all which

is broken by sin and therefore temporary destined to return to dust.

And yet the Christian is more than that.

Those who belong to Christ are vitally connected to the life of Christ.

The Holy Spirit indwelling every believer is doing far more than we can rationally understand

or even observe.

He's binding us to the life of Christ in such a way that what is true of Christ is true

of us even in our present circumstances.

Along those lines, Paul says, in Galatians, I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me

and gave himself for me.

The outer man in that body of flesh is wasting away, but the inner man who we are and are

becoming in Christ is being renewed.

And it's a process.

It's a daily one.

It happens slowly, but surely by faith, step by step over the course of time.

There's a fascinating story written by the great novelist Oscar Wilde whose trouble

that life was perhaps a bit reflected in his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The main character Dorian was deeply self-centered and quite vain.

He had a portrait painted of himself and when it was finished, he looked at it and said

to himself, how sad I shall grow old and horrible.

But this picture never will be older.

If it were I who was always to be young and the picture that was to grow old, I would

give my soul for that.

And in the story, that's what happened.

The portrait became a picture of his inner man, unrepentant, unredeemed and utterly

self-centered.

The years of his life slipped by.

The image in the portrait wasted away, not only in age, but showing his descent into

greater evil.

He locked the portrait away out of fear that someone might see it and know the truth about

him.

And so what the world saw of Dorian Gray was an outward appearance of handsomeness, vitality

and youth.

This story is the exact opposite of what Paul describes.

Dorian Gray's outer man was being renewed day by day while his inner man was wasting to

nothing.

And without Christ, so it would be with us.

That praise God, our inner man is being renewed day by day in Christ and increasingly will

be into eternity.

And for Paul, that was the first reason not to lose heart.

Here's the second reason, Paul, and we do not lose heart.

Paul writes, for this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory

beyond all comparison.

There's a lot to unpack in this one sentence.

When affliction continues to increase with every passing year, and it's not just a season

of your life, but the rest of your life, how could you possibly call it light or momentary?

And the reason for Paul is wrapped up entirely about what he believed about the future.

And if you and I believe this life is all there is, then despair is inevitable and logical.

But if we know through eyes of faith that glory is waiting for us in heaven, that changes

everything.

And that's what Paul says.

He sees what he calls an eternal weight of glory ahead.

This statement here is directly connected to a statement, Paul made it the opening of

the letter of 2 Corinthians, talking about the affliction he'd endured in Asia.

In verse 8 of chapter 1, Paul writes of the incident they experienced there.

The moment when they thought they wouldn't make it through, Paul wrote, for we were so

utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

And those words translated utterly burdened are two Greek words, the roots of which actually

have derivative words in English.

One is huperbole, meaning over and beyond to an excessively great extent.

It's from this that we get the English word hyperbole.

And the other is boros, meaning weight or burden.

And this is one of the root words of barometric as in the weight of the atmosphere when storm

clouds roll in.

What a great use of that word.

Well Paul opens his letter talking about the huperbole boros, the excessive weight of

the trial they faced.

And now here in chapter 4, he uses those same words to describe the excessive weight of

suffering, which has helped prepare for them the excessive weight of the glory to come.

And actually in the Greek, the word huperbole is repeated twice.

To get the same effect in English, we'd have to say the excessively excessive weight of

glory.

Paul's saying that the difference is so infinitely exponentially greater that comparing one weight

with the other is almost impossible.

It's beyond all comparison.

So what is it?

Paul sees with eyes of faith.

Well, for the apostolic calling the Lord had given him, he'd allowed Paul to see a few

things most believers do not see this side of heaven.

He'd seen the blinding glory of the risen Christ on the road to Damascus.

And at some point, he was given a glimpse of the glory of heaven and things to come.

Paul writes about that actually later in 2 Corinthians chapter 12.

So better than almost anyone, Paul was able to compare his present sufferings with the

glory to come.

And he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, by comparison, that all he had ever faced or

whatever would face in this life was by comparison, light and momentary.

And so for that reason, he and we do not lose heart.

And now, finally, the third reason.

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.

In the previous verse, Paul was talking about the weight of glory, in a sense, trying

to convey some measurement of its greatness.

Now Paul is talking about the permanence of this weight of glory.

And that matters for us today, because whatever we're facing is temporary and transient.

It lasts only for a moment.

Yes, it could be a moment that's measured in years, maybe even decades.

But the glory to come will be measured in millennia at first, I would think.

But how do you keep track of time when your future is eternal?

I don't have an answer for that.

But I can understand why Paul put this the way he did.

The future we are promised in Christ with him, entering the eternal weight of glory and

in his presence.

And also in each other's presence, that future is the heaven that awaits us.

And whatever it is we face today, we can face it with our eyes on Jesus, knowing this

future is certain.

And this is why heaven matters now.

This is Haven Today, I'm David Wallen.

There are some books that truly every Christian should own, and not just own, but read.

And for me, this one is going on the list, in part because of how personally helped I have

been.

By remember heaven, meditations on the world to come for life in the meantime, by Matthew

McCullough.

And yes, the topic is heaven, but the application is today for how this hope in Christ and are

understanding what he wants us to know about it, about the glory to come will change our lives

for the better in the meantime.

And this book is our thank you for your gift of support to Haven today.

865 Haven, 865 Haven, or you can give online at HavenToday.org, HavenToday.org.

I'm David Wallen.

Once you come back again next time, we'll be keeping it all about Jesus.

It's the great story here on Haven Today.