WEBVTT 00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:05.679 Well, I invite you to take your Bible and go to the book of Job, chapter 10. 00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:07.759 Job chapter 10. 00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:12.800 We're in our penultimate look at the Imago Day series. 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:14.560 Next week will be our last one. 00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:17.039 So this is the second to last one. 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:28.719 There's a question that arises during times of suffering, and uh we often utter it pretty loudly. 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:33.280 It doesn't come quietly into our heart, and we it doesn't move quietly from our lips. 00:00:33.359 --> 00:00:35.359 And that question is often why? 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:36.399 Why? 00:00:37.119 --> 00:00:44.320 And we don't ask that question in a philosophical way, we ask it in a very personal way, and it's very specific. 00:00:45.119 --> 00:00:48.880 You know, why this body that's deteriorating? 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:55.200 Why this beloved one that I've dearly loved has passed away? 00:00:55.439 --> 00:00:57.600 Why has this relationship broken up? 00:00:57.759 --> 00:01:03.359 Why has this prayer request um not been answered in the way that I needed it to be? 00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:08.480 Why is my loved one suffering as he or she is? 00:01:08.799 --> 00:01:12.799 That question comes very forcibly from us often. 00:01:13.439 --> 00:01:19.359 And again, it's not a question that can be answered philosophically. 00:01:19.519 --> 00:01:23.280 It's one that we want to address personally and very viscerally. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:27.920 The world has uh no adequate answer for it. 00:01:28.079 --> 00:01:31.680 And it accuses Christianity of not having an adequate answer for it, also. 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:40.079 That's why there's this term theodicy, this idea that God has to justify himself in the midst of human suffering. 00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:46.799 Well, a lot of the people in the world will say, well, actually, in the big scope of things, suffering is meaningless. 00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:56.799 It's just the forces of nature that are not personal in any way simply crashing up against each other, and we in the midst of this are just part of part of that. 00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:02.000 And the things that we suffer personally really have no absolutely no meaning. 00:02:02.159 --> 00:02:03.920 There is no answer to that question. 00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:04.400 Why? 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:17.520 In fact, we shouldn't even be asking the question itself if we really understood that we're simply matter and moving through millions and billions of years that we'll eventually end up in nothing. 00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:22.639 Well, the Bible does have an answer, but it's a very hard answer. 00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:27.120 And but it's a more true answer than anything the world can offer. 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:28.719 We're gonna look at three texts tonight. 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:36.639 We're gonna look at Job chapter 10, we'll be looking at the book of Romans and chapter 8, and we'll also look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 00:02:37.039 --> 00:02:41.599 And as we look through these passages, we'll see a man who's in the middle of suffering. 00:02:42.639 --> 00:02:51.280 We'll see uh Paul talk about suffering within the scope of all of creation, groaning and travailing. 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:54.719 And we'll also catch a glimpse of the destination. 00:02:54.800 --> 00:03:01.120 Uh, we'll unpack that destination next week, but we'll get a glimpse of it when we look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 00:03:01.919 --> 00:03:17.360 And as we pull these three passages together, one of the things that we'll discover is that God who made us is a God who's with us in our suffering, but he's also a God who has an answer for all of that suffering. 00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:28.240 And therefore, we can bring ourselves to God in the midst of it, knowing that he holds us while we suffer and that he'll bring us into a place where suffering will be no more. 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:34.159 And so we come into his presence not with resignation, but with hope. 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:45.680 And so I pray that by the time we finish this evening, we will have at least an understanding of how we can put ourselves before a God who loves us even in the midst of trouble. 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:50.719 So the first thing I want us to see is that the hands that made us are the hands that hold us. 00:03:50.879 --> 00:03:55.360 And here in Job chapter 10, Job is pouring out a complaint. 00:03:55.599 --> 00:04:11.919 And many of us know the account of Job, a man who lost his uh livelihood, a man who lost his family, a man who lost his health, and uh would have loved to have lost three friends who were not being very helpful. 00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:18.000 And in the middle of all of these things, he pours out his complaint to God. 00:04:18.480 --> 00:04:26.959 And here in Job chapter 10, beginning in verse 8, he we get a portion of that that he says to God. 00:04:27.199 --> 00:04:30.079 He says, Your hand shaped me and formed me. 00:04:30.399 --> 00:04:32.959 Will you now turn and destroy me? 00:04:33.279 --> 00:04:36.319 Please remember that you formed me like clay. 00:04:36.639 --> 00:04:38.879 Will you now return me to dust? 00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:42.319 Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:47.040 You clothed me with skin and flesh and wove me together with bones and tendon. 00:04:47.360 --> 00:04:53.040 You gave me life and faithful love, and your care has guarded my life. 00:04:54.959 --> 00:04:58.800 Job is holding on to two things here about God. 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:03.040 And he's bringing both of them to the Lord in the midst of his complaint. 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:06.480 And the first one is that God made him. 00:05:06.639 --> 00:05:12.959 And we looked at this last week when we talked about the right body image in the middle of our Amago Day series. 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:23.360 And here he's pulling up these words again that I just want to remind us of that when Job looks back at God's creation, he doesn't see him as some general creator. 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:26.560 He sees it very specific to his own life. 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:30.480 And you can see just how specific that is in this passage. 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:34.959 Your hands shaped me, you formed me. 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:40.079 And he talks about this construction that's deliberate and personal. 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:41.920 And notice how he puts it. 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:44.399 He says, this imagery is interesting. 00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:53.120 You've poured me out like milk and curdled me like cheese and clothed me with skin and flesh, and had woven my bones and my tendons. 00:05:53.680 --> 00:06:03.920 This sort of craftsman idea that he's taking all of these elements and put them together to make Job as a person. 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:11.439 Just like an artisan might make a wonderful aged cheddar or something like that. 00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:23.040 He's putting them together and he's saying, I'm not an accident, and I'm not just a product of all this matter that somehow crashed together and made life. 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:24.800 God, you made me. 00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:26.319 You made me. 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:32.399 You you have actually by your hands crafted my life. 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:36.160 Are you going to destroy it now? 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:46.720 Are you are you going to stand against that which you took all the effort and the time and the energy and the creativity to form, and now you're destroying me? 00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:52.000 You're going to feel just how difficult that is for him to hold together here. 00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:57.279 His body that's suffering is the body that God made. 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:08.319 And in verse 8, carries the weight of that. 00:07:09.600 --> 00:07:13.040 Will you now turn and destroy me? 00:07:14.560 --> 00:07:17.120 I can't put these together. 00:07:18.160 --> 00:07:31.920 And he's holding God with this tension that he can't resolve, and wonders if God might, if he would relent and let him come back to life and to health again. 00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:40.800 And he presses the claim even further in verse 9 remember that you formed me like clay. 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:45.680 And that word remember isn't, you know, just sort of recollect. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:48.240 It's it's a covenant remember. 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:58.480 It's a remember all the things that you've promised and all the commitments that that you made, that kind of remember. 00:07:59.519 --> 00:08:07.439 It's the remember that the psalmists use when they talk about calling upon a covenant God, your steadfast love. 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:10.240 Remember that, O Lord. 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:17.199 And so Job is grabbing hold of this and he says, God, remember my that you created me. 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:20.160 Remember that you've loved me before. 00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:24.560 And in verse 12, he even drives that even deeper. 00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:35.279 As he recognizes that the hands that made him were also the hands that not only held him in the past, but who were the hands that were holding him even in the present. 00:08:35.759 --> 00:08:39.360 You gave me life and faithful love. 00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:42.879 And your care has guarded me. 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:50.159 And that word for faithful love is a deep, significant word in Hebrew. 00:08:50.320 --> 00:09:02.879 It talks about God's covenant faithfulness, of his everlasting love, of his set love with all of his commitment of his character and his promises. 00:09:03.120 --> 00:09:06.480 And Job is saying, I've been the recipient of this. 00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:09.120 You've committed yourself to me, God. 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:13.519 You didn't just make me, you've committed yourself to me. 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:17.279 You've bound yourself specifically to me. 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:21.120 You've pledged your love and your faithfulness to me. 00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:26.480 Why am I being poured out like this? 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:30.879 And so he's crying out. 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:33.360 And look at verse 9. 00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:37.519 He says, Your care has guarded my life. 00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:45.440 And if we were to look at the Hebrew, we wouldn't see that as a past activity, but as a continuing present activity. 00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:50.559 Your hand and your care are guarding my life. 00:09:50.799 --> 00:09:52.720 Are you not, God? 00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:07.679 And so he's realizing that these hands that made him and these hands that committed themselves to him, God's, are still the hands that are holding him. 00:10:08.879 --> 00:10:22.960 And instead of questioning God and questioning faith and saying, I don't know, in the middle of suffering, he's actually coming closer and he says, I need to grip you tighter. 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:31.120 I need to hear these words that you've made me, that you've loved me, that you're holding me. 00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:34.240 It's not an answer to the question. 00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:37.759 Because the answer isn't philosophical. 00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:49.200 Job is recognizing that the answer is personal, that the God he's actually asking the questions of is the God he needs to hold on to. 00:10:51.440 --> 00:10:54.559 And this is what lament is meant to do for us. 00:10:55.360 --> 00:11:12.399 It's meant to free us up to be able to speak those heart-wrenching questions in the very presence of God, and to do so with full weight and full-throated cries and not hold back. 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:15.759 This is exactly what Job is doing. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:22.320 He's not abandoning the truth, he's suffering in the midst of a God of truth. 00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:26.480 Listen to Psalm 22. 00:11:27.519 --> 00:11:31.840 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:36.240 It starts out not with praise, but with a lament. 00:11:36.799 --> 00:11:42.720 Now it ends with praise because he says later on, you have heard my cry. 00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:45.679 But it starts here in the midst of this. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:52.879 Rather than running away from God, the troubles push him into the presence of God to ask the question. 00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:58.799 It's the very same cry that Jesus made on the cross. 00:11:59.279 --> 00:12:08.080 He picks up the psalmist's lament, he picks up Job's lament, and he runs into the presence of the Father with the question. 00:12:08.639 --> 00:12:12.399 And he takes that lament to the grave. 00:12:14.799 --> 00:12:15.279 C.S. 00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:17.600 Lewis is very helpful. 00:12:17.759 --> 00:12:26.480 Royal and I had the wonderful opportunity the last time we were together in London to go see a play in the West End, and it was called Shadowlands. 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:31.200 And you ever get the opportunity to go there, and if it's still running, it was it was wonderful. 00:12:31.279 --> 00:12:36.399 There's movies, I think two movies, an older one and a more contemporary one, that talk about it. 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:38.480 C.S. 00:12:38.639 --> 00:12:46.960 Lewis was always there with an answer about the Christian faith from a very either philosophical point of view or even a scriptural point of view. 00:12:47.039 --> 00:13:00.559 He had his arguments about suffering tight, he had his arguments about salvation tight, until he married a lady by the name of Joy, who he knew would probably not live as long as he would because she had cancer. 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:04.799 But he wasn't ready for her death. 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:08.480 They weren't married very long before she died. 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:12.159 And that shook him to the core. 00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:23.120 And there's a scene in one of the Shadowland movies in which after she's buried, one of the ministers comes up to him and begins to give C.S. 00:13:23.279 --> 00:13:28.320 Lewis some of some of the philosophical, even religious answers that perhaps C.S. 00:13:28.399 --> 00:13:33.440 Lewis would have picked up earlier and gave them back to Lewis. 00:13:34.159 --> 00:13:37.600 And Lewis is there and he says something with raw emotion. 00:13:37.759 --> 00:13:40.879 He says, that's not good enough. 00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:43.679 That's not good enough. 00:13:44.960 --> 00:14:07.759 And there he was, after spending several years carefully defending the Christian faith, was now recognizing that he needed to wrestle not with the management of an answer of suffering, but he needed to bring himself as a suffering soul before God when he couldn't hold the answer in his mind. 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:12.559 The right answer wasn't enough. 00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:18.240 But he recognized later that the right person was enough. 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:22.000 And he could trust him even if he couldn't understand it. 00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:32.480 And so this evening, as we move through this, one of the things that this teaches us is we don't have to manage an answer. 00:14:32.720 --> 00:14:37.440 We don't have to find a philosophical explanation for it. 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:54.320 Because we have a God who did make us and who does hold us, and who will, as we'll see, answer all of that suffering with a weight of glory that surpasses anything that we've experienced so far. 00:14:55.360 --> 00:14:57.120 And that brings us to our next point. 00:14:57.200 --> 00:14:59.919 And I'd like for us to go to Romans chapter 8. 00:15:00.799 --> 00:15:06.080 And what we'll find here is that our groaning has a direction. 00:15:06.559 --> 00:15:08.720 Our groaning has a direction. 00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:29.759 And there the Apostle Paul says, I considered that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that's going to be revealed in us. 00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:38.320 Now, one thing you'll notice immediately when you read that verse is that Paul is not minimizing human suffering. 00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:42.240 He's not minimizing it at all. 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:45.600 He's calling it sufferings of this present time. 00:15:46.559 --> 00:15:53.600 The difficulty is, as often in Christian circles, we do try to minimize suffering, or we do try to brush past it pretty quickly. 00:15:53.840 --> 00:15:56.159 And this came home to me very, very hard. 00:15:56.320 --> 00:16:05.360 I had just spent 10 days watching my mother unconscious suffering with being septic in hospital. 00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:16.639 And she had her her organs were all shutting down, and her body had gained so much uh fluid that she was barely recognizable to me. 00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:23.120 And it was excruciating to spend 10 days by her side watching that happen. 00:16:23.679 --> 00:16:25.679 And I had I had to fly home. 00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:27.759 She was still clinging on. 00:16:28.159 --> 00:16:32.159 And she died while I was in the plane coming back to California. 00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:47.519 And Sunday, when I went to church, uh, one of my friends came up to me and had heard that she had passed, and he knew that she had come to Christ uh after I had. 00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:51.200 And he made a statement about her being in heaven. 00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:54.480 And honestly, I wanted to punch him. 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:56.080 I really, really did. 00:16:56.320 --> 00:17:00.159 I that was the wrong thing to say at that moment. 00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:05.759 I I had just watched my mother suffer into death. 00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:11.359 And yes, she's in heaven, and yes, I'll get to the point where I can rejoice over that. 00:17:11.599 --> 00:17:13.359 But I wanted her there. 00:17:13.920 --> 00:17:23.680 I wanted to hold her and to say I loved her and to hear her say that to me, and not to watch 10 days of suffering. 00:17:24.799 --> 00:17:28.240 It wasn't the right thing to say. 00:17:28.799 --> 00:17:39.920 But too often we try to minimize that kind of suffering and try to blow past it with answers rather than to sit alongside those who are dealing with hardship. 00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:42.720 And Paul doesn't dismiss this. 00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:48.480 He says, the sufferings of this present time, he speaks about them. 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:51.920 And he talks about them as groanings. 00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:54.480 And look at verse 22. 00:17:55.039 --> 00:18:03.119 He tells us something, though, that these groanings, as real as they are, are not an end of themselves. 00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:06.799 They actually have a destination. 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:16.640 We know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. 00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:21.440 What's a remarkable metaphor? 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:27.519 I mean, he could have just stopped with the the creation is groaning until now, right? 00:18:28.240 --> 00:18:34.960 He could have just said, the creation is weeping until now, and just left it there. 00:18:35.599 --> 00:18:41.440 But he throws in this little focus that's that just opens it wide. 00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:43.680 Labor pains. 00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:49.440 A woman in labor knows that pain. 00:18:51.200 --> 00:18:54.480 None of us who are guys will ever know that pain. 00:18:54.799 --> 00:19:03.200 But every woman in labor who's given birth to a child knows that that pain, as real as it is, has a destination point. 00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:17.920 That it's moving toward birth, it's moving toward life, it's moving toward something that will change, and that this pain is temporary and not permanent. 00:19:18.799 --> 00:19:30.240 And here, this metaphor that he's using, he brings into our real existence and says, yes, it's very real pain. 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:33.279 And yes, it causes us to groan. 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:47.519 And yes, we are not alone in that groaning, the whole creation groans, but it has a destination, it's a labor pain that will one day give birth to life. 00:19:49.119 --> 00:19:54.880 And in verse 18, just going back to it, he gives us a bit of that proportion of it. 00:19:55.519 --> 00:20:04.480 I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is going to be revealed in us. 00:20:05.119 --> 00:20:15.200 Now, this is Paul who has gone through prison, shipwrecks, beatings, stonings, and several other things. 00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:23.200 He's not in any way dismissing this, but he's saying comparatively we can't. 00:20:23.359 --> 00:20:24.960 We just can't compare it. 00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:30.480 And here in verses 19 to 23, like I said, he gives the scope of it. 00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:36.400 But in the middle of this, he talks about a hope that gets anchored in our heart. 00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:45.279 That God has promised something that that labor pain is going to produce, a realization that there's glory to come. 00:20:47.119 --> 00:20:48.880 What is he telling us here? 00:20:49.279 --> 00:20:58.559 He's telling us that suffering is part of being made in the image of God as we experience life in a fallen world. 00:20:59.119 --> 00:21:05.440 That salvation doesn't give us a free escape from any suffering. 00:21:06.079 --> 00:21:11.039 Just like the Son of God Himself, the very image of God, suffered. 00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:26.240 So we too, as the children of God, are not in a place where we have to say it doesn't exist or downplay it as if it's just a lack of faith, but it is a real lived reality in our life. 00:21:27.440 --> 00:21:34.000 This groaning, this suffering is also not a sign of God's abandonment in our life. 00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:49.039 I dealt with my cousin Danny about this, who fell off of a wall where he was trying to build a house, and he fell 10 feet down and smashed his feet flat on the ground, and the bottom of his feet were completely black. 00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:57.039 And he said to me, He said, I rebuked the pain in the name of Jesus, and the pain went away. 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:00.640 Were black. 00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:01.519 Of course they were. 00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:03.599 He fell ten feet flat on them. 00:22:03.839 --> 00:22:10.079 And he said to me, He said, If I had only had enough faith, I think even my feet wouldn't have turned black. 00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:12.559 What was he saying? 00:22:13.359 --> 00:22:20.000 That pain and suffering and difficulty can be erased by faith. 00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:23.599 That somehow it's contrary to faith. 00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:29.599 And that if he had only had enough faith, he could have not had any of that trouble. 00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:44.720 And one of the things I said to him was he was going to come to the realization that suffering and faith were not contradictory. 00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:52.000 And if he kept that, he was going to find himself disillusioned with God and would leave God. 00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:56.160 But God was still there, even in the midst of that. 00:22:56.400 --> 00:23:02.799 And I encouraged and invited him to come to God even in the trouble and the pain. 00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:09.519 So the Apostle Paul is telling us essentially that here in Romans chapter 8. 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:13.839 And that brings us to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:19.599 Just want to sort of brush up against this because we'll see more of it next week. 00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:27.279 The hands that made us are the hands that hold us in the midst of suffering. 00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:30.079 Our suffering has a direction. 00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:34.559 And that direction has a glorious destination. 00:23:35.279 --> 00:23:37.279 A glorious destination. 00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:54.799 And in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verses 17 and 18, the Apostle Paul says this our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable, eternal weight of glory. 00:23:55.279 --> 00:23:58.960 So we do not focus on what is seen, but what is unseen. 00:23:59.440 --> 00:24:05.599 For what is seen is temporary, and what is unseen is eternal. 00:24:06.079 --> 00:24:16.559 Like I said, Paul's biography includes floggings, shipwrecks, imprisonments, sleeplessness, hunger, stoning. 00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:19.599 He's not being dismissive about the pain at all. 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:22.400 But notice how he describes it. 00:24:22.640 --> 00:24:27.599 He says it's light, momentary affliction. 00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:34.640 I don't think we would call any of those things that he suffered light. 00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:37.599 Right? 00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:42.400 If we were hit with rocks, we wouldn't call that light. 00:24:42.799 --> 00:24:46.880 If we were whipped, we wouldn't call that light. 00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:56.720 If we were imprisoned with no sense of hope of escape and some guy pressing us every day for a bribe for two years, we wouldn't call that light. 00:24:59.359 --> 00:25:02.079 What makes it light is the comparison. 00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:10.640 Because he said this is in relationship to something else, very light. 00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:20.720 And notice how he calls this an absolutely incomparable, eternal weight of glory. 00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:27.519 Paul is saying, I've got two pairs of scales here. 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:42.319 Let's take all of our trouble, all of those afflictions, all of those difficulties, everything we've experienced that's been bad and hard and difficult and heartbreaking in our life. 00:25:42.480 --> 00:25:44.559 And let's put it on the scale. 00:25:46.160 --> 00:26:01.920 And then let's take on this scale the eternal, incomparable weight of glory that's going to be ours forever, and put that on the scale and see how they measure. 00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:24.319 That's how he's describing this. 00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:38.079 That the glory that we're about to enter into is so magnificent and so beyond the scope of what we presently experience. 00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:42.480 It's as if it had never been weighed at all. 00:26:44.079 --> 00:26:56.480 But this has received the extreme weight of glory in eternity, so much so that it is beyond all comparison. 00:26:58.960 --> 00:27:05.920 I can compare a drop out of an eyedropper of water to an ocean. 00:27:07.359 --> 00:27:20.079 I may not quite conceive how vast a difference that is, but I can at least take a physical drop of water and look at the Pacific and say that's quite significantly different. 00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:26.400 Paul is saying, you can't even do that with your sufferings. 00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:40.000 And he said, This is why we look to the things that are unseen, rather than resting our life and our focus on the things that are seen. 00:27:41.920 --> 00:27:53.519 What he is telling us is this what we see is real, but what we don't see is real also and much, much more significant. 00:27:55.519 --> 00:28:08.319 And so the Christian life is the practice of orienting our eyes toward the reality of the unseen rather than caging ourselves by the reality of the seen. 00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:22.480 And that's what it means to live in hope, to live with that forward focus toward the unseen weight of glory that's eternal and incomparable to the things that we deal with now. 00:28:24.400 --> 00:28:34.240 Isaiah, eight chapters before the cross, got a glimpse of that in Isaiah 25, where it talks about what God will do in that day. 00:28:34.559 --> 00:28:37.680 He will swallow up death forever. 00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:46.559 And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people will be taken away from the earth. 00:28:46.880 --> 00:28:48.799 For the Lord has spoken. 00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:53.599 That's just a glimpse of that eternal weight of glory. 00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:57.920 Put in real terms, tears and death. 00:28:58.880 --> 00:29:11.759 Death swallowed up, utterly, completely, and finally finished, tears wiped away, the ones that we've shed in public, and the ones we shed in the car that nobody else has seen. 00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:13.119 All of them. 00:29:13.759 --> 00:29:14.400 Gone. 00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:15.599 Gone. 00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:33.119 And John on the Allah Patmos, in the middle of his suffering, got a glimpse of that when he saw a vision and heard the Lord God speak the very words that Isaiah spoke in Isaiah 25 about wiping away the tears. 00:29:33.519 --> 00:29:40.160 And hearing also something else to reaffirm that it wasn't just a promise prior to the cross. 00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:45.039 It was a promise for those on this side of the cross to hold on to as well. 00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:49.759 When God said, Behold, I am making all things new. 00:29:52.880 --> 00:29:54.720 What is he telling us? 00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:01.599 That the weight of glory and the movement to the weight of glory is already in action. 00:30:01.920 --> 00:30:05.440 I am making all things new. 00:30:06.960 --> 00:30:12.880 Being brought into the new birth of Christ is the entrance into the new creation. 00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:22.720 The resurrection that we looked at this morning, and that we'll talk about a lot more over the course of time that we go through the book of Acts, is the firstfruits of that new creation. 00:30:23.039 --> 00:30:32.480 And as I said, the people of God who are surrounded around the message of the cross and the resurrection of Christ are the front edge of the new creation. 00:30:33.119 --> 00:30:44.079 And that this world that is groaning and veiling together in pain along with us now will be a part of that as it's part of the new heaven and the new earth. 00:30:45.680 --> 00:31:03.359 Tonight, we simply stand at the horizon, and we can see that, that it's coming, that it's real, but it also is something that gives us hope in the midst of our days. 00:31:20.720 --> 00:31:24.160 So as we close this evening, I want to say a couple things to us. 00:31:24.319 --> 00:31:28.640 I want to put Job with you in the middle of your suffering. 00:31:29.200 --> 00:31:36.240 Not as an answer, but as a companion, as someone you can cry alongside of. 00:33:18.480 --> 00:33:30.480 And through all the implications that we've discussed over the past several weeks, we're going to bring it to an end next Sunday and see that image perfected in that eternal weight of glory. 00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:32.480 Let's pray together. 00:33:34.400 --> 00:33:54.079 Father, we thank you that you're a God who not only comes alongside us and sympathizes with our weaknesses, but you're a God who has addressed the cause and the effect, and that you will swallow it up by life. 00:33:54.880 --> 00:34:06.960 Lord, anchor our hearts, and my dear brothers and sisters, as we've heard this word, as we've received once again the assurances of your presence and your promises. 00:34:07.759 --> 00:34:15.440 And Lord, hear us as we cry, just as John did, even so come, Lord Jesus. 00:34:15.679 --> 00:34:17.599 And we pray this in his name. 00:34:17.920 --> 00:34:18.559 Amen.