Transcript
Moments like this that we're all going through together when there's something unexpected, unwanted, that in ways has altered all of our lives, our experience of these moments is never neutral and never the same for each one of us, because there are things we don't bring or that we bring to these moments. And I want to just talk for a moment about one thing, if missing in your thinking as one of God's children, will make this moment that's hard already even harder. That thing is eternity amnesia.
Keeping Eternity in View
You see, if you don't have eternity in view as you're dealing with the right-here-right-now troubles of this broken groaning world where things like pandemics exist, it makes it all the harder, because you will live with what I would call a destination mentality. That means you're acting as if this is your final destination. You're acting as if this is all you have, and so you're loading all of your hopes and dreams into this moment, asking this moment to be what, in a fallen world, it will never be.
You see, what the Bible tells us is this is not our final destination. This moment and everything that happens in this moment is preparation for a final destination, and preparation is hard. If you're on a sports team and you're preparing for the game, preparation is hard. It's arduous physical exercise. And so all of the uncomfortability of this present moment is picked up by our Lord, preparing us for the glory that will someday be revealed.
There's another thing that eternity does for us. It clarifies our values. It reminds us of what's truly important. What's truly important is not just the ease of this moment. What's truly important is not just the ease of this moment. What's truly important is by grace, we have been welcomed into an eternal moment where we will live forever and ever in a world where none of this stuff exists anymore.
A Flash of a Moment
It is an amazing thing to think about, and Paul says that once we're on that other side, this thing that seems so huge and so life-dominating will be but a flash of a moment. It will not be comparable, this moment of suffering will not be comparable to the glory that we'll experience on the other side.
There's another thing. If eternity is guaranteed for us by grace, then it also means that we're guaranteed every grace we need along the way, because if we weren't given all those graces along the way, we would never end up in eternity. You see, eternity guarantees not just my future, but it guarantees for me in this moment, I will have everything I need to be what I'm supposed to be and to do what I'm supposed to do even when life throws the unexpected at me, because future grace guarantees for me present grace. As you're going through this moment that none of us expected and none of us know when will end, go through this moment with eternity in view. Eternity really does make a huge difference.
