Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. There is so much we do not see. Getting a fresh view of how God sees things can help us run and not be weary, despite the afflictions we suffer.
God's view takes in all the details, and He's revealed what that view includes. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, you'll take us today into 2 Corinthians chapter 4 in a message on the things that matter most. Here, Paul talks about a glory that surpasses our afflictions, and about the wonders of the eternal unseen.
You're right, Dave. As a matter of fact, as I'm going to be pointing out, the Apostle Paul uses the imagery of a scale. He says, on one side, put all of your afflictions, and for many people listening, it may be a divorce, it may be a financial meltdown, it may be relational issues. Put all of your trials there, and then on the other side, balance it with the eternal weight of glory. And Paul says, that scale is going to go plunk.
There's no comparison. So even as we begin this new year, it is so important for us to get our priorities straight. But meanwhile, I'm holding in my hands a very important book. It's entitled Seven Snares of the Enemy. As we go into the new year, many people are going to be falling. Unfortunately, I hope that I'm wrong. But many Christians are going to find themselves bogged down in sin. The question is, is there hope? Seven Snares of the Enemy. Can I take time to read just the first sentence? We must humbly admit that a single decision can trip us up and begin a series of dominoes that will destroy the rest of our lives. My friends, we have to take failure seriously. I believe that this book is going to be a tremendous blessing. I'd like to give you some contact info.
Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Let's begin the new year, making sure, as far as we can, that we won't be among those who fall into sins that bog us down. You know, people sometimes say, well, is it right to serve the Lord just to get rewards? What they want to say is that that is selfish. Shouldn't we just serve the Lord because we love Him?
Yes, of course. But those two ideas are not antithetical. They are really part of the same piece of cloth. We serve the Lord because we are going to receive rewards, but our greatest reward is His approval and His delight in us, to know that we shall stand before Him and we shall see Him as He is, because we too shall have glorified bodies that are exempt from all of the contingencies of earth and all of the accidents and the pushes and the pulls of human existence and the frailty of our own health. All those things will be gone forever and we shall stand before God and look like Christ. Paul says, when that happens, you're going to look back and you're going to say, you know, those 40 years on earth that I struggled with arthritis, the 40 years on earth that I struggled with this or that will be like a feather in comparison to the eternal great weight of glory. And the Bible says, we're going to shine like the stars. They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the permanent. That's what's going to happen.
And all of that is in the future. Paul says, no wonder we can take life. You know, let's read that verse again because I think that the apostle Paul is hinting at something namely that as we go through trials on earth and as we have affliction and suffering, we get more anxious for heaven.
Don't wait. You know, as long as we're healthy and well and we're earning a good living and everything seems to be going well, we are very content on earth and we want to keep heaven away as long as we possibly can. But once we're ill and everything begins to fall apart and the pain seems to become unbearable, we begin to say, Jesus, now I'm ready.
Please take me. But I think there's something else in this verse too. What the apostle Paul seems to be saying is that the more suffering you go through here on earth, the more glory and the life to come. Notice it for a momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.
Now if that's true, there is some of you to whom I am speaking who are going to receive a glory that is absolutely unbelievable, that in a hundred million ways makes up for the pain that you experienced here on earth. Some of you have been victims of child abuse. Some of you have gone through excruciating circumstances because of your family. Some of you have been betrayed by your wife.
You've been betrayed by your husband. You have gone through pain that I have known nothing of, but I want you to know is life fair. People say, well, certainly not on this side of the glory.
That's for sure. Life ain't fair, but if you take into account the eternal weight of glory, we will discover that those who have suffered the most receive the most compensation in glory and you will be so thrilled that you'll say, God, it makes up for every sleepless night. It makes up for every emotional pain.
It makes up for all of the fears that other people have put upon me because the weight of glory is far in comparison. And so what the apostle Paul says is first, the inner is more important than the outer and secondly, the glory is more important than the suffering, more important than the affliction. There's a third contrast and that is between time and eternity or if you like between the seen and the unseen. Verse 18, I'll try to read it correctly this time. While we look at the things which are seen, I didn't.
I just, my eyes just keep skipping over that little N-O-T. While we look not at the things which are seen, give me a hand, would you? Thank you. But at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen, I got it, is eternal.
Thank you. Now notice the contrast here between time and eternity, between the seen and the unseen. You look at the things which are seen and life becomes very, very disappointing. Even in the life of the apostle Paul, many people thought that he was a disappointment. He was a Pharisee. He was reared as a Pharisee. He was a man who was highly respected and then he called it all done that he might win Christ.
It was all refuse. And then he went through life and experienced the hardships that we read about just a few moments ago. And so the apostle Paul says, if I were to look at the things which are seen, if I were to look at all of the disappointments that I have had in my ministry and the churches where people have been nurtured and discipled and they've grown in the Lord and then they fallen back and they have left me.
If I were to look at that, I would be disappointed. If I were to look at the ravages of my body, the disintegration, the sicknesses and the hardships that I've gone through, I would be miserable. But he says we need to look at that which is unseen.
Why? Because the unseen is eternal. If the one contrast is between the scale that has a feather on it plus 100 million pounds on the other side, this contrast has to do with time. If you were to take a measuring tape from this earth and string it all the way to the farthest star, and I don't think we know how far the farthest star is away, but hundreds of billions of light years, your life would only be a thread on that measuring stick. You've got an eternity hundreds and billions upon billions cubed factorial number of years in which you are going to live. And after you've lived that long, you haven't even begun because it's not proper to talk about beginning an infinite series. Nobody ever begins an infinite series. Beginning implies an end.
So the apostle Paul says, what we need to do in life is to constantly look at the on the scene of things that are going to last forever. I entitled this message things that matter most. So what is it that matter most? Well, obviously you've already learned that it is the inner. It's not the outer.
It is the glory. It is not the affliction. And now it is the eternal things that last forever. It is not the temporal things that are here today and gone tomorrow.
How do we look at those eternal things? Colossians chapter three says, set your mind on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, the father, set your affection on things above and not on things that are of the earth. Well, one of the best ways that we can do that is to constantly have our hearts renewed and the promises of God so that we always look beyond the immediate to that which is eternal and our minds become preoccupied with eternity. Sometimes people have been criticized for quote being so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good. I don't think the apostle Paul would appreciate such a criticism because he would want to say that the more heavenly minded we are in the right sense of the word, the more earthly good we are able to do and we're able to cope in life simply because, and here's the bottom line, this life becomes more bearable when we begin to focus on the reality of the life to come. The visible becomes bearable when we focus on the invisible, the temporal. We are able to handle it when we begin to look at the eternal and how do we do that? Well, the best way for us to do that is first of all to make sure that we are Christians and by the way, I may be speaking to some today who aren't. You know, CS Lewis in that sermon, the weight of glory points out that everybody is either going to be a being of everlasting splendor or else a being of everlasting horror.
This is an awesome thought. He says it is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses. Now, he's not into the new age movement. He's not saying we're going to be God. It's a little g. In other words, we're going to live forever and in that sense we're like God. That's what he means. So with that explanation, let me read it again. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare.
Awesome. The person that you are sitting with today in church and the person that you're going to have lunch with that individual is either going to be a being someday of such splendor that if we were to see him or her in that splendor right now, we'd almost be tempted to worship them. Such glory or else that person is going to be a being of horror and corruption. The likes of which we don't see except in nightmares. Lewis continues, there are no ordinary people.
You have never talked to a mere mortal nations, cultures, arts, civilization. These are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a net, but it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. What an awesome thought, but if you're a Christian, how do you begin to look beyond the things of this world to that which is eternal? Obviously, one of the best ways to do it is to memorize the promises of God and to receive them into your soul so that you keep your perspective.
Here's one for you. Do not be overcome by covetousness, but be content with such things as ye have for he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Therefore we can boldly say, I will not fear what a man will do to me. Hebrews chapter 13 verses five and six.
Here's another one for you. John chapter 14 verse 27. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Well, we could go on and on this morning. The renewal of the inner man, the understanding of our affliction and the conception of the eternal is all taking place in us through the word of God as we force ourselves to fix our eyes on that which is immovable in a very fluctuating, painful, hurtful, decaying, cursed world.
That's what it's all about. On the 4th of July, a member of the church here asked my wife and I and children to come with him on his boat just off the lake shore here so that we could see the fireworks. And as the boat was bobbing in the water and we were on it for several hours, some of us became somewhat seasick and I needed to just lie down for a minute just to get my bearings. But he said something very interesting. He said, you know what you need to do is don't look at any part of the ship if you're standing or of the boat I should say. Don't look at the mass. Don't look at anything around you. What you need to do is to focus on an object that is not moving and that will give you perspective.
So I chose the John Hancock center. But I noticed something that the minute I did that, despite the fact that the boat was rocking back and forth, I gained my equilibrium and being in the boat was no problem. You see, because if your body is moving back and forth and you're looking at some part of the boat that is moving back and forth also, then your body is really trying to fool itself and it can't do that because part of you is saying I am moving but your eyes are saying no you're not because you are moving in conjunction with the boat and your body can't handle that. But when you look beyond that and you look at that building out there that is not moving, then you can take the swaying of the boat. What is my bottom line to you today? If you want to know what it is to be renewed in the inner man, if you want to focus on eternal glory rather than on temporal suffering, if you want to look at those things that last forever rather than the things that are transitory, what you need to do is to fix your mind on God and his promises and then the shaking and the rocking and the disappointments and the hurt and the circumstances of life become bearable because you found something that doesn't move in a world that is filled with flux and disappointment. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison while we look not 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.
One last thing. I'm sorry that there's a chapter division here. You know chapter divisions aren't inspired.
They were made by men to make the Bible more readable because in the very next verse he says if our earthly tent and that's the Greek word. If our tent he says is being destroyed and it gets folded up and we die and rumor has it this is going to happen to a lot of us. He says we've got a place eternal in the heavens.
Follows naturally doesn't it? We're all dying. Christian can watch it happen and say you know what I've got my mind is so fixed on that which is unchangeable that I can even handle death. Let's pray. Lord we ask that these words spoken in human frailty will be taken by your blessed Holy Spirit and made to be the very word and message of God to hurting people. We pray that the coming year may be one in which our minds and our hearts are wholly focused on that which is immovable.
Yes Lord change and decay all around I see all thou who changes not abide with me. For those today who have never received Christ as Savior. For those believers who are walking far from you because they become so disappointed in you and in others. Draw them today to that which is eternal and that which really matters in Jesus name we pray.
Amen. This is Pastor Luther at the beginning of this year if you've never received Christ as Savior there can be no better time than to do that right now. Think of your sins and believe on a Savior who is actually able to save. I'm holding in my hands a book I've written entitled Seven Snares of the Enemy the subtitle is Breaking Free from the Devil's Grip. We're living in a culture in which it is easier much easier than in previous generations to fall into Satan's traps. I'm thinking for example of the cell phone technology all of the things around us that oftentimes tempt us into sin and as I like to emphasize one wrong decision can lead us down a path that will be destructive. I can't think of a book more relevant in the lives of Christians than one that helps us to avoid the pitfalls or if we have fallen into a pitfall to get out. Well there's so much more I could say but let me give you some contact info go to rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.
Meanwhile from my heart to yours thank you so much for your support. It's time again for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Some churches have women pastors and officials others hold to a male only structure others try to blend the two.
Dr. Lutzer Stan in Alabama has written to get your take on all of this. He says I have a question about the passage in 1 Timothy 3. Our pastor recently spoke on this passage and differentiated between the office of elder and the office of deacon. He said the office of elder is for men of the church who meet the scriptural qualifications and the office of deacon is a position that can be filled by either a man or a woman depending on the job needed. We've always been taught and believed that both roles were to only be held by men.
Can you give us some clarity on this issue? We highly respect our pastor but want to be sure we have a proper understanding. Well Stan thank you so much for your question and I hope that my answer is not too different from the one that your pastor would give but in my view in the New Testament both deacons and elders were men.
I think that's clear from 1 Timothy chapter 3 and other passages that talk about the qualifications of both. But I also believe that it is proper in a church to have deaconesses. This is based on Romans chapter 16 verse 1 for example where a woman is spoken of as a servant which is basically the word deacon. Here at the Moody Church we also have deaconesses.
Now this is what I'd like to say. I believe that the function though of deaconesses should be different than that of deacons. In other words here at the Moody Church we do make that distinction. So rather than saying that the office of a deacon can also be a woman I think it's more biblical to say that only men can fulfill that role as deacon but deaconesses are permitted in scripture and their responsibilities and roles would be quite different as they support the ministry of the church in many different ways. And I'm so glad by the way that you respect your pastor. And you know if he insists that the role of the deacon can be fulfilled also by women as well as men, be open to what he has to teach you. Support him, pray for him, and if you have these concerns go to him or to a member of the board and share them. God will lead you. Thanks so much for your questions Stan. And thank you Pastor Lutzer for that wise answer. If you'd like to hear your question answered go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer. Or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337.
That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Running to Win comes to you from the Moody Church in Chicago to help you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. Ever wonder if the future can be changed? Next time a profound message on the things that must come to pass. Don't miss a compelling look at the inevitable. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
