Living With Eternity in View

Welcome to episode 245 of Grasp the Bible. In this episode, we will examine the topic of living with eternity in view. 

Key takeaways:   

• God is using your suffering to forge something eternal inside you that could not be created any other way. Your pain is not purposeless. It is productive.  The suffering is not incidental—it is instrumental. 
• This is the fundamental problem: not that we don’t believe in heaven, but that we don’t see it. Our vision has been captured by the visible. 
• In heaven, God will permanently eliminate every source of sorrow from existence. 
• Eternity doesn't minimize the pain. It dwarfs it. 
• An eternal perspective makes evangelism feel less like an awkward religious obligation and more like a rescue operation. 
• Your real life, your truest identity, is not on display in this world. It is secured in heaven. 
• Your citizenship is not contingent on how well you perform today. It is secured by the blood of Jesus. 

Quotable:   

The biblical reality of heaven is not merely a future comfort—it is a present-tense power that should fundamentally change how we suffer, spend, speak, and live every single day. 

Application:   

• Five areas where an eternal perspective must produce real, visible change. 

1. How we endure suffering:  We do not become cowards.  We do not give up under pressure.  When we weigh present suffering against future glory, the calculation is not even close. 
2. How we prioritize our money:  The eternal perspective does not forbid financial wisdom or earthly provision. But it fundamentally reorders why we earn and what we do with what remains.  It is about asking a single, clarifying question that eternal perspective makes urgent: Am I investing in what lasts? 
3. How we engage in evangelism:  If heaven is real and hell is real, then the most loving thing you can do for the people in your life is tell them about Jesus. 
4. How we process grief and loss:  Christian grief is not the absence of sorrow. It is sorrow with a horizon. 

• Separation is temporary, not permanent. 
• Death is defeated, not triumphant. 
• Our loved ones are more alive now than they ever were. 
• We have a reunion to anticipate. 

1. How we hold our earthly identity:  We are temporary residents—people who live in a place but don’t belong to it.  You are not primarily defined by your job title, your bank account, your social status, your athletic ability, your family reputation, or your political identity. You are defined by your citizenship. You are a child of God, a member of a heavenly commonwealth. 

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https://www.facebook.com/SpringBaptist (Spring Campus)   

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Grafts the Bible is a podcast at Spring Baptist Church that walks through selected books of the Bible verse by verse as well as spends time exploring biblical ideas and topics to help you understand and apply God's Word in your daily life. Pastor Dale Stein of our Klein Campus will be leading each week's podcast. This is our 245th episode. I'm Marty Richardson. Thank you for joining us today. Pastor Dale, it's good to have you with us. Thank you. It's good to be back. So we are chugging along on our spring, was it, 26? Why was it 2026? Our spring 2026. In case you're listening to this far off in the future, or um maybe not in the past, but far off in the future. Um that's that's where we are in real time. But we've been doing a lot of these um kind of thematic things throughout the spring, and it's been really great. What is our topic for today? We're gonna be talking about living with eternity in view. Okay. That probably means a lot to a lot of different people. I mean, um you know, because I I think everybody thinks they're looking down the road, right? You know, and so what is that thing we need to be looking out for as we kind of roll into this? What do you think our people need to be aware of?

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Well, the biblical reality of heaven is not merely a future comfort, but it's a present intensive power that should fundamentally change how we suffer, how we spend our money, how we speak, and then how we live every day. So, what would it look like if every day we lived with all of eternity for the next million years? What would it look like if we live with a million years in view? Let's get into today's study. Welcome, and today we are going to be looking at the topic of living with eternity in view. And there's a famous story about Ernest Shackleton. He was an Antarctic explorer who led his crew into one of history's most harrowing survival ordeals. When his ship, the Endurance, was crushed by pack ice in 1915, he and 27 men were stranded on the frozen Antarctic shelf with no rescue in sight. Now, what kept them alive for those 22 brutal cold months of starvation and despair was that they did not keep their eyes fixed on their current misery, but he reminded them to focus on a destination, a rescue that was coming. So he organized daily routines to boost morale, and he never let them believe that that was the end for them. And so their destination determined how they would live in the present. And this is exactly what Paul is calling us to do in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, and we're going to get to that in a moment, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. But Paul had been beaten, he'd been shipwrecked, imprisoned, and left for dead, and yet he writes with a kind of holy calm that defies all explanation. Now, unless, though, we understand that Paul had firmly fixed his gaze on a destination. And he wasn't pretending that the pain didn't exist, but he was measuring it against something far greater. And so here is the honest diagnosis that most scripture gives us, however. Most of us, even though we believe in heaven, we live as though this world is all that there is. We stress about money as if earthly security was the ultimate measure. We cling to comfort as if temporary ease were our goal. We grieve without hope as if death is the final word, and we chase after success as if a fleeting reputation would satisfy forever. Now, the biblical reality of heaven is not a mere future comfort, it is a present tense power that should fundamentally change how we suffer, how we spend our money, how we speak, and how we live every day. And so today we're gonna do three things. First, we will let Paul recalibrate our vision of eternity. Second, we are gonna take an honest look at what heaven actually is, and third, and most importantly, we're gonna ask this question: what has to change in my life because eternity is real? So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, and we are gonna be looking at verses 16 through 18, so 2 Corinthians 4, 16 through 18, and Paul writes this So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 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. Now we can't look at what Paul's writing here as some type of religious poetry, right? We need to feel the weight of his words. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul lists his resume of suffering. There he talks about being beaten five times with 39 lashes, three times he was beaten with rods, once he was stoned and left for dead, three times he was shipwrecked, and he was constantly in danger from his own countrymen. And so when Paul writes this passage here in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, right, yeah, he is he's not simply writing from a place of comfort. This is a man writing with scars on his back. He knows what he is talking about. And so as we look at his words, he says that our present sufferings are simply light momentary afflictions. He goes, they last only for a moment. It is a slice of time so small they can hardly be measured in light of all of eternity. And the word he uses for light are featherweight. Now you've got to think, well, when I get the diagnosis of cancer, when my child dies, when I experience betrayal from my spouse, or when depression hits, how can Paul call these things light? But the answer here is in the comparison. Because he's not dismissing our pain, but what he's doing is he is dwarfing it because he says an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. What he's literally saying here, it is beyond all measure into all measure. There is no mathematical ratio available. It's like trying to compare a single grain of sand to all the sand in the Saharan desert. Now, Paul is not saying that the glory is awaiting for us, but it is being prepared for us by our afflictions. In other words, our pain that we are experiencing in this life is not purposeless, it is productive. Now we think about how a diamond is made, right? It is nothing more than simple carbon. It's the same element that we find in things like graphite that's used in pencils. But here's the thing is that with diamonds, it has been subject, this carbon is has been subject to enormous pressure and heap and heat deep within the earth over the course of many, many years. And so remove that pressure, and all you have is charcoal. But add that pressure, and you get this beautiful gem that reflects light in so many different ways. And so, what Paul is telling us here that the pressure of affliction that we feel is temporary in this life. And this is the very thing that God is using to give in us and produce in us an eternal weight of glory. And so our suffering is not incidental, it is instrumental. And I know many of you, and you have gone through some horrible things in your life. And while you're going through it, how many times do we ask God why? Why me? When will this end? This isn't fair. I don't like this. If you really cared about me, you would not let me go through this. But when you look back now, years later, and you look at that, I'm sure that many of you would think, you know what, God revealed himself to me in new ways. Or God gave me a greater compassion for those who are suffering in this way, and now I know how better to minister to them. And my relationship with the Lord is deeper now than it was before. All right, and so this is what Paul is getting at. And I've got to tell you, many of you know my situation, right? There is no cure. It eventually kills you. And I wonder, God, why? And God's like, why not you? Why not? Right? You live in a fallen world, you're a sinful person, but why don't you, and this has come to me over so clearly in my prayer life, it's like, why don't you spend the rest of your life leaning more on me and not asking me why, and let me do with you what I'm gonna do with you in this life? And that's very humbling because God wants to use us through this pain, through this horribleness, through this mess that we would not want for ourselves or for anybody else, God would say, I can still use this. This is the instrument, this is the thing I am using to show you my glory. And what a great reminder this is that Paul gives us here because he tells us that we need to be looking at the right things. Because he says here, as we look into the things that are seen, or not into the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen. Paul's not practice, practicing escapism. He's not trying to deny things are real, but his orientation is towards the things that are unseen. And so these things that we see, things are things are transient. This world is only for a season. But the unseen things are eternal. This world is passing away, but eternity is permanent. Yet we spend most of our emotional energy on things that are passing. You ever get through or you're going through a situation in life and you think, gosh, this thinks, I really hate it. And then you get through it years later and you go, Yeah, I can barely remember that. I know that one of my daughters recently called me and she's having a very difficult time away in school with an instructor and all these other things that are going on. And I said to her, and I go, don't take this as if I'm like patting you on the head and go, poor little girl. But I tell you, I said, this too will pass. It will. I know why you're going through it. It is hard. I know it's unpleasant. I know you don't like it, and I'm not dismissing that. But I can tell you, having lived on this earth much longer than you, this will pass. And the next thing will come along and it will pass. And so Paul reminds us here to get our focus off of things that are now and temporary to the things that are in the future and permanent. And so here is the fundamental problem that we all face. It's not that we don't believe in heaven, but that we don't see it. Because our vision has been captured by the visible. The stock market moves and we panic. The doctor calls and we spiral. The relationship ends and we despair. Why? Well, it's because in those moments, the weight of glory that lies ahead of us, it's out of focus. And so we need to turn our attention to heaven. And that's what Paul gets to next is what heaven actually is. So he's directed us in this way, and we're going to look at what John writes in the book of Revelation, how he describes heaven. Now, if you ask most people what heaven is like, and you're going to get some kind of vague images like clouds and harps and endless church services, right? But but we need to understand what Scripture paints for us very clearly as to what heaven is going to be. And so we're going to look first of all in Revelation chapter 21, verse 1. Revelation 21, verse 1. And John gives us a picture of a renewed physical creation because he says, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Now this word he uses for new here means renewed or refreshed. Not something brand new, right? God is not going to scrap all of creation and start over, but he's going to renew it. He is going to purge it of all curse and corruption. And so, you ever seen these buildings before or these homes that have been totally gutted and remodeled? And you think, is this the same home? Right? This is exactly what God is going to do. He's not going to destroy everything, he's going to remake it new. And so heaven is not simply some disembodied ghostly realm, but it is a physical place where resurrected believers live with resurrected bodies on a renewed earth. And then heaven is also the end of everything that breaks your heart. Revelation 21, verses 3 through 4. Behind the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself would be with them as their God. Neither shall be there be no mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away. And so the Greek word that he uses here for a wipe away means to completely obliterate, to wipe it out utterly. This isn't simply God handing us a tissue. This is God permanently removing every source of sorrow from existence. And so the list that John gives us here is staggering. He says, death, mourning, crying, and pain. And so these four words virtually cover every category of human anguish. But notice what John sees at the center of heaven. He doesn't say streets of gold. He doesn't mention pearly gates. He says the dwelling place of God is with man. This is the tabernacle. God will tabernacle with us. So we will tabernacle with him once again. And so there is no veil there, however, that says keep out. There is no intermediary. So the whole story of Scripture is God pursuing a restored relationship with his image-bearers. And in Revelation chapter 21, it is complete. And so heaven above all else is God. It is to be with him fully and forever, without any type of barrier and without any kind of shame. We also see that we have resurrected bodies and a renewed purpose. We see this in 1 Corinthians 15 and Philippians chapter 3, verses 20 through 21. So Paul tells the Philippians that our citizenship is in heaven, Philippians chapter 3. Now it's interesting is that Philippi was a Roman outpost. It was a city on the edge of the Roman Empire. But the people who lived there had full rights. They were citizens, and they had all the privileges of being Roman citizens, even though they lived far from the city of Rome. And what Paul is reminding us of is this you and I, we are God's heavenly outpost on earth. And from that heavenly homeland, Paul says this in Philippians chapter 3, verse 21, that Christ will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. And in 1 Corinthians 15, he fills in the details. These resurrected bodies will be imperishable. They will be glorious. They will be powerful. And there we will create, we will explore, we will work, and we will worship and we will flourish forever in the presence of God. Now, because these things are true, what has to change? Because it's one thing to believe in this, but it's another thing entirely to allow these realities to completely restructure our lives. And so let's look at five areas where an eternal perspective must produce real and visible change. So, number one, one of the things that must change is how we endure suffering. And so Paul's entire argument in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 is that the eternal perspective that we are supposed to have is the engine for our endurance. In verse 16, he says, so we do not lose heart. We do not give up under pressure. In Romans chapter 8, verse 18, Paul uses the same logic because he says there, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. And so the word he uses for consider, it's an accounting term. Paul has run the numbers. And so if you are in a season of suffering right now, whether it's a chronic illness, whether it's grief, or maybe it's a marriage that it is barely holding together, or maybe you have a prodigal child, or suffering from depression that will not lift, the call here is not to pretend that this does not hurt. The call here for us is to run the numbers, to take in account of what God has in store for us in heaven, that He's preparing for us right now. And then to remind ourselves that this affliction is temporary and light. That we need to look at this life as a very temporary thing that one day will be over and there will be nothing in light of all of eternity. You may have heard of Johnny Erickson Tata. She became a quadriplegic at the age of 17 after a diving accident. She spent the last 50 years in a wheelchair in decades of physical pain and helplessness and the slow dignity of a body that will not cooperate. And yet, through all of that, she's become one of the most luminous voices for the gospel in the modern world. She wrote a book called Heaven, and there she writes what she wants to do when she gets her resurrected body. She says the first thing that she wants to do is fall on her knees before Jesus. She says she's been practicing that moment in her mind for decades. The moment when she will kneel on legs that actually work. See, the eternal hope that she has is not simply a coping mechanism, it is a transforming reality that shapes how she gets through this daily suffering that she encounters. And so this is what Paul is driving at. And so eternity doesn't minimize our pain, eternity actually dwarfs our pain. The other thing that needs to change too is how we prioritize our money. And Jesus spoke about money quite a bit in Matthew chapter 16, verses 19 through 20. I'm sorry, Matthew 6, 19 through 20. He says, Do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Now, this is not a suggestion, but it is a command that He gives us. Because in heaven, you know what your money is not subject to inflation, right? How many of you right now you're looking at your bank account and going, okay, I'm I must be getting really strong because I can actually lift $50 worth of groceries with one hand now, right? I mean, it is just crazy, but again, there is not subject to inflation. Your investments in heaven, see, he even testifies is true. He also, it is not subject to stock market crashes. And so, in eternal perspective, it does not forbid financial wisdom or earthly provision, but it fundamentally reorders why we earn and what we do with what remains. And so we should ask ourselves some significant questions before we start making different purchases. Number one, if I buy this thing, will this matter in 100 years? Am I storing up a treasure that a thief can steal? Or am I am I storing up treasures that last forever? How can this Resource be used to advance the kingdom of God? And what will I wish I had done with this money when I stand before God? But I tell you, these are hard questions to ask because every single day we are bombarded with by this, by that. You need this. Everyone's getting this. So you must do this. And see, you know what our problem is? Our neighbors are buying things that we can't afford. And we've got to keep up with them. And so we need to ask ourselves: how are we going to handle God's money? Now, this is not experiencing about it's not about experiencing guilt over having nice things, but it comes down to asking a single clarifying question that the eternal perspective makes urgent, and that is this. Am I investing in what less? Right? Because you remember all those things you just had to have, and next thing you know, a few years later they're in that garage sale, and you can't even sell it for a dollar and someone's haggling with you over this thing? Right? Again, keep that perspective in mind. Now, also having an internal perspective will shape how we view evangelism and how we engage in that. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 11, Paul says this therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. Now the word for persuade means to convince. And so Paul's belief about eternity drove him to persuade every person that he could reach. If heaven is real, and if hell is real, the most loving thing that you and I can do for the people in our lives is to tell them about Jesus. Not aggressively, not clumsily, but urgently. Every person we see at the grocery store, or at our kids or grandkids' games, or at uh around our neighborhood, they have an eternal destination. And an eternal perspective makes evangelism feel less like awkward religious obligation and more like a rescue operation. Think about it this way. Right? Go to your fridge, pull out a container of milk, and on there you're going to see an expiration date. What do you do with that milk once it's reached its expiration date? Well, if you're me, you open up and smell it and see are they lying, right? But what happens when the milk goes bad? You pour it out because it's no good. Every single person in this room, every single person you meet, imagine them with an expiration date. Because we all have one. So what are we going to do with those folks? Because we don't know when their expiration date is. And this should encourage us to urgently evangelize others. Also, if we live with eternity in view, it should shape how we process grief and loss. In 1 Corinthians, or I'm sorry, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 13, Paul writes this, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who do not have hope. Now Paul doesn't say, don't grieve, but he says, don't grieve as those who have no hope. And so Christian grief is not the absence of sorrow. It is sorrow with a horizon. And so when a believer dies, it's not that we don't grieve, but we have the right perspective on it. We know that this is a temporary separation. It is not permanent. One thing I like to tell people is it's not goodbye, it's I will see you later. Death is not defeated, or death is defeated, it is not triumphant. And our loved ones are more alive now than they ever were before. And one day we will anticipate a great family reunion. Also, the fifth thing that should change if we believe in eternity is how we hold on to our earthly identity. 1 Peter 2, verse 11, Peter calls believers sojourners and exiles. We are simply temporary residents, people who live in a place but don't belong to it. And in Colossians chapter 3, verse 3, Paul writes this, for you have died and your life is hidden in Christ. And so our identity is stored safely with him. Your real life, your true identity is not on display in this world. It is hidden in heaven and secured there. And so what this means for us is that we are not identified by our job title, by our bank account, by our social status, or any one of our God-given abilities. We are not defined by our family reputation or by our political identity. But we are defined by our citizenship because you are a child of God. You are a member of the heavenly commonwealth with a secured identity that no market crash, no diagnosis, no divorce, and no failure can touch. And so this week I want you to think about areas in your life where you are deriving some sense of your identity and security because it is most likely something that is based on something that is temporary. And so maybe it's your career, maybe it's your accomplishments, maybe it is your physical health, but I want you to write this down, though, that my life is hidden in Christ. And we need to loosen our grip over the things that we find our value and our worth from in this world, and remember that our identity is sound in him. And so returning back to 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 18, Paul reminds us of this one thing that unlocks all everything else. He says, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. And so the Christian life is fundamentally a life about a reoriented vision. It is the ongoing discipline, daily and sometimes hourly, of redirecting our gaze from the visible and temporary to the invisible and eternal. We're not trying to escape this world, but we are called to serve it, to love it, and to work in it. But ultimately we have to remember that we do not belong to it. You are Philippi. You are a heavenly colony here on earth. You are an ambassador representing a kingdom that will be coming one day in full. You are a sojourner, fully engaged in the place you are passing through, but always moving toward home. The early Christians, they were described by their neighbors as people who would turn the world upside down. They were not passive, they were not withdrawn, they were not disengaged, but they operated in a fundamentally different economy. They gave generously because they were investing in eternity. They faced persecution because they knew suffering was light and momentary. They shared the gospel with everyone around them because they knew every person had an eternal soul. And so what would it look like if you and I actually lived that way? Not perfectly, not without grief, not without fear, not without failure, but if we genuinely reoriented our life toward eternity. What would change in your relationships, in your parenting, in your grandparenting, in your finances, in your witness, and in your response to suffering? Now, before we wrap up, I want you to hear something very clearly, right? This is not a call for us to be so heavenly-minded that we're not any earthly good, right? It is the opposite. History shows that people who have been the most useful here on earth are those who have been gripped by eternity. Now, here is a great thing, a good reminder too, that if we are in Christ, we don't have to earn our citizenship in heaven. It is already secured for us. And here's the great thing: our citizenship is not contingent on how we perform today. You're already accepted, you are already loved, and there is nothing that you can do that would earn God's favor because you already have that if you are a believer. And so for this week's challenges, when suffering comes, write down your current trial and label it as temporary and light. In money decisions here before your next significant purchase, run it through those four eternal investment questions. Evangelism. We all know people who are lost. And write down the names of three people who were lost and commit to praying for them daily and pray that God would give you the opportunity to share the good news with them. And then when grief comes, we need to write down these truths that we talked about today about how Christians process grief. And then finally, our identity. Look at those temporary, those earthly things, where we draw our identity from. And we need to write down Colossians chapter 3, verse 3, right beside that. And we need to pray that our identity, that we would be reminded that our identity is actually found in Christ. So with that, let's pray and we'll be dismissed. And Father, forgive us for those times when we focus on what is right ahead of us. Lord, I pray that uh you would prick our consciousness this week, that we would begin to live with an eternal mindset, knowing, Lord, we have no idea how much time we have left on this earth. And Lord, in if we get that mindset, that we would have our values turned upside down by you, that the way we handle our money, the way we experience grief, the way we deal with evangelizing those who are lost, and a variety of other ways in which we live our lives to be permanently shaped by what you reveal to us in Scripture about what lies ahead of us. And Lord, I pray that we would remain faithful ambassadors of yours, doing what you have called us to do and living lives that would honor you and please you. And Lord, for those here who are suffering right now, for those who are in some type of physical or emotional or spiritual pain, Lord, I pray for them. Lord, that you would remind them that you are there with them, you have not abandoned them, and Lord, that you would remind them too that above all else, that this is temporary, in light of all of eternity, in one billion million years, we will still be with you, living the life that you originally planned for us. And until we reach that day, Lord, I pray that we would remain faithful, that we would tell others about you, and that we would be that we'd be living lives that are pleasing to you. And we ask this in Christ's name.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Amen. Thank you for that word. Now, as we like to do every single time we're together, we like to take a moment after the teaching time and just kind of talk about the big idea, key takeaway. Pastor Daryl, thank you for that message. Now, what is the big idea or the key takeaway from today's time together? Well, the big idea really is our fundamental problem.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

It's not that we don't believe in heaven, but we don't see it because our vision has been captured by by the visible. In other words, how we live our daily life is so captured by our circumstances and all these things that we see that we quickly lose sight or we don't even consider what lies ahead once we pass in this life into the next.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Okay. I haven't done this for a few weeks. I got a bunny trail. Can we talk about something? Absolutely. How does this juxta juxtapose you know the word I'm looking for? Juxtapose. Juxtapose with the idea that you know, a lot of believers are so focused on eschatology and they think that that's giving them eternal focus. Can we talk just a little bit about the difference between studying end time prophecy and living with an eternal mindset? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

So I think it's I I'm interested, like many people are in eschatology, the end times. Some things are very plain in scripture. Jesus is returning, we know that. We don't know when. Those things are given. When he comes, he will judge both the living and the dead. Um but now exactly when during this great tribulation he is going to come. There we can have debates on that.

unknown 35:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

We can also um take a look at the millennial reign and you know, if that even is a thing, and when is that going to be? But I think the problem though is that we get so hung up on these academic arguments over those things that we don't come together and say, okay, we all agree these things are going to happen, but the more important thing is knowing these things are going to happen, how does that shape how we live now instead of instead of us getting involved down in the weeds and entrenching ourselves in a position that says, I believe in this premillennial, you know, pre-tribulation, wrath, blah, and and we go to war with that, instead of saying, hey, knowing that Jesus is going to come back, knowing that one day we have to stand before him, give an account, knowing that our neighbors and our friends who are lost are going to be spending eternity in hell, maybe we should focus on something like that rather than on these academic arguments. Not I'm not saying they don't have value. Sure enough, they can sharpen our thinking. However, that's not the point, right? The point is knowing what lies ahead of us for all of eternity and for lost people, how should that shape how we live life now and to put things from this world into perspective? Things like suffering. Right. We go through life, things happen to us. We suffer illness, we suffer from all kinds of things. But knowing that one day in heaven, all those things will be wiped away, how should that that shape how we view our suffering right now? And I think there's a tremendous value that we have there, knowing that that suffering is momentary, as Paul says, it's light compared to all of eternity.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Oh, good word on that. I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that sometimes we we live with one foot in heaven, one foot on earth, and we don't fully engage in either. Yeah, absolutely. And I was like, that took me like a week to figure out. But but I I love your point on that, that when heaven's on our mind, we're filtering everything through it. It doesn't mean we're ignoring right everything that we're going through. Good work. So how do we apply this? Because this is a pretty complicated, well, like most things in the Bible, simple to simply stated, complicated or difficult to apply.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

Absolutely. Well, I think there are really five big areas where an eternal perspective really should produce a real invisible change. So we talked about suffering before, how we endure suffering. And and so living with eternity in view, we don't become cowards and we don't give up and lose hope and and have this woe is me victim mentality. Not denying that that that suffering is can be an awful thing. But when we weigh our present suffering against our future glory, that calculation, Paul makes this very clear, is not even close. There is a man I knew named Lewis several years ago. Lewis was a faithful believer, but he had terminal cancer, and I watched over the course of just under a year as he went from someone healthy to to great suffering and eventually dying from that. And I had great admiration for how he lived whatever remaining time it was he had on earth he had on earth. And there were times he didn't feel good, and I wouldn't see him because he was in so much pain. But he showed me what it's like to live through that while still honoring God because he knew that while the pain he was going through was horrible, he knew it wasn't going to last forever because he knew what was waiting for him on the other side of that.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Oh, that's so good. That that that idea that whatever we're going through now is as bad as it gets. It will be as bad as it gets. Absolutely. Yeah, that everything is uphill from here.

SPEAKER_02 39:03

Yes. So so there's suffering, right? Now, also how we spend our money, or let me rephrase it, how we spend God's money. And you know, it reorders you know why we earn and what we do with what remains. Some people spend their lives chasing after money and stuff because we derive value from that, we derive status from that.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Now you're meddling, man. I tell you, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:27

But again, with with this eternal perspective in mind, if we ask the question, am I investing in what last? Because, you know, think about it. Oh, I've got to have the latest of this, I've got to, I've got to upgrade to this house, I've got to have this kind of car. And then what happens? Those things don't satisfy. The greatest and next thing comes out, your neighbor and your family members buy bigger homes that you can't afford, and now what? Right. So that eternal perspective on God's money and how we handle that should really matter. And should I invest in this thing here? Or would I be better off investing it to help reach more people who are lost?

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Right. And going along with how we engage in evangelism. So if heaven is real and hell is real, which they are, then the most loving thing that we can do for the people in our lives is tell them about Jesus because we never know when someone's life is going to come to an end. I was talking to one of my daughters in college the other day, and she let uh Laura and me know that a good friend of hers died unexpectedly. So here was a 21-year-old college student who showed no signs of anything being wrong. All of a sudden, she is gone for all of eternity. And again, we think, oh well, I'm 21 years old, I've got years to go. We never know.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Never.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

So knowing what awaits people, Paul says, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, knowing the fear of the Lord, knowing what's ahead for people who are lost, it should make us bold for evangelism and not being timid about that. Um also how we process grief and loss when a Christian believer passes away. We understand that that it's a temporary situation and death is defeated. It's not triumphant, it's not goodbye, but it's see you later. And that later is going to be an incredible reunion. And then finally, living with an eternal perspective, it really shapes how we hold on to our earthly identity. And here's what I mean: we are simply temporary residents, right? We're like people who live in a place, but we really don't belong to it. So we're not primarily defined by things like our job title or our bank account, our social status, despite what Facebook tells you, right? We're not defined. Oh, okay, I'm gonna step on some toes here. We're not defined by our allegiance to a political party.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

I do not condone or not, just kidding.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

Right? We're we're defined by our citizenship, and we're a child of God. We are we are a member of a heavenly commonwealth, and that should be the primary source from where we draw our identity.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

There's a lot there. Yes. There's a lot there, but I think one of the things that we run into, and you you talked about our heavenly identity, is is the world spends a lot of time trying to tell us who we should be. But what I'm hearing from you is saying we should spend our time focusing on what God tells us we are, where God tells us we're going, where God defines us as being. Because ultimately, if we're saved, we've been bought and paid for and we are his. And if we're being honest, we're his to do with as he pleases. Yes. And so the the most God honoring thing we can do is listen to his voice and do it his way. I think he's even says that a few times in the Bible. Uh like 126. Roughly. Well, very good. Um, wow, that's pretty heavy. Anything else as we kind of wrap up today?

SPEAKER_02 43:11

No, so that that's my challenge to folks this week is to look at these five different ways, five different five different lenses, let's call them, and do a quick self-assessment and ask yourself, how am I living in light of all this? So how how am I enduring suffering? How am I prioritizing the money that I have only because of God's good favor in hand? How am I engaging in evangelism, if at all? How do I process grief and loss? And then finally, what am I allowing to shape my identity here? So so think about those things this week and and spend time in prayer and ask God to reshape our views on this to where we live with eternity in view.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Uh such a good word. Such a good word. Wow. I think our people have a lot to think about this week. Well, very good. Thank you for joining us. As always, we don't take it for granted that you have spent your time to learn about God's word, because we know this, it has changed our lives. And we know that if you study it and you get it firmly and deeply into your heart and your mind, it will change your life too. Have a great week and join us next week as we continue to grasp the Bible.