Living for Eternity

Christians are like jars of clay that contain an incredible treasure (2 Corinthians 4). The clay is malleable, it chips, it breaks. The jars are struck down but not destroyed. But for Jesus' sake, Christians endure so that the message will continue to move out. Paul gets to the end of this chapter and there's this bright sunshine of crystal clarity. He says, 

“For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. 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 for us 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.” (2 Corinthians 4:15-18)

Reflecting on Paul's words, there are three major views that Christians adopt that help them live for eternity as they traverse this life.

1. A Right View of God

AW Tozer says, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” What comes into your mind when you contemplate God? What is the first thing that comes to your mind? The answer will chart the course of your life. Christians who think rightly about God have more confidence. They know who they are. They know the One who controls all things. Do you know your God? Do you know His attributes, communicable, and incommunicable? Be a student of your God. 

Do you dive into His word to investigate, to know Him better, or simply to win at Bible trivia? In Philippians 3:7, Paul reflects on what he has given up to know this God:

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything is lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.” 

It's all rubbish. It's all gonna be gone someday except for what I gain in my knowledge of Christ: the security that I find, the identity that I find, the people that I find. Those who understand and know their God cannot but help speaking about Him. When someone has a right view of God, it's not possible for them to keep it to themselves. It changes the way that they see, think, sleep, and live. 

A few weeks after we presented the gospel in Yembi Yembi, the men went on a hunt at night. One of the guys looks up at the clear, unmarred sky, and he says, “Stars, I see you. Moon, I see you. I know who made you. I know the one who hung you out there. I know the one who knows your name. He speaks to me. He tells me He's real just by you. He tells me He's the real ancestor.” He's saying this to the whole canoe, some of them saved, some unsaved. 

That's the fulfillment of the Great Commission. He's giving right glory to God. This is what happens when people are saved and they're captivated with true knowledge of who God is. Paul says this, “For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:15).

This is the thrust of missions, of the Christian life—a right view of God. You'll find, as you study God's word, that this world will start to grow strangely dim. And the world to come will start to fill up your mind and ambitions. Christians who live for eternity have a right view of God. 

2. A Right View of Scars 

Paul says, “Therefore, we do not lose heart.” Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day for our momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them. Paul is not some stoic mystic that believes that it's all in your mind. 

Pain is real. Pain is hard. Pain is for an entire lifetime. It goes in ebbs and flows, but the outward man continues to recede. Christians, we must look at pain through the lens of reality. But there's another reality that's working right alongside this reality that we are fading away. There's an inward reality that says that no circumstance can take away our joy, a perspective that brings confidence and courage while the outward is taking a beating.

Paul says, “For our troubles are achieving for us in eternal glory and it's light and momentary.“ Then in 2 Corinthians 11 he says these things were light and momentary: “Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes, minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was pelted with stones. Three times I was shipwrecked.” 

All of these things, Paul puts under the major heading of light and momentary. How in the world does Paul have the audacity to say that? Because he had an eternal view.

You can go through incredible things if you're able to see past this world and have a right view of scars. Paul understood that these things are marks of honor when we get to glory someday. We can spend our entire lives trying to avoid scars. Friends, recalibrate your vision. It is light and momentary compared to the glory that will be revealed someday. I am not talking about taking foolish risks for the sake of getting scars. I'm talking about those who may end up learning another language someday to present the gospel to them like we did to the Yembi. But you'll have to endure getting malaria a few times or catch typhoid. You'll go to places where it doesn't drop below 90 degrees at night and it gets up to 120 during the day. 

Friends, some of you will have wonderful, beautiful scars on that great day as a goer and as a sender. What wonderful things will you present before the King someday? 

3. A Right View of Heaven

The saints of old all had a vision of heaven that drove them on. I find that older pastors, when they talk about heaven, cry more easily. I find that faithful moms who have raised their kids to love the Lord Jesus cry more easily the older they get. As they think about heaven, they think about the friends that are waiting for them. They think about the circumstances, but most of all, they think about seeing Christ. They have a right view of heaven. 

Paul was given a vision of heaven that was so wonderful he wasn't permitted to write about it. Peter would write in his first letter about our inheritance that never spoils or fades, kept in heaven for us. And church history tells us that he was crucified upside down for his unwavering faith.

There's a treasure waiting for you. There's something held in store for you. No one can take it. Nothing will disturb it. It's waiting for you. Keep running. 

John was given a vision of heaven and he recorded it as this incredible city that the saints of the earth will inhabit. This view looks past this world to the world to come. There's this beautiful city that will come down and all of the people of God throughout the ages will inhabit it. And there will be nothing evil in it. And there will be no temptation. There will be only pure, only good, and only the saints will inhabit this city. This vision of heaven drives the citizens of this earth that truly belong to another world.

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they're strangers and exiles on earth.” (Hebrews 11:13)

We don't belong here. This isn't your true homeland if you are in Christ. Yes, we're involved in civic duties. Yes, we vote. Yes, we get involved in our communities. But, this isn't home. We're exiles, we're sojourners. We belong to a different country. We have a different king. Keep going. The promises are real.

Cowardly people will shrink back. Their fear will grip them. And the grip of this world will swallow them slowly. No one gets swallowed by this world in an afternoon or a weekend or a week. We make bad decisions and moments. But over time these things will pull you down.

When we were making the John Paton documentary, Chad and I were hunting for the grave of Paton’s first wife and his son. We were hiking for two hours. Our guide was looking for it all over the place. Finally we go down this little area covered by bushes. Someone had poured a cement slab over the grave. And there it was. Before Paton went to this island, he knew that this was a likely outcome. Before he went, one of his church elders was trying to talk him out of it. It's not because his church elder was spineless or weak. His church elder was trying to get him to contemplate that he could be killed. John Paton responded, “Mr. Dixon, you are now advanced in years and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave there to be eaten by worms. I confess that if I can but live and die honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I'm eaten by cannibals or by worms. And in that great day, my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”

Where was his gaze? See past this world. Don’t focus on the cannibals, disease, pain, death: look at eternity. 

Living for the Homeland

When we’d been in Yembi Yembi nine months, we had a chance to visit Australia for a short break. We were all so hyped and excited. The morning came for us to head to Australia and we went down and we jumped in the canoe. This is while it's still dark when we started the five hour journey in a motor canoe. Two hours into the trip, we rounded a corner and our way was blocked by a downed tree.The Yembi Yembi spot a capuli (or cuscus), a marsupial with fangs and long claws, and while we were worried, they saw lunch. We chop the tree into the river, and the capuli drops into the river. They whack the capuli on the head, throw it down into the canoe, and we zip under the tree and we keep going. I'm just elated about reaching Australia. Well, the capuli wasn't dead. It's crawling slowly towards my five-year old son. Beau’s eyes are huge and Nina turns around and tells them to kill it. Another kid reaches down, grabs the capuli, and kills it with a machete, spraying blood over my my dear wife.We finally make it to the little airfield, fly out to the major city of Wewak, and get on a bigger airplane to fly to the capital city all in the same day. Five o'clock in the afternoon, we fly to the next location and we land in Australia as the sun is going down. 

After nine months in the jungle, we walk into customs and it was the most beautiful carpet I had ever seen in my life. We make it through customs, we get our rental car and we go straight to McDonald's and I order a quarter pounder with two patties and an extra big Coke and. It was the best food I've ever tasted in my life. We get to the hotel, we crank the air conditioner to the highest setting it'll possibly go, and turn on the shower. We haven't had hot water in nine months. And the hot water starts coming down and all the mud on our legs, all of the blood, all of the grime all starts going down the drain. But those small luxuries were all the better for everything we had gone through to get to them. 

Someday you're going to make it to heaven. Someday this journey will be over. And it will seem all the more beautiful after all the grime and pain and struggle of this life. Don't live the lives of those timid, weak people who work their whole life to avoid the pain, the discouragement, the challenge of doing something that will bring glory to their God. 

You'll have scars, but you'll have them for the glory of the King, and heaven will taste sweeter. Everything will be markedly more beautiful because of what you went through in this short earthly journey. Live for something greater than the dollar bill. Live for something greater than comfort. Live for something greater than a pain-free, conflict-free lifestyle. Live for your homeland, live for heaven.