Eternal Perspective
This past week was difficult.
Life is short
You aren’t invincible
Gulvas schedule, Last week as were were sitting in this room...the story.
Death is final!
Processing and understanding death is hard.
Death is necessary because of sin.
But 1 Cor.15 promises that Jesus died and rose again, conquering death for you and me.
Death is sad: The death of a loved one is painful, but 2 Cor.1:4-6 promises us that God comforts us to overflowing and helps us comfort others too.
Death is scary: Heb.4:15 says He was tempted...and likewise He experienced every fear you have about death.
I used to fear death but who better to trust.
Jn.6:40 - “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Life is precious and fragile and James 4:14 tells us it is like a vapor.
Heb.9:27 - Says we’ll each die and then stand before God.
Science confirms that verse telling us 100% of all humans will die.
Just like birth is the passage between pregnancy and life on earth, death is the passage between this life and eternity.
As a believer your life and death are in God’s hands.
Ps.139:16 - “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Your death will be in God’s perfect time according to His plan.
Ps.116:15 - “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.”
Phil.1:23 - Paul agreed saying to leave earth and be with Christ is better by far than life on this earth.
1 Cor.15:52 - Tells us that in an instant this earthly body will be replaced with a heavenly one.
Jn.12:24 - “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Just like God has a purpose for your life, there will be a divine purpose in your death.
And there’s another interesting verse, Is.57:1 which says, “The righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.”
Understanding my own mortality is important.
Realizing life is short makes every day truly enjoyable.
Realizing life is short motivates me to make the most of every day.
This tragedy brings up the reality and gravity of eternity.
Someday we’ll all be there so how do we live with that conviction?
What is an eternal perspective?
Living this life with a conviction about the next.
Russell Crowe, Gladiator - “What’s done in this life echoes through eternity.”
2Cor.4:18 - “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Ec.3:11 - tells us He has set eternity in our hearts.
CS Lewis wrote, “We are so little reconciled to time that we are even astonished at it. "How he’s grown!" we exclaim, "How time flies!" as though the universal form of our experience were again and again a novelty. It is as strange as if a fish were repeatedly surprised at the wetness of water. And that would be strange indeed; unless of course the fish were destined to become, one day, a land animal.”
We are in this world but not of it, we were made for eternity.
Teilhard de Chardin, A French, Jesuit philosopher put it best, saying, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience.”
College example - working now for what is yet to come.
What if you had 1 week to prepare for a 10 year eco-challenge?
Spirit, Soul and Body (Heb.4:12, 1 Thes.5:23)
Treasure in heaven?
C.S. Lewis - “If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.”
Our lives on earth are significant in the context of eternity.
The Bible talks a lot about heaven and hell.
Hell - The worst fear, loneliness, pain and futility you can imagine w/o any good thing.
Separated from Him and every aspect of Him, void of all pleasure.
No happiness, no joy, no comfort, no hope, no peace...
Heaven - The greatest joy, happiness, satisfaction and pleasure you can imagine without any bad thing.
A new earth with every great aspect of this earth maximized and every desire fulfilled to the fullest.
No poverty, no pain, no sickness, no death
Mt.13:44 - "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”
Explain the gospel and the security of salvation.
4 Laws
John 5:24 - "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”
Helicopter analogy.
As my relationship with God develops I become better at truly loving others also.
Mt.22:37-39 - Love God, love others.
People are what matter.
Josh’s brother in law’s quote.
What if this life was all there was?
The only true hope we have is the hope we have in Christ, of an eternity together with Him.
Jer.29:11 and Eph.2:10 tell you God put you here for a specific purpose.
1 Cor. 3:10-15 - Tells us we are each building on the foundation of Christ using either gold, silver and precious stones or wood hay and stubble. We are told the work of our life will be evaluated in eternity.
INVEST IN PEOPLE!!!
Mt.25:14-30 - Is Jesus’ parable of the talents.
(Alcorn) You’ve been given time, talent and treasure to invest in eternity.
What do you want on your obituary, what will your earthly legacy and echo in eternity be?
Living with eternal perspective is difficult.
Eternity can be Scary.
We don’t want to ask the hard questions, life’s big questions.
Eternity is Confusing.
1 Cor.13:12 - tells us we only see in part now but will understand fully then.
For now, we must walk by faith.
Eternity doesn’t seem Relevant. It is hard to feel the gravity of eternity.
An eternity driven life is the most fulfilling life possible.
Jn.10:10 - that abundant, meaningful and significant life is His promise.
Bill Bright described it well saying, “there are no happy disobedient Christians and there are no unhappy obedient Christians.”
Living with an eternal perspective is possible.
God never commands us to do what He doesn’t empower us for.
What if you only had a month to live.
A spiritual “bucket list”
Just daydream...
Is it possible to live that way even now? How about every day?
Ask God to give you an eternal perspective, His heart for what matters:
David prayed, in Ps.39:4 and Ps.90:12 - "Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life...Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Only 2 times matter - right now and eternity and only 2 things matter - my relationship with God and my relationships with others.
Eli - The present is only time that touches eternity.
Christ’s perspective was the joy set before Him (Heb.12:2).
Follow that by living your life for the joy of what’s to come.
Christ’s focus was people, He came to seek and save the lost (Lk.19:10) and He is not willing any should perish (2 Peter 3:9).
Live every day to know Him and make Him known (YWAM).
Mt.6:20 - “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
Only He is worthy of my time, talent and treasure
As that old Hymn says, “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”
Don’t waste your life, risk it all for what is to come.
Josh’s investment and Rand’s Challenge.
Mk.10:29-30 - “...no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields - and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.”
Jim Elliot - “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
Give it all, invest everything in people and eternity guys. Live this life for the joy of knowing God and making Him known, for the promise of an abundant life here and an eternity with Him.
