Momentary Affliction

One of our key tactics as humans for enduring times of suffering is thinking about that suffering in terms of its duration. Before the dentist jabs his patient’s gums with a needle, he says, “This will only hurt for a moment.” The sleep deprived parents of newborn twins tell one another, “This is just a season.” The coach encourages his straining, sweating athletes by yelling, “Keep going, your almost done! Your almost there!” There is something powerful about knowing that something is not forever and that there is an end in sight. It just gives you an ability to endure things that are hard to endure. You can find a motivation to get to the finish line because you know that then there will be a level of relief once you cross it.

In 2 Corinthians, when the apostle Paul speaks of suffering for Jesus’ sake, he calls it this: “Light momentary affliction” (2 Cor 4.17). He goes on to say some extraordinary things directly after this phrase, unpacking what he means by it, though I would like to pay attention just to that phrase itself for a moment and specifically to the word ‘momentary.’

It is clear from his letter to the Corinthians that Paul is undergoing a lot of pain for the Gospel. He writes things like, “For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor 1.8), and “We who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4.11). And yet incredibly, he endures. He writes, only a few verses later, “So we do not lose heart” (2 Cor 4.16). But how? How does he not lose heart? How does Paul endure so joyfully?

At least one answer is that he interprets his suffering in terms of its duration. He understands that it is momentary. Now to that you might rightfully say, “How is it momentary Paul? It seems to be nonstop.” To which I think the apostle Paul would say, “It is momentary compared to eternity.”

Imagine if there was waiting for you an unending and infinite time of relief. And not just relief but an infinite time of infinite joy. An eternity of worshipping the One worthy of worship. An eternity of knowing the One you were created to know. An eternity of dwelling in the presence of the almighty God. What is a lifetime compared to an eternity? It’s a moment. More than that, what is a lifetime of suffering compared to an eternity of joy? It’s a moment.

Even if the rest of Paul’s human life was to be unrelenting pain and suffering for the sake of the Gospel, he understood that compared to the relief that was coming for him, that pain and suffering was momentary. Compared to eternity, it would be over in a flash.

The reality for Christians today is the same as it was for Paul, that there really is waiting for us after the race is over an eternity of infinite joy in the presence of our Creator. Which means that no matter what we suffer in this life for the sake of Christ; no matter how long it goes on for, what was true of Paul’s suffering is true of ours as well: that in comparison to eternity, it is momentary.

It is light momentary affliction that is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

This will only hurt for a moment. Its just a season. Keep going, your almost done! Your almost there! So do not lose heart.

Reasons to Praise

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night” (Psalm 92.1-2).

My simple question is this: Why? Why is it good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to His name and to declare His steadfast love? Of course it is good for God the receiver, to be on the receiving end of thanksgiving, praise and declaration, but the idea here is that it is also good for the giver. So again, I ask, why?

I think Charles Spurgeon sums it up nicely. He writes in his commentary on the Psalms, “It is good ethically, for it is the Lord’s right; it is good emotionally, for it is pleasant to the heart; it is good practically, for it leads to others to render the same homage.”

Take each one of those.

The Lord’s Right

It is good because it is the Lord’s right, or to say it another way, He is worthy of it. When something is worthy of praise, it is an offence to not give it the praise it is due. To talk to your neighbour while the New York Philharmonic plays Beethoven’s 9th Symphony; to make jokes in front Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son; it is borderline blasphemy. How much more blasphemous to not give praise to the God of the universe; the good, omniscient, omnipresent, all wise, all satisfying, reigning, ruling King; the one so glorious that no human can see His face without crumpling up like a piece of paper and dying; the one so magnificent that His very presence sent the prophet Isaiah into calling down judgment upon himself, “Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6.5)?

It is good to give Him thanks, to praise Him, to declare His goodness, because it is good to give God what God is due. We ought to praise Him night and day because He is worthy of praise, because He just is that great. Really the question should be, how could we not give Him praise?

As the multitudes in Revelation sing, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5.12)

Pleasant to the Heart

It is good because it is pleasant to the heart. In other words, it is good to do because it is good to do what we were created to do.

Since He is worthy of all adoration, of all praise, thanksgiving, and declaration, and since we are the creations of a God who is worthy of all of that, it is no surprise that we were created to give it. We were created to glorify God. Isaiah 43.7 puts it like this, “Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory.” Now everyone knows how good it feels to do things that you were created to do. Humans were created to run, that’s why it feels good to run. We were created to enjoy food, and that is why it feels good to enjoy good food. If we were created first and foremost for the glory of God, then it is going to feel simply incredible to give glory to the God who created us. At the same time, it is going to feel empty and wanting to live a life that does not give Him glory, that does not live in the role we were created to fill. And isn’t that something we have all experienced at some point? The emptiness of self glorification?

All that to say, our hearts rejoice when we give glory and honour to God because it is what our hearts were made for. It is sweet to give glory to God.

Practically Good

And it is good because it leads others to do the same thing.

Hopefully as Christians we desire for all men and women everywhere to honour and rejoice in God. Well, the simple truth is that most people are followers. They tend to wait to do things until they see others doing them too. That doesn’t necessarily take away from the genuineness of the action, its just how humans usually operate. There might be a whole swath of people who know deep down that God deserves their praise, their thanksgiving and their declaration, but it is not until they see and hear others directing it all to God that they are driven to turn and to do it as well.

That should be enough reason in itself to want to praise God, to want to direct all our thanks to Him and declare His goodness, because we know that as we do it that others will do it as well. This one raises the question though of where. Where do we do this so that others are exposed to it? Are we supposed to stand in the streets and praise Him? Based on Jesus words in the Sermon on the Mount, I don’t think so. Instead I think it takes place as we speak in ways and live our lives in ways that give all glory and honour and power to God. As our lives direct all praise to Him then people around us will take notice, and, God willing, will direct their praise to Him as well.

I am sure the reasons could go on, but Spurgeon gives us a good place to start. For at least these three reasons, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night” (Psalm 92.1-2).

Easy Christianity

It is truly wild how seemingly easy we have made Christianity in the West. We have crafted this version of Christianity (which is really no Christianity at all) that requires so little effort. You don’t have to get your knees scraped or your hands dirty; you barely need to break a sweat. You almost don’t even need the power of the Holy Spirit. You just accept Jesus into your heart, then proceed to do your private devotions each day, sit in a church once a week like you’re at the movie theatre, try not to curse in public and maybe send some money out to a few different charities. I mean there is probably a little more to it then that in most people’s minds, but at the same time, maybe not.

I remember N.T. Wright wrote in a commentary on Mark some years ago, “Jesus is not leading us on a pleasant afternoon hike, but on a walk into danger and risk. Or did we suppose that the Kingdom of God would mean merely a few minor adjustments in our ordinary lives?” I think that is exactly what many of us think Jesus is leading us on these days, a pleasant afternoon hike that means little more than a few minor adjustments to our otherwise ordinary lives. Again, I say it is wild because just like N.T. Wright is highlighting, nothing could be more contrary to what Jesus is actually calling His disciples to then that.

Take one verse. It is a short and simple verse and its one that caught my attention this morning and reminded me once again how uncomfortable and dangerous the Christian life is and also how impossible it is without the Spirit’s power. It is 1 Corinthians 10.24. Paul is addressing the Corinthian Church on eating food in the marketplace, i.e., is food sacrificed to idols, and he sums up his instructions to them with this command: “No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.”

Did you hear that? Well maybe read it again to make sure you are picking up what Paul is putting down. Do not seek your own good, but the good of others. That is a crazy command! How is that even possible to do consistently? How do you do that without adjusting your whole life? Now just in case your knee jerk reaction is to say that that statement pertains only to the situation Paul is addressing in 1 Corinthians, take note of two other places that such a command comes up: Romans 15.1-2, “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbour for his good, to build him up,” and Philippians 2.4, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

The interesting thing about all of these references is that they are all rooted in the person of Jesus. In every one of these references Paul gives the command, then points to Jesus as the example of one who truly walked out this command, and then he tells the crowd that he is writing to, “Now imitate Christ.” Well to be completely accurate, in 1 Corinthians specifically he follows up the command by saying, “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ,” but you get the point. This command comes from the example of the person of whom Christians are disciples of. In other words, there is no getting around it. The command to put others needs before our own is a universal command for disciples of Jesus everywhere. This is a slice of what it means to follow Him.

When I really think about it, I am not sure that I could find a more difficult ethic to walk out then this one. I mean come on, no one naturally seeks the good of their neighbour before the good of themselves, or at least not all the time. Its impossible. But I think that is kind of the point. As Jesus once told His disciples while speaking of another impossible part of the Christian life, “With man this is impossible, with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19.26).

If you have found some version of Christianity that doesn’t make you frequently think, “How can I even do that?!” then I would guess you have found something that is not Christianity at all. The reality found in the pages of Scripture is that Jesus is not calling us to an afternoon hike, but instead is calling us into danger and risk. He is calling us into an innumerable amount of uncomfortable adjustments to our otherwise ordinary lives. Jesus never calls His disciples into an easy Christianity, instead He calls them into the kind of lives that can only be lived through the power of his Holy Spirit; the kind of lives that make little of themselves and instead make much of the needs of others so that in turn they make much of Jesus Christ.

Before the Foundation of the World

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him (Ephesians 1.3-4).

Lately I have been reading Ephesians chapter one over and over and I just cannot shake the wonder that comes over me every time I read verse 4 in particular, that God chose to save us, to make us blameless in Him before the foundation of the world. I think it hits especially hard because I can actually go and read about the foundation of the world. Just turn to Genesis 1 and you get the account of God laying out the earth’s foundations. He speaks everything into existence. He creates night and day. He separates the water from the heavens. He makes the mountains rise up out of the sea. He shapes the first man and woman out of the dust. He creates the entire universe and before all of that takes place Paul is telling me that God was thinking about me and my salvation. Before all of that happened, however many thousands of years ago, He knew me and knew that I would one day be found in Him.

What an insane concept, that God’s knowledge of us, His love for us and His concern for us began before the world began! If we ever think that God doesn’t care about us, Ephesians 1.4 should blow those thoughts out of the water. We have been on his mind since before there was an earth to stand on. And if we ever think that we are not worthy of His love or that somehow we need to earn His love, again this verse should lay those thoughts in their grave. He foreknew our redemption before we took our first breath, which means His love could not have been based on anything we did or didn’t do, but solely based upon His sovereign and ageless love.

Before the foundations of the world. Think about that.

The Good Portion

I find Scripture to be quite clear on what is supposed to be the primary pursuit of the Christian life. Verses like John 17.3 don’t leave much up to the imagination: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Or how about the story of Mary and Martha? Mary sits at Jesus’ feet while Martha runs around serving, and who does Jesus commend? “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10.41-42).

It is hard to read even a page from the Bible without being confronted with the simple but shocking reality that God wants us to know Him and to know Him deeply. It is what were created for, and it is what Jesus died to secure; it is the epitome of joy and the true source all peace and rest, to know God and to be known by Him. And yet, how quickly we forget.

You would think weekly sermon preparation would equal extra communion with God for me, but that is not always the case. Instead, I find myself far too often in that preparation focused on knowing more about God from the Scriptures, instead of on knowing more deeply the God that the Scriptures are about. It sounds crazy, even as I type it, but its the snare I continually fall into. I exchange the pursuit of knowing God for knowing about Him. Thankfully though, again, the Bible is not lacking in verses to remind me of what is primary, and to re-calibrate my aim.

J. I. Packer once wrote, “Knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a man’s heart.” There is nothing that will ever compare to knowing Him. God forgive us for ever letting anything compete with that pursuit.

May we daily and continually choose the good portion.

If we preach, may it be out of the overflow of knowing God through His Word.

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3.8).