Your Suffering Is Working for You
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | When it comes to suffering and pain,
00:00:07.400 | none of us are immune.
00:00:09.240 | And that pain so often seems pointless,
00:00:11.720 | but in fact, pain in our lives is not pointless.
00:00:15.440 | So what does our suffering produce?
00:00:17.600 | What is it doing in our lives?
00:00:19.400 | John Piper addressed this question in his 2013 sermon,
00:00:23.320 | The Glory of God in the Sight of Eternity.
00:00:26.160 | He addressed 2 Corinthians 4, verses 16 to 18,
00:00:29.400 | and I'll read it to orient us in this episode.
00:00:32.360 | Quote, "So we do not lose heart,
00:00:35.640 | though our outer self is wasting away,
00:00:38.040 | our inner self is being renewed day by day.
00:00:42.080 | For this light momentary affliction
00:00:45.500 | is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory
00:00:48.600 | beyond all comparison,
00:00:50.840 | as we look not to the things that are seen,
00:00:53.960 | but to the things that are unseen.
00:00:56.340 | For the things that are seen are transient,
00:00:58.740 | but the things that are unseen are eternal."
00:01:02.140 | Here's John Piper.
00:01:03.100 | - I'll tell you, I was talking to a woman the other day
00:01:07.520 | about this issue who struggles with assurance in her life.
00:01:10.900 | And I said, "You know, God designed your heart
00:01:17.120 | to experience the sweetness of assurance
00:01:20.420 | by what you focus on with your head."
00:01:23.400 | And she looked at me like, "Where's that?
00:01:25.460 | Where's that?"
00:01:28.040 | And I went here.
00:01:28.880 | She's like, "That sounded new to her.
00:01:31.960 | Where's that?"
00:01:32.800 | I thought, "What do you mean?"
00:01:36.400 | That's all the Bible is,
00:01:38.040 | is a bunch of therefores and becauses,
00:01:40.360 | talking about peace and joy and strength and power
00:01:44.160 | and for reasons that God has revealed in his word
00:01:48.120 | and acted out in history.
00:01:50.080 | So Paul really does experience not losing heart
00:01:57.040 | because of truths, realities that he puts into his head
00:02:02.040 | day by day, day by day for renewal.
00:02:09.560 | Now, what about the four at the beginning of verse 17?
00:02:15.800 | Like we're gonna beat verse 16 to death if we don't move on.
00:02:18.800 | But my, there's a lot of life in there.
00:02:21.720 | He doesn't give up easy.
00:02:23.560 | I love to pound on verse 17.
00:02:25.680 | Pound on verses till they're dead.
00:02:27.480 | That's an odd way to say it, isn't it?
00:02:32.480 | Okay, verse 17.
00:02:37.760 | Verse 16, we don't lose heart.
00:02:39.920 | We're gonna be renewed every day.
00:02:41.860 | For, because this light momentary affliction
00:02:46.860 | is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory
00:02:51.760 | beyond all comparison as we look not to the things
00:02:53.720 | that are seen but to the things that are unseen
00:02:55.560 | for the things that are seen are transient
00:02:57.320 | but the things that are unseen are eternal.
00:02:59.840 | Verse 17 is the main argument.
00:03:04.000 | It's the main because, the main thing.
00:03:07.400 | This light momentary affliction is doing something.
00:03:11.600 | It's working for us an eternal weight of glory.
00:03:14.520 | All verse 18 does is say look at it.
00:03:17.520 | You can't see it but look at it.
00:03:19.160 | If you look at the fallenness of man coming at you
00:03:24.440 | with his guns or the fallenness of nature
00:03:27.080 | coming at you with its tsunamis,
00:03:28.680 | all you're gonna do is lose heart.
00:03:30.380 | Stop looking at that.
00:03:33.080 | Look at the unseen.
00:03:35.720 | You gotta say what unseen are you talking about?
00:03:37.560 | And how do you look at something that's unseen?
00:03:38.960 | That's a contradiction.
00:03:40.120 | Can't look at what you can't look at.
00:03:43.400 | You said it's unseen, stop telling me to see it.
00:03:51.000 | So what do you mean Paul?
00:03:55.560 | And I think it comes pretty clear what he means.
00:04:00.320 | That the basis of our not losing heart
00:04:03.680 | is something you can't see.
00:04:08.240 | And I'll get at what that is in just a minute.
00:04:12.120 | How do you look at the unseen
00:04:19.000 | so as to not lose heart
00:04:21.840 | and so as to be renewed every day?
00:04:24.480 | And verse 17 is the main unseen thing you look at.
00:04:27.960 | We do not lose heart because this light,
00:04:32.440 | momentary affliction is preparing for us
00:04:34.880 | an eternal weight of glory.
00:04:36.400 | Look at this, he says, look at this.
00:04:39.040 | What do you see when you look at verse 17?
00:04:45.240 | You see him calling his affliction,
00:04:50.240 | which lasted a lifetime, momentary.
00:04:53.700 | Paul, you realize I'm 67,
00:04:59.000 | people are supposed, you're supposed to retire, right?
00:05:01.760 | Paul suffered until the sword
00:05:07.320 | severed his head from his body.
00:05:10.360 | There was no year or two of fishing.
00:05:14.400 | [audience laughing]
00:05:16.440 | Or golf.
00:05:17.440 | If Paul was gonna have a retirement,
00:05:20.680 | it would be post-beheading.
00:05:22.800 | [audience laughing]
00:05:26.920 | So if he didn't have this, he had nothing.
00:05:31.320 | He said, if there's no resurrection from the dead,
00:05:34.560 | I'm an idiot.
00:05:36.240 | That's what he said, 1 Corinthians 15.
00:05:40.840 | He called his lifelong beatings
00:05:45.640 | and shipwreck and sleepless nights
00:05:49.680 | and agony for the church, he called it momentary.
00:05:53.440 | You see that there in verse 17?
00:05:55.560 | This light, momentary, he called it light
00:06:00.680 | and he called it momentary.
00:06:02.360 | That's crazy.
00:06:03.340 | That's not what you see.
00:06:06.160 | You look at it, you say, 60 years.
00:06:10.240 | 50, I'm not sure how old he was when he died.
00:06:12.480 | Long time, 20, 30 years of relentless
00:06:15.600 | imprisonments and persecution.
00:06:18.520 | And he calls it momentary and he calls it light.
00:06:21.720 | And you see also, don't you, the contrast
00:06:23.920 | between momentary in verse 17 is eternal
00:06:27.480 | and the contrast with light is weight.
00:06:30.680 | So let's read it again, notice those parallels.
00:06:33.760 | His light, momentary affliction is preparing for him
00:06:37.680 | an eternal, that corresponds to momentary,
00:06:40.720 | weight, that corresponds to light, of glory.
00:06:45.760 | So he could see, see?
00:06:49.440 | See, really?
00:06:50.340 | You can't see, but he saw beyond the grave,
00:06:53.740 | according to promise, he saw glory.
00:06:56.800 | The glory of God that would be seen
00:06:59.080 | and the glory of God that would be given to him.
00:07:02.780 | And it made his lifelong suffering look momentary
00:07:07.780 | and it made the weight of the pain look light.
00:07:12.180 | Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden,
00:07:17.180 | and I will give you rest.
00:07:21.540 | Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
00:07:24.260 | for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
00:07:28.620 | You are kidding me.
00:07:30.500 | You gotta die for Jesus.
00:07:32.100 | You're gonna call that light?
00:07:33.380 | Yes.
00:07:35.220 | Why?
00:07:36.060 | Because I look to the unseen.
00:07:37.300 | What?
00:07:38.120 | Glory.
00:07:39.540 | Glory beyond the grave that's gonna so make up
00:07:42.340 | for this brief life.
00:07:44.420 | It will look momentary and it will look light.
00:07:47.700 | That's the unseen you gotta look at.
00:07:51.140 | One more thing.
00:07:52.740 | So relevant for so many suffering people
00:07:55.100 | and so precious to me.
00:07:58.100 | This word in verse 17, preparing, preparing.
00:08:03.100 | Not only is all your affliction momentary,
00:08:09.860 | not only is all your affliction light
00:08:12.860 | in comparison to eternity and the glory there,
00:08:17.440 | but all of it is totally meaningful.
00:08:21.100 | Now that is a very controversial statement
00:08:25.460 | because of how much insane suffering there is in the world.
00:08:29.420 | Every time something horrific happens,
00:08:34.740 | an interviewer will say, "Meaningless."
00:08:37.540 | And that is what it looks like.
00:08:39.180 | It's everywhere.
00:08:41.580 | Now we've got the internet,
00:08:42.580 | we've got no excuse for not crying every day.
00:08:45.340 | Weep for those who weep, right?
00:08:50.480 | This text says our light momentary affliction
00:08:55.480 | is preparing for us an eternal weight.
00:09:02.160 | It doesn't say we'll be followed by
00:09:05.560 | an eternal weight of glory.
00:09:08.120 | That would be good enough.
00:09:09.440 | That would be good enough.
00:09:12.160 | That's not what it says.
00:09:14.200 | Kat ergod zomai, forgive the Greek, I just love it.
00:09:18.280 | Got to like dump it out every now and then.
00:09:20.520 | You don't need to know that.
00:09:21.900 | The word means produce, prepare, cause to bring about.
00:09:25.460 | I'll venture this.
00:09:29.080 | Every millisecond of your pain
00:09:34.080 | from the fallen nature or fallen man,
00:09:37.920 | every millisecond of your misery in the path of obedience
00:09:42.920 | is producing a peculiar glory you will get
00:09:48.160 | because of that.
00:09:49.000 | That's a very controversial statement and I believe it.
00:09:55.480 | So that if anybody says to me
00:09:58.160 | that a believer's suffering was meaningless,
00:10:02.200 | I'll be quiet probably because they're hurting really bad
00:10:07.200 | right now and I'm gonna wait and see
00:10:09.760 | when the right time is.
00:10:10.680 | But I'm gonna come back eventually and say,
00:10:12.720 | it wasn't meaningless.
00:10:15.760 | I don't care if it was cancer or criticism.
00:10:18.320 | I don't care if it was slander or sickness.
00:10:23.720 | It wasn't meaningless because verse 17 says,
00:10:28.240 | my light, momentary, lifelong, total affliction
00:10:33.240 | is doing something.
00:10:35.600 | It's doing something.
00:10:38.960 | It's not meaningless.
00:10:39.960 | Of course you can't see what it's doing.
00:10:41.960 | This is the main unseen thing.
00:10:45.280 | Verse 18's talking about I think.
00:10:47.360 | What's the unseen you're supposed to look at?
00:10:49.320 | You're supposed to look at the promise of God
00:10:53.200 | in verse 17 that says,
00:10:56.120 | your pain is doing something for you.
00:11:00.720 | You can't see it, you can't feel it.
00:11:03.000 | Either you see it with the eyes of faith,
00:11:05.400 | believe it 'cause the text says it,
00:11:07.600 | or you lose heart.
00:11:10.200 | - That's magnificent truth to ground our lives
00:11:14.600 | when the pain hits.
00:11:16.360 | This also reminds me of episode number 639,
00:11:19.160 | A Song for Sufferers,
00:11:20.680 | which you can find in our archive
00:11:22.920 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:11:26.360 | That's episode number 639, A Song for Sufferers.
00:11:30.600 | For this clip, thank you Caleb Lee in San Francisco.
00:11:34.380 | He found it in a John Piper sermon titled
00:11:36.880 | The Glory of God in the Sight of Eternity,
00:11:39.280 | preached back on July 26, 2013.
00:11:42.560 | Caleb, thank you for sending the sermon clip in.
00:11:45.560 | You can send those in to us via email
00:11:47.160 | at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:11:49.840 | Send us the name of the sermon and the timestamp
00:11:52.080 | of when and where the clip appears in the audio,
00:11:54.680 | hopefully somewhere between five to eight minutes of a clip.
00:11:58.640 | And we will give you credit for the find, of course.
00:12:02.120 | Tomorrow, a listener wants to know
00:12:04.160 | if the Holy Kiss has passed out of practice in churches.
00:12:08.040 | And if so, is that good, is it bad,
00:12:10.040 | and what did the original practice represent?
00:12:13.880 | I'm your host Tony Reinhke, we'll see you tomorrow.
00:12:16.380 | (upbeat music)
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