(upbeat music) When it comes to suffering and pain, none of us are immune. And that pain so often seems pointless, but in fact, pain in our lives is not pointless. So what does our suffering produce? What is it doing in our lives? John Piper addressed this question in his 2013 sermon, The Glory of God in the Sight of Eternity.

He addressed 2 Corinthians 4, verses 16 to 18, and I'll read it to orient us in this episode. Quote, "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." Here's John Piper. - I'll tell you, I was talking to a woman the other day about this issue who struggles with assurance in her life. And I said, "You know, God designed your heart to experience the sweetness of assurance by what you focus on with your head." And she looked at me like, "Where's that?

Where's that?" And I went here. She's like, "That sounded new to her. Where's that?" I thought, "What do you mean?" That's all the Bible is, is a bunch of therefores and becauses, talking about peace and joy and strength and power and for reasons that God has revealed in his word and acted out in history.

So Paul really does experience not losing heart because of truths, realities that he puts into his head day by day, day by day for renewal. Now, what about the four at the beginning of verse 17? Like we're gonna beat verse 16 to death if we don't move on. But my, there's a lot of life in there.

He doesn't give up easy. I love to pound on verse 17. Pound on verses till they're dead. That's an odd way to say it, isn't it? Okay, verse 17. Verse 16, we don't lose heart. We're gonna be renewed every day. For, because 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.

Verse 17 is the main argument. It's the main because, the main thing. This light momentary affliction is doing something. It's working for us an eternal weight of glory. All verse 18 does is say look at it. You can't see it but look at it. If you look at the fallenness of man coming at you with his guns or the fallenness of nature coming at you with its tsunamis, all you're gonna do is lose heart.

Stop looking at that. Look at the unseen. You gotta say what unseen are you talking about? And how do you look at something that's unseen? That's a contradiction. Can't look at what you can't look at. You said it's unseen, stop telling me to see it. So what do you mean Paul?

And I think it comes pretty clear what he means. That the basis of our not losing heart is something you can't see. And I'll get at what that is in just a minute. How do you look at the unseen so as to not lose heart and so as to be renewed every day?

And verse 17 is the main unseen thing you look at. We do not lose heart because this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory. Look at this, he says, look at this. What do you see when you look at verse 17? You see him calling his affliction, which lasted a lifetime, momentary.

Paul, you realize I'm 67, people are supposed, you're supposed to retire, right? Paul suffered until the sword severed his head from his body. There was no year or two of fishing. Or golf. If Paul was gonna have a retirement, it would be post-beheading. So if he didn't have this, he had nothing.

He said, if there's no resurrection from the dead, I'm an idiot. That's what he said, 1 Corinthians 15. He called his lifelong beatings and shipwreck and sleepless nights and agony for the church, he called it momentary. You see that there in verse 17? This light, momentary, he called it light and he called it momentary.

That's crazy. That's not what you see. You look at it, you say, 60 years. 50, I'm not sure how old he was when he died. Long time, 20, 30 years of relentless imprisonments and persecution. And he calls it momentary and he calls it light. And you see also, don't you, the contrast between momentary in verse 17 is eternal and the contrast with light is weight.

So let's read it again, notice those parallels. His light, momentary affliction is preparing for him an eternal, that corresponds to momentary, weight, that corresponds to light, of glory. So he could see, see? See, really? You can't see, but he saw beyond the grave, according to promise, he saw glory.

The glory of God that would be seen and the glory of God that would be given to him. And it made his lifelong suffering look momentary and it made the weight of the pain look light. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. You are kidding me. You gotta die for Jesus. You're gonna call that light? Yes. Why? Because I look to the unseen. What? Glory. Glory beyond the grave that's gonna so make up for this brief life.

It will look momentary and it will look light. That's the unseen you gotta look at. One more thing. So relevant for so many suffering people and so precious to me. This word in verse 17, preparing, preparing. Not only is all your affliction momentary, not only is all your affliction light in comparison to eternity and the glory there, but all of it is totally meaningful.

Now that is a very controversial statement because of how much insane suffering there is in the world. Every time something horrific happens, an interviewer will say, "Meaningless." And that is what it looks like. It's everywhere. Now we've got the internet, we've got no excuse for not crying every day.

Weep for those who weep, right? This text says our light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight. It doesn't say we'll be followed by an eternal weight of glory. That would be good enough. That would be good enough. That's not what it says. Kat ergod zomai, forgive the Greek, I just love it.

Got to like dump it out every now and then. You don't need to know that. The word means produce, prepare, cause to bring about. I'll venture this. Every millisecond of your pain from the fallen nature or fallen man, every millisecond of your misery in the path of obedience is producing a peculiar glory you will get because of that.

That's a very controversial statement and I believe it. So that if anybody says to me that a believer's suffering was meaningless, I'll be quiet probably because they're hurting really bad right now and I'm gonna wait and see when the right time is. But I'm gonna come back eventually and say, it wasn't meaningless.

I don't care if it was cancer or criticism. I don't care if it was slander or sickness. It wasn't meaningless because verse 17 says, my light, momentary, lifelong, total affliction is doing something. It's doing something. It's not meaningless. Of course you can't see what it's doing. This is the main unseen thing.

Verse 18's talking about I think. What's the unseen you're supposed to look at? You're supposed to look at the promise of God in verse 17 that says, your pain is doing something for you. You can't see it, you can't feel it. Either you see it with the eyes of faith, believe it 'cause the text says it, or you lose heart.

- That's magnificent truth to ground our lives when the pain hits. This also reminds me of episode number 639, A Song for Sufferers, which you can find in our archive at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. That's episode number 639, A Song for Sufferers. For this clip, thank you Caleb Lee in San Francisco.

He found it in a John Piper sermon titled The Glory of God in the Sight of Eternity, preached back on July 26, 2013. Caleb, thank you for sending the sermon clip in. You can send those in to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Send us the name of the sermon and the timestamp of when and where the clip appears in the audio, hopefully somewhere between five to eight minutes of a clip.

And we will give you credit for the find, of course. Tomorrow, a listener wants to know if the Holy Kiss has passed out of practice in churches. And if so, is that good, is it bad, and what did the original practice represent? I'm your host Tony Reinhke, we'll see you tomorrow.

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