Sunday Matters #13: Eyes for Eternity

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 4:16–18

I can remember trying to race past the souvenir shops at the amusement parks with our kids when they were younger so that they wouldn’t notice the expensive marketing trinkets in all the windows. After all, we were already spending money on tickets, so we didn’t want to waste time getting to the main attractions, right? We weren’t always so successful and, undoubtedly, we’d hear their little voices crying out for us to stop and buy! Logic doesn’t seem to work on little minds, of course, so explaining the joys that wait ahead to amuse them all day long was not going to work. I must confess, Julie was much stronger in these moments than I was!

I wonder how many times our perspective is the same as race through this life. We’re enamored by lesser things, distracted by the moment, and we grow impatient in our suffering when ultimate glory awaits. We certainly don’t want minimize the embodied reality of our longings and sufferings because we do experience the curse of sin and it’s effects deeply in our human experience. But, we also need a gospel reality so that our eyes are fixed on eternity. This is what Paul Tripp explains is another beautiful facet of our corporate worship gatherings. As we work through the liturgy of worship each Sunday, it is meant to disciple our hearts toward eternity…everything from the Call to Worship to the Benediction! So let’s bring all the reality of our humanity to the gathering, but let’s let the truest gospel reality of eternity be what sends us out again into another week.

Green Room Prayer - Let’s pray this for our church as we gather this Sunday:

Father, let this time of gathering help us to see how you are preparing us for more than what we feel. When we feel our humanity deeply now, let it drive us even more to see eternity a little more clearly. We confess our short-sightedness today and ask your Spirit to renew us to see eternity breaking through as we worship you now. Amen.

For a quick refresher on WHY and HOW we’re using this resource as a team for this season, click on this previous blog post: “New Resource for 2024”.