This weekend, Matt Williams continued the teaching of the Forever series by discussing the light and dark side of eternity. Matt gave several ideas regarding our perception of the world now and the reality of the world that is coming.
Idea 1:
“What we call life is not
really life.” The greater expectations
that reside within us, which are perpetually left unmet, are strands of forever
DNA woven into our hearts. They are markers
which point to what our true destination will be like, a redeemed and restored
Earth. In contrast, our reality now is
chalk full of disappointments, failures, and let downs. This world is one where copiers break down 15
minutes before your report is due, where sleeping in the wrong position leaves
you with a pounding headache, where cars collide, where people get cancer,
where wars and starvation wipe out vast populations. Given our current experiences in life, it is
not any surprise that the idea of eternity could fill us with anxiety. But the truth is that this world is just a
shadow of what is to come. The forever
that is coming with the new heavens and new earth will be more exciting,
completely fulfilling, and eternally blissful.
Idea 2:
“We have a transition coming
our way.” Death is the inescapable, ever
present, looming reality of this world.
It is something we have always known, yet death has never become natural
to us. We constantly try to escape it,
to defy it, to ignore it. We struggle to
accept our own mortality because deep inside we cannot believe we were meant to
die. This is because eternity is in our
heart; God does not like death, and therefore, we do not like death. In Genesis 2, Adam and Eve ate of the fruit
of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, thus bringing two kinds of death
into the world, spiritual and physical.
But a world with death was not what God intended when He formed His
creation. On some levels, we already
know this to be true. It is why we are
vulnerable, why we wear clothes, and why we keep our inner most thoughts to
ourselves.
Yet, death is not simply a
blight upon humanity brought about by the first sin. As it looms before us, we have an opportunity
to think about it. Spiritual death is
already upon us, and we know physical death is coming. Yet, on the other side of the curse, God
provided a blessing. Death gives us an
option “to leave the brokenness forever and transition to redemption and
restoration”. There is mercy and grace
offered in our ultimate end on this Earth if we choose to take it.
Idea 3:
“After death comes
judgment.” We must face the dark side of
forever to embrace all of it. “We know
judgment is real because our consciousness tells us it is real.” We judge others each day. Every culture and
every religion have some aspect of judgment at their core. We often think of a God who judges as
frightening or unfair. But a God who
loves evil and “turns a blind eye to what we brought to the world” is not truly
the God we want. A God such as this
could not love us fully and could not offer redemption for the brokenness we
created. He has to love His creation
enough to remove the evil and right all wrongs, but this cannot be done without
atonement. Someone must sacrifice.
In the final judgment, we
will all be judged for our time on Earth (Revelations 20:11), but to make peace
with our Creator, we cannot simply do more good deeds than bad. The infection of sin has an infinite quality
to it because it destroys God’s creation in a way that cannot be replaced, just
as a family heirloom cannot be replaced by some old item from an antique
store. “We have a tendency to think that
as long as others are worse than us, we are good and God won’t care.” God does care. We cannot even uphold our own standards of
perfection, let alone those of God.
Either way, we fail. Salvation is
about work that earns God’s favor to cover our transgressions, but it is not
our work that can do this. Jesus is the
only one who can stand before God on our behalf to pardon us. He has given us the freedom to chose His
offering in this life, but we cannot have the freedom of choice without the
consequences as well (Luke 16:19).
For Christians:
We must constantly ask
ourselves how seriously we take the reality of judgment and forever. We all have friends and family members who do
not know Jesus. This is not an
accident. God has placed people in our
lives for a reason. No matter how scary
it seems, or how hopeless the cause, God believes you are ready to engage them,
not just with actions but with words also.
We must allow His passion for each person on this earth to seize us so
that we can be passionate for them as well.
For non-Christians:
Conversion does not happen
because one gathers all the information and proof necessary to trust Jesus can
save them. We will never have all of the
answers for everything that happens in this world, and we may never get any
more information than we already have. Following
Jesus actually requires forfeiting your own conditions and trusting Him to be
who He says He is. What keeps
non-Christians at Grace Church from God is an unwillingness to turn from sin
and create a void in their own soul and then allowing God to fill that void
with Himself. Allowing God to take over
your life does not guarantee ease and rosy circumstances, but it does promise
you that no matter what comes, He will face it with you, He will refine you,
and He will give you the kind of forever you were meant to live. On this side of forever, what you do with
that will always be your choice.
-Katie Gural
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