Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy
2 Corinthians 4:18- 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Hebrews 12:2- Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on Mount that worry is rooted in a perspective that is caught in the here and now. The challenge becomes one of learning how to keep a proper perspective on all the things that surround us, all the temporary things. When we look around, we see looming mortgage payments, a car that needs repaired, kids who need new school clothes and countless other things that are demanding our attention. Through all the noise and chaos that is created by all of these “temporary things”, how do we maintain the sort of perspective that allows us to live with freedom that Christ offers in the Sermon on the Mount?
I think that answer lies in what Jesus has been teaching up to this point through the Sermon on the Mount. This morning, skim through what Jesus has been teaching on up to this point (Matthew 5 – 6:24). Jesus has spent all this time building a worldview, a way of thinking about all that we see around us? What has stood out to you about the perspective that Jesus is establishing? What component of Jesus ‘s teaching has challenged you, convicted you or altered that way you look at the world around?
Living with an eternal perspective begins by taking our eyes off the temporary, the things that distract from what God is really about. What I have discovered for myself is that this is a conscious, intentional and purposeful process. This perspective comes through prayer and the deliberate effort to focus on the Kingdom business that Jesus has laid out in front of us. Mortgage payments, car repairs and new clothes for the kids don’t go away but they can lose their place as primary concerns as grow in our eternal perspective.
Sterling Moore
Pastor of High School Ministries
Wednesday, August 4 Perspective
“Because we have the option, in reliance upon Jesus, of having abundant treasures in the realm of the heavens, Jesus gives us another of his “therefores.” Therefore don’t be anxious for your physical existence, concerning what you will have to eat or drink, or how you will cloth your body (Matt. 6:25). Life is not about food, he continues to say, nor the body about clothes. It is about a place in God’s immortal kingdom now. Eternity is, in part, what we are now living.”
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2 comments:
Pastor Sterling- I think God is trying to show me a deeper view of this Kingdom-living idea, and one thing at least has never occurred to me before this week and your sermon: that God INTENDED for us to live in a EARTHLY Kingdom of GOd, or else he would not have ever created us as PHYSICAL beings in a PHYSICAL world, n'est-ce pas? Of course, we failed to commune with him in the garden and obey his rules, the way he intended, so it all went horribly wrong (sin entered the picture and and the paradise was foiled). But we can't discount that God had a PHYSICAL Paradise in mind for us humans, and that Heaven (which debatedly will be/not be physical itself??) is not the all-important end-game. After this revelation, that I feel was given me by the HOly SPirit, I now somewhat take issue when people say "We were meant for heaven, focus on that future time". I think we were meant to be and to live in God's Kingdom here on earth - focus on that (and eventually, we'll get heaven too). WHile your admonition to focus on the non-temporary rings true, I also think we should enjoy the physical glories and beauties and experiences that GOd gave us here (family, caring for children, enjoying the earth & people)- even though some of those things will eventually pass away. Make any sense?
I think that does make sense. I think that we have to recognize that life that we live in the here and now is a part of eternity. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is announcing the arrival of the Kingdom, and as such we have a purpose in that Kingdom. I like the way that Dallas Willard put it when he said "Eternity is, in part, what we are now living." I focus on the eternal does not mean ignoring the physical or pretending that our current lives don't matter. Living with an "eternal perspective" rather helps us to order our worlds and establish our priorities. Thanks for the great thoughts.
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