Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:09] Welcome to another edition of the weekday podcast. Hey. We would be honored to pray for you this week. If you don't mind. If there's something we can lift up on your behalf with you, drop us a note@hello sugarhillchurch.com and we'd be honored to pray for you. Well, today we're going to think about. This is not your verdict. I don't know if you've ever done this, but I know a lot of people that have made a permanent decision based on a temporary feeling. They walked away from a friendship during a season of hurt, and they never went back. They drew a conclusion about God during a season of silence, and they let it quietly calcify into conviction. They decided that they were the kind of person who doesn't change based on a pattern that was real, but maybe not final. I think we do this more than we realize. We treat a chapter like it's the whole book. We treat a season like it's a life sentence. And Paul pushes back hard on this. In 2 Corinthians 4:17, he says, for momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond all comparison. Now, he's not minimizing your situation.
[00:01:09] This is the same Paul who listed beatings and shipwrecks and constant danger as his resume. His quote unquote, light affliction would break most of us. What he's doing is he's comparing. He's putting two things on a scale. The weight of what you're carrying right now and the weight of what's coming. And. And on that scale, even the heaviest thing that you're holding today looks, relatively speaking, it looks light. He's not saying your pain isn't real. What he is saying is your pain, it is not final.
[00:01:40] Now, not long ago, I actually got to visit and stood at the Bema seat in ancient Corinth, the actual judgment platform where Paul was put on trial. You can walk right up to it. And standing there, I thought about what it must have felt like for Paul in that moment. His accusers show up, his work was being questioned. His character was on trial. And from inside of that moment, it had to feel like a verdict. And yet, standing at that Bema seat In the ruins 2000 years later, what I kept thinking was, this wasn't the end of the story. It didn't even come close to the end of the story. And then here's what verse 18 says. While we look not at things which are seen, but as things that are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen, they are eternal. The discipline is in where you direct your attention. The visible things, the diagnosis, the broken relationship, the situation that won't resolve, those are real, but they have an end date. Even when you can't see it from where you're standing. The invisible things, God's presence, his promises, what he's working underneath the surface right now. Those don't have an expiration date. Whatever you're standing in front of today, this is not your verdict. It's a chapter. And the author, he is still writing.
[00:02:50] It isn't fun, but it is not fun. Have a great day.
