The servant’s paradox: Part III

The last of Al Stewart’s columns exploring the tensions in Christian life and ministry.

Here’s one more paradox for those living to serve Christ and to grow his kingdom. It’s one which has been taxing my mind, because it goes to the heart of what Christians believe. We live in the time that gets called ‘the now and not yet’—the period of history after Christ’s resurrection and ascension, but before the revelation of his lordship to the entire universe. It’s an in-between time, so we have the blessings and securities of the eternal age, and yet we don’t see them all, experience them all, know them entirely or enjoy them fully.

And so we are faced with a paradox.

Paradox: We are to enjoy the moment, but live for the future

To be a true believer in the sovereign God (Yahweh) and in Jesus Christ, you need to live both for the moment and for the future. Ecclesiastes tells us that part of living in the world God has created is to enjoy yourself:

Behold what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. (Eccl 5:18-20)

The Bible consistently teaches that you work so you can eat, or so you can provide for other people. Work is toilsome: it’s a labour, and it exhausts you. But if you can enjoy your work, then that is a great gift of God. Note that the passage teaches that wealth and enjoyment don’t necessarily go together. If you are well-off and you have the freedom to enjoy it, that is wonderful. What a great blessing to be occupied with joy in your heart! If you can enjoy your life now, then do it.

Partnering this teaching is the Bible’s emphasis on not worrying. Jesus says in Matthew 6:34:

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

We tend to pay interest on debts that actually never come due. I spend half my life with my guts in a knot worrying about tomorrow, and tomorrow turns up and it’s okay. My kids used to sing a song that said, “Today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday”. Because we know that God is in control, we can rest on the profound truth that everything is all right. We are free to live today, and not worry about tomorrow. In The Screwtape Letters, the senior devil, Screwtape, advises his trainee devil nephew on how to corrupt Christian people: “We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now”.

At the same time, the Bible always says to live with an eye to the future. We live in light of ‘the Day’ that is to come. In 1 Thessalonians 1, the Christians were waiting for the Son from heaven to return. And in Hebrews 10:24-25, the whole reason for meeting together and spurring one another on to love and good works is that you see ‘the day’ approaching. We are sustained through struggles and suffering because we look forward with hope:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (Rom 5:1-5).

Our hope for glory sustains us, and the suffering produces even more hope. We have this hope for certain; there is no risk involved because we already have the Holy Spirit, and we know that our great future is already “kept in heaven” for us. It just has to be revealed at the right time:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Pet 1:3)

We live in the hope of Jesus’ return, when our glory will be revealed. But we don’t reside in the future. I used to do it all the time. As a boy, I was always impatient for what was next: “I can’t wait until I’ve finished high school because then life will really arrive”. Then it was “I can’t wait until I finish university so I can really get going” and then “I can’t wait until the kids are born …”. What’s next? “I can’t wait until I get to the retirement village”? I’d better actually start living now and enjoying it!

“We want a man hag-ridden by the future,” advised Screwtape. Our challenge is to let our knowledge of the future, secure in Christ and waiting to be revealed, inform our everyday actions. Our task is to live in hope, but live in hope today.

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