========================================================================
  OUR JOYS AND SORROWS ARE TEMPORAL
  by Mack Tomlinson
========================================================================

Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of maintaining an eternal
perspective in the midst of life's deepest sorrows and highest joys. It
encourages believers to not be consumed by bitterness or dependency on
temporal experiences but to remember that God reigns over all
circumstances and that true joy comes from living for eternity, not just
for fleeting moments of happiness.

Topics: "Eternal Perspective", "Joy in Suffering"
Scripture References: 2 Corinthians 4:17, Psalm 30:5, James 1:2, Romans 8:18, Colossians 3:2

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESCRIPTION
------------------------------------------------------------------------

This sermon emphasizes the importance of maintaining an eternal
perspective in the midst of life's deepest sorrows and highest joys. It
encourages believers to not be consumed by bitterness or dependency on
temporal experiences but to remember that God reigns over all
circumstances and that true joy comes from living for eternity, not just
for fleeting moments of happiness.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let those who mourn be as though they're not mourning. My wife and I,
our first child died after she was born. That could dominate a
Christian's life and put you into bitterness and doubting God and being
angry.

The deepest sorrows in life can make you bitter. But when you have the
deepest sorrows, you're to have a perspective that God reigns. He's over
this.

He's with me. This is not going to last. I'm going to have the heart and
the perspective that these sorrows are temporal and they're not going to
last.

Let those who sorrow ultimately see themselves as they're not ones that
are going to be sorrowing for long. That's really what He means. And the
reverse is true.

Those who have the highest joys, a baby's born, a new marriage, a
phenomenal opportunity, great experiences with the Lord, joy
unspeakable, full of glory, deep assurance, God's deeply working in your
life. The greatest joys, step back, keep perspective. Don't depend on
those joys.

Don't think they're always going to last. Don't get addicted to them.
Don't live on experience.

Live for eternity as if you didn't need the joys. Let those who rejoice
live as though they're not, as though they don't have to rejoice. Can
you walk with God when you have no joy? The Bible's not all about joy.

The Bible's about Jesus Christ. So how do you do with your eternal
perspective about your life when you have the deepest sorrows, when you
have the deepest joys? Truth unchanged, unchanging. You're marked by
eternity, not by the highs and lows of the Christian life or the highs
and lows of this earthly life.

Change will come. This excerpt was taken from the full sermon, The
Christian is Marked by Eternity, that Mac Tomlinson preached at the 2018
Fellowship Conference New England.

========================================================================
Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/fR2tuZs25Wc.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/mack-tomlinson/our-joys-and-sorrows-are-temporal/
========================================================================