This Light Affliction - By Tim Burkholder

We sing the song "From Glory to Glory He's Changing Me":

From glory to glory He's changing me, changing me, changing me,

His likeness and image to perfect in me, the love of God shown to the world.

For He's changing, changing me, from earthly things to the heavenly.

His likeness and image to perfect in me, the love of God shown to the world.

How many of you went through a hard week? How many had an affliction? God uses affliction to change us from something we were to something we need to be.

Nature provides a good illustration about such change--that of the caterpillar and the butterfly. Caterpillars crawl on the ground, and most are ugly. They eat the garden. They aren't good for anything. But in time they crawl into a cocoon and undergo a metamorphosis, a change. The ugly caterpillar becomes a beautiful butterfly that people like to collect. Butterflies get pictured in books and on walls because we esteem them for their beauty.

The word "metamorphosis" is similar to words the Bible uses that describe how we are changed at the new birth. We are changed from sinner to saint, from caterpillar to butterfly. That's quite a change. Most people ooh and aah over a butterfly but uugh at a caterpillar.

Caterpillars crawl on the ground. Imagine with me for a little bit what it must look like to a caterpillar to come up to a fair-sized rock. How does he get over a thing that's 20 times taller than he is? Or imagine what a caterpillar faces when he wants to go from one side of the garden to the other. That's a long, long way, and when he sets out in the morning who knows when he'll ever make it.

But now let's think about a butterfly. What do you suppose a butterfly thinks when he sees a hill looming before him? He flaps his wings and over he goes. What do you think he does when he's on one side of the flower bed and a flower on the other side appeals to him? How long does it take him to move?

You see that caterpillars and butterflies have entirely different sets of perceptions. What would you think if you saw a butterfly thinking and acting like a caterpillar? Let's say this butterfly is on one side of the flower bed and spies a redder one with more nectar on the other side. So he crawls down the end of his flower, crawls across the entire flower bed, and crawls up the stem of the other flower, searching for the nectar. What would you think? Something is wrong with the picture, isn't it? The butterfly wasn't totally changed like he was supposed to be.

When we were born again, we went from a caterpillar to a butterfly, from a sinner to a saint. My question is: now do we think like saints? Or do we still think and reason like sinners? Perhaps I should have entitled my sermon "Butterflies that Think Like Caterpillars."

As saints we have a whole different way of looking at afflictions and temptations. From the standpoint of a sinner, afflictions are meant for harm; but from the standpoint of a saint they provide for hope. 2 Corinthians 4:8-11 addresses this: "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh."

God runs us into situations where we are delivered unto death. There is absolutely no way we can enter into the spirit of life in Christ Jesus unless we suffer some kind of spiritual death. We can't do it by memorizing scripture, by holding to principles, or by doing good to others. There is no way aside from dying. The flesh has to die.

The Word says here that we are delivered unto death that life might be made manifest. Some of our troubles come for this very reason, that the life of Jesus Christ might come out of us.

I was reading this past week about people who encounter afflictions in the ocean. You know what it's like to try to swim in the ocean when the waves are choppy. You go up and down, get water in your mouth, and finally get exasperated and decide to do something else for the day. But if you give a man a surfboard and those same waves, he will ride them and have a whole lot of fun on them. The waves of affliction are not for us to fight but to ride. The same affliction that will give a sinner all kinds of trouble and make him exasperated will give a good time to the saint on the surfboard.

What is our perception of afflictions? Are we fighting or riding the waves? Are we thinking like butterflies or caterpillars?

Paul goes on to tell the Corinthians that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will raise us up also. "For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God" (verse 15). Did you hear that? "All things are for your sakes." Do you believe that, or do you still think like a caterpillar? A caterpillar thinks that all these things are against us because we have to crawl over them. That's hard. But a butterfly will fly over them. Do you believe that all these afflictions happen to us for our sake? What is your mentality?

Verse 16: "For which cause we faint not." I would imagine a caterpillar one day finally saying, "You know, this is aggravating. Every little hump in the road I have to crawl over. Every little way I want to go takes me forever." If I were a caterpillar I would despair of life. But not a butterfly. A caterpillar has the mentality of fainting and giving up, but not a butterfly. A butterfly knows there is something better. He flies over things and has a proper perspective.

Verse 17 is the key: "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory...." Understand Paul's mentality here: "My light affliction." We see the light affliction, but we don't see what God is working out for us through that affliction--a "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Paul says the things we see are temporal, but the things we don't see are eternal, and those eternal things are what we keep our minds on.

The next chapter compares our earthly house, our temporary tabernacle, to the building of God, eternal in the heavens. Do you know all a caterpillar has to look forward to is a cocoon, his own dying in a temporary house? Likewise we as Christians recognize that our earthly houses or cocoons are temporary. We don't put our energy into those temporary things but into the eternal things that God will bring out of our death.

When we quit living for temporary things and begin living for eternal things, our entire concepts will change. The way we think about our finances will change. Our attitude toward sickness will change. These things are temporary. To a caterpillar, cancer would be an awful thing because it means death, death without any concept of the eternal abode. But a butterfly sees beyond the temporary disease.

Proverbs says the way of the transgressor is hard. How many of you really believe that? Do you believe it enough that it keeps you from transgressing?

You have probably heard about the painter who wanted to paint a depiction of Jesus. He went out and looked for a man he thought would best reflect the face of Jesus Christ. You know how painters set up their easels next to their subjects and continually look back and forth from subject to easel. So the painter needed a man who would be willing to sit for the painting. He wanted a man with compassion on his face and joy in his eyes. When he found the man, he sat him in a chair and began to paint. When he finished he paid him and said, "Okay, you're free to go."

Years later the same painter decided to portray Judas. Again he set out to find a man with the right face who would be willing to sit for him. He looked for a man who was the picture of despair, sadness, and gloom. When he found him, he began to paint.

Finally the painter looked at the man sitting on the chair and asked, "What happened to you anyway? How did you get this way?" The man answered, "Don't you recognize me?" The painter said, "No, I don't think so." The man said, "I'm the same man you used to portray Jesus a few years ago. But I fell into sin."

The way of the transgressor is hard. The way of the caterpillar is hard. You can talk to almost anyone who got himself wrapped up in sin, and it will floor you to hear the mess that sinner has to untangle. I almost can't fathom sometimes what a man wrapped up in sin has to go through once he repents and tries to untangle the mess he has made.

As Christians we go through afflictions and temptations, and many are hard--but they are not the hardness known by the sinner. The way of sin can change the very countenance of a man and turn his glow into despair and gloom. Brothers and sisters, let me say that if you are considering sin and think the way of a Christian is hard, the way of the sinner is harder. There is no hope in that way.

Romans 8:28 gives us the perspective of the butterfly: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God...." It's our knowledge, our whole mentality: "And we know." A caterpillar doesn't know that. A sinner doesn't know that. But we know it. It is part of our new mindset, part of the metamorphosis God has worked in us.

Fanny Crosby was asked by a preacher when she was older, "Fanny, if there were one thing you could ask of the Lord before you die, what would it be?" I am sure in the back of the preacher's mind he was thinking she would want her eyes healed so she could see, but she said, "I would ask that the Lord would never give me back my eyesight." Why? Because she had the mentality of a saint. She had the perspective of a butterfly. She wasn't down in the cabbages and in the dirt crawling over the grass and looking for everything to go bad in her life. She said, "And we know that my eyesight works together for good for me because I love God." Some of us have affliction, some of us have sicknesses, some of us have temptations. Yet "we know" this glorious truth. Or don't we? These afflictions are not things to fight. They are things to use and enjoy.

Psalms 118:18: "The Lord has chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death." How many of you see something in your life that needs to be changed? How do you think the Lord is going to do it? Are you going to renounce it and walk away feeling better? Sometimes that's the key. But most of the time God teaches us through experience. He uses our experiences to put us in a position for changing. It's not easy to get delivered, because the very thing that needs to be changed doesn't want to be changed. It must be killed. My imagination takes me to a grinder. Through our experiences God stands us against the grinder, and we try to get away but God keeps us there, letting that grinder form us and change us. That's what was happening to David when he said, "The Lord has chastened me sore...." But the joy is this: he hasn't given us over to death, the destruction of the sinner. Through that very chastening God is saving our lives.

Imagine the caterpillar hanging in the dark cocoon, stuck in an experience he can't fathom, wondering what's going on. Finally that cocoon busts open and he comes out a butterfly. He looks back on that cocoon and just says, "Thank you, Lord." The cocoon was necessary to change the caterpillar. But the caterpillar didn't want to go through that thing.

Brothers and sisters, God delivers us into situations to change us, but we fight all the way. Stop fighting. The saint knows that God hasn't given him over to death. He hasn't left us. So rest in him.

James 5:10-11 says, "Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering and affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."

There is another thing we can look to while we are enduring suffering and going through our changes--there is an end to the suffering, and the Lord is of tender mercy. He will never let us suffer needlessly. He will always be there to help and comfort. Who can separate us from the love of God?

Are you thinking like a butterfly or a caterpillar in these things? Has your mind been transformed and renewed? When you run into hard times are you ready to give up? That old grinder doesn't feel good at all. But to a butterfly the change is worth it. We have been changed from a grizzly old sinner caterpillar to a butterfly made in the image of Jesus Christ. And we need to have the mind of Christ about all these things. After all, He learned obedience through suffering. That was his mind and mentality.

It thrills me to think there is nothing--no situation, no affliction, and no temptation--that is too hard for me, because he has endured it all. He knows exactly what he's doing as he shapes me into what I need to be. Sometimes we try to live like saints and think like caterpillars, and it just doesn't work. That's the despair of life. Don't think like them. Let God transform our thinking in this area to where we are surfing over our troubles, to where we are almost enjoying them because we know what God is doing. We know this thing was not meant to kill us but only to prepare us for the glorious eternity to come. Though our outward man should perish, our inward man is being renewed day by day. It is coming alive as God changes us.

God said our life is like a vapor, so he has only a vapor of time to change us. We think we have trouble--imagine his trouble trying to get our thinking changed and trying to conform us to the image of Christ in only a vapor of time! But he can do it. He can do it if we will let him. Let's let God change our thinking that these light afflictions are for our benefit and not for our hurt.