[SPEAKER_00]: So, if you have your physical bibles, you can open them up with me to Romans 8.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, there will be the text on the screen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we are in week five of our series in Romans 8.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been an incredible journey in this incredible text so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I want to do just before we get to today's passage is quickly review what we've covered.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Paul begins the chapter with these powerful words you can see on the screen.
[SPEAKER_00]: From Romans 8, verses 1 through 4, which really take us to the heart of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Paul writes, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
[SPEAKER_00]: what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met or accomplished in us who did not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, in verses one through three, Paul is telling us that Christ has done everything necessary to free us from the curse of sin and death, so that in verse four, the Holy Spirit, the spirit of life, who is now living in us, can enable us to live according to the Lord of fulfill the law, so that the righteous requirement.
[SPEAKER_00]: might be full of the law, might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're called to do what the law requires by the power the Spirit gives us, which in the context of Romans eight is to overcome the power of the flesh to resist its temptations so that we can follow the way of Jesus and live as His disciples.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're not by any means.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul is not saying here by any means that we are earning our salvation through this, but we are, I guess, a better way to put us that we are living into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're living into our salvation, living into the freedom of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of living us slaves to the flesh, slaves throughout all way of being before we became followers of Jesus, disciples of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul then goes on to describe
[SPEAKER_00]: in great detail how the Spirit of God is at work to accomplish this in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's doing this verses 5 through 11 by changing our nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: by giving us a new identity, by transforming our minds, so that our whole lives can be governed by his power and presence, which Paul calls the law of the Spirit, which is life and peace rather than the law of the flesh, which is fear and death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in verses 12 through 13, Paul says, the Spirit is calling us,
[SPEAKER_00]: and empowering us continually to live into this righteousness that is ours in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, in verses 14 to 16, he's confirming our adoption as sons and daughters of God, so that we can know the Father as Christ knew the Father so that we can call our Father in heaven, Abba, just as Jesus did, and therefore have confidence together that we are God's children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, in verses 17,
[SPEAKER_00]: And onward, he's reminding us that if we are God's children, then we are ears.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ears of God and coars with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the most astonishing things ever said in the Scriptures.
[SPEAKER_00]: Coars with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meaning that all that Christ has, all that Christ is, all that Christ will have in the future, is already ours with Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that belongs to us because it was purchased for us through Christ and we've been adopted into the family of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now all that He is and all that He has is ours as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we can have confidence that even if we should suffer for our faith,
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if we should suffer for carrying the name of Christ, our future, our future inheritance, and our future glory is held secure forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, the Spirit is guaranteeing
[SPEAKER_00]: This is language poll uses all throughout his letters.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Spirit is guaranteeing or securing our future eternal glory with Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the ultimate gift of God, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: A salvation that is invirable, which means that it cannot be taken away.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has held secure forever with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, we do not need to live in fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what happens, the Spirit is reminding us always, speaking to us always in our hearts that we are God's children.
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore, we are not slaves to fear, we are not slaves through our old nature, we have become children of God, born again by the Holy Spirit, and we have an eternal glory waiting for us with Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of that is the work of the Holy Spirit within us, through Christ Jesus, and I don't know about you, but I always want to say a hello to you to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I said in week one,
[SPEAKER_00]: The overarching theme of Romans 8 is assurance, assurance of our salvation, assurance of our adoption, assurance that we are children of God, assurance that we can overcome the curse of sin and death in Christ, assurance that we can resist the temptations of the flesh, that want to lure us back into slavery, assurance that we have power to live a righteous life,
[SPEAKER_00]: Assurance, even through suffering of our future eternal glory with Christ forever and ever our men, and all of this, which Christ has accomplished for us by His death and resurrection, is made alive in us, is applied to us by the indwelling power and presence of the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why Paul calls the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1 and 1 Corinthians 15 and in Romans 8 as well the first fruits or the deposit that guarantees or secures for us forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: The full harvest of the future glory that is to come when Christ returns.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as it should be clear by now unless you haven't really been paying attention through this series knowing the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Understanding the work of the Spirit and walking in or being led by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential for our discipleship.
[SPEAKER_00]: We simply cannot live the redeemed lives that we are called to without the help of the Holy Spirit and woe to you if you try to follow Jesus without His help.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a sense, the whole of Romans 8 still made so clear last week and didn't need to do a fantastic job.
[SPEAKER_00]: His first sermon in a setting like this, he was wonderful with so glad to have him his continuing to train for ministry, so be praying for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I still made so clear last week, it is, you know, this Roman's aid is this one long, impassioned plea to the people of God by Paul to live spirit-led, not spirit-less lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be growing day by day, in ever more dependence and submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the gift and the birthright of every believer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these, all of these things are the benefits of life in the Spirit to every believer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are at least four of them that I can think of that Paul names in Romans 8, but there are many others that he lists in other parts of his letters.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's four here that he really narrows in on, that through the Spirit, a child of God has security, has authority, has intimacy, and has assurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Security, authority, intimacy, and assurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Security in the finished work of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Authority to overcome the works of the flesh and the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Intimacy with the Father and assurance of our future inheritance in glory.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of those things are the work of the Spirit in us, made alive by the presence of the Spirit in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's primarily the fourth our future inheritance that I want to focus in on today.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as we come to our text with a small name, Romans 18 to 25, I would invite you to stand if you can for the reading of God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans 18 to 25, I consider, says Paul, that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the creation waits in eager expectation,
[SPEAKER_00]: for the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we await eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
[SPEAKER_00]: For in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen as no hope at all who hopes for what they already have.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, I pray that you would bring your wisdom and understanding to this word in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please be seated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, given that everything Paul has just said up to this point in Romans 8, it makes sense for Paul to say what he does at the beginning of this reading in verse 18.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read somewhere this week that since suffering is inevitable for all of us, we should at least seek to suffer for something that is worthwhile.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no life without pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is, but there is a difference between meaningless pain and meaningful sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Purpose doesn't remove suffering, but it gives it a reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: And since if we are sincere about following Jesus, as Stale said, so powerfully last week, that will lead us to share in the sufferings of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no way out of that for all of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will, if we want to follow Jesus, if we want to inherit His glory, we need to also be prepared to share in His sufferings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Share in his sufferings, the promise then for Paul, and he makes this so clear, and this is really what he wants to narrow in on here in Romans 18 to 25.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the nature of that glory will be that we will share with when we inherit all things in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the greatest reason there is to be prepared to be willing to give yourself for something that is sacrificial.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if that's going to be our attitude, if we're going to be willing to do this, then we have to ask a question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it worth it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Tom Wright asks, is the inheritance Christians have been given?
[SPEAKER_00]: worth all the hardship and heartache of living as a child of God in this life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people, including most likely some that we know would answer no, it isn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: They profess faith as Christians and seek to live God's way for a while at least, but in time as Jesus so clearly warns in the parable of the soar.
[SPEAKER_00]: They find their present sufferings are not worth it, and they fall away.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for Paul, the answer to that question is an emphatic, yes and amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, our present sufferings are not even worth comparing
[SPEAKER_00]: with the glory that will be revealed in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our future glory, friends, will be so astonishingly beautiful, so unimaginably beyond what we could ever dare hope for, that when we are standing, I believe, when we are standing on the other side of death, forever in the presence of our Father, our Creator, and Redeemer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will be able to say, yes, it was worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every second of it was worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Paul is trying to encourage us to keep our eyes on the prize as Mavis Staples, powerfully saying, in the civil rights movement, keep your eyes on the prize.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we want to endure with courage, then we need to know where we're heading in the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you know where you're heading in the future, if you have your eyes fixed on that promise,
[SPEAKER_00]: then you won't be overwhelmed by the idea that your current problems and your current pain are not worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will know that your suffering is purposeful, just as it was for Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for Paul, it's not just suffering in a general sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's joining with the sufferings of Jesus, which tells you that if you're prepared to do this, that Jesus will be with you in it, you are not on your own.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, despite his agonies, as we know in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ prayed, Lord, if this cup can pass from me, nevertheless, not my will but yours be done, the writer of Hebrews tells us that it was for the joy set before him.
[SPEAKER_00]: that he endured the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: The joy set before him was the reason he was prepared to endure the suffering, for the hope of what was to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the joy for him and also for the joy set before us, we can have this same attitude in mind as Christ did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so by continually reminding ourselves of this promise of our future inheritance that is ours in Christ, we can keep ourselves hopeful.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen as no hope at all, for who hopes for what they already have, but if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keeping our hope alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keeping our hope alive by meditating, keeping our minds fixed, as Paul does all through Romans 8, on the benefits of our salvation, on all the help and assurance that the Spirit gives us, and on the eternal rewards of following Jesus, then we can stay patient and hopeful in our suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can be as the old King James version puts it when it's listing out the fruits of the spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does anyone know how it names patience?
[SPEAKER_00]: Patience as long suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: Long suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: As John says in Revelation's one verse nine, I join your brother and companion.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the suffering and the kingdom and the patient endurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, there is suffering, but there's also a kingdom, a kingdom that has come and a kingdom that is coming, a future glory that awaits us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore, if we keep our minds on that future promise, we can have patient endurance as we hope for what is to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: because we know the end of the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know we're all this leads.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know how the story ends church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we can have hope no matter what may be going on in the present of what is coming in the future will be so much greater, not even worth comparing with what we're experiencing now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to help us truly grasp this, to aid in our hopeful anticipation and our patient endurance, to help, I guess,
[SPEAKER_00]: Let this go deep in our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul gives us a picture of what this feature glory will look like.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where he takes us next in Romans 8.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what he's describing in verses 19 to 23.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 19, the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now in some mysterious way, though it's not entirely clear to me what it means for the children of God to be revealed.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the very least, I think what he's getting at here is that our adoption, as God's children, will be somehow fully and completely and publicly revealed so that it will be visible for all to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Paul probably means the resurrection of the dead here.
[SPEAKER_00]: when we will be given our new and glorious and incorruptible bodies who's waiting for that day upon Christ's return.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this revealing of our new bodies will be so powerful and so all encompassing and so transformative that not only will it change us, it will change all of creation along with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is, of course, the fulfillment of Christ's promise in Revelation 21, behold, I am making all things new, and you haven't, and you are perfectly aligned with our new glorious immortal and incorruptible resurrected bodies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Paul, so powerfully, and I wrestled with whether to quote this, but I just couldn't help myself, Paul so powerfully describes and poetically describes in one Corinthians 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my favorite passages in Scripture, listen, I tell you a mystery, we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised in perishable, and we will be changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, and when the perishable has been closed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Death has been swallowed up in victory.
[SPEAKER_00]: Praise the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is our hope, church, that is our future promise.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what Christ has purchased for us by His own blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Tim Kelles says at this first, there is a glory coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: That will be so blindingly powerful that when it falls upon us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will envelop the whole created order and glorify it along with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will bring the whole of nature with us into a renewed, restored, redeemed reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this means, friends, that on that day, we will finally and fully be conformed to the likeness of the Son as Paul says in verse 29.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's the next week, so I don't want to steal Darren's thunder.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the resurrection, we will be perfectly and completely holy as Christ is and in our new bodies as dazzlingly beautiful as Christ is in a creation where there is no more crying.
[SPEAKER_00]: or mourning or pain for the old order of things has passed away and the new has come.
[SPEAKER_00]: All things have been made new, heaven and earth and everything in between.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the glory that awaits us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's our future hope, but it raises a question.
[SPEAKER_00]: If Christ has already won the victory,
[SPEAKER_00]: If the work of salvation is truly finished, as he declared from the cross right before his death, why don't we see this more clearly in the world around us?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does the world still suffer with so much pain?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're seeing that all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we do pray for our brothers and sisters this morning in the Philippines who are dealing with the tragic typhoon and other countries around Southeast Asia.
[SPEAKER_00]: We lift them up to the Lord in prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul answers this question in verses 20 and 21.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In hope, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and the glory of the children of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: what he's clearly outlined in the first three chapters of Romans, that because of our sin, because human beings rebelled against God and brought chaos and death into the world, the effect of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: the incalculable damage that that has caused was not just for human beings, but for the whole of creation, over which we were appointed to rule, to have dominion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So because we had dominion over creation, when we fell into sin, we brought all of creation along with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So our sin led to death, and that has filled the whole of the natural world as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: The natural world, the created order, the material world, has itself along with us being subjected to frustration.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, the world is not what it is supposed to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was created to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tim Keller points out that the word frustration here is the same word as the one translated vanity or meaninglessness in the book of Ecclesiastes in the subjugant, which is the Greek version of the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a word that carries the meaning of alienation or disharmony.
[SPEAKER_00]: The things don't work as they are supposed to, as they should.
[SPEAKER_00]: Try as you might, our best efforts end in meaningless frustration.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like me, when I'm trying to build a model with my son, it usually ends in meaningless frustration.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Paul means that nature is alienated.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's out of alignment with us who were meant to live in harmony with it as its rulers and from itself and also with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's out of harmony with God, it's out of harmony with us and it's out of harmony with itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's chaos.
[SPEAKER_00]: The natural disasters that we've seen, as we mentioned just a moment ago, are all signs of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Creation is broken, it's not as beautiful or as glorious as it was meant to be, it has become frustrated, it has become deadly, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, Paul says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this could be referring to us, because this fall to happen by our own disobedience, or it could be referring to God who has subjected creation to frustration in the hope of its liberation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps both the true, either way, it's a statement of immense grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: immense grace, because at the moment of the fall, God could have destroyed it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Visited upon us all, including creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: the full wages of our sin which was death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that would have been a just judgment for what we had done.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he didn't do that, although this creation was subjected to death in the sense of a long, slow decline and decay, just as it is for us as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in this God is being gracious, because just as God cast out of an Eve out of Eden, subjecting them to frustration, and he did this as Paul says in hope in the promise of their eventual salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, this condition of alienation,
[SPEAKER_00]: is what makes us realize that we are a need of grace, that we are a need of mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: This experience of alienation of exile from Eden is a great act of God's grace that's intended to call us back to our senses and to cry out to God for help.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love how Tolkien expresses this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a good sermon when Tolkien gets mentioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all love, this is one of his letters.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our whole nature and its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human is still soaked with the sense of exile, but that's not just true for us, it's true for the whole of creation as well, God subjected creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: to be cast out of Eden, to be cut off from a original state of Shalom, yet he has always, he did this with the intention, has always had the intention of its eventual renewal and restoration.
[SPEAKER_00]: His restoration and renewal of all things that he's made, not just human beings, not just our souls, but everything that God has made.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why Paul says the creation waits in eager expectation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're always.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 21, it waits in eager expectation for its liberation from bondage to decay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, in some way that we don't truly understand, the creation knows that this renewal is coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what the sense I get, as I read this section of Romans 8, the creation knows, the creation itself in some way and knows where all of this is headed.
[SPEAKER_00]: For now, though, creation is in bondage to decay, it's caught in a continuous cycle of death and decomposition.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even here, the signs, there are signs of the new life that he has to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Keller says, it's wonderful to see how nature's life-giving quality continually seeks to re-establish itself, bringing new life out of death, for example, flowers grow from the fertilizer of dead organisms.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the whole universe is deteriorating and running down, losing more energy than it can generate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything in nature wears down and dies, nature is currently a killer, and so nature is a realm of pain and suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is relentless pain that comes from first to last as things decay as life is born and childbirth, and life is lost in death, there is pain and misery.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this creation, no experience is untainted by pain, even if it is only the pain of knowing that that experience cannot last and don't we know this all too well?
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how good anything may be.
[SPEAKER_00]: in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot hold on to it forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how beautiful a marriage, eventually there will be separation in death.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how wonderful a family, eventually true, children will grow up and leave home.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how enjoyable or fulfilling a career, eventually retirement comes or sickness prevents you from working.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything runs down in the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the cause of death.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what Paul means by the subjection of frustration.
[SPEAKER_00]: but in all of this, like all creation, we as children of God have such great hope because in Christ, death and alienation, frustration and futility do not have the last word.
[SPEAKER_00]: The creation itself will be liberated and brought into the glorious, free, I don't know where I am in my slides, now, it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: And brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God,
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of frustration, friends, our hope is that there will be blessing and life and peace forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will be brought back into Eden where there will be shalom and blessedness and all things will be made new.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is a promise that means not only will you get the life back that you lost, you will also receive the life that you never had.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only will you get back what you've lost, you will also receive the life that you never had that you should have had in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is true for all of creation as well, not just you.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what Paul is saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is as much for creation as it is for humanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we consider the majesty and greatness of the oceans, the mountains, the valleys, the forests, the animals, it staggers the mind to imagine what the world will be like.
[SPEAKER_00]: when it's finally free to be itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for now, the creation is waiting in this eager expectation, suffering as Paul says, in verse 22, the pains of childbirth write up to the present time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this metaphor makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Though there is labor pain now, there is a hopeful expectation on the other side of it that life is being born, that life is coming through the pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pain, the suffering, is not meaningless, but bringing about something that will lead to great joy, new life, new creation, and in this sense, just as with childbirth, when what is birth is a new human being, and you type kind of human being that's never lived before, not simply just a copy of the parents, but a new kind of person.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this same way, what creation will give birth to through the redemption of Jesus is a new creation that is similar to, but also completely different from what we've ever known.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you will, a world healed and free, a world of peace and joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: where there'll be no war, no poverty, no misery, no abuse, no wasted potential, no addiction, no violence, no slavery, no exploitation, no disease, a world that we could only dream about.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's coming, it is coming church, that world is coming so hard on to your hope, don't give into fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's new world will be similar, but different to what we've ever known, those beautiful experiences with loved ones that we can only hold on to for a moment, but then vanish like smoke into the past, will be the reality that we get to enjoy every single day forever and ever world without end.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the same way, verse 23.
[SPEAKER_00]: We who have the first fruits of the Spirit, the beginnings of new life, that will fully come at the resurrection, and just as we too grown in our present condition of suffering and in labor pains, as we wait for our full adoption when Christ returns when we receive our new bodies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what we are longing for,
[SPEAKER_00]: Church is what the whole creation is longing for and what we'll experience in glory is what the whole creation will experience in glory as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just try and paint the picture for you all the animals that have passed into extinction will be revived.
[SPEAKER_00]: all the damage to creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pollution, the greenhouse gases, the strip mining, the nuclear waste, the Pacific garbage patch, the destruction caused by deforestation and desertification, if I can see that word,
[SPEAKER_00]: The concrete wastelands of our solar cities, the trash heaps, the oil spills, the microplastics, all of it will be healed, and all creation will rejoice, and this has been a prophetic picture from the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: For so long through Scripture, if you look for it, you'll find this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Isaiah 55 verse 12 on the Day Messiah comes.
[SPEAKER_00]: you will go out with joy and be led forth in peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does anyone know how this goes and the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the trees of the fields will clap their hands, you all got the chorus and your heads right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of the thorn bush, we'll grow the juniper, instead of briars, the mortal will grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is to reverse the curse of sin out of the ground,
[SPEAKER_00]: by the sweat of your brow, you will survive.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now we'll live in peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: There will be, for the Lord's renown, an everlasting sign that will endure forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, Romans 8 is Paul's answer to the question, about whether our future glory makes our present sufferings worth bearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: even creation, Paul says, is urging you to say, yes, don't give up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it is worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so with this vision in mind, we can keep our hope alive as we wait for it patiently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even here, though, we're not left to do this on our own, as Paul will go on to say next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I don't want to steal Darren's thunder.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he goes on to talk about, even in here in this, the Spirit is at work, groaning within us, helping us to pray, teaching us the will of God so that we're not left on our own as often, to figure this out for ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we have our Father with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have Christ with us in the presence of the Spirit, giving us what we need.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of this is an acknowledgement that things are not as they should be.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all know that that life is really hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as Paul says, in one Corinthians 13, 12, for now we see only a reflection is in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I know in part, but then I shall be known fully.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even as I am fully known, this will only come
[SPEAKER_00]: When we have what we currently do not have at least, we have only in part, our adoption of sons, the redemptions of our bodies, the redemption of our bodies.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you see, for, well, I'm going to finish with this, well, we've been adopted through Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll get the band to come on up.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have been adopted through Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: The legal papers have been written.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our names have been changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're not yet seated face to face with our Savior Jesus and our Father's great banquet in table in His presence forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: That will come.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's secure because we've already been adopted, but we're not yet there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the hope of our salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've been told all this so that we can have faith so that we can have courage
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not let your hearts be troubled.
[SPEAKER_00]: You believe in God, believe also in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: My father's house is many rooms.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that were not so, would I have told you that I'm going there to prepare a place for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know the way to the place where I'm going and then one of the disciples said, but Lord, actually we don't know the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says, I am the way, the truth in the life.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one comes to the Father except through me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now if you're here this morning, let's all stand together.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus,
[SPEAKER_00]: this message this morning, and your heart is burning within you to know this, to know Jesus, to experience what it is that we've been celebrating today, that I want to pray for you in just a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're here today and struggling to hold on to hope, if you feel overwhelmed by fear, I want to pray for you as well this morning, but if you're here today and you're filled
[SPEAKER_00]: And all that you know Christ is going to do, all that you have to look forward to in his kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then why don't you just give me a shout, a hell of a loo-yo.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, just lately I've been kind of overwhelmed by this very simple thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was actually talking about this, excuse me, talking about this with my son.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the car yesterday, as we were driving back from his basketball tournament, we were just talking, we were actually talking about the sermon for today, because he couldn't be here today and he was asking me what I was going to be preaching on.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were talking about it and I was describing all of these things to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the end, I just said, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: We are so blessed to know Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine what life would be like without him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so thankful that he reached into my life and saved me and I know he can do it for you as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if that's what you desire today or if you want your hope renewed or you want to be brought back to your first love and Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just pray for a moment as we prepare our hearts to worship for one last time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, we are so thankful for all that you have done for us, it goes beyond imagining, it goes beyond words.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are so thankful for the hope that we have, which we don't deserve and yet you've given everything so that we might be redeemed,
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, we're so thankful and we're so humbled by this immense gift and I do pray Lloyd for anyone here this morning who does not know you but would love to know you that they would just simply open their hearts to you right now so Jesus come into my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I submit myself to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to be my savior.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to receive all these things that we've been talking about this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know the life and freedom that you offer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Forgive me of my sins and set me free from death so that I might live in your life and inherit your kingdom forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you prayed that prayer, I just want to tell you right now, you are saved, you are now a child of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is your Lord, and He's now inviting you to come and follow Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow his way for the rest of your life, and I want to encourage you at the end of the service to go up to one of our prayer team and I'm actually going to ask if anyone who's on the prayer team could just come forward right now, come forward right now and just fill the sides of the stage and if there's anyone who'd like to come forward for prayer this morning if just given your life to Jesus, come and do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lovely gracious people, they won't be scary, they're just going to encourage you and pray to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Lloyd, we also ask for those this morning who have...
[SPEAKER_00]: be not living in a state of fear and anxiety, felt overwhelmed by the pressure of life, and the suffering of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray Holy Spirit that you even right now confirm in them, speak to their hearts that their children of God, remind them of their glorious inheritance, remind them of all that you've done.
[SPEAKER_00]: and encourage them now, encourage them now, come Holy Spirit and just fill their bodies and their minds with your peace and your joy in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Lord, for all of us, we're just so thankful.
[SPEAKER_00]: What can we say, Lord, other than...
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are our king forever, and we glorify your name in all the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to worship together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's lift our voice.