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New Years serve as a helpful time of reorientation.
We are now living in Anno Domini 2023
Why is it called Anno Domini?
Do we actually believe that this year belongs to the Lord.
Through our time this evening I hope to show that if we hope to survive this next year, we better believe it.
Next week we are starting a sermon series in the Psalms,
As I thought about what passage we should do this week, I wanted to preach from a passage that would do two things simultaneously.
I wanted a passage that would lift our eyes to Christ while not ignoring the difficulties of our current circumstances.
New Years are for Americans the time when we declare that we will worship ourselves for another year.
I’m going to work on myself.
I’m going to be the best version of myself.
I’m going to be a better person.
New Year, New Me.
Me, me, me, me, me.
But in order to be fully human.
In order to be the best version of ourselves, we must be radically reoriented AWAY from ourselves, and towards Christ.
This famous quote from Augustine could encapsulate our message for the day.
“You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”
My HCSB Bible has a title for this section called “From Groans to Glory.”
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility —not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it —in the hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children.
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.”
This present time.
What time is it?
The already not yet.
Paul is going to hold up two things that are simultaneously true.
1. Suffering is immense.
2. Christ’s Kingdom overcomes all of it.
So first we wrestle with the suffering.
This section gives us a little doctrine of sin.
Sin effects everything.
Do you remember the story of King Midas?
The greedy king.
Everything he touched turned to gold.
Sin works that way too.
Sin effects things that don’t deserve it.
No animal has ever disobeyed God.
But every animal in history has been subjected to the curse of death.
This passage gives a sense that all of creation is groaning under the weight of sin.
Sin has effected the non-human creation.
Sin has consequences for people too.
And most painfully, our sin effects other people.
This has been true from the very beginning,
Sin effects every little thing.
From the cosmos, to the cells in our body.
When a little child gets cancer, it is not because this or that person sinned.
It is because sin effects everything.
The whole world is bearing the weight of a curse.
Tim Keller wrestles with this.
Tim Keller Tolkien analogy:
Is it right?
Are the sad things going to become untrue?
“The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”
The effects of a sin are very real.
But it is as if the coming kingdom is even MORE real.
This is exactly where hope comes into play.
This is the essence of Christian hope.
This is what we hope for.
That the darkness will be completely dispelled by the light.
That the joy we will experience in the next age, will far surpass the sad things.
It won’t change the reality that darkness had it’s day,
but it will be so eclipsed by goodness and joy, that sin, and it’s suffering effects will be less than a memory.
Think about Jesus’ own body.
It bears the marks of suffering.
When we see that the suffering is not something that even God himself avoided, we start to see how it fits in his story.
We are compelled by the story in John 9.
1 As He was passing by, He saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples questioned Him: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him.
This doesn’t make God the author of evil.
It makes God the glorious one, as He uses even the sad things (born blind), to do glorious things. (Healing blindness.)
We need to be careful to not be people who ever talk about suffering in caged, soft ways.
We are the people who have been entrusted with the true story of the world.
Our whole story hinges on the blessedness of a crucifixion.
The only way a crucifixion could be blessed is if that act of it was ushering in something so much better.
And it was.
The crucifixion of Christ precedes the resurrection of Christ.
When Jesus breathed out his last and said “tettelestai” he was announcing the beginning of the next age.
Who gets to make authoritative statements in their dying breath?
People who are coming back to life.
When God rose him from the dead, He was proving that that age was really here.
We follow in that same pattern.
Every single moment from the moment that Christ invades your life and you become his,
to the moment that your body is sown in the ground like a seed,
That’s YOUR dying breath.
Every moment is a dying moment.
We are constantly in a state of telling the watching world and the principalities that rule it, “It’s all done.” “It is finished.”
The age where death reigned is coming to an end.
The curtain is closing on death.
Breaking news, Satan lost, Jesus won.
Because we have been entrusted with this story,
We need to not shrink back from wrestling with the doozies.
With the super painful stuff.
If the Christian hope we profess is that God is going to make our lives better if we follow him, to the tune of prosperity, than we are not really offering hope.
Why?
Because what good is a material prosperity when you have cancer?
Or what about this?
What about children who die?
Whether by the withering effects of disease,
or by people who hurt children?
What does the Christian hope have to say about that?
There is a correlation between our wrestling with suffering and the size of our hope.
Paul says it is not even worth comparing.
That is in itself a comparison isn’t it?
Faith, Hope, Love
But while we wait, the darkness is painful.
22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. 23 And not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits —we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 Now in this hope we were saved, yet hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience. 26 In the same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings. 27 And He who searches the hearts knows the Spirit’s mind-set, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
I mentioned at Christmas Eve that as Mary endured labor pains, it wasn’t just labor pains for a child, but she was experiencing the labor pains of a new age that was being born.
We all experience this in our Christian walk.
The labor pains of living in the already not yet.
23 And not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits —we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
A mother who is about to finish her labor is in this unbelievable mixture of emotions.
She is experiencing intense pain, but in some cases, she can even hear the sounds of her baby crying before they are completely born.
This is so like our spiritual experience living in the already not yet.
We groan in labor pains because we have a genuine deposit of the Holy Spirit.
We have a real experience of the kingdom. It’s marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
But in the midst of that, we groan because of the pain.
When we groan at the suffering around us, we are anticipating the full arrival of the kingdom of God.
And did you know that God’s Spirit does that with you?
Did you know that the Holy Spirit prays for you?
God, in the perfect communion and fellowship of the Trinity, speaks to Himself on your behalf.
This is quite grounding actually.
Oftentimes our New Year’s resolutions revolve around figuring out how to be stronger.
Physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially.
What if instead of striving for strength,
we became more ok with weakness?
Because it’s in the weakness that the Holy Spirit meets us.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Did you know this?
This has sometimes been called the golden chain of salvation.
There is an unbroken, unbreakable chain that is extending from before time began, right on through your life, and into the future.
Imagine that chain, tethered to the rock of ages in eternity past, running through the history.
And on that chain, if we were to inspect it, it is encrusted with jewels.
The saints.
And then we get to us.
We would find each other on that chain.
Familiar faces.
Faces that would surprise us.
We might be dismayed that those we thought were on the chain really aren’t.
But what would encourage us the most, is that we would see that chain running past us, right through the lives of our children, our grandchildren, and the nations.
Right to the end of the age.
And do you know who we would see holding the chain on the other end?
The Lion of Judah.
But just like John in Revelation, when we run our eyes and look closer at the lion,
we see a slain lamb.
God planned from before he even made the world, to make you into the image of His son.
And thus far, he has done everything necessary for that to occur.
Faith and Hope are grounded in the belief that the one who has brought you safe thus far, will safely bring you home.
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He did not even spare His own Son but offered Him up for us all; how will He not also with Him grant us everything? 33 Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the One who justifies. 34 Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the One who died, but even more, has been raised; He also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. 35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: Because of You we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.
Dying will likely not be the hardest thing that you do in this age.
Living is much harder.
Living in 2023 will be significantly harder than your own death.
BUT!
If all of those things we just said are true,
if God foreknew us,
If God predestined us,
If God called us,
If God justified us,
And if God will glorify us,
THAN WHO CAN BE AGAINST US?
You are held by the God of all creation both in eternity past, and eternity future.
He knows everything about you,
He knows every thought you’ve had,
He knows everything you will do,
And He has secured your salvation from the kingdom of darkness and will never let you go.
37 No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, 39 height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!
This is the rallying cry of God’s people in Anno Domini 2023.
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 And all these things are from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ, and who has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore we are ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as if God were imploring you through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin on our behalf, in order that we could become the righteousness of God in him.
Affliction
Anguish
Persecution
Famine
Nakedness
Danger
Violence
Death
Angels
Demons
Present problems
Future Problems
Hostile Powers
Heith
Depth
Or any other created thing.