Linchpin pt3

I do not know anyone who would volunteer to suffer in the sense of “Hey want to come and hurt today?” It would take a pretty twisted individual to think that sounds like a good time. But the truth is, if we saw the long term benefits for short term pain, many of us would be on board- because the short term pain would be offset by the result.

That is my thought every time I undertake a hiking trail in Colorado. I am going to hurt, down here where I cannot see what I will see when I get to the the end of the trail. And the more I hike the trails, the more I know the vistas are worth it.

Following Jesus is like that. There is suffering- sometimes beyond what we could imagine, but the end of the trail…man is it worth it.

When we last left Romans 8, we were talking about who we have become- we are heirs- children- of God as a result of our salvation. We occupy this privileged position that we did not have access to apart from Jesus. So now the question becomes, what do we do with this place we have been given. How does a child of God interact with a world that is SO broken?

So that’s what we want to talk about today. How does this position change our mindset and how does it alter our practice?

So turn with me to Romans 8:18-27.

So verse 18 is a sermon in itself. What we will receive will make what we have endured pale in compairson.

Now for many of us, that suffering is yelling so loud, we would say “How can that be true? Do you know what I have been thru?” And you are right, I have no idea, BUT God does, and if He is making a promise like this, do you think He would fail to deliver? When I think about this I think about what Jesus endured on the cross, and how what He endured must have made the Kingdom for us seem worth it.

If Jesus endured the cross and the brutality and the finality of death so I could enter a place He already had access to, then what we have waiting for us must be more awesome than we could imagine, even in light of what we have endured- it is NOT a minimization of what has happened to us, it is a statement of the brilliance of the Kingdom we will inherit.

Romans 3. Living in the Spirit (8:1–39)

As a citizen of heaven (Phil 3:20) he realized that his earthly life was but a moment in time in comparison with eternity. Not only that, but the glory of the coming age will be qualitatively distinct from the trials of the present. If we allow the difficulties of life to absorb our attention, they will effectively blot out the glory that awaits us. Our focus needs to be on things above (Col 3:2), spiritual concerns of eternal significance

And that longing for that Kingdom, that relief, extends beyond us, but to the entirety of creation. Look at verses 19-22.

The whole of creation longs for relief.

Church I know there is a lot of debate today about the environment and global affairs and all those things that can become consuming. But for a second, can you see them in the light of these verses. That all of creation is longing to be redeemed and set free from the destructive effects of sin.

See creation itself was affected by sin- not just people. what was intended to be a paradise turned into a disaster. Look at our own state even in the past 2 weeks. Ask Banrsdall do they long for an end to this destructive pattern in creation? Sulphur? Moore?

Romans 3. Living in the Spirit (8:1–39)

The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own.” The personification of nature would not sound strange to those who were at home with rivers that “clap their hands” and mountains that “sing together for joy” (Ps 98:8; cf. Isa 55:12). Because Adam disobeyed by eating the forbidden fruit, God had cursed the ground (Gen 3:17–18; cf. 5:29). The full redemptive work of God includes the reversal of this curse.

Go ask Ukraine or the Pakesitians in Gaza or the Jewish settlers in the kibbutzes of the West Bank? Do they long for an end to this cycle?

Go talk to anyone living on the streets downtown or to any addict in recovery or to anyone who has lost a loved one…

The list could go on because the cycle of destruction is never ending. Sin kills and destroys. It is the thief Jesus warned us about.

And what does this creation long for? Deliverance.

Romans 3. Living in the Spirit (8:1–39)

In punishment for his disobedience, Adam was to garner his food from ground cursed with thorns and thistles. But the curse was not permanent. The physical universe was frustrated by Adam’s sin, yet there is hope. Verse 21 states the content of that hope. The day is coming when the created order will be set free from its bondage to decay. Freed from corruption, it will share in “the freedom of the glory of the children of God”

And we often get that really twisted and think that deliverance only comes with the Second coming of Jesus- but look at verse 19.

Church we are the CURRENT revealing of the sons and daughters of God. Paul does not say longs for the return of the Son, he says longs for the revealing of the people of God. How does that happen?

When we engage with a broken world after we have encountered Jesus.

Church the deliverance of creation starts with us doing what Jesus called us do and being who He called us to be. A people on mission for the broken in the world around us.

Why does Ghana see deliverance and revival, because they are engaged. West Metro could see the same thing, we are just not on that mission.

And it is not just a broken world that is need of the children of God and their intervention. Look at verses 23-25.

God knows WE are longing too. And our deliverance looks different than what we have to offer to the world. Our intervention comes through the work of the Spirit- because we have the Spirit!!!

We are the ones longing for the return of Jesus because that will be a great day for us. It will be the end of our labor in the broken world, and the beginning of our lives in the Paradise we were intended for originally.

Romans 3. Living in the Spirit (8:1–39)

we ourselves are inwardly groaning as we await the final phase of our adoption178—the redemption of our bodies (cf. Phil 3:21). Christians are those “who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,” that is, who have the “Spirit as a foretaste of the future

And the hope we hold to in that, is born in our place- adoption as sons

Our situation- the redemption of our bodies from bondage to sin

And the hope of complete redemption in the Kingdom

Romans 3. Living in the Spirit (8:1–39)

Our salvation involves the hope that our mortal bodies will someday be liberated from the bondage of decay (v. 24). We are not saved “by hope” (as the AV has it), but our salvation is characterized by hope. Since salvation, viewed in its completeness, is necessarily future, we wait for it in hope (cf. 1 Thess 5:8; Titus 3:7). But hope that is seen is not hope at all. Why would we hope for that which is in plain view? So since we are hoping for something that is still unseen (cf. 2 Cor 4:18), it falls to us to wait for it with patience

And Paul knows that day seems a long way away, so he tells us to be patient and to maintain our confidence, because hope is placed in what we can’t see, or it is not hope.

So how do we endure while we wait? Look at verses 26-27

We have the presence of the Spirit

Romans 3. Living in the Spirit (8:1–39)

The Spirit is evidence that at the present time we are the sons of God (vv. 14, 16). He is also the “down payment

We have the prayers of the Spirit

Romans 3. Living in the Spirit (8:1–39)

When our lack of faith undermines certainty in prayer, the Spirit himself intercedes on our behalf. So intense is his prayer that Paul described it as “groans that words cannot express.” The NEB makes the believer, not the Spirit, the one who groans (“through our inarticulate groans the Spirit himself is pleading for us”). This removes the somewhat difficult image of the Spirit groaning in prayer, but in view of Gethsemane (cf. esp. Luke 22:44) there is no reason to deny emotional/spiritual involvement in prayer to the third person of the Trinity

We have the pleading of the Spirit

Romans 3. Living in the Spirit (8:1–39)

The Spirit comes to the aid of believers baffled by the perplexity of prayer and takes their concerns to God with an intensity far greater than we could ever imagine. Our groans (v. 23) become his (v. 26) as he intercedes on our behalf

In short, we have Someone who is doing the work when we are at an end of ourselves. Someone who carries us when we can no longer walk. Someone who is with us to the very gates of hell itself.

How can we not want someone else to experience this as well? How can we see a world groaning and dying and not be carried to them on the wings of the Sprit out of a broken heart for their souls?