Future Glory
Notes
Transcript
Good morning Valley Church Clinton! So glad you’re here with us, to worship and to open the word together,
It’s really the joy of my entire week…
Let’s pray before we get into our sermon today.
Okay, so I’ve probably mentioned this before, but one of my absolute favorite places to visit is a place called Wittenberg, Germany.
Wittenberg is about a 1.5 hour train from Berlin, give or take,
And if you don’t know your church history, that’s okay, because Wittenberg was where Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 theses to the Catholic church in 1517, starting the split between the protestant and catholic traditions,
We Protestants call it the reformation,
But, now it’s a quaint little town with a few shops, lots of tourism, but it’s just a quiet little cobblestone city with a ton of religious history.
And as a nerd, I really enjoy it.
Here’s a photo of the church that Luther nailed his theses to:
And you can see the tower in the distance, that’s the bell tower that sits on top of the former Catholic church.
And of course, being a museum now, you can pay a few Euros to go into this tower and walk up the winding stairs all the way to the top.
And let me tell you, these stairs are not built for guys like me, okay?
I’m sure you can imagine, they’re tight, spiral, stone stairs that seem like they never end.
You wind and wind, and when you think you’re done, you wind somme more.
And you’re a little claustrophobic, out of breath, but eventually, you come out in the open, and you see this view:
Just an incredible view that if you didn’t know was ahead, the journey up would have been pointless and bleak.
And this photo makes me think of two things:
One is just how breathtaking even simple moments can be, and how unexpected beauty happens when we least expect it,
And two - it makes me feel really small. Because once you have a bird’s eye view on things, it makes you worldview expand.
I mean, just look at how much land and how many houses there are that I could never see from the ground.
Actually, it remind me a lot of this picture.
Talk about a bird’s eye view, what you’re seeing here is a photograph of the night sky taken by the James Webb telescope that’s up in space,
And this view of the night sky, to put it in perspective, if you were to look up, is about the size of the moon.
So, a really small portion of the night sky,
But in this photograph is over 10,000 galaxies. In the size of night sky essentially the size of your thumb.
So, we are in the milky way galaxy, which holds about 100-400 billion stars, this is 10,000 of those.
Talk about a perspective shift, and just how small we are in the universe.
This is something we can’t even wrap out heads around, I mean, we walk around in our own little worlds, without even hardly looking up,
This photo is beyond our comprehension, it’s beyond our problems, it makes us really look up and look around, outside our circumstances and situations, and realize there’s something bigger than us,
And this is what Paul wants us to set our eyes on this morning as we take a look at Romans 8:18-21.
He basically says - hey, I know you’re suffering now, I know you’re in the winding staircase of life, and all of creation feels it too,
But there’s something greater out there, there’s something bigger than our narrow view of ourselves and our little tiny world,
It’s the answer to our suffering, it’s the answer to our decaying and rotten world, and it’s what we need to expand our worldview to include.
And he starts like this:
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.
So, right away, Paul confirms one thing for us in this new section of Romans 8, and it’s that:
Suffering Exists
Suffering Exists
Paul doesn’t say you’ll be free of suffering in this life, or if you follow Christ everything will magically get better,
No, instead Paul confirms our susposion of going through this life in this world - there will be trouble.
And just to get a little context here, let’s remember what we kind of talked about last week,
In verses 16-17, we found out that we are God’s children, and we have an inheritance, but that we will suffer with Christ and then be glorified with him, this is what it says:
16 The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, 17 and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
So, this is what Paul uses to launch into this section this morning,
Because he says: for, or for this reason,
For I consider that the sufferings you’re experiencing now, what’s coming is so much better.
The full extent of glory is so much better, that is the encouragement to persevere.
And there are several places in scripture that actually not only allude to the existence of suffering, but they’re actual promises that Christians should expect to suffer.
For example:
33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
12 Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you, as if something unusual were happening to you. 13 Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed.
See, for the Christian, suffering is not an anomaly, it’s a promised reality.
And this is perhaps the biggest stumbling block of a lot of the world,
See, there are a ton of agnostics and atheists out there who cannot grapple with this seeming contradiction with the Christian worldview.
This is commonly called theodicy, and at it’s core, it’s the proposed contridiction that if suffering exists, a good God cannot exist.
Because if God was truly good and just and all-powerful, evil couldn’t exist because God would extinguish evil immediately.
And you know what? This is a fair point. Because this is a thought that I know even the most devout Christians in the room have pondered,
Why doesn’t God just take away all the evil and suffering right now?
Well, honestly, Paul doesn’t really attempt to answer that in Romans, instead, he marries the idea that yes we do suffer now, but also there is an eternal glory, and big picture, that is also true,
In fact, he writes something very similar over in 2 Corinthians:
17 For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.
So, Paul certainly doesn’t say suffering is nothing, or to quit whining, or to say it’s not that bad,
What he’s saying is that being glorified with Jesus Christ far outweighs what suffering you’re receiving now.
And remember, this is a guy who has been through it.
Shipwrecked, cast out of his social circle, stoned, whipped, thrown in jail, possessions taken away,
Mocked and ridiculed, Paul isn’t saying this lightly.
He’s in the middle of it.
And still, he writes, from personal experience “This is nothing compared to what is to come.”
And what is to come? Well, it says:
There is glory that is going to be revealed to us.
And this can also be translated as unveiled to us.
This means that it’s kind of hidden from us now, but one day. it will be fully revealed to us.
That the glory of God is something we will be clothed in, that we will participate in, as much as we experience suffering now, we will fully experience glory later.
But here’s the thing: What Paul is getting at, is that we are to look like Jesus in every age. Right?
We are to match Jesus in every phase of the eon, and since Christ came to us in the world and in human form and suffered,
So will we.
Likewise, in the coming age, when the new heavens and earth are one, when God fulfills every promise, and the end times end,
We will also experience the same glory as Christ, because we are sons of God, coheirs with Jesus.
And this moment is huge. in fact, let’s go to verse 19:
19 For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed.
See, Christians aren’t the only ones that are waiting on this moment.
Paul says the creation eagerly waits.
And what is creation waiting on?
For God’s sons to be revealed.
Because when that happens, that means creation can be put right again.
Creation is waiting on one thing - who’s going to take over? Who’s going to inherit this place, and take care of us again?
Who’s job is it to steward us again? Who’s going to take care of creation? This is what creation is asking.
And this stems clearly from Genesis 3,
Man and Woman, Adam and Eve decided they would rather not take care of creation, instead they wanted to make a name for themselves,
After all, God is being selfish, he doesn’t want us to have the knowledge of the tree of good and evil, then we’ll be like Him,
And here’s the key:
6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
It was desirable to obtaining wisdom. Keep that in your mind, that is going to be super important here in a minute.
See, Adam and Eve took their own route. They thought they could get ahead, but what happened?
Now, suddenly, creation has no adequate caretaker. The creation we were suppose to tend to, now it has to take care of itself,
And Paul says, ever since, creation has been waiting on a caretaker.
And here’s the real curse:
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 to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.
There is a problem in creation currently. See, what God declared as good, we declared as not good enough, so now there is a problem that Paul calls:
Futility
Futility
What is futility?
Well, this is the Greek word mataiotes, creation was subjected to mataiotes.
And at the surface level, it means like pointless. No purpose.
It’s an object that doesn’t function as it should.
But if you dig a bit deeper into the meaning, it starts to take the definition of and object that has been given a role for which is was not designed and is unreal, or illusionary.
So, creation was subjected to futility.
That means it can no longer fulfil it’s role, even though it may look like it, it can’t.
And if this happened because of the fall in Genesis 3, that means it happened because of us.
That means it happened because we were what? Seeking our own wisdom.
Adam and Eve were trying to fulfil their own purposes, to make their little kingdoms, to make good creation just a little better with effort.
And this is the start of futility.
Because working to fulfill our own purpose, for our own ends is always pointless. It is an exercise in futility,
Because there is no purpose to fulfill. We’ve made it up.
This is why we preach against a works-based religion, because that is just a religion made up of man made works which is the definition of toil and futility.
It is especially prevalent in our culture and time, in this day, to put on the guise of goodness, to chase the vanity, to the vain things.
We so badly want people to affirm us, and to advance our image,
Look at us! Look at me!
Like, share, subscribe.
And what’s happened is created our own rules, and our own wisdom, and when we do that, it’s really easy to live up to our own expectations.
And what that’s done, according to verse 21, is that creation is in bondage to decay.
Similar to what Paul writes when we are no longer under the law of sin and death, creation is in slavery to decay.
This is what happens when death is present - decay. Rotten. Maggot filled, you get the picture.
This is what we’ve done to creation.
And if you know anything about decay, once it starts, it doesn’t stop.
If something is bad in your fridge, you don’t hurry up and cook it, or let it sit for a few more days to hopefully get better.
No, you toss it immediately. Because it aint gonna get better on it’s own, and it’ll only cause other things to decay and mold also.
And the really cool thing about this verse, at least in my opinion, is again, creation is waiting on God’s children, take a look:
This is in the hope….
21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.
Creation is set free from bondage of decay, and rot, and ruin, into the freedom of God’s children.
Now, that is just cool, because this tells us something about creation, and about God’s inclusion of us in it, which is….
Creation is Waiting on Us
Creation is Waiting on Us
See, creation is waiting on us to suffer, to endure, to be followers of Christ, to be transformed, to be glorified, to inherit creation, and finally to be free in our stewardship.
As it turns out, the world is crummy because of us. That’s pretty common Christian understanding - that we cause the world to be in the state it’s in, we introduced sin into the world,
That’s old news that is a great daily reminder.
Here’s what I don’t hear as often in Christian circles:
We are just as much as part of the solution as we were the problem.
And don’t get me wrong - we did not introduce the solution, or put forth the solution to sin and death and decay….
We are the product of the solution, and through us, all of creation can go back to being worked not in futility, but with purpose. With God’s purpose.
This is why we can endure suffering - because it’s not without purpose. In fact, I would say this absolutely imperative to what we call formation.
Being formed in the image of Christ.
Because to do that, we have to do what Jesus did, which was suffer and die.
See, God wants us to do what we were designed to do. He’s been patiently waiting on us to turn to Him, he’s given us the chance to return, just like the prodigal son, he’s given us His Spirit to allow us to believe,
But. If were honest, this still leaves us with one big question that is not clearly yet answered: why?
Why does God leave us here to suffer? Why can’t he just snap his fingers, take away my anguish, make me comfortable, teach me how to obey instantly…
Because if we know God, and we affirm the Scriptures, we know God could take away my sin.
He could stop my temptation instantly.
He could answer my prayer. Immediately and completley.
He could heal my friend of cancer, he could help with my infertility, he could heal my child, he could mend my marriage, God could do anything and everything, if he could even just lessen my suffering just a little bit.
But, sometimes he doesn’t.
As Christians, we have to deal with the very real reality that God could, but doesn’t seem to.
We have to deal with verses like Ps 22:1
1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning?
And honestly, the Bible doesn’t readily speak into why someone does or does not suffer.
Why the powerful and wealthy seem to be blessed while us normal folks are barely making it.
And you know, I think it’s really helpful to turn to the book of Job.
This is the classic book on suffering, the main character is a guy named Job,
And Job is described as righteous. Upright, he’s done nothing wrong that’s recorded.
And man, his life gets turned upside down.
Poor Job, he loses his wealth, all of his livestock, he loses his entire family, he gets boils all over his body,
And hearing all this, Job’s friends come over and basically tell Job he’s done something wrong…
Job, all these bad things have happened, what have you done to God to offend him??
And remember when I told you to hang on to that thing about wisdom? Here it is -
Job’s friends were from the east, which was the center of wisdom in the culture of this piece of literature…
So, these friends of Job were giving their best pieces of advice, they represented the best wisdom of the land.
And Job continues to defend himself, nothing.
And as it turns out. - he’s right. Job did nothing to offend God.
These men of wisdom, they were wrong.
As you’re reading the book of Job, you keep asking “When does God respond? When does God show up?”
And after 37 long chapters, in chapter 38 God finally speaks, and we get the responses we’re looking for,
Except God doesn’t really tell Job why he’s suffering. Why his entire family was killed.
What God does is affirm his own righteousness and power, and God’s wisdom.
The moral of the story is this - Human Wisdom is Futility
We can try to figure out why were suffering, we can question God all day long,
And I do believe he wants that, he wants us to wrestle with him and be honest with him….
But I think this is needless toil, because we will never get the exact answer to why we suffer.
Instead, we need to seek two things:
Godly Righteousness and Wisdom
Godly Righteousness and Wisdom
Remember our overall theme of Romans 8: make the world right again.
God set out to make his creation right again.
And the truth of what Paul says is this: we are the catalysts of that through the power of Jesus Christ.
We are called to put the world back in it’s place, to fulfil the great commission, to make disciples, to reclaim the nations….
But we can’t do that if we’re constantly questioning why we’re going through what were going through.
We need to shift our perspective from: “I hope God takes me around this problem” to “I hope God can use this to change me”
Does that make sense? I know it may sound harsh….
But we are to seek righteousness and wisdom that comes only from God.
Righteousness is just right relationship with God, and wisdom is what we have with the Spirit and with the Scriptures,
It’s how to navigate every situation.
So why am I going through suffering? I don’t know, but I know God will use it for good.
Why is my life not perfect? I don’t know, but I know God’s wisdom is far greater than mine, and his ways are not my ways, and if I’m trying my best to follow Him, I’m going to trust that this is good.
What do we do when we’ve lost our way? we recite Proverbs 3…
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight.
What do we do in suffering? We boldy say:
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
Like Job’s friends, we waste so much time trying to figure it out.
Trying to take control.
Trying to make things better in our own power.
Friends, this is futility.
What we need to do, is simply to endure, and run to the father. Who promises to be with us. And promises to transform us.
Even the suffering we see and endure, how much has our good Lord shielded us from that we have no idea about.
Listen, I know your suffering is very real. I know creation is decaying.
But please don’t forget - this is nothing to God. This is nothing compared to the righteousness that we will experience when we are glorified.
Our solutions and wisdom is nothing to seeking Godly wisdom to make it though this life.
Our suffering means something, it’s not pointless, it’s how creation is saved.
It’s how we’re transformed.
Remember, Jesus is always the answer, he is the one we run to, he is gentle and loving with the power over creation, and this is what he says:
33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
Let’s pray.
I was listening to a podcast this week on the book of Job, and Dr. Ellie Paley posed this question that we need to wrestle with that I’d like us to reflect on this morning:
Who is God to me in my suffering?
So, who is God to you, in your suffering? Do you seek him? Do you seek right relationship with him? Do you seek him for wisdom?
Or, something else? Are you angry with him? Complacent? Distant?
Taken some time with Him this morning don’t hold anything back, and we’ll join together in worship here in a few minutes.
