Sermon Tone Analysis

HEAVEN - SEEING THE UNSEEN

ANTICIPATING OUR RESURRECTION Pt.2

Sunday February 16, 2020

Scripture Reference: Romans 8:18-25

Intro.

Our scripture text for today is found ion Romans 8:15-25.

"18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.

19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are.

20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse.

But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay.

22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering.

We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.

24 We were given this hope when we were saved.

(If we already have something, we don't need to hope for it.

25 But if we look forward to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)"

Romans 8:18-25 (NLT)

A. Last week we were talking about our final resurrection.

The resurrection of these bodies we now have.

Once again, I will emphasis that this discussion is important because of what Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 15 and here is what he said.

"16 And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised.

17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins." 1 Corinthians 15:16-17 (NLT) This doctrine of the resurrection is not some trivial or sideline issue.

It is a central truth in our belief as followers of Christ.

It is like the third leg of a three-legged stool.

If one leg is taken off the whole stool falls over.

Paul very clearly tells us that if the resurrection of our bodies is not true then the whole of our Christian faith is false, and we are a doomed people.

I would say that makes this discussion very significant.

1.

Last week I spent most of my time talking about the resurrection of these bodies but today I want to focus more on the New Earth we will inhabit with these resurrected bodies.

You may remember if you were here a few weeks ago that I spoke extensively about the New earth.

I said that the earth will be both New and Old.

It will be new in that the curse of sin has been removed and things will seem new to us because we will see this world as we never saw it before, but it will also be old in that there will be much of this world that we still recognize and relate to.

God is not going to destroy this world and start all over again as some people have thought.

If that were the case, we would not need to be talking about resurrection because destroying and starting over has nothing to do with resurrection.

You don't resurrect something that never was.

I really want to emphasis that God is and has always been in the business of redeeming and restoring.

We see it in the story of the flood, and we see it in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

God didn't say the world was very bad He said it was very good.

Trans.

Now in V.22 of Romans 8 it says that creation is waiting for the resurrection so here is the first question I want us to consider today.

I. WHY DOES ALL CREATION AWAIT THE RESURRECTION?

As we get started today I want to issue a warning I have given you several times already and that is that I am probably going to present some ideas to you today that are new, but once again my challenge is that we look at these things in light of what the Bible says not what we have come to believe or want to believe.

That fact is:

A. We Need To Broaden Our View Of Redemption.

1.

Consider this, since we are created in the imagine of God and unlike the rest of creation we have immortal souls and have the capacity to make moral judgments, this means that we are the only ones who are in need of salvation, but consider this as well, all creation needs redemption.

To understand this, we need to understand what redemption means.

We have gotten use to this now but every one of us pays an additional $.05 CRV on all the beverage cans and bottles we buy.

The CRV stands for California Redemption Value.

The purpose is to redeem these bottles and cans and restore them to their original purpose.

Instead of letting them be destroyed or discarded in our landfills they can be redeemed and restored to their intended purpose.

Once again when we think of our resurrection and the resurrection of this earth, we do not see God destroying or discarding what He made but instead we see Him restoring and redeeming this wonderful world He created and said was Very Good.

2. Now we know that mountains and oceans do not have conscious minds.

The mountains and oceans do not think about what they are going to do they just are, but God said that they along with us will experience redemption.

They too will be restored to what God intended.

To think that this world is just too messed up by sin for God to redeem is to say that God didn't make something that was Very Good.

The breath of God's redemption plan goes beyond just you and I. Listen to what the Bible says, this was part of what Paul was saying as he spoke of the Deity of Jesus.

"Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe-people and things, animals and atoms-get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross."

Colossians 1:20 (MSG)

Paul tells us in Romans 8 that:

B. All Creation Awaits The Resurrection.

1. Don't raise your hands but I wonder if any of you were like me and you wondered what in the world Paul meant when he wrote these words?

These verses have always been a puzzle to me until I began studying about Heaven.

First, I would remind us that these words according to the Bible were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so they were not words Paul came up with on his own after a sleepless night.

God gave these words to Paul to give to us.

So, let me share with you what I believe Paul was telling us in these words.

2. Let's go back to the beginning in Genesis 1:28 "Then God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply.

Fill the earth and govern it.

Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground."

Genesis 1:28 (NLT) God gave man authority to rule over all of creation.

Now we do not have a detailed description of Eden, but I think we can safely assume that before the fall things were working pretty well.

I don't think Adam and Eve suffered through any droughts, or floods or earthquakes or any of the things we know about in the world today.

The earth was truly paradise and that is why we look forward to getting back there.

But then came sin and a curse fell over all the earth.

In a very real way paradise was lost.

Now the Bible tells us that this same creation awaits the resurrection, Why?

It is because mankind and this world, this creation are inseparably linked together.

We need to understand that as mankind goes so goes creation.

As all creation was spoiled by our sin so will all creation be restored by our resurrection.

3. Now here is something that has really helped me in understanding these verses.

The sin of Adam and Eve was not something that just affected you and me.

The truth is their sin had catastrophic effects for the entire universe.

The second law of thermodynamics is entropy which means that all things are deteriorating.

I know it does sound very positive, but the reality is at this point in time we are born to die.

It is not something we can avoid, although it seems sometimes that we try pretty hard to do so.

**Here is what I really want to you get.

This law of thermodynamics reveals to us the huge extent of the curse of sin on this world.

It should be little wonder to us that all of creation groans for resurrection.

As I have noted several times.

C. The Old Is New Not Gone.

1.

It is my opinion that most Christians hold to the belief that there will be no carry over into Heaven.

What I mean by that is that I think many of us people that things like, working, art, culture, sports and other aspects of this earthly life will be gone forever in Heaven.

I said a few weeks ago that my belief for a long time had been that our memories would be wiped clean like a computer's hard drive and we would be starting over from scratch.

2. Now if this were true then what kind of language would we expect to hear from the Bible?

How would Paul have worded Romans 8 if this were the case?

He might have talked about a man dying, gasping for his last breath on earth, but this is not what Paul describes.

Look at V.22 "For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."

Romans 8:22 (NLT) Paul uses the language of childbirth.

I have never had a baby, but I think there are a few ladies here today who can testify that giving birth has a lot of pain and suffering that goes along with it, but these are temporary.

The end result is the miracle of new life that brings us immeasurable joy (at least until they become teenagers).

What Paul is helping us to see here is that with all the suffering and strife of this world a new world is coming.

A world that will bring us joys that can't even compare to those of a new baby.