Life in the In-Between

Graduates, you did it! You arrived! You began on a late summer day in 2008 as kindergartners. 13 years. Over 15,000 hours of school logged. 2300 delicious school lunches consumed. Hours upon hours of homework, studying and tests. 0 homework assignments skipped… right?? New friendships, broken friendships, dreams, and crushed dreams. All leading up to this moment. Graduation. A moment that is certainly an end, but not the end. A big day, but not the only day. An arrival, but not the ultimate arrival.

In the church calendar, today marks another day like that. A culmination. An arrival. A big day. Not Christmas. Not Easter. A moment that everything was building toward.

It’s the moment when God’s plans seem to come to fruition. His plans for all of his people being unified together for one purpose: to be God’s temple or representation to all of the earth. To be witnesses of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

It’s the gift of the Holy Spirit, made available to all people. It’s what Jesus had told his followers about. The thing that he said would be even better than Jesus himself walking on earth. And it happened on Pentecost.

And they arrived… or so it seemed. But it wasn’t actually a final arriving point.

What does all of this mean? To have the Holy Spirit? Again, what can we take from these stories, and how can we use that to shape our lives today? Because we were included in the all people that the Holy Spirit is available to. What does that mean for us?

There are multiple pictures in scripture of what it looks like to have the holy spirt. To live a spirit filled life. Today, we are going to look at Romans 8.

In Romans 8, Paul paints a picture of a spirit filled life. Suggests that there is more beyond our justification or salvation. The moment of salvation is an arrival point, but not the only arrival point! There is more!

Salvation is a huge milestone and arrival point, and we celebrate when someone begins a relationship with Christ, but it’s not the end.

Paul paints this picture of the “More”, and that “more” is a spirit filled life. Like to think of it as a house:

Salvation is the front porch and the inside is the spirit filled life. It would be silly to get there and stand on the porch admiring it for the rest of your life there. You live in it. You make memories. Life happens in it. It’s a journey.

So what does this spirit filled life look like? Paul begins in Romans 8 by talking about how we are no longer slaves to the law or sin. Talks about since we are no longer in the realm of the flesh, we have righteousness. Also in living life in the spirit, we get rid of the misdeeds of the body.

Vs. 15 he uses a phrase that I want you to keep in your mind for a second, “we are adopted in to sonship”

Continue to read 22-27

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

Beginning of chapter 8 seems to be talking about a present spirit filled life. In these later verses, Paul seems to be pointing to a future of the life in the spirit. Talks about the hope that we have and about eagerly awaiting all things being made new. Then he says we eagerly await our adoption to sonship.

But, vs 15 says we have been adopted into sonship… why the contradiction? Points to an already but not yet kingdom – Like the grads have already arrived, but haven’t fully arrived yet. Like a but wait, there’s more kingdom.

What does it mean to live in this already but not yet kingdom? Paul seems to suggest that one of the ways we know we’re living in this kingdom is how we respond to a broken world that is held by the bondage of the fall.

Paul says when creation sees the bondage, it groans… it longs for the day when all is made right. Paul says that to live a spirit filled life is to join in the with the groaning. To live a spirit filled life is to live in the hope that one day, Jesus will bring redemption to all of creation – no more pain, no more suffering, no more death, no more tears.

But what do we do in the meantime? That hope points us to the “not yet” aspect of the kingdom, but what about the already? Do we passively hope for the not yet? I don’t think so, that seems to go against Jesus’ prayer where he prayed for God’s kingdom to break into earth as it is in heaven.

I think we can gain some insight by looking at the imagery that Paul uses about the groaning – the pains of Childbirth

If anyone knows anything about pregnancy, you know that it is anything but a passive, sit idly by and wait kind of ordeal.

A pregnant mother doesn’t just sit idly by awaiting the arrival of the baby, the new life. For the first few months, she is simply trying to survive, hoping that the foods that she has loved for so long don’t suddenly turn on her and throw her into some intimate time with the toilet. Too much?

After she survives that, the rest of the time is focused on protecting the baby and providing all the necessary nutrition to keep the baby healthy. Not to mention the final week or two of the pregnancy we’ve come to know as nesting where final preparations around the house are made. IT IS VERY MUCH AN ACTIVE ANTICIPATION!

This is the kind of anticipation required of a spirit filled life, a life in the already but not yet kingdom. We long for the day when Christ makes all things new, and while we wait, we bring about glimpses of that redemption here and now.

So when global health crises illuminate inequalities in access to healthcare, we don’t just chalk it up to the way things will always be. We work to bring about the kingdom of heaven.

When entire people groups are still targets of hatred and oppression based solely on the way they look or their religious preferences, we don’t just blame it on the heart condition. We work to bring about the kingdom of heaven.

And when countless number of human beings are still being trafficked for different purposes, we work to bring about the kingdom of heaven.

The list could go on and on, but the point is we act. We understand that Jesus wants to use us, right now, to work toward our future hope. To bring about the kingdom of heaven. We do something. Even if we don’t know what to do.

Paul talks about how the spirit intercedes on behalf of us in our times of groaning… in those times when we don’t know what else to say and all we can do is groan, the spirit speaks on our behalf. I also think that the work of the spirit is, in the midst of the times when we know we have to act but we don’t know what to do, to guide us into appropriate action… if we will just submit to that guidance.

So grads, you’ve arrived. But there is so much more for you! Church, most of you have arrived at salvation, but there is so much more for you! Some of you may have even arrived at the point that we Wesleyans call sanctification… dare I even say to you, but wait, there’s more!

So grads and church, it is my prayer that we will be a people who embraces the tension of the already but not yet. That we would look forward to and long for the day when Christ redeems it all, but that we would also be a people who takes seriously the prayer of Jesus to bring the kingdom of heaven here to earth. That our actions would reflect those of a people who aren’t content with just sitting by and waiting for heaven to fix it all, but will do radical things to bring heaven here, now.

Benediction:

Now go in the spirit, the one who makes adoption into sonship a reality now, longing for the day when full adoption into sonship is possible. Go, groaning with creation, but not letting your groaning be enough, making his kingdom come, his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen