Christ Life In Us Romans 8:23-24 We Believe and Hope for Its Completion

So this morning, we've been just sort of, if you don't come to Holly Hills every week, I kind of bring you up to speed on how we do things. We're a Bible teaching church, and we teach line from line, line for line from God's word. That's what we do. Sunday schools, main service.

And so we've been doing, a trip through Romans 5.12 through the end of eight. So we're getting close to the end of eight.

And we have arrived at verse 24. So to start with today, as we work through this, really what our intent is to open up the verses as best we can and show what the apostle meant, hopefully, when he wrote them. So, first, I'm gonna start at 18. which was read, I consider that the sufferings of this present time aren't worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed in us. Heck of a comparison, because my sufferings are usually a bigger deal to me than the glory, unless I learn about the glory. for the anxious longing of the creation awaits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. And we talked about that last week.

What scripture does here is it ties the longing of the creation, which was submitted to vanity with the revealing of the sons of God. So the earth or the creation and the sons of God or like this, nothing happens to one without the other. For their creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it. So, in 21, the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery and corruption.

How's that gonna happen? When, or into, the freedom of the glory of the children of God. So it's interesting that the word of God doesn't tell us that God is gonna come along and he's just gonna release the creation without us. And when I'm talking about the children of God, I'm talking about every one of you. We're all gonna be there in glory. when the Lord Jesus releases the creation from the futility that he has subjected it to.

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers in pains of childbirth together until now. So the word for here, introduces a proof of the hope, it doesn't introduce the proof of the bondage. For we know, even though the creation is groaning and suffering, the pains of childbirth together until now, we know always is an expression of Christian knowledge. The writer here, Paul, is assuming that you have this knowledge and you know that the word for introduces the hope, not the bondage. Hope that makes sense.

So, now, the verses for today, and not only so, but we, all ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. So adoption has to do with redemption of your body. You think about it, when you got saved, Your spirit was indwelt and regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Your soul is being renewed, but your body is still dying.

I can attest to that over the last month. It is, it's gonna die, and we'll talk more about that. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for why does one hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. So, it's interesting, we are waiting for something. We're hanging around, waiting. Grown in travail and pain together until now.

That together, Ever since Adam disobeyed God and committed the first sin, the curse lies on all the earth. Isn't it interesting that when Adam sinned, God didn't curse Adam, he cursed the creation. Well, because all creation is alienated from God, the results appropriately groaning and travailing are everywhere, and we talked a lot about that last week. You know, there isn't anything in your life that you have built or bought or that isn't deteriorating.

And probably the best example for all of us is the human body. Now, over here we have a bunch of young people, they don't believe that statement. But over here we got some older folks, they believe it. And the car you bought will rust. The house you bought, the paint will fade. The shingles will fall off.

Everything you do, the travailing and painful that creation looks forward to birth up to this moment. In other words, the whole creation is looking forward to an event of birth. It's like a mother. in labor pains that looks forward to the birth of the child. And once the birth happens, the pains seem to be forgotten. It's really, really joyful. But in the meantime, there's pain.

So there's no evolution involved in this word. We're not gonna get better. even though some of you in the back of your mind are really hoping you are, but the opposite, until Christ shall come with the liberty of the glory. That's what we're looking forward to. We're not looking to get better. And I, for one, like a lot of people here, I've always exercised taking care of myself, and you know what? My body's still going to pot. So.

For we know that the whole creation groans and travails together up to this point. So together refers to the common longing of all the elements of the creation. The creation moans, the creation groans, so do we. but not to its longing in common with God's children. The creation moans and groans about one issue. We moan and groan about a different one. It's not the same. The fallen creation longs to be released from the futility or vanity or, as we learned last week, that the word is best described as unattainment.

God built a creation brought it into existence, it had a perfect purpose, it was good, every day he finished, he said it was good, it was good, it was good, and he did it to glorify himself. And then he put a man in charge of it, and that was good too. But he gave man the responsibility to take care of it, and when man fell, the creation fell, and the creation is focused on being released from that unattainable ability that it has. It can't do what it was designed to do by God.

But the believer's longing isn't for relief, but for the glory to be revealed. You and I, look forward, yeah, a lot of times we talk about, gee, Lord, would you please take the pain away or please fix the circumstances like this morning. Courtney, one of the things we should have prayed for was AT&T. We believers long, if we're informed, for the revealing of the glory of the sons of God. Wow, that's different. That is really different. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to what? Relief? No. The glory is to be revealed where? In us. In us. And what are we waiting for?

We have the first fruit to the spirit, we're saved, our spirits are made alive, our souls are being transformed, but we're groaning, we're groaning, and we're waiting eagerly for this thing called adoption. But he defines right here what adoption is. Adoption is the redemption of your body.

Adoption or son placing, if you look that word up, it doesn't mean like we in our society means that we went and adopted, say, a little baby from an orphanage. That's not what this word means. This word means in the Greek and the Roman culture, you take a man, he may not even be your physical offspring, and you place him as a son in your family. and he has the rights of inheritance. And the other thing that you find out about that is that once that adoption ceremony takes place, the son at that point has every right to the wealth that the father has, every right. And that's why Paul uses this word.

Born-again believers have already received adoption. You've already been placed as a son because you're led by the Spirit. You're the son of God, a legitimate, organic offspring of the God of the universe, every one of you. Adoption or son-placing is when our mortal bodies have been quickened and the corruption has put on incorruption and they will possess all of the sonship involved.

That was a good quote from Denny. So what we're waiting for is the revealing of the sons of God. Well, the entire glorification of a human being, a member of the body of Christ, the son of God, isn't complete until he has a glorified body. So that's what we wait for. So we're not really hanging around and waiting for the pain to go away or the futility to go away. We've got a specific thing we're waiting for, and we're eagerly doing that. We believers are looking for the revealed glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, which glory He is gonna share with us now. So when we talk about sharing, I know how you think.

Let's see, maybe there's gonna be 10 billion Christians. So I'm gonna get one 10 billionth of God's glory. No, you're gonna get it all. Every single one of us gets all of it. and only God could do that. So imagine what that day is gonna be like. Here comes the Lord Jesus in glory to the earth, and we come with it, with him, in glorified bodies, and it's gonna be kind of bright out when that happens. You could spend a whole afternoon just thinking about that. And not only so, but we, repeating the verse, we also, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for the adoption of sons.

This is our personal connection with the creation as a Christian. They grown, we grown. They're waiting, we're waiting. They're waiting for something different than we're waiting for, but both events, both satisfactions happen at one event. We know, having the mind of Christ, we know that the world which flesh is trying to improve as its home is groaning and travailing in pain until now through the fall. Raise your hand. if you're not trying to improve where you live, what you have, and what you got. We all do it, but we also understand as believers that through grace and deliverance and reconciliation, we've already received that. But the part of the thing that we're waiting for is the ultimate fix of our body.

I was thinking today, this week, I had a PET scan. They're kind of fun. They pump this, what they call radioactive sugar, I love the term, into your vein, right? And so you gotta sit around for 45 minutes while the sugar does, and then they put you in the tube and turn on the machine and they're looking for stuff. They can't figure out what's wrong with me, so they're hoping something lit up.

Well, they have a much, they're much more optimistic than I am. My primary doctor, I talk to him about the Lord all the time, and he's very polite to me, but I don't think he knows what I'm talking about, anyway. He said, my job is to keep you alive as long as I can, as best I can. I said, well, my job is to get to glory as fast as I can.

So we being creatures must wait for the redemption of this, the actual adoption and salvation. The salvation we already have, the redemption of the body and of the purchased possession in a general sense, they go together. the redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, we already have that. But the spirit we have received in result is only the earnest of the rest of it. It is, in a sense, we are saved in hope.

Everybody who's ever bought a house knows what earnest money is, right? You put a contract together and say the house costs $500,000 and you give them a check for, I don't know, $20,000. What does that $20,000 represent? It's the earnest money. That money says that I plan to carry out the rest of the contract.

Well, the Spirit of God is the earnest for our glory. He's the guarantee. Nice to have that guarantee, okay? So what was in God's purpose to give us in salvation that we don't have yet? That is, in glory with Christ. He had a purpose. But the work is finished, which saves us, and we have it by the Holy Spirit. We stand, having received the Holy Spirit, between the accomplished work which saves us and entitles us to inheritance, and we know it's accomplished, having nevertheless been sealed for the day of redemption.

You know, even if you wanted to miss that day, you're not gonna. You're not gonna be out to lunch when this happens. You're not gonna be on the other line. When the glory starts, you're gonna be there in a glorified body. And the exercise of power which shall bring the full redemption is when Jesus comes again. And he's gonna be, I mean, you can't conjure up in your mind what a spectacular event that's gonna be, but it's gonna be something else. In the meanwhile, we have these earthen vessels, our unredeemed bodies. under deemed as to power and deliverance.

You can't deliver your own body. I went to a doctor's appointment a couple of weeks ago with my son John and he was helping me and we were walking out of the hospital and he looked at me and he said, Dad, if Adam hadn't sinned, this building wouldn't be here. You get what he was saying? You don't need a medical society if Adam doesn't sin. you don't have a fall. For the body also belongs to the Lord, bought with a price. Your body and my body belong to the Lord, he bought it on the cross.

And though we have the first fruits of the spirit, for the spirit again will be poured out in the latter reign of the millennial blessing, we've talked a lot about the millennial kingdom. We suffer with him who suffered here. J.D. talked about that in Sunday school this morning about suffering and suffering for Christ. Suffering because you're a believer. No other reason. If you're a believer, you're gonna suffer for the gospel.

You're connected with the glorious inheritance by the spirit and with the creation fallen in the first Adam by the body. So your and my link to the fallen creation is this. this. So we groan, even though we're saved by hope, and we'll talk about hope in a minute, for the redemption of the body.

And we wait for that, the inheritance with patience, and you don't see it for that which is not seen. So Notice how the Spirit does not take us out of sympathy with a groaning creation. I've never known him to do that. I mean, they're still waiting for AT&T, but they're still groaning.

But rather than support us as such in sympathy, being ourselves as the body in groaning condition, we're longing to be clothed upon our house which is from heaven. I can't wait to have a new body, something I don't have to take care of, and something I don't have to take Tylenol to make it work.

We're able to sympathize with the creatures around us, which is really a good thing, because it makes us understand what they're going through. When a non-believer is suffering, I think the only person qualified to walk next to them is a believer. They're the only ones that really know what the suffering's all about, what the fall of creation really means. There's no focus on trying to get better or evolve into a better state. You're suffering, it hurts, I'll walk with you.

Believers understand that. but we're waiting eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our body. It's an eager wait. It's an eager wait. We are, not that it's on your mind all the time, but it's a marvelous position then, is the Christian in. Our heavenly side, the side of grace, in Christ sharing his risen life delivered from sin and law and all worldly things.

As we go through Paul's epistles, what do we find out? I have been crucified with Christ. What does that mean? I have been separated from sin I have been separated from legalism, and I have been separated from the world. Now, I may not live it, I may not act like it, but that's what God says, and that's the very food of our faith.

On the other hand, not yet partakers of glory, though expecting and waiting for it, but kept in an unredeemed body. You know, have you ever had this thought, Lord, why didn't you do it that way? Why didn't you just give us a new body and we moved on?

Well, if you understand that God does everything he does to glorify himself, somehow he gets more glory out of this program than he would if he'd have just done it. So, even though we're not partakers of the glory, though we're expecting it, and we're awaiting it, but kept in unredeemed bottles, not fitted yet for heaven, in which the longing spirit, knowing itself, prepared to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, we can only grow in it.

I know that about myself. You know that about yourself. You know what God is doing. Every day there's a, maybe today's the day. I'm gonna take a little bit different track. Go back to John 11, 25, when Jesus said to Mary, I am the resurrection and the life, and he who believes in me shall live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? And Mary said, oh yeah, I got it. No, she didn't. No, she didn't. What's he doing?

He's teaching that the believer's physical death is not the important thing. That's not the important, although, I gotta tell you, we think like that. The believer only dies in the sense that he goes through the door that we call death, but he never dies in a foolish sense. So what does that leave us with?

Physical death is a gateway. It is an advancement. It is a graduation. It's a promotion to what? Into the presence of the Lord. That's what it really is. And this reason, this is the reason that Paul uses the term sleep for a believer's physical death. It's interesting why he does that. This is the reason, 1 Corinthians 15, 51. Behold, I tell you a mystery.

We shall not all sleep. What does he mean? But we shall all be changed. Not everybody's gonna die physically, but we're all gonna be changed into that glory. Or 1 Corinthians 11, 30 says, for this reason, many among you are weak and sick, and in number sleep. What does that mean? They left, they went through the door.

The words lives and believes are tied together in one article. The force of this is that one must believe while he's physically alive. He who believes while he lives. That's the thrust of what he's saying. The words shall never die have a double negative meaning that it's an emphatic statement. He who believes in me will live and he will never, never, never die. Not talking about physical death.

Now, here at Holly Hills, we've been blessed by believers in our church family who have exhibited these traits in their life. There are men and women who understand God's word regarding these principles that one who believes in him shall live even if he dies. That's one of the really cool things about this church is the attitude we have. When you think about it, in all of society, there are two kinds of human beings. The first kind are non-believers, and they experience all the groaning we've been talking about and the travailing. but he looks only for relief from the pain.

That's all he's interested in. And when he approaches physical death, he will try to fill up as much as he can of his life with the things from this fallen world. How many people have I known that said, boy, you know, I've got, I got a cancer diagnosis and I'm gonna live six months, so I'm gonna, what I really wanna always do is travel. or I wanted to do this or I wanted to do that. Problem is, to him, it's the end of everything he knows. Physical death is the end. Now, contrast him with, on the other hand, a believer who has been taught by the Holy Spirit these verses and his identification with Christ and his death and resurrection. He has an entirely different viewpoint. Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? Yeah, I believe it.

So they are prepared to be the partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Don't we all know that if we die today, where are we going? We go to glory. That's why we refer to it as that. They understand that the entrance and completion into glory means that they leave here and they go there. They understand that we leave here and we go there this fast. So what's the door through which believers go through in order to get to glory?

It's physical death, that's what it is. It's really simple. So as a blessed body to have had members here who understand this principle and lived their lives every day expectantly waiting, you know who they were? The latest ones are Bob and Joanne Lockwood. They're examples of this. If you knew them or watched them or hung around with them, this was their attitude. I never saw an ounce of fear in them. about dying. They both knew and were convinced and placed their hope in the biblical principles that they knew.

Joanne Lockwood may have been one of the most spiritually savvy women I've ever met, but I couldn't get her to teach. I don't know why. And Bob, I used to tell Bob for years, I said, Bob, you're my hero. And he'd look at me like, what are you, an idiot? I said, Bob, I said, you have such a way about you that you're just a blessing to everybody that comes around you. And not only that, at 65, you can hit a golf ball farther than anybody I've ever seen. I said, I want to be as physically fit as you are when I'm your age.

So we're always blessed by their normal but edifyingly observable lives. You look around in a body of believers and ones that are savvy about what is really going on and you watch how they live and watch how they do, they edify you because they know.

So we honor Bob today and we thank the Lord for him. We also understand we're groaning as we look forward to the one goal, the liberty of the coming of the glory of the sons of God. Just so you probably already know this, but, did I go back? How did I do that? All of us, with the Lakwas, will be at the revealing of the sons of God. Every single one of us. That's really cool. Okay, finish up the verses.

In hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for why does one also hope for what he sees? Now, I took a page here. Helmer Lloyd, years ago, probably in the 90s, did a thing on faith. So I took some of that information and I put it together and you'll see why as it comes together. He started out, Hebrews 11, one, is the biblical definition of the word hope. I'm sorry, the word faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and it's the evidence of things not seen.

So we have just found out that hope that is seen is not hope, for why does one also hope for what he sees? So what is this hope? And whose hope is it? Is it our hope? The text clearly defines it. He says it's the hope of God, it's not our hope. It's part of that life that's been given us. Now here's where it got tricky. The essence of faith is the substance of things hoped for.

Now he did a diagram, and I'll try to explain it as we go along. Those of you who made it through English class, English grammar class, probably understand what a diagram is. The word faith here is the subject, the word is is the verb, and substance and evidence are the direct objects. So faith is, and this is an essence verb, it wants to be like it, it is substance, it is evidence.

So if you go on, faith is the substance of things hoped for. Oh, okay. Lock that into your mind. Faith and substance go together. Now, the things, what are the things? The substance of the things, hope for. What are the things? They are the things of God.

So, the word hope is an absolute certainty, an absolute confidence, as to who God is and who Jesus Christ is. Hope, God's absolute confidence in his own glory. When Paul writes, faces the substance and evidence or reality and proof, he's talking about whatever God says or writes is absolutely true and it's proof, it's proof. That's what this word means here. It's that we are rejoicing in who he is, and we're absolutely certain about what he says. And confidence, a confidence, so, of, now look at the, put the, I don't know what they call those. Faith is substance or reality of things hoped for. Well, the thing we've been talking about this morning, what does the thing hope for? It's the revealing of the glory of the sons of God. Okay. Do I see it yet? No. What are the things?

The things that we're talking about in context here are the things of God. Everything that's related to God, this is what he's doing. And when we talk about God, we're talking about the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, everything that's related to them, everything. So the things are the things that we hope for, the things that God has told us about, like revealing of the sons of God, the release of the creation into the glory of the sons of God. He says so. Hope for, in our vernacular, we would understand hope to mean, oh, I wish it was so. We would think it was a wish.

It doesn't have that meaning in Greek. What it has is the word el, I can't say that word, elpizo, means confidence, certainty, not only certainty, but absolute certainty. The believer who walks by faith There is substance of the things of God, and he has absolute certain confidence that they're true. There's no debate.

So you can translate it this way, that faith is reality, reality of the things of God, which are in absolute certainty. Now, This ties in with the word hope. Now, the verse goes on, the evidence of things not seen. See that line pointing back to the subject, the top red line that goes from evidence back to faith, that line there? It means that this relates to the subject, the reality relates to the subject, it defines it, and by this line, evidence or proof relates to the subject. So faith, faith, faith is all of these things, and hope is one of them. So here's the proof of what? It's of things. What things? The things of God. What things of God?

The things that we're not able to see. I can't see the glory. I mean, I can't even see my own salvation. I can't even see that I was crucified with Christ. I wasn't there when he did it. The verb seen is not the word for perception. This word is blepo, which means not to visually see, but that which we visually see or something that we can't visually see. What's it saying? That we can't visually see the things of God. You can't see them this way.

You have to energize, exercise, and believe and trust God by faith that they're true, and then you'll see them. But they're real. They're absolutely real. real and they are reality. This whole thing of Romans 8 right here about waiting for the revealing of the sons of God, is that just a story or is it real? It's real.

Now, so in hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. So if I saw it all, I wouldn't hope for it. I'd have it. When we leave and go through that door and enter up into glory, there isn't gonna be any more faith and there isn't gonna be any more hope. Why? Because we're gonna be in the reality of it. We'll know, we'll be right there. For if we hope for that, we do not see, we must persevere to wait eagerly for it. This places us alongside creation and hope. For we hope, for in hope we have been saved unto a state of hope we have been saved.

In other words, when whoever led you to the Lord Jesus gave you the gospel message and you believed it, did you kind of hope he was right? Or were you absolutely persuaded by the Spirit of God that this is reality? You may not the first day, but the spirit takes it upon himself to persuade you. He's the greatest persuader ever. So there is a longing for and an expectation for things better.

What is long for the liberty of the glory that belongs to God's grace and who does it belong to? The children of God. Creation will share this liberty, but if we hope for that we don't see, we as perseverance wait eagerly for it. In other words, you know how on television they'll give you a, well, Tuesday night's episode of ABC, and then they give you a couple of clips. Well, you don't even get the clips. You have to retake God's word for what he says. Hope is expecting something specifically better. Well, the creation doesn't have any doubt about it. Humanity certainly has a doubt about it, but we don't. We know.

The very fact that we have not seen it, realized as of yet, causes within us that grace which is so precious to God, patience, patience. But note, it's not patience in the abstract that is set forth here, but patience waiting for the coming of the liberty of the glory of the children of God, you and me. So, the destiny, destiny is a good word, that we have coming, The glory that's gonna be shared with us, sometimes it's overwhelming, because when you think about it, if just going to heaven was what you were looking forward to, you wouldn't know anything about this glory.

But if you find out that you were taken out of Adam and placed into Christ, who is Christ? He's God. He's the second person of the Trinity. And he's gonna be, he's the God-man, and he's gonna be totally glorified with all of God's glory. And where are you? You're in him. Same, same. What a day. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you. Boy, what you have planned for us is hard to take in, but we don't see it. We see it in Your Word and we trust You and we have hope about it and faith in it. What You have done and what You intend to do is just, I pray today would be an impetus of how we live, eagerly looking forward to what You have in store for us. We thank You for that, Father, and we pray in Your Son's precious name, amen.