All right, it's good morning, good to be with you guys here today and online. Thank you for joining us online as well. If you're a guest with us here or online, we're really glad that you're here. I hope that you feel welcome and wanted because you are. And we're going to continue a sermon series that we started a few weeks ago. So go ahead and turn with me to Romans chapter 8, Romans chapter 8. And in a moment, I'll read Romans 8, 18 through 25. While you're turning there, I'll tell you about this story I heard about a pastor named Robert. And he tells this story of a time when he noticed that his neighbors were leaving their Christmas lights up long after Christmas. In fact, it was near the end of January and he was thinking to himself, why haven't they taken down their Christmas lights and they were on every night. And then in the middle of February, he said to his wife, if I was going to be so lazy that I wouldn't take my Christmas lights down, at least I wouldn't turn them on every night. And then in mid-March, things became clear. He was coming from work and he saw that there was a sign over the door of this neighbor's house and it had three words on it, welcome home, Jimmy. And it turns out that this mom and dad knew that their son, Jimmy, would finally be able to come home from active duty in the military in March. And so they were waiting to celebrate Christmas with Jimmy. And so they left their lights up as a symbol of hope, the hope that he was coming.
Man, hope. Hope is something that we just absolutely need. We're not designed to function without hope. And we have a God who knows that and who wants us to have hope, to be filled with hope. And so we're going to hear from his word this morning and we're going to hear about something that he knows gives us great hope. You know, we've been in this short series that we've been calling reset. We had reset number one where we were focusing on the fact that through faith in Christ, we're set free from the penalty of sin. Last week Pastor Steve took us through reset number two where we focused on how through faith in Christ we're set free from the power of sin. And this week is reset number three where we're focusing on how through faith in Christ we will be set free from the very presence of sin. And as we seek to understand this through what the Apostle Paul says here in a few other places, it's going to fill us with hope. In fact, he uses the word hope five times in this passage. So let's look at Romans 18 through 25 and then we'll talk about this beautiful promise that through faith in Christ we will be set free from the very presence of sin. Here now God's holy true and life giving word.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility not willingly but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now and not only the creation but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly and as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he sees but if we hope for what we do not see we wait for it with patience. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Father we praise you we thank you that you would speak to us today through your word and spirit we thank you holy spirit that you will open our eyes to the glory of Christ as proclaimed in this passage we do pray Lord Jesus that as we learn about you and what you are preparing us for and preparing for us that our hearts would be filled with hope a hope that would overflow to our neighbors and even to the nations. Now would you use this time Lord to grow us in our faith and as well in our excitement about our mission to continue to make disciples so be with us now we pray in Jesus name amen. So as we're thinking about these promises that are made to those who believe the gospel we're thinking about this third promise now so promise number one we're set free from the penalty of sin promise number two from the power of sin and today we're thinking about the fact that we will be set free from the very presence of sin and as we'll see that is a tremendous source of hope so I want to look at three things that Paul touches on here in this passage one a fully restored place okay he's going to give us a window into what the world will be like where we will live in the future those of us who believe now a fully restored people he points to our bodies what will happen with our bodies we'll talk about that and then a fully restored presence as well the presence of sin will be gone but the presence of someone will be here in full so those three things a fully restored place a fully restored people and a fully restored presence let's start with a fully restored place look at verse 20 through 22 and notice here what Paul is getting at is that when Christ returns he will set the the world or the natural order of things free from the presence and effects of sin it's going to set the earth set the natural order of things free from the presence and effects of sin to understand this we have to recognize that the world number one is not what it once was and yet is also nowhere near what it will be we're in this in between phase where the world has been affected by the sin of humanity Adam and Eve in the garden in fact what we see in Genesis is that when humanity sinned when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden it brought a curse not only on humanity which is why human beings are messed up but also on the creation Paul says here on the natural order of things the world itself and all of creation fact in Genesis 3 17 as God is talking to Adam about the consequences of his sin he says cursing is the ground because of you and what he's talking about there is the the whole natural order of things all of nature is broken now Paul talks about that here in this passage but he says it this way look at verse 20 he says the creation was subjected to futility futility another way to translate that word would be deprivation so the sin of Adam and Eve actually plunged the world into a very deprived state the world is deprived of its fullness and glory in fact everything we've seen in the world even the most beautiful things we've ever seen on this planet are very much deprived of the glory that the world once had and will have again look at verse 21 and another way he refers to the effects of the fall on the world on the natural order he says that the creation itself will be set free so it's not yet will be set free from its bondage to corruption that also explains why the world is a messed up place why things don't work why things wear out why things get old why things die because the world is the natural order of things is in bondage to corruption and that word corruption there we usually think of moral corruption and there is moral corruption in the world but Paul's actually talking about physical corruption there another way to say that would be that the world will be set free from its bondage to decay to the fact that things break down things wear out they stop working the reason you have to buy new things every once in a while it's not only because of planned obsolescence so the companies make you buy more things but also because the world's in bondage to decay everything breaks down second law of thermodynamics things go from order to chaos because of the curse that's the state of the world and so everything breaks down but also that's the cause of all natural disasters this is the reason that there are hurricanes and tornadoes and floods and earthquakes and forest fires and droughts and blights these things that cause so much sadness in the world are really a result of the fall and the brokenness of the place in which we live of the world in which we live this curse is very hard and it shows the seriousness of sin but it also explains why we live in a world that's very much deprived of what it once was and what it will be and is very much in bondage to decay and break down and that would be really sad news if that were the end of the story but it's not and that's what Paul's talking about here that's not the end of the story in fact what he's talking about is that when Christ came and lived and died and was buried and rose again from the dead he began what we might call the reverse of the curse that in Christ God is bringing about the reverse of this curse and its effects the false effects on this world on the place in which we live in fact you have sung this way more than you realize because every Christmas we should probably sing this Christmas song at Easter too but every Christmas we sing a song and we sing exactly about this and the hymn the Christmas Carol is joy to the world and you'll recognize this in that third stand so we sing no more let sins or sorrow grow nor thorns infest the ground i think i started this too high he comes to make his blessings flow where how as far as his curse is found far as the curse is found sing it far as far as the curse is found you see that you've been singing this your whole life as Christ has come died was buried and rose from the dead he has now begun the reverse of the curse and he's going to take his blessings of renewal of life of restoration not decay of fullness not deprivation he's going to bring his blessing as far as the curse is found all over the world that's good news and you may say well that it doesn't look like the curses reversed because we still have those things we still have tornadoes and hurricanes i mean hello we have hurricanes floods earthquakes forest fires yeah that's the thing is the bible does not teach that these things are going to gradually go away but it's going to be intense until the moment Christ returns and makes all things new and then all these things are done forever he actually the the way he illustrates this is really quite interesting look at verse 22 he illustrates it with childbirth he says the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now and if you know anything about childbirth you know that it's intense from when labor begins to when baby is there with permission i'll tell you about when one of our children was born my wife was in labor and she had begun to push and after a real hard time of pushing she screamed out to me how long has it been and i risked my life to tell her the truth and i said at eight eight minutes and here's the thing she kept pushing and eventually that child was born now but here's what's amazing and this is what i've heard all that tension and pain and pushing and hurt and anguish as soon as that baby is in the arms of the mother it's like that never happened it's just
in all the focuses on this beautiful little baby and that's that's the illustration that Paul uses about what's going to happen with this natural world for now it is chaotic things break down there are natural disasters and it's going to stay intense but when Christ comes back all at once the baby is here so to speak the the anguish is over and we live in a world that is made new and the presence of sin and its effects are gone and so everything works wonderfully and everything is peaceful and everything is beautiful and as Christians see we get to live with this hope we get to live knowing that the world will not always be the way it is now every time we see a natural disaster every time we think about the effects of the fall on this world we get to have that hope that this is temporary this is temporary Christ will come he will return and make things new and that will be permanent so we have this hope of a fully restored place but not only that you and I who believe will also be part of a fully restored people look at verse 23 a fully restored people when Christ returns he will set his people free from the presence and the effects of sin I love how Paul connects what's going on in creation with what's what's going on in our bodies look what he says verse 23 and not only creation in other words not only creation is waiting to be set free but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons the redemption of our bodies there's so many radical implications to what Paul is saying here he's but he is focusing in on our actual physical bodies that our bodies will be set free from the effects of the fall and not that will be in some ethereal state that we just don't have a body anymore no no no we actually will have bodies glorified bodies the theologian say and it's uses that word redemption the redemption of our bodies Paul loves that word by the way uses it all the time and it's about a release it's about a delivery a deliverance from something but what our bodies will be delivered from is not our bodies but the brokenness of them the failures the pains Jesus promises to his followers in John 640 and other places he says for this is the will of my father that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day and what he's talking about there is in the in the exact same way that Jesus died was buried and then rose from the dead and had a resurrected body you and I who believe will also die be buried and then be raised from the dead when he returns and have a resurrected body a glorified body when he said follow me he meant all the way
see us Lewis and his essay the weight of glory says if we could see a a glorified body someone whose body had been already glorified we could see someone whose body had been glorified we would be tempted to fall down and worship remember humanity at like the world has been deprived of our full glory we've been subject to decay just like the world Randy Alcorn says the most beautiful person you've ever seen is still under the curse we don't even we may have begun to see what humanity will be what we will be this affects our lives we think about our bodies a lot we think about what we look like a lot right we have sayings right this is not a dad bod this is a father figure right we have all these things because we recognize that but it's and it's not just like trying to stay in shape it's also far worse it's there's pain so many people in our church in this world literally wrestle with pain sometimes debilitating pain every day and you should hear our God saying this is not the way it's supposed to be and it's not the way that it will be loved one think of what John says in Revelation 214 he says he God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and death shall be no more neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away when Christ returns and sets us free from the presence and effects of sin all of these causes of pain and the human body will be gone forever no more headaches no more flu no more coughs colds allergies asthma arthritis arthritis no more COVID-19 no more diabetes no more celiac disease no more chronic pain of any type no more rheumatoid arthritis Crohn's and colitis migraines heart attacks cancer AIDS tuberculosis starvation malnutrition disease all of those things that just wreak havoc on our bodies and causes have so much pain never to be seen again but instead these glorified bodies that perfect and we feel good all the time some of you are saying right now I don't remember the last time I felt well you will you will feel and the best part is and we tend to get fixated on the relief from the pain and the decay of our bodies and we should God wants us to be fixated on that but we also when we are set free from the presence of sin we also will be set free from the ability to sin we won't sin the more we know Christ the more beautiful this fact becomes that we once he has made all things new and given us these glorified bodies we won't even want to sin and we won't be able to non-possite PCA if you remember what Steve was talking about last week can you imagine never having a wrong thought again for eternity can you imagine never having a wrong feeling for eternity can you imagine never doing the wrong thing ever again for all eternity can you imagine knowing everything you do glorifies God and simultaneously gives you full joy
this is big hope and by the way this is the only place you get this in the IT world there's proprietary software where you can only get it from one company okay this is proprietary hope this is the only place we find this hope listen to this Johnny Erickson taught us I mean you know who she is excellent teacher she has been a quadriplegic since she was 17 when she was 17 she dove into a lake that was more shallow than she realized and she was paralyzed broker neck paralyzed from basically the shoulders down and God has used Johnny in a multiplicity of wonderful ways and she's a writer and here's what she says here's what somebody who's been a quadriplegic for over four decades says about this hope I still can hardly believe it I with shriveled bent fingers atrophied muscles narrowed knees and no feeling from the shoulders down will one day have a new body light bright enclosed in righteousness powerful and dazzling can you imagine the hope this gives to someone with a spinal cord injury like me or someone who has cerebral palsy or a brain injury or someone who has multiple sclerosis imagine the hope this gives to someone who is manic depressive and then she nails it listen to this she says no other religion no other philosophy promises new bodies hearts and minds only in the gospel of Christ do hurting people find such incredible and what locks this in friends is the resurrected and glorified body of Christ okay there's such a clear pattern as I said before when Christ said follow me he meant all the way that we too will die we will be buried we will be raised from the dead first Corinthians 15 22 Paul says that's the order for as an atom all die so also in Christ shall all be made alive but each in his own order Christ the first fruits then at his coming those who belong to Christ so as we believe that Christ has been raised from the dead that is what's designed not only to tell us that his payment for sin on the cross is accepted by God and that through faith in him we're reconciled but also to tell us that's our future that's where we're going we're following him all the way to a glorified body living in a restored place as a restored people you can't get hope like this anywhere else but there is more look at verse 23 and 24 third we'll talk about a fully restored presence okay when Jesus sets us free from the very presence of sin we're going to live in this new place new world world made new where the presence of sin is gone we're going to be renewed people have resurrected bodies where the presence of sin is not affecting us and also when Christ returns we're going to live in the presence of God he'll remove the presence of sin and the very presence of God will come Paul hints at this in verse 23 and not only the creation but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit what is he talking about the first fruits of the spirit God is dwelling on earth right now through the Holy Spirit who indwells believers so the first fruits of the return of the presence of God to earth is in us but it's just the first fruits it's not the whole harvest the whole harvest comes when Christ comes to make all things new when God himself returns to earth to live with his people this is what John tells us in Revelation 213 and behold I heard a loud voice from the throne saying behold the dwelling place of God is with man he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God that God in his fullness his presence returned to earth and we live with him maybe this is what Paul is referring to in verse 18 when he said for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us as if when we see the presence of God returned when we are in the very presence of God without fear because we know that Christ has paid for our sins the glory that's going to be revealed to us in that moment is going to cause us to say that we can't even compare the amount of glory here with that little bit of suffering that we have and we will not be afraid and we will have that fullness of joy that is there in the presence of God because of Christ because Christ came and died the death we deserve to die because he was buried because he rose again from the dead if our faith is in him then we will be in the presence of God for all eternity the presence of God and if Paul is correct and he is then this is a big part of actually what we were saved into it's not just about what we were saved from but what we were saved to this renewed place with renewed people in the presence of our God renewed presence of God on earth Paul says this gives us a lot of hope look at verse 24 for in this hope we were saved in this hope new world new bodies return presence of God in this hope we were saved now hope that is seen as not hope for who hopes for what he sees but if we hope for what we do not see we wait for it with patience if we hope for what we do not see what do we not see we do not yet see the curse reversed we do not yet see the fullness of our humanity we do not yet see the presence of God here on earth but if we hope for that if we see with our ears if we hope for that then we wait for it with patience you know it's great about that word patience you could easily and maybe more accurately translate it with the word endurance endurance steadfastness patient endurance in other words Paul is saying look when we really believe that because of Christ we're going to live in this renewed world with resurrected bodies and the returned presence of God and we believe that we can endure anything we can endure and it's true beloved you can endure even those of you whom I know are in pain almost all the time you can endure not because of you but because of him and the hope that he wants weaved into the fabric of your very heart even now and hope is powerful hope is powerful gets us through anything in fact in 1965 James Stockdale who some of you would recognize as Admiral James Stockdale James Stockdale became one of the first American pilots to be shot down during the Vietnam War and as a prisoner of the Vietnam War he spent seven years as a prisoner of war during which he was frequently tortured in an attempt to break him and to get him to denounce US involvement in the war he was chained with his hands above his head for days at a time in terrible pain and not even able to swat away bugs crawling on him he was occasionally put in total isolation for long periods of time not seeing any of the other POWs it was unbelievable and now amazingly he survived he survived and he ended up returning home and many of you probably remember that he actually ran for president in the 90s and there was this sweet moment where the moderator of this debate asked Stockdale a question and he said I'm sorry my hearing aid was not turned on can you say that again and Stockdale chuckled in the audience chuckle you also may have noticed when he ran for president that he walks with a tremendous limp and that's because his captors beat him so mercifully and one time they broke his leg and they didn't even reset it and so one time Admiral Stockdale was asked how did you survive seven years of torture and his answer was really one word hope hope that he would one day be released hope that maybe each day each morning he hoped that that would be the day in which he could be released and he ended up saying that he knew he had to keep up hope because the other POWs that were dying they were dying if anything from hopelessness and he said hope gets you through anything and he's absolutely right and God knows that and God wants us to know that and God wants us to have that he wants us to have this hope of this glorious future that only he can provide but he has and will provide in Christ because in Christ you and I who believe we're set free from the penalty of sin will never be judged or condemned for our sin in Christ we're set free from the power of sin we're not under sins dominating power anymore and you and I get to live with the hope every single day that one day Christ will return and set us free from the very presence of sin we'll have this renewed earth resurrected bodies in the returned presence of the king and all the pleasures forevermore that come with it that's our hope let's pray father as we feel the effects of the fall in so many ways on this world and on our bodies would you make us a people that abound and hope through what you've already done for us in Christ and what you've promised to do when he returns would you help us to be a people who have so much hope that it spills out to our neighbors and even to the nations thank you Lord that you have given us this hope in Christ in Jesus' name we pray