Romans chapter 8. Our text will be found in verse
23 and verse 24. The title of this message, Saved in Hope. Saved in Hope. The apostle says in verse 23,
and not only they, But we ourselves, which have
the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we, ourselves, grown within ourselves,
waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of the body. For we are saved in hope. I did that very specifically.
We are saved by faith. We're saved by grace through
faith. That's what is the constant theme of this book, is a justification
by faith. But now he says saved by hope,
but the word translated there should be better used, saved
in hope. In hope, and we'll get to the
reason why in just a moment. For we are saved in hope. But
hope that is seen is not hope. Now, if you see something, it's
not hope. If you've experienced it, it's
not hope. For what a man seeth, why is
he yet hopeful? But if we hope for that which
we see not, then what? We do with patience wait for
it. So now, After the Apostle has
set forth the cause of every believer's inward struggle. Remember
in chapter 7 he set forth the experience of every believer,
isn't it? The struggle within. Every believer
has a new and holy nature that was created of the Holy Spirit.
And we still have the old nature that is full of sin. And what is this cause? It causes
strife. It causes a warfare to be raged
within ourselves. So when he says something like
we groan within ourselves, we can refer back to that because
that's part of this, isn't it? We groan within ourselves. Paul
said, For I know that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Don't
you know that? You know that? You that believe
know that. That's the first part of our
salvation is to recognize that. That in my flesh doesn't dwell
anything that can merit the favor of God. In me dwelleth no good
thing. But we also know this as we have
believed. We know that that flesh is still
here. In my flesh right now dwelleth
no good thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. I want to
do what is good, but you know what? I can't find out how. Why?
Because everything I do is mixed with sin. wretched man that I
what am right now that's what Paul's saying about himself right
now Oh wretched man that I am who's going to deliver me from
the body of this death and immediately he comes back with this immediately
this is where faith and the Nate new nature of man by faith kicks
in he said I thank God that's that's just so I thank God through
Jesus Christ my Lord I am going to to be delivered. He has delivered
me, right now He's delivering me, and yet I know this, He shall
deliver me from the body of this death. I know one day He's going
to deliver me. This is the comfort of the gospel,
isn't it? And what is the conclusion of
that? What's the conclusion of our statement? There is therefore
now no condemnation. Those are in Christ Jesus. No
condemnation. Seeing Jesus Christ bore our
sins in His own body. That's what He tells us in verse
3. He says what we couldn't do.
The law was weak through the flesh. Now the law is not weak.
I am. God sending His Son in likeness
of sinful flesh. And what did He do? He condemned
sin in the flesh. Isn't that great? He condemned
sin in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. All my sins. And
so now that I'm free from the power of sin, sin always yields
one thing. What is that? Death. That's what he means when I'm
free from the power of sin. He says, I'm free from death.
Now how can that be? Well, the power of sin is what? The law. What gives sin the power
to condemn me to death is what? The law. But guess what? I'm
free from the law. I'm dead to the law through Jesus
Christ. And so we find by grace that
we are now led by the Holy Spirit. And what does he conclude this?
We're sons of God. That's a glorious conclusion,
isn't it? Though we have this struggle within ourselves, yet
there's no condemnation. That's a glorious thing, isn't
it? And yet, even though we struggle within ourselves, what else do
we find? We find this, that we have the Spirit of God dwelling
in us, and we are led by the Spirit of God. Well, how do you
know that? Do you believe on Christ? That's the first fruits of the
Spirit, isn't it? To believe on Christ. And so you're led
by the Spirit. What is His conclusion? You're
the sons of God. And if sons, then heirs of God. Join us with
Jesus Christ. And so we who are sons of God
having now the grace of God. You know, I ask God to give us
grace. But you know what? I'm asking
for something He's already promised. I'm asking for something He's
already given. I ask God for His love. Well, I'm asking for
something that God has already had and that He's already given
and that He promises to give. We have this. We have all the
love of God, the grace of God. And listen to me. Every promise
God makes to His sons are ours. Every promise. Everything God
promised His elect is ours. It belongs to us. So the question comes, why do
I then suffer? If all that's true, preacher,
if he's done all that for me, if he sent his son to die in
my stead so that I should be a son of the living God, if I
am a son of the living God, the question is, why do we suffer? It's a conflict. It's a struggle.
It causes us to groan within ourselves, doesn't it? Maybe
I'm the only one. Maybe I'm the only one groaning. I know I'm not. I know I'm not. Every believer asks this question.
It seems like a contradiction, doesn't it? If I'm an heir of
all things, then why does God ordain my suffering, because
we know that's true. If I'm suffering, God ordained
it. If I'm going through affliction, it's not by accident, not by
chance. God did it. I'm going to give
you the reason why you suffer. Pay attention. It is the will
and purpose of God. It is the will and purpose of
God, not just for you, but for every believer. Acts chapter
14 verse 22, when the apostle was confirming the souls, he
was encouraging them. They were suffering, they were
going through tortures, they were dying, they were being killed. And what he was encouraging them
to do what? To continue in the faith. And
listen to what he said. He said that we must, through
much tribulation, enter into the Kingdom of God. Now you pay
attention. Whatever you're suffering, it is necessary. My God would never do that unless
it was absolutely necessary. Now you don't know why it's necessary,
and God doesn't have to reveal to you why it's necessary. It is. What does that require? Does that not require faith?
Does that not really put trust to the test? You say, I trust
God. Do you? How do you know unless you find
yourself in a place where it seems to be a contradiction? Paul says in Philippians chapter
1 that it's a gift. You get that? Suffering's a gift.
He said not only is it given to you on the behalf of Jesus
Christ to believe on Him, but to suffer for His namesake. I don't often know how in the
world my suffering is for His namesake, but it is. I don't
know how my suffering is ever going to affect or be of use
to the kingdom of God, but it is. It has purpose. I may not know what it is, but
I know this. And Paul says, having this same conflict. You see that?
It's not just isolated. When we're suffering, we think
it's isolated. Nobody else is going through
anything like this. No, no. All of us. Paul said, even me. Especially me. So every believer has this same
conflict and paradox. It's a paradox that God loves
me with all of his being, and yet everything seems to be
opposed to me. Even my own self opposes it. We struggle with inward afflictions
and dark providences. Therefore, in the next few verses,
Paul will then testify to the remedy of the spirit so that
we might continue and endure in faith despite the conflict
and seeming contradictions of our standing and our present
state. What is your standing? Your standing
is there's no condemnation. What is your present state? Oh,
wretched man that I am. You see the contradiction? How
in the world are you going to endure such contradictions? The
remedy is this. Listen to me. Hope. Hope. He tells us in verse 18, he says,
these things should be compared. The suffering you face now and
the eternal glory that's going to be coming. When you put those
two things together, when you set those side by side, what
do you notice? One is very short and one is
very long. What's short? Suffering. Suffering
is short. Its duration is small. And I
mean, though you suffer your whole life, and I know this,
you've not suffered your whole life. You've had reprieves, haven't
you? You've had times of loathe, and
then God brings you up, and God then brings you back down and
brings you up. So, we're not talking about a whole life, but
suppose it was. Your whole life, you're like
Lazarus, who begged at the feet of that rich man's gate every
single day with sores and starvation, and he said, now compare what he
endured to what he has now. His little old life that didn't
last more than 50, probably 50 years or less, and he has been
over 2,000 years now experiencing joy. Is it worthy to be compared?
So where should you set your mind? You should set your mind
on what is yet to come more than what you're setting your mind
on here, on your suffering. And so the pain and sorrow we
feel now is fleeting. It is, isn't it? Doesn't feel
like it. Feels like it's an eternity.
But it's not. It's fleeting. And so in verses
18, 19 through 21, he gives the illustration of creation. He
gives the illustration of creation. When God made the world, He said
these words, Behold, it is very good. Everything God made in
this creation was good. Have you ever seen anything like
that? I've never seen anything like
that. We've never experienced a creation that did not groan,
that did not have death and sorrow and pain and misery. Listen,
he said the creation was made subject to vanity. What did the
preacher say in Ecclesiastes? Vanity of vanities. All is vanity
and vexation of spirit. That's what we find here, isn't
it, in this world? What Paul's talking about, this
creation is subject to vanity, emptiness. You know, if I could just get
this, then everything's going to be alright. You ever say that?
That foolish thing that goes through your head? You know,
if I could just get this, if I could get my business, if I
could just get my business just right here, then it's going to
be smooth sailing. We feed ourselves that line so
many times. There's nothing in this world
that's going to be smooth sailing. Man, the reason we're so depressed
is because we think there is. There's not. Why? This subject
to vanity, this creation. And listen, when it's going to
be... He said the creation waits. The creation is waiting for what?
The manifestation of the sons of God. What is it waiting for?
It's waiting for the resurrection. That's what it's waiting for.
You know when this creation is going to be made well? when the
sons of God are revealed, when Jesus Christ descends from heaven
with a shout, the voice of the archangel, and the dead in Christ
shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up in the air with them. That's what this creation is
waiting for. And in that moment, this creation
is going to be better. It's going to be perfect again.
It's going to be made perfect. Now Paul shines the light from
that, saying look at the creation, it's groaning. I mean look at
the fires that are taking place, I mean that devastation, the
hurricane we experienced earlier this week, what does it do? It's
groaning, isn't it? Nothing but death and sorrow
and pain, isn't that what that reveals here? Paul takes the light now and
shines it back on us in our text, look at this, and not only Creation is not the only thing
groaning here, but we ourselves. Now listen, those who have the
first fruits of the Spirit, listen, exactly what I just told you,
those that have no condemnation, those who are the sons of God,
those who are heirs of all things, he says this, listen to these
words, even we. What do we do? Groan within ourselves. These things don't make you groan
within yourself. the death, the sorrow, the pain,
the suffering. You're not groaning within yourself.
We groan within ourselves. And listen, all men do this,
in a sense. All men are groaning. All men
experience sorrow, pain, and death, but only those born again
of the Spirit who have a new nature, which is made to know
and trust Christ, And by the same nature believe
the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ. Yet within our
souls we groan for this reason. We know something that they don't
know. We know that we've not yet fully
experienced all that God promised us. Don't you know that? Don't you
know that you've not fully experienced all that God promised you? What
do you have right now that gives you any hope of those promises? Ephesians chapter 1 and verse
13, listen to what this says. Verse 13 says, In whom you also
trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation. in whom also after that you believed
you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, listen to
this, which is the earnest of our inheritance. What do you
have right now? You got a down payment. That's
what you have. That's what the word earnest
means. You got a down payment. God promised you a whole lot.
What do you have right now? You got the down payment. You
got the Spirit of God, the earnest of the down payment. You see, right now we are given
a holy nature by the Spirit of God that now struggles with an
old nature of sin, yet what are we promised? We are promised
a new body. We're promised a new body, a
glorious body that does not groan within itself. That's what we
promised. Have you got that yet? No, you
haven't got it yet. We're promised heaven. We are citizens of heaven, yet
now we live in a cursed world. We are promised to share in the
glory of Christ, and yet now we are oppressed. In our hearts we rejoice in the
gospel. We're surrounded by men who hate it. Therefore, what we've grown within
ourselves because of this. We've grown because this body
is wrapped in death and sin. We are dragged to the earth. So we, by faith, are waiting
for God to fulfill His promises. We are waiting for God to fulfill
His promises, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the
body. And so Paul says this in Arctic,
look at this, we are saved in And why do I say that? Because
hope is not the means of our salvation, but it is the means by which
the soul is brought into enjoyment. Do you desire to enjoy your salvation
through all of the suffering, through all of the misery? Then
how is that? How can we enjoy our salvation?
We enjoy it by looking in hope of what God has promised. By
looking for what God has promised. Matthew Henry said this, he said,
faith respects the promise, hope is the thing promised. Faith
is the evidence, hope is the expectation of the thing promised. So what
then, if we have faith and hope, what do we do? We will, listen
to me, we will with patience, in faith, wait for it, if you
have hope. So Paul says we are saved in
hope. Now again, the word hope in this text means simply confidence. It does not mean a wish or a
dream. I am not wishing that God is
going to give me heaven. I'm expecting it. Now how do I expect that? I expect
it by faith. I believe I'm going to receive
this because of Christ, not because of me. But because of Christ,
I can expect it. I'm expecting a new body. Why? Because of Christ, I should expect
to receive a new body. Because of Christ, I should expect
to be made holy. Because that's his promise. I thought of an illustration.
You buy a house, right? You live somewhere else. You
buy a house. You saw pictures of it on the
internet. You didn't even go out to see it. They got these new fancy
things where you can actually walk through the house on the
computer. It's kind of neat. You just kind of click and it goes
right through the next room. And so you see this house and
you think it's great. It's a beautiful house. And you pay for it. You get your loan. You sign the
deed. You have deed in hand. That house is yours, though you
don't live there yet. It's yours. And so what do you do? You pack
up. You pack your things. And you
have hope. When you get there, nobody's
going to stop you from getting inside that house. Why? It's
yours. You expect to open that door. You expect that key. You got
to work. What do you have? You have hope. You have confidence. How much more is this that Jesus
Christ has purchased your salvation? He's purchased it. For you knew
about it. He purchased it. And then came
along and gave you the title, the deed. What's my deed? This is my deed. I got it. It's mine. He that believeth on the Son
of the baptized shall have everlasting life. He that believeth not the
Son shall not see life. But those who believe on the
Son, what? They have it. You have everlasting life. It's
yours. Eternal life is yours. So what should you do? It's not
presumption to expect it. You're not presuming on anything.
You're trusting in Christ completely to receive it. If I'm ever going
to get heaven, it is totally based on His work alone and His
death, His righteousness, not anything to do with me. So if
He was successful, if I really believe He's successful, then
I should have what? I should have confidence. I should have confidence. What's
our confidence? Again, what's your confidence
you own that house? Isn't it the deed? Somebody,
a police officer comes and says, hey, man, you're trespassing.
Oh, no. Here's the deed. What is your comfort? How do
you know you're going to receive the promises? Here's your deed.
Here it is. It's God's word. God's word is
the grounds of our faith and the grounds of our hope. Listen
to what Paul says in Romans 15, he says, what sort of things
were written before time were written for our learning, purpose,
that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures should
have hope. So if you're going to have hope,
it must come from the word of God. If I give you something that
is my opinion, you should have no hope in it. But if I give you something God
said, you should have a great confidence that it's going to
be done. Okay, so where all our hope and
confidence come from is the Word of God. Go to Hebrews chapter
6. Look at this. How much confidence
can you have in the Word of God concerning the promises of God
that you've not experienced because you're still suffering? You're
still groaning within yourself. How do I know that this thing
is going to end well with me? Look at Hebrews chapter 6. God understanding your weakness,
understanding your suffering, ordaining it. Look what he says
in verse 17. Wherein God willing more abundantly,
to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel,
confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things." What
are these two immutable things? Listen to me. What are the two
unchangeable things? It is the counsel of God, the
purpose of God, and the oath of God. These things can't be
moved. When God swears to do something,
nothing stops it. Nothing. It's immutable. I think Nebuchadnezzar found
that out, didn't you? When he went out there and had to eat
grass like an ox for seven years. You think he learned something?
He said, yeah. Who's going to stay his hand or say to him,
what doest thou? No one. So God willing to show
you by his counsel and by his oath, which are two immutable
things in which impossible for God to lie, that we purpose,
that we, weak, struggling, foolish children, that we might have
a strong hope. What's our hope? And I'm going
to tell you some things that are wonderful things that are
for every believer. What's my hope? I'm going to get it. Here
it is. Who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before
us. What's our hope? What are you
laying hold of that God has promised to give you? How do you know
you're going to get it? You lay hold of the hope set
before us, which is who? Christ. Christ is all my hope. All my confidence of receiving
every promise of God is not in what I think, it's not in what
I feel, it's not in what I experience, it's totally in Christ. He's
my refuge. And here's my hope. He went into
the very presence of God with His own blood as my high priest. I read just
Just the other day, the crucifixion of my Lord Jesus, it was just
a wonderful reading. I really enjoyed it. One of the things I keep bringing
to mind is when he gave up the ghost, when
he said it is finished, the veil of the temple was ripped
in two. That was not just a thin piece
of curtain, was it? Big, thick, tall. You'd have to hit a chainsaw
to cut this thing. And it was rent, not from the
bottom to the top, from the top to the bottom. God did it. God
tore it and made the way open for me. So what's my hope of
this? Christ is my hope. Christ is
my hope. He's my strong confidence. So
believer, you do groan within yourself. Because of this sin-cursed
world, do you groan because of inward sin, because of the suffering
of the body? Then behold, our hope is not
in the experience of the flesh, nor the ability of our works,
but our hope is in Christ, who is the sum and substance of the
Word of God. He's the sum of my hope. I would
have no hope without Him. I should expect nothing but hail.
If you don't have Christ, listen to me, what you should expect?
Hail. That's all you should expect.
I don't care what you receive in this life. I don't care if
your life is wonderful, great, you have all the money and success
of this world, all the things you ever wanted. Listen to me. If you don't have Christ, you
should expect hail. That's it. But we who have Christ expect
greater things. We expect greater things because
God has promised them who cannot lie. First of all, I've got three
things we should expect. First of all, you should expect
to be holy. I told you we were going to do
something that we have no idea what it really means. I kept
thinking on what it is to be holy, and I couldn't come up
with it to save my life. Do you know what it's like to
be holy? Yet this is the promise of God.
The promise of God. Isn't this what God chose us
for? Ephesians chapter 1. He said, according as He had
chosen us in Christ, that we should be holy. That's why He chose you. That's
why He put you in Christ so that you should be holy. How? By Jesus
Christ. That's how you're going to be
made holy. By Jesus Christ. Act of grace and mercy, he gave
us a holy nature. Remember Ephesians chapter 4,
put on the new man which is created after God in true holiness. You have a holy nature. Why can't
you experience or walk holy in this world? Because you still
have a sin nature. Yet we do have a holy nature,
don't we? John says in 1 John chapter 3
and in chapter 5, he says, who so is born of God sinneth not. And Paul says, in the new man
that is created after God in true holiness. And listen to
what he says in Hebrew. He says, without holiness, no
man shall see the Lord. You can't see the Lord without
holiness. You can never be accepted into
heaven without being holy. Now this holy nature is the first
fruits of the spirit, is the earnest, yet our experience in
this life, we groan within ourselves because sin is mixed with all
we do. But listen to the groaning of Paul, is the same of every
believer, wretched man that I am. That's our groaning. So, do you
groan because of sin? Is that part of this groaning
that you feel? It is. What's the remedy? Here's your remedy. Listen to
me. Soon, and very soon, you shall be holy without sin. That's a promise. That is a promise
of God. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.8,
he said, to be absent from the body is to be present with the
Lord. You see, it will be in that moment
that our hope of sinless perfection will be revealed. Only then will
you ever know what it's like to be holy. Now, you believe
it. And you know by the grace and
word of God that you have a holy nature, but yet you've not experienced
what it is to be holy because of the sin nature that still
abides. But the moment that sin nature, that body, drops off,
the holy nature ascends into the very presence of God. How
can it do that? Because it is holy. It is without
sin. In that moment all pain, sorrow
and grief are forever removed. At that moment you will experience
what it is to love. What it is to have joy. Here
you get glimpses, flashes. There you have the full measure
of the experience of it. To be without sin. See all I
can do is imagine what that is like. Yet I do have confidence
of this, one day it will happen. Whatever that's like, I know
this, one day that'll happen. It is then we shall see him face
to face. I don't buy into any pictures
that I see. I don't buy into men's ideas
of what he looked like. I know this, one day I'm gonna
see his face. I will see His face. I will be able to embrace Him. I will know what it's like to
truly worship without any burden of this flesh, any conflict in
my mind. This is what we hope for. day that we shall be without
sin. And then he shall wipe away all
tears from our eyes. I don't know what it's like to
live in this world without crying. I don't know what it is to not
cry, not feel pain. I know that. I feel that. My Savior is telling me He's
going to bring me to a place where I don't ever feel any pain
again. Only joy. Eternal bliss. But until that day I must in
hope and patience wait for it. I must endure in faith until
that day. I thought of the thief on the
cross. When the Lord was crucified, he had those two malefactors
crucified with him. And they were, you read that
account, and they were both cursing him. Both, if you're being the
Christ, why don't you get us off this tree? Why don't you
stop this pain and save our lives? It wasn't long, and the one on
his right hand He heard the other one what he was saying, probably
heard himself what he was saying. And the Lord brought him to himself,
and you know what he said? The other guy said, you know
what? We deserve what we're getting. This guy, this man, he's not
done anything. And he turned to that man, that
bloodied up man, dying next to him. Can you fathom this? He turned to Christ, and he looked
at that dying man and said these words, Lord, I took faith in it. Lord, remember
me when you come to your kingdom. What were the words of Christ
to you? Today. You will be with me in paradise. And consider that it usually
took a few days for people to die on a cross. And it just so happens, the Pharisees
said, hey, we can't, gotta get those bodies off the tree before
the Sabbath day, you need to go out and break their legs.
And they went out and broke that guy's legs. And you know what
happened? Today, he was with Christ in
paradise. He was holy, without sin, embraced
by his Savior. Lazarus, when he died, suffered
all his life. When he died, the scripture says,
and when he died, carry into heaven. Why? Because he's holy. Without holiness
no man shall see the Lord. What do you have hope of? I have
hope of this, that one day, I know this, I am made holy by the Spirit
of God, but I know one day I'm going to experience it. One day
I'm fully going to experience what it's like to be holy. Secondly,
we have this hope, heaven. Heaven. We have hope of heaven. Jesus testifies to all his sheep
in that last day. He said, It is your father's
good pleasure to give you what? What's he gonna give you? The
kingdom. Come, you blessed are my father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation
of the world. This was God's purpose from the
beginning to give you heaven. And so this is our hope, that
we too, like the thieves, like Lazarus, shall inherit the kingdom
of heaven." Now, what is heaven? Now, I've read about heaven. You read Revelation. You read
the beautiful pictures that they're given there of a garden full
of trees. and a stream flowing from the
throne of God. And you see the glorious angels
round about the throne. You see the throne and the One
who sits on the throne. You see a rainbow all around
His throne. Beautiful pictures of a sea like
glass and streets of gold. Why do we see this? Because that's
all we can fathom. That's all we can really understand.
He's putting it in language we can understand, but truly it's
much more glorious than that. Whatever that is, it's more glorious.
But I'm going to tell you why heaven is heaven. Listen very
carefully why heaven is heaven. Because Jesus is there. Wherever He is, is heaven. wherever he is. I don't care if the streets are
made of dirt. I really don't care if there are seas of glass,
trees all around with a bunch of fruit on it. Heaven is heaven because he's
there. He said, here's my hope, he said, to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for
you, as in what He promised, I will come again and receive
you unto Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. I'm confused as to why believers
don't like to come and worship. I'm confused. Heaven is nothing but a continual
worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, you don't have any enjoyment
here, it'll be hell to you. Heaven would be hell to a sinner.
You'd be miserable. Because that's all we do. Worship
and serve Christ. Well, that's just horrible. Okay,
for you it's horrible. For me it's heaven. That makes
heaven heaven. And the only taste of heaven
we get here is this. This is what we get. We get a
foretaste because He comes and dwells with us when we hear the
gospel preached. This is the only experience close
to heaven, is to worship Christ, to serve Him, to honor Him, to
hear His Word, to believe on Him and trust Him. Heaven is heaven because Christ
is there. You know what I have hope of? Wherever he is, that's
where I'm going to be. The last thing we have hope of
is this. We have hope of a new body. And
there is nothing more grievous than to be sick in this body. When you're young, you've got
all that strength, all that vigor, all that passion and zeal, and
I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. I found out when you
get older, man, that stuff just wears down to nothing. And even worse, when you get
sick in the body. My pastor used to say, it's the
most difficult thing in the world to be spiritual when you're sick.
It just is. Because the body does not stop
clamoring for relief. That's why Satan told the Lord,
skin for skin, you let me take his health and
he'll curse you. Now it'd be true for a man that's
not saved by the grace of God, that'd be definitely true. But not for God's elect, come
on, because we have this hope that this body will soon die.
Now listen to me, maybe today, tomorrow, 10, 20, 50 years. If you mark my words, unless
the Lord Jesus Christ comes back, we will die. And 50 years after that, who
in the world is ever going to know we were here? Yet I have this promise, that
I'm going to receive a body like his body. A glorified body. Now, when you die and you go
to the glory, Your soul goes to glory, where does the body
go? In the ground. In the ground. And so yet even
the glorified spirits, we were just saying that this morning,
more happy but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heaven,
they're happier than I am. They're a heck of a lot happier
than we are. Not more secure, but happier. But yet listen to
me, they have not yet received the fullness of the promise yet
either. This is one thing God has reserved
for every one of us at the same time. This promise of a new body
is something that God promises everyone at the same time. Remember
what Paul said. He said, When Jesus Christ shall
descend from heaven with a shout, the voice of the archangel, the
dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain
shall be called together with him in the air. So shall we ever
be with the Lord. The end. I don't buy into this
bunch of You know, he's coming back and he's going to take a
few people with him and then the rest are going to wonder
what happened to them and then they're going to come back later
and get the rest of them after they believe. No, no. When he
comes back, that's it. When he comes back, the dead
in Christ, all of them, are going to be manifested. Boom! You want
to know who Christ's people were? That day you're going to know
who everybody is. They're going to come out of the grave, not
with a zombified body, but some glorified body. Why? Because
Paul said the corruptible must put on incorruption. This mortal
must put on immortality. It's like you put a seed in the
ground. It goes in the seed, it dies. And then what? It comes
out the fruit. That's exactly what happens to
this body. It goes in the ground. And then what? It comes out in
glory. That's what we've got to look
forward to. A new body that has no tears, no pain, no suffering,
no grief, no sorrow. It is then we will be robed in
the perfect holiness of Jesus Christ, body, soul, and spirit. This is our hope. It's the hope of everyone who
believes in Jesus Christ. Now then, how do I know that
I'm going to endure? That's the hope of everyone who
endures. Paul said, if you continue grounded
and settled and not moved from the hope of the gospel, then
you'll have peace and joy and all these things. How do I know
that I am going to endure and receive everything? What's my
hope of that? First Peter chapter 1 and verse
5. I can have all the confidence
in these things because of this. He who saved me Oftentimes I wonder if I'm ever
going to endure in faith. I just, I wear down to the nub
and you just don't know if there's anything left. But my hope is this, he promised
to teach me. And if he promised, he can't
lie. And if he promised, no one could
stop him. from doing the things he promised.
What does he promise me? He promised me I'm going to be
holy. Now listen, I long to be holy. I know this, in this life
I'm not going to be as holy as I'm going to be. John said this,
it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Is that right? It doth not yet appear what...
God said I'm going to be holy. Man, it don't appear that way
right now. God says, I'm going to receive heaven. Man, this
thing here, it don't seem like I'm ever going to make it. God
promised me a new body. You've got to be kidding. This
whole thing is wearing down? God, John said, it does not appear
what we shall be. But when we shall see him, we shall be like. I don't have any idea what that
looks like. Man, I should with all my heart expect him. Because he paid for it. He promised
it. Who shall stop him from giving
it to me? Not you, not this world, and
definitely not me. I have hope. Do you have hope?
Hope is the remedy for despair. May God help us to see how we
are saved in hope. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer.