Romans chapter 8. By the way, exciting news here
at Grace Community Church. Our attendance has increased
50% over last week. Last week, it was just Bonnie
and me here. And this morning, the Brother
Garen Roseboom is here with us. But given the size of our building,
we can still all practice social distancing while we're here. Before we begin reading the scriptures,
let's seek the Lord in prayer. Our Father, thank you for the
opportunity to worship you. And you have written that where
two or three are gathered together in your name, you are there in
the midst of them. And we have three here. And Lord, we realize that there
are others who have gathered with us. via the live stream. And Lord, we pray that your promise
would remain faithful even in those situations. We pray, Lord,
that in your mercy you would bring a quick end to this coronavirus
problem. We pray that treatment would
become available. and we would be able to return
to a more normal way of life. But we pray, Lord, also that
this situation might have an effect on our society, and maybe
some will think, stop, and consider the more serious things of life,
the most serious of which is that there is an end to it. As it is appointed unto man once
to die, and after that, face judgment. May this be upon the
hearts of many, Lord, and may they seek out the message of
salvation in Christ. And may they be directed by your
grace to a faithful preacher of the gospel. Lord, no one has
an excuse anymore for not hearing the truth. It's being preached
in many pulpits. It's available online. So Lord,
we pray that you would turn the hearts of many to seeking after
you and that they would find you and in so finding you, find
your salvation. Lord, we pray this morning you'd
forgive our sins. We know that they are under the
blood and that they've been washed away so far as Heavenly judgment
is concerned, yet our sins yet continue to weigh heavily on
our conscience, Lord. And we regret what we do. We regret that even though we
profess to be the children of God, we so often disobey our
Father. And we pray, Lord, that you would
wash away that uncleanness from our minds and the guilt that
would cause us to hesitate to approach unto you. We pray for
those in our congregation who are sick. So far as we know,
Lord, none of them have this virus, and we're thankful, Lord,
you've protected them from that. But there are other illnesses
and other problems in the flesh that the saints endure, so we
pray, Lord, you'd be with them, give them grace and patience
in this time. And we pray for our nation, pray
for its leaders, Lord, we so ask that you would give them
some wisdom and some common decency as they work together to lead
this nation. We pray also for the world, and
we thank you for the things that we've seen some of our brothers
and sisters do in various places. We think of Brother Parshu in
India and how he has worked so hard to get food to those parts
of Indian society that nobody wants anything to do with. Lord,
we rejoice that it is written that among those who are your
called and elect, Lord, it says there's not many noble, not many
wise, not many educated by human standards, but you've been pleased
to call the lowly, been pleased to call those that are not. And
so Father's brother, Parshu, takes these supplies of groceries
to these people that India forgets and that the government will
have nothing to do with. Lord, may that open opportunities
for him to declare the unsearchable riches of Christ and declare
the gospel to them and make it fruitful in bearing the fruit
of people turning unto you. We pray for other missionaries
as well and the other churches Lord, wherein your gospel is
faithfully preached. Bring glory to your name in all
things as we know you will do. In Christ's name we pray, amen.
All right, now in Romans chapter eight, I want to begin reading
at verse 20. We may as well back up to verse
18, we've got time. I consider that our present sufferings
are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed
in us. The creation waits in eager expectation
for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected
to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the
one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will
be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the
glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole
creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right
up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves,
who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as
we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our
bodies. For in this hope, We are saved. But hope that is seen is no hope
at all. Who hopes for what he already
has? But if we hope for what we do
not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In my first year of Bible school
at World Life Bible Institute, I sat next to a girl named Joy
Thomas. This is when the entire student
body would gather in one building, all of us to listen to the same
teacher. So my last name's Terrell. Her
last name was Thomas. So that meant we ended up sitting
next to each other. And she was well-named when she
was named Joy. She was a delight to be around. She laughed a lot. In fact, she
even laughed at my jokes. which shows you that she was
predisposed to joy. And we recently reconnected through
our school's Facebook page. And a couple of days ago, she
posted this following comment. And it was with regard to the coronavirus. I know this, when
this ends, And it will. Every game will sell out. Every
restaurant will have a two-hour wait. Every kid will be glad
to be in school. Everyone will love their job.
The stock market will skyrocket. Every other house will be teepeed. And we'll all embrace and shake
hands. That's gonna be a pretty good
day. Hang in there world. Now that gives you an idea of
what sort of person that she is right in the midst of this
stressful time. She's looking forward to a day
that she knows is coming. And I responded to her comment
with this, and what a beautiful picture of the hope of the believer. When this ends, this existence
of the struggle between flesh and spirit, trial, disappointment,
doubts, and fear. And dear child of God, it will
end. Every saint will be glad to be
in the presence of Christ. The attendance of every worship
gathering will be a multitude no one can number. Our joy in
Christ will skyrocket. Every dwelling will be marked
with the blood of the lamb on the posts and the lentil. and
every one of God's people will have forgotten their fleshly
divisions and embrace one another in unhindered love. And best
of all, the one having not seen, we love him, we shall see. Indeed, as that hymn says, what
a day, what a glorious day that will be. And then I went on to
say, I didn't mean to hijack your post, but the thought of
the sense of freedom and gladness that we will feel once this virus
has run its course made me think of the end of this age when all
creation will be brought into the glorious liberty of the children
of God. Now that's why we're looking
at this text this morning, because of that exchange. between an
old school friend and myself. And as I was preparing for this
message, I was surprised to note how much deeper this scripture
goes than what I had seen before. Or maybe it would be better to
say, I was surprised to see how much broader the application
of it was. than what I used to think. You see, this scripture is not
speaking only of our experience, but the experience of all creation. It tells us that this existence
does have meaning and significance, that we are not accidents, and
that all that we see and experience serves a purpose, and that everything
is heading to a glorious end, and that all that we see that
is wrong, that is broken, will be fixed. Now to understand this
passage, we'll have to go all the way back to the beginning
of the Bible, or very close to it, to Genesis chapter two. What Paul writes here in Romans
eight makes absolutely no sense unless you go back to Genesis
chapter two and see how the world got in the condition that it
is in. Genesis chapter two, beginning
at verse 15, God has created Adam, and it
says, the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of
Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded
the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden,
but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die. Now that's the rule. When God put Adam and Eve in
the garden, they were free. They were free to partake of
all the trees and the plants that are in the garden, all except
one. There was one that God had put
there. as a token of his authority over
them. Now man's freedom is never under
any circumstances absolute because there is always one above
him to which he must give an account for the things that he
does. But you must admit, Adam and
Eve were living an awfully free existence because there was only
one commandment which they were given, and that was simply, don't
eat from this tree. And it was not as though it was
the only tree. It's not as though it was the
only tree that had good fruit on it. It's not as though it
was the only tree that was beautiful to look upon. Everything in God's
world was beautiful and useful and good at that time. But God
put that tree there as a token and symbol that He is God. God is to be obeyed. But now
we turn over to Genesis chapter 3 begin reading in verse 17 we
know that in the interim there Adam had chosen to eat of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now Eve in a sense
chose to do it but she did it because she was deceived but
Adam did it knowing full well that What the consequences would
be? Knowing full well that he was
disobeying God and doing it. And so God says to Adam, beginning
in verse 17, to Adam, he said, because you listened to your
wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, you must
not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because
of you. Through painful toil, you will
eat of it. all the days of your life. It
will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the
plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you
will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from
it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you will return. So we see the rule, and then
we see the consequences, or the results, of breaking that rule. Now, the consequences of that
rule, or of breaking that rule, and what I want to point out
there is that the consequences, the effect of Adam's sin extended
far beyond his own cursedness. it extended to the entire creation. When God, if you recall, as we
were reading that, it says, he says, Adam, because you disobeyed,
and the first part of the curse was, cursed be the ground for
your sake. The very dirt was cursed. And therefore, We take from that
that really everything in this creation came under a curse from
God because of Adam's sin, not because of Eve's sin. Adam was
the one who stood as a representative really not only of humanity,
though he was that, But he was the representative of the entire
creation in the sight of God. And in as much as he rebelled
against God, the results of his rebellion fell upon the entirety
of his creation. Everything that makes our lives
difficult came about by Adam's sin. Our own deaths, everything
that leads up to death. Every pain you ever felt, every
tear you ever shed, every failure you ever experienced, every fear
that grips your heart, every disappointment that breaks it,
it started right there when Adam sinned against God. We're not
saying this in order to absolve ourselves of any responsibility
in the results of the sinful actions we take. It's simply
this, that the whole place fell apart because of what Adam did. And this extended not only to
him, it extended to all living creatures. Before this time, we take it
sort of as a given there was no death. Because death as a
principle is the result of sin. And until Adam sinned, there
was no sin. Consequently, even the animals
were not subject to that process of growing old and the body falling
apart and eventually dying. And there's even more, the very
physical world, non-living things become subject to frustration. We're back in Romans chapter
eight again, and verse 20, and it says, for the creation was
subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the
will of the one who subjected it. Now, who subjected the creation
to this frustration? Well, you could look at it two
ways. You could say it was Adam, for by his sin, he caused the
whole creation to become subject to this frustration. Or you could
say that it was God, because it's God who actually pronounced
this curse. Either way works. The point is,
it wasn't as though the rocks and the grass of the field and
things like that had consciousness that it could reject God and
rebel against God, and therefore the rocks and the plants of the
field and the moon and all of that became subject to frustration
because of its own choices. It became that way because of
Adam's choice. Now, this word frustration, is
very meaningful here. I believe that King James uses
the word corruption there and that automatically makes us think
of moral corruption. We talk about corrupt people,
corrupt politicians, you know, particularly those of us who
are religious and who often speak or often read the scriptures
because this word corruption is used to describe the morally
corrupt. But the Greek word that the King
James Version translates as corruption really is not about corruption
at all. That's a poor translation. The translation we use, the NIV,
uses the word frustration and that gets closer to the meaning
me show you, and it's not used that many times in the Scriptures.
In fact that exact word is only used three times in the Scriptures,
but the root word is used another nine times. And let me just give
you a sampling here. Paul says in Ephesians 4, 17,
"'Walk not like the Gentiles in the futility of their minds.'"
The same word. In 2 Peter 2 verse 17, "'These
people He's talking about false teachers. These people are springs without
water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved
for them for they mouth empty, same word, boastful words. And by appealing to the lustful
desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping
from those who live in error. And so he uses this word to describe
the words of false prophets, empty, useless things. Paul in
the Acts chapter 14 verse 15 calls the idols and the false
gods that they represent, he calls them vain things. The word translated vain there,
same word. And in 1 Corinthians 3 verse
20, Paul quotes the Old Testament where it says, the Lord knows
the reasonings of the wise that they are useless. Same word. Paul said that if Jesus Christ,
and this is in first Corinthians 15, he says that if Jesus Christ
did not raise from the dead, then our faith is useless. Same word. To Titus he wrote,
but avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments
and quarrels about the law because these are unprofitable and useless. Peter wrote, for you know that
it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that
you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you
from your ancestors. And James wrote, those who consider
themselves religious and yet do not keep tight rein on their
tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless. That word worthless, same word.
Now Solomon wrote an entire book about what Paul is referring
to when he says the creation was made subject to vanity, frustration,
Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes, says, vanity of vanities, all
is vanity. He uses that phrase about life
under the sun, and that phrase under the sun, remember this
is a poetic book, it uses poetic figures of speech, and given
their view of the universe, you had the earth, and it was under
the sun, and God was beyond that. Therefore, when he spoke of earth
or of life under the sun, he was speaking of life without
consideration of God. Life just as a natural man can
perceive it and experience it. And what does he say of it? He
says it's vain, it's useless, it's worthless. He describes
this vanity and he said that the rain falls Some of it goes
into the earth, but most of it eventually ends up back in a
creek or a river or something, back out in the ocean. And then
it goes up into the sky again and then comes down in the rain
in a continuing cycle that seems to have no end, no purpose, no
use. And we plant. and we harvest
and we eat and then we have to turn right around and plant again.
This world, if you just look at it from the viewpoint of a
natural person, it is an utterly useless thing. Existence is a
useless thing. It's just a continual cycle of
birth and death. Many atheists like to defend their atheism by saying
that religion is the cause of all the problems in the world.
Well, they're right with regard to some religion, because there's
a lot of religion that's the religion of the world, and everything
of this world is, well, it's just no good. It's useless, it's
vain, it's worthless. But what they don't realize is
this. If there is no God, nothing means
anything. If there is no God, it does not matter whether we
have rain or drought. It may matter to us simply because
we don't enjoy the experience of it, but the fact that it matters
to us doesn't matter. See what I mean? There's no reason,
there's no purpose, there's no good, there's no use in creation
if there is no God. What is the use of anyone trying
to do good? In fact, how could you possibly
even give a definition to what is good if there is not something
beyond this creation to which we could compare what goes on
in this creation? The atheist thinks that he is
setting people free because he goes out and convinces them there's
no God to answer to, and suddenly they're free. But in so doing,
he's brought them even further into the bondage of the existence
of meaninglessness, of utter worthlessness. There's no reason
for us to exist if there is no God. It makes no difference what
we do if there is no God. If there is no God, love is a
fiction. If there is no God, it doesn't
matter whether we act responsibly or
irresponsibly. If there is no God, it doesn't
matter if the coronavirus kills 200,000 or 200 million. Without God, nothing means anything. And is that not sort of what
happened when Adam fell? Not that God ceased to exist,
but that the creation and everything in it was cut off from God. I realize he still exercises
sovereign control, he's here and all that, but what I'm saying
is just as the believer, or excuse me, just as the unbeliever is
spiritually cut off from God, has no connection to him, so
the whole creation's been cut off from God. It's under a curse. So we see here Going again in
verse 20 of Romans chapter 8, the creation was subjected to
frustration, not by its own choice, subject to vanity, uselessness,
worthlessness, meaninglessness. But it was subjected in hope,
in hope. Even though the creation All
of it's been subjected to this broken, useless, worthless, meaningless
existence. It is in that condition, and
yet there is hope, that the creation itself will be liberated from
its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of
the children of God. We know that the whole creation
has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the
present time. And it still is. It groans as
in the pains of childbirth, and I'm sure this is the way Paul
was sort of poetically describing natural disasters, earthquakes,
volcanoes, things like that. He says these are like birth
pangs. These are the travail of creation
as we know it and understand it. These things would not have
come about had there not been sin in the world, had not the
creation been broken and no longer operates like it's supposed to. In verse 23, not only so, but
we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly
as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our
bodies. Now, we see the earth grown, but the
believer also grows inwardly. The same things go on in his
mind. He is in a turmoil. He has within
him, and this is only true of the believer. It's not true of
the unbeliever. You see, God made man as a two-part
creature. He has body, he has an animal
nature, and he has spirit. And the body is every bit a part
of this creation. That is, it's made up of natural
things. made up out of the same stuff
that the rocks and the dirt's made of, because we were made
out of dirt. That's the way the body is. But we were given the
nature of spirit that we might be able to fellowship with God,
who is spirit. Now, when Adam sinned, the Lord
had said, in the day you eat of it, you'll die. Well, Adam's
body didn't die that day, but his spirit did. And he lost the
capacity to know God, to understand God, to love God, to fellowship
with God, to believe God. He lost the capacity to do those
things because those are spiritual things and he died spiritually. But when a person is born again
by the Spirit of God, When God comes in as the one and only
life giver and invades the heart of one of his chosen and produces
life in him, immediately that man knows and understands God. He doesn't know and understand
everything about him, but he knows the basics. He understands
the basics. He believes God. He loves God. He is spiritually alive, but
he's still got this flesh which is broken and under a curse.
And while in His Spirit He is free, in His Spirit He is one
of the sons of God. Later on in this chapter it says
the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are the children
of God. And spiritually we are, and spiritually
we're free. But we're yet bound to this flesh. And therefore, in our minds,
because we only got one mind to work with, one consciousness
to work with, and both spirit and flesh have their input into
that single mind, and it's just a constant struggle and warfare. And we groan inwardly as we wait
for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Now, we are already the sons
of God in the spiritual sense, but Paul says that we are predestined
to the adoption of sons. And therefore, he's setting the
full adoption to sonship as the end or goal or consummation of
the work of salvation. And that's why he says our adoption
of sons, and then says the redemption of our bodies. Now when Jesus
Christ died on the cross, he paid the full price of redemption. But redemption involves more
than paying a price. Redemption is not only paying
the price, it's going and actually taking possession of what has
been redeemed. You know, you could go to the
store and buy something and then walk out and not take it with
you. I've done that. That's how absent-minded
I am. I'll put stuff up on the counter,
pay for it, turn around, walk out the door. Well, I paid for
that thing, but I haven't redeemed it yet because that thing is
not redeemed until it's possessed by the one who paid for it. Now
Jesus Christ paid for us, and the work of redemption in us
has begun, as by His Spirit He takes possession of us, spiritually
speaking. But the day is coming when the
Lord Jesus Christ, by the word of His power, shall call out
to His people to rise, and whether their body is in a grave, or
whether it's scattered throughout the creation because it was burned
at the stake, or who knows where it is because it was eaten by
an animal, whatever, God knows where His people are. But He
shall gather them back together in bodies that are redeemed,
bodies that no longer suffer under the curse. Bodies that
no longer are subject to decay or anything. That's the full
redemption. And that's what we're hoping
for. Now we don't have it, do we?
Paul says, of course not. Who hopes for what he already
has? The life of faith is the life of waiting. He says we wait
eagerly for our adoption as sons. whether it be that we are raised
from the dead or if we're among that final generation of believers
who don't die but are changed in a moment in the twinkling
of an eye. Now we live in this world, but
we're not of it anymore. This flesh, this house that we
live in, It's still part of it, but even that's going to be changed.
That's going to be, we'll no longer be a participant in the
cursed creation. And even though we have to live
in this world and in some respects, we are subject to the curse laid
upon this creation. After all, our bodies die just
like the bodies of unbelievers. God's people have not been promised
that in this life they will escape any of the troubles that unbelievers
experience. Among those who will die by this
virus, There will be those who were chosen by God, redeemed
by the Son, called by the Spirit, and lived as faithful believers. We suffer all the things that
are common to man in this flesh. But the time is coming when that
will no longer be a part of our existence. Now, that is called
the glorious liberty. of the sons of God. Now, you,
well, I remember when you, when they immediately, or when they
would bring up the question of Christian liberty, immediately
people were going to things like, well, does that mean you can
do this or can you do that? That's how they would define
liberty. They looked at liberty as freedom from the restraints
of various laws. Well, that's some of it. We are the freeborn sons of God,
and God owns this world. It says the earth is the Lord's
and everything in it. And if we're his sons, that means
everything in the world is for us. And we are free to use it. And of course, we use it responsibly.
But that's just the very lowest form of what the liberty of the
sons of God is talking about. Because when it speaks of the
glorious liberty of the sons of God, remember that word glorious. means that it must be something
far better, something far more serious than whether or not I
can go to the dance or whether or not I can have a beer on a
hot day. I can't imagine that those will
be considered glorious liberties, even if we count them as things
that a believer is free to do. It's a glorious liberty. What
liberty is that? liberty from the curse, freedom from everything that
fell upon man and this entire creation when Adam sinned. Now this glorious liberty of
the sons of God is experienced in a spiritual sense in that
God has set us free from the way of the world in terms of
the worship of God. What's the way of the world in
worshiping God? The way of the world is if you
do this and that and the other and don't do these things, God
will bless you. That's the way of the world.
Paul described the elementary principles of the world as this,
touch not, taste not, handle not. It's in the observance of days.
It's in ceremonial observances. That's the way of the world.
The way of the world is to multiply rules. The way of the world is
to work in order to gain the blessing of God. And thank God
we've been delivered from that cursed existence. Our Lord said,
come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will
give you rest. Rest. Isn't that a wonderful
thing to think about? Rest is freedom. And spiritually speaking, we
are free and we'll never be freer than we are in our spirits right
now. True, we get frustrated because
that which inwardly we want to do, we aren't able to do. Paul
said, I find this law at work in my members, when I would do
good, evil is present with me. And the good I want to do, that's
not what I do, and the evil I don't want to do, that's what I end
up doing. Nonetheless, by the grace of God, he has been free
to desire good. He has been set free that he
could worship God in an acceptable way, other than in that worldly
way that he was worshiping God before Christ stopped him on
the way to Damascus. The glorious liberty of the sons
of God, The experience of that in this life is to be set free
from the bondage of sin and death, which comes by the law. Paul says, sin shall no longer
have dominion over you, for you are not under law, you're under
grace. And sometimes people will preach that and say, well, that
means that if you've been saved by grace, that sin no longer
has power over you. Well, then I've never met anybody
that's been saved. Every believer I know laments
how much power sin has over them. Dominion and power are not the
same thing. The word dominion comes from
the same word as Lord, and it indicates a rightful authority. So long as a man is under the
law, sin has rightful authority over him and has the power and
authority to kill him. But if you're under grace, sin,
the very principle of it, sin, the nature that's every bit a
part of your flesh, sin, the things you do, they no longer
have authority over you. They cannot make you die eternally
anymore. They will eventually bring this
body to death, but even that death, is going to be overruled
by the grace of God in the resurrection. Grace sets us free from the law,
sin, and death, and what a glorious liberty that is. Our continual
sinning or continued sinning It brings us grief, it brings
us to tears, we feel bad for what we've done, but we need
never, ever, under any circumstances, fear the wrath of God because
of our sin. We need never fear that we are
vain, that we are without purpose and
without meaning, because God has redeemed us. He has redeemed
us from the curse, having made Christ to be a curse for us. And while we have not yet experienced
every aspect of that redemption, we will. And it begins way back
here, chapter eight, verse one of Romans. Therefore, there is
now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Now, to get a sense of how freeing
that is, imagine yourself accused and convicted of murder, and
rightly so. They've got the evidence. It's
undeniable. You are a murderer, and you have
been justly condemned to death. Now that's bondage. But someone who has the proper
authority issues a pardon and there is no longer condemnation. Which means there's no longer
a sentence of death, which means that guard who kept you in your
cell must now open it up and let you walk out free and unharmed. And with that pardon, all the
power of the legal system is rendered powerless to do anything
to you about the murder that you committed. Can you imagine how liberated
you would feel? Well, brethren, we've experienced
something even greater than that. We have been guilty of sin far
worse than murder. We've been guilty of rebellion
against God, our creator. And we have shown that rebellion
through all manner of transgressions, and the worst of them is the
transgression of unbelief, and the worst form of that unbelief
is all of that that we did trying to earn God's favor. Do you realize
what an insult to God it is when you try to earn His favor? that you're looking into the
holy God of whom it said, he's a purer eyes than to behold iniquity. And we come in into his presence
and the filthiness of our existence and then set before him some
work we thought was good and yet is stained with our filth.
And we say here, look what I did. Bless me because of this. What
an insult. But there's no condemnation to
us, not just because God issued a pardon to us, it says to those
who are in Christ. Because God cannot pardon those. He cannot justify those who are
yet in their sin, because God is just. Jesus Christ did not have to
die because God is love. Jesus Christ must die to save
his people. I don't know if I said that right,
let me back up. Jesus Christ did not die on the cross to save
us because God is love. He died on the cross to save
us because God is just. And in order that he might be
just and the one who justifies those who trust in Christ, God
spared not his own son, but delivered him up for all his people. And Jesus Christ bore the penalty
of those sins and put them away so that God, the just judge,
can say there is no sin in that person. And that means then, verse 18,
our present sufferings are not meaningless and useless. Our
present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that
will be revealed in us. They serve a purpose, but no
matter how great our sufferings are, they're nothing when compared
to the great glory that will be revealed in us. Because John says that when we
see Him, we shall be like Him. Now Paul was trying to encourage
them there because they were suffering the natural things
of life and they were suffering persecution. And it could be
very painful and they suffered great loss because of it. But
he says, understand this, your suffering is nothing to be compared
with the glory that awaits you. Therefore, don't lose heart in
the midst of your suffering, but also this is in there. That
suffering isn't meaningless. It is serving a purpose, and
it will bring about something great and glorious in its time. Because of the glorious liberty
of the children of God, we have hope, hope of full deliverance. Because of the glorious liberty
of the sons of God, Paul says, your labor in the Lord is never
in vain. Everything we do naturally is
vain, comes to nothing. The man with great wisdom in
business, and he goes out and he gives his life to business
and the gathering of riches, and people say, what a success.
Nonsense. He's gathered all of that so
that someone else can get it when he dies. Nothing successful happens in
this world except this, labor in the Lord. And it's never in
vain. You say, well, I tell other people
about Christ and they don't believe. That's vain. No, it's not. It's
serving its purpose. It's glorifying God. We may not
know the glorious purpose that these labors will serve, but
they will serve that purpose. Nothing that the believer does
out of love to his God is ever vain. And then because we have been
given this liberty, verse 28, we know that in all things God
works for the good of those who love him. who have been called according
to his purpose. We look at a world and it seems
to make no sense. And if God isn't real, and if
Jesus Christ is not real, and his salvation is not real, then
nothing has any value at all. But because God does exist, and
because Jesus Christ is truly God in human flesh, and because
his death on the cross actually did put away the sins that he
bore on the cross, it means that all of these seemingly meaningless
things going on do have meaning. because in them, God is working
for the eternal welfare of his people. Here with this coronavirus
going on, one way to look at it is, yes, we can endure this
for Christ's sake, and it's just one of those bad things we have
to put up with. No, it's one of those things
that God is using for our good. It's for our good, and serves
a glorious purpose if we never get it. It's something good serving
a glorious purpose if we get real sick but survive. And it's good and serves a glorious
purpose. If we get it, get real sick and
die from it. Remember, All of us are going
to die of something. But whatever it is that takes
us out of this world and all the things that are leading up
to it are being used of God to bring us into the glorious liberty
of the children of God. And I can't wait. Just like When
we finally figure that this virus is no longer a serious threat
and the restrictions are removed and we run out in the streets
with joy, someday all the restrictions that we feel for what we truly
want and desire from our spirits, all those hindrances, And that will be a wonderful
day. Heavenly Father, thank you for
this truth. Glorify yourself and encourage
us with it. In Christ's name we pray, amen.