Hope for the future

Series: Help for the Helpless

Message: Hope for the future

Romans 8:12-25

So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-- for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly 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 also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

Outline of Lectionary Text
This week’s text breaks down into four sections

v12-13 - Put to death the deeds of the body/flesh - [Conclusion of the previous section]

v14-18 - Those who are led by the Spirit are children of God and heirs of God

v19-23 - Our glorious future - The promise of the redemption of our bodies

v24-25 - We hope for what we do not yet see.

· This text is largely prophetic

· Biblical prophecy inspires us to look beyond our immediate circumstances to the future

· Prophecy is always given as a motivation for holy living.

· We are willing to suffer now because of what we hope for in the future.

v12 - Our obligation is to God, not to our flesh

So then,

· Paul strings a long argument.

· Each point is based on the previous chapters.

· What follows here is based on the previous points in Rom_8:1-11.

· Paul's argument is...

· If we are no longer under bondage to the flesh because of what Jesus has done then things following.

brethren,

· The audience here is clearly Christians.

· Audience from Rom_7:1 was seen as "brethren" who "know the Law".

we are under obligation,

· An obligation is a debt owed.

· To summarize the past points

· The obligation of a Jew is to live according to the Law

· The obligation of a Christian is to live according to the Spirit

not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh

· flesh = sinful nature.

· We do not owe any debt to our sinful nature

· Our sinful nature was what was leading us to destruction.

· We owe a debt to God.

v13 - Life under the flesh results in death

for if you are living according to the flesh

· Living according to the old sinful nature

· Is is possible for Christians to live according to the old sinful nature?

· Recall the audience from rom 8:12 is brethren.

· Therefore it is possible that Christians live according to the old sinful nature.

· This is precisely what Paul is warning against here.

· The results of living according to the old nature are death.

you must die

· The wages of sin is death (Rom_6:23).

· The result of your sin is your death.

· Life and death

· Life is being in the presence of the Son.

· Death is separation from the presence of the Son.

but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body

· Here is the battleground from the previous verses.

· The battleground is found in the mind.

· The only way to put to death the deeds of the body is by the Spirit.

· How do we explain those who get help from AA?

· God helps anyone who will call on Him and meets them where they are.

· But they need to progress into greater knowledge of God

you will live

· Same question that applied to death - is this eternal life or physical life?

· Both would seem to be in view here so perhaps both are in view with Paul previously.

v14 - We are Sons of God if we are led by the Spirit

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

· The Spirit and the Christian - review

1. The Spirit of God indwells the believer.

2. The Spirit leads the believer.

3. The Spirit quickens the mortal bodies of the believer.

4. This passage - The Spirit testifies with our Spirit that we are children of God.

· Particularity of this verse -

· The ones who are led by the Spirit are Sons of God.

· The ones who are led by the flesh are not Sons of God.

v15 - We have the Spirit of adoption as Sons of God.

For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again

· Fear is the opposite of hope but not the equal of hope

· The law led to fear and slavery.

· The only proper conclusion was that I fall short.

but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons

· We know that we are children of God.

· As children of God we have a special relationship with God.

· This is best described as being a son or daughter

by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

· The fruit is that we call to God with personal language.

· Kids language progresses

· Starts at baby talk.

· da da

· daddy

· dad

· Abba is like "da da"

· It is baby talk

v16 - The Spirit testifies to who we are

The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit

· Robinson points out that:

· KJV translates this passage quite incorrectly as "the Spirit itself.

· “It is a grave mistake to use the neuter “it” or “itself” when referring to the Holy Spirit. It is true that the Greek word "pneuma" translated as "Spirit" is neuter. But, the word translated as "itself" here is not neuter gender. The word is properly translated as himself.”

that we are children of God

· We have the Spirit of God in us

· This is how we know that we are of God.

· How do we know we are Christians?

· We have an internal testimony that we belong to God.

v17 - We are fellow heirs with Jesus Christ

and if children, heirs also

· An heir is a person who receives an inheritance.

· Typically children receive inheritances from their parents.

· We are children of God.

· As children we have an inheritance that we receive.

heirs of God

· God is the parent in this sense.

· Our inheritance is from God.

· In an ordinary human inheritance, we receive at the death of our parents.

· The analogy breaks down to an extent, but it is a good parallel.

· Rather than the death of God, it required the death of the Son's Son, who is Deity Himself.

and fellow heirs with Christ

· Fellow heirs means

· We are also named in the will

· We share an inheritance with Jesus.

· The death of Jesus secured this inheritance for us.

if indeed we suffer with Him

· Another conditional here "if".

· What is the nature of the suffering in this passage?

· In context, the suffering is that of putting to death the deeds of the body.

· It is worth suffering this sort of battle since the reward is so great.

· The things that Jesus inherited from His Father, we inherit along with Him.

so that we may also be glorified with Him

· The inheritance is summed up as us being glorified with Him.

· We share in the glory of God through Jesus.

v18 - The Weight of Glory

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time

· Suffering here seems to be defined as "putting to death the deeds of the body".

· Paul suffered quite a bit for the Gospel (2Co_11:24-28)

· 2Co 11:24-28 Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren;

· I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

· Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.

· Illustration in Lewis’s “The Weight of Glory” to the schoolboy forced to learn Greek

· It is a lot of pain to learn Greek.

· I know this from personal experience at seminary.

· Not everyone has the same propensities for foreign languages.

· Lewis was a genius, but it was still work

· Someday he will be able to appreciate the great Greek poets because he learned the Greek grammar.

are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

· CS Lewis book “The Weight of Glory" deals with the issue of what does glory mean.

· Lewis lists five promises of the future for the believer

· We shall be with Christ

· We shall be like Christ

· 1Jo_3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

· we shall have "glory"

· we shall be fed or entertained in some sense

· we shall rule

· On the third point of "glory", Lewis writes about two his own attempts to understand what “glory” means

· "palms, crowns, white robes, thrones, and splendor like the sun and stars... All this makes no immediate appeal to me at all ... I am a typical modern [person]... And who wants to be a sort of living light bulb?"

· "..the other aspect is fame and that seems quite worldly to me since it is based on competition it seems more like Hell than Heaven..."

· The answer that Lewis found to understanding the word glory was

· "Milton, Aquinas... present heaven as fame or good report. But this is not fame with other creatures, rather fame with God, or "appreciation" by God.”

· Mat 25:23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

· This is a proper idea of glory

v19 - Creation itself waits for liberation

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly

· Translation differences here

· KJV – creature

· NASB - creation - better reading of the word

· The entire creation is waiting to be restored to God.

· It seems odd to assign emotion to inanimate objects

· Perhaps they are more alive than we realize?

for the revealing of the sons of God.

· Same theme as 1Jo_3:2.

· revealing - NASB, manifestation - KJV, apokalupso - GNT.

· Same word that we have in English for the apocalypse.

· This will be the time when things are set in order.

v20 - The creation itself is subject to present decline

For the creation was subjected to futility,

· The creation itself is decaying.

· The sin of man has infected the world.

· We are taking the world down with us.

· Water and air are getting polluted.

· Everything is in a sense in decline.

· When will this situation be reversed?

· At the manifestation of the Sons of God.

not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it,

· God gave man the created world

· The creation had to go down with man, it is where we reside.

v21 - Creation will be freed from bondage

in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

· There is hope present not just in our souls for deliverance, but there is a hope present in creation itself.

· God is looking to the time of restoration of all things to their created order.

· God has subjected the creation to the same fall as us in order that all may be restored together.

· When man is restored and creation is restored into it's proper place then the glory of creation will be seen.

· Now we have only seen glimpses of that glory.

· There is something that soars in our hearts when we see a bald eagle.

· That bald eagles were nearly eliminated by DDT years ago makes most people sad.

· To see them come back from near extinction is a wonderful thing.

· It is a mere shadow of the sort of thing that will happen when creation is restored.

· Will there be Do-Do birds?

· Will there be Panda bears?

· Speculations abound.

v22 -

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

· We can see this pain present in nature if we look around us.

· Is this the Biblical explanation for hurricanes, earthquakes and tornados?

· Are they signs not just of the end, but of the creation groaning?

· Certainly they show us great power.

· Nature has incredible power.

· There is a lab where Edison Electric Company produces lightening to test electronic equipment.

· This lab consumes a half a megawatt of electricity to produce a bolt of lightening.

· They have their own generators to produce electricity because of the dip they would cause on the line if they took their power from the lines.

· Yet, the man who runs the lab describes it is much less power than an average lightening bolt.

v23 - Similarly, we groan for release

And not only this, but also we ourselves

· This is an argument from analogy.

· We can see all around us that things are not the way that they were created to be.

· Similarly, we are not the way that we were created to be.

· We don't need to look any further than the list of people that we are praying for to see the pain that the world is in.

· I was at Lakewood Pines this past week talking with one of the residents in a wheel chair

· Reminded that joints wear out as our bodies age.

having the first fruits of the Spirit

· We have the Spirit of God.

· We are among those that have come to know God.

· The first harvest of the hay crops have come in around us.

· The hay barns are starting to fill with hay.

· The dairy farmers are happy since they have feed for their cows.

· We are the first harvest of God.

· God is happy since the church is filling up.

· The church of God had a small start there in Jerusalem but is now pretty impressive in size

even we ourselves groan within ourselves,

· Sometimes our groaning is not just "within ourselves"

· We sense that the world is not right.

· I have friends who are a married couple.

· They have made an pact with each other that when they get up out of a chair they won't groan.

waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

· We have another couple who are friends from Chicago, Mary and Glen.

· Mary loves kids.

· Mary works in the day care center at the church.

· Mary is unable to have children and they decided to adopt two children from El Salvador.

· They took a couple of trips down to El Salvador to see the children.

· It took months for their new children to arrive.

· Those months were quite difficult and filled with excitement for Mary and Glenn.

· We are already adopted as children of God.

· But there is more to come.

· Our bodies will be redeemed.

· This is an area of some controversy.

· Some people mistakenly believe that our bodies are not raised, but replaced with different bodies.

· Some even believe that the bodies are not physical bodies.

· This passage says otherwise.

· Even our corrupt bodies are raised and made incorruptible.

· If our bodies and the rest of creation, were not raised and fixed, then there would be a battle that God had lost.

v24 - saved in hope

· Webster's defines hope as:

· A desire of some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable. Hope differs from wish and desire in this, that it implies some expectation of obtaining the good desired, or the possibility of possessing it. Hope therefore always gives pleasure or joy; whereas wish and desire may produce or be accompanied with pain and anxiety.

For in hope we have been saved

· Translation issues

· KJV - "saved by hope"

· NASB tried to avoid this and says "in hope we have been saved"

· Robinson

· 'Curiously enough either makes good sense in this context: “We were saved in hope, by hope, for hope.”
(of the redemption of the body).'

but hope that is seen is not hope

· This is still hope since it is not yet seen.

· If we saw it, then it would already be present before us.

for who hopes for what he already sees?

· This is the definition of hope

· That fact that is it not yet seen is what makes it hope.

v25 - Patience in waiting

But if we hope for what we do not see

· There is a longing that is in us for God's Kingdom to come.

with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

· Tension between eagerness and patience

· Sometimes we are not patient in waiting

· We are like the kids in the back of the car with the famous chant...

· Are we there yet?

· Word in NIV, KJV - patiently, patience

· The NASB translates this as perseverance

· We work our way through these things.

· We deal with the flesh, putting it to death.