Session 31 – Romans; Romans 8:26-27: Mark Lanier, 05/10/26

ROM 030_Romans P30_PODCAST_042626
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[00:00:00] Uh, we're gonna switch things up a little bit. I am, uh, Mark's third string. So, uh- Call him the scabs if you want to. Call me, uh, however, whatever. I am glad to be here, though. And, and he's given me permission, in fact, to talk about Romans. Which is kind of amazing, but he told me exactly what to say. So I'm just, I'm just kind of giving you what that...

Um, it, he... This fellow up on the screen, he said this, "I came, I saw, and I conquered." Anybody know who that is? Julius Caesar. It's Julius Caesar to the Roman Senate about 47 BC after a lar- a big win over, uh, to the east of the army. So that's, uh, that's, uh, [00:01:00] just Julius Caesar. So Mark saw this and, or you know, had the idea.

And so we, so we ha- we have this idea. And there was the bust- ... of Martin, of, uh, Mark Lanier. I don't know if you've seen this or not, but it's at the Lanier Theological Library now. It's, it's by the celebrated sculptor, uh, from Germany, Alexander Dufas- ... was his name. Uh, so that's, uh, that's... Y- you know, when you take a picture, it adds about 10 pounds to you, but when you put yourself in marble, it adds about 10 years.

So it's a little bit old. If you want to see what he's gonna look like at the age of 80, Coach, that's probably it, something like that. Well, Mark, Mark, uh, wanted to, to do... Uh, we... The, the three kind of pi- pillows of this, we groan, we hope, we wait. That's, that's Paul here, and that's kind of Mark's idea about it.

I kind of like that. I w- I wonder if we could actually do that. That's [00:02:00] kind of cool. So th- th- by the way, this doesn't exist at the Lanier Theological Library. I j- I was just kidding. Doesn't exist yet. I mean, it's gonna- It's gonna... Maybe, maybe one day. You never know. You never know. At this point. This is Mark Lanier.

This is what he's saying to you here. We groan. We, we, Christians, people who have the Spirit, people who know that they are not standing under condemnation, people who, who are in this world, but not nearly of this world exactly, we, we, we belong elsewhere. So let's talk about real estate today. I, I want to talk about real estate.

The very first house... Can you remember the first house you bought? Some of you bought houses, sold houses. This is the very first h- house that Kathy and I bought right here. It's, uh... It was a fixer-upper, you know. We just, uh, we knew we'd have to put a little money into it. And everything, but it was just, you know, s- a pr- pretty solid house.

After, after a few [00:03:00] years, uh, this, this is kind of what we had right there. Yeah, it was- it's a nice, nice place. Y- it'd be ama- you're ama- I'm just amazed whenever you put a little paint on something how good it looks, you know? And put a, do a little landscaping. All that, all, it's all, all that it kind of takes.

And, and that. No, of course, that wasn't our first house. Let's talk about earnest money. As a part of the process of buying a property, earnest money, according to the FHA, is paid by the buyer or buyers, and it's done so to confirm that he, she, or they ... I'm not really confused about pronouns, I just have to use that.

It could be a he, it could be a she, it could be a they, could be a family, right? They are serious about purchasing from the seller. The deposit becomes part of the down payment of, in closing, uh, that those costs are f- factored in closing, right, at when it, when, when you finally get the property. So there's a point when you, when you have put in the down payment, and yet, and yet the [00:04:00] house or the property that you're buying is still not yours, right?

I mean, you don't have access to that money, 'cause you've put it down on that. You can't go spend that, 'cause if you do, that's, that's a problem. So you don't, you don't, you don't have the money, and you don't have the house yet. You can drive by the house. You can wave at it. You can stand, stand there and take pictures, but you can't go in it, 'cause it's not yours.

You can't move your stuff in it, 'cause it's not yours. You are in this period of waiting. That's what you're doing, right? You're waiting. And again, that is kind of a, a, a parable of what Paul is gonna be talking about here today in the Book of Romans, chapter eight. Well, this can be visited by Mark. Last time Mark was here, he said, he said this.

He said that, speaking of, in particular, this passage here, "We know that all of creation has been groaning. All [00:05:00] creation, the sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, space itself, time itself. It's groaning in pains of childbirth until now." The Greek of that, I know you want more Greek, right? Do you want more Greek?

Yeah. More Greek. Say, "More Greek." More Greek. All right, more Greek. Ho, ho, ho. There we go. All right, Romans 8:20. «Oidamen gar» We know. This is something we all know. We know that creation is groaning, it's flexing, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's in turmoil, until now. And it is groaning together. Over here, I wanna show you, uh

Oh, this is Mark. Mark is, Mark is leaving us. No, he's coming back. He's, he's gonna be happy. Okay, he's happy. He's happy with what we're doing. Okay. Thank you for being here today, by the way. And knowing Mark's not gonna be here, and you got the third string. So, so take a... Oidimen. Take a [00:06:00] look. This sustenaze is a Greek word that means groaning together, and that together part of the word is just right here.

That sus- at the very beginning of the word. It's actually a shortening of the word soon, but we see it in the next verb here. We see this particular word. It means that we're groaning together. Creation, all of creation, all the elements of creation are groaning until now, waiting for something. What are we waiting for?

What are we hoping for? It's doing that together until now. Well, we're gonna take thr- a three-legged sort of ad- advanced look at this with some summer fruit. I love summer fruit. We, we had, we have the best blackberries. Oh, I eat blackberries, but you get the little seeds in your teeth, you know? It's a good, it's a good fruit though, otherwise.

So this, so [00:07:00] we groan. The first fruit's paradox, that's the first part of it. Second part of it is we, we hope. That is the nature of Christian hope. What is Christian hope really about? Are we hoping for the right things? Are we hoping for the, the things that are really real, or things that just, we just kinda wish to be real?

And then finally, we wait. It's a virtue that nobody wants. We don't wanna be in this waiting. I wanna get the house. If I'm serious enough to put money down on the house, I want the house and I want it now, right? It's the way we feel. But we're in this moment of waiting. And then, uh, points for home. A little thumb tack there I thought.

We'll use that for points for home today. And just, it's there to remind me that Paul is as sharp as a tack. Uh, yeah, yeah. That's kinda, kinda corny, isn't it? He's, he's a sharp guy. So we're gonna look at the groaning part first of all. In fact, we're probably gonna spend most of our time there because that's where we are.

We aren't yet to the place of receiving, of [00:08:00] moving into that house, moving into that mansion, as the old King James said. We're not quite there yet. So Paul is focusing now his, hi- hi- focusing not on creation as a whole, but humanity in the middle of it. In fact, not all of humanity, but humanity that is in Christ, people that are in Christ like yourselves, people who are there.

So the, the sh- the shift is to humanity. We groan, and yet we have the Spirit. Why do we groan? We have the Spirit. We have life. We have life of the world to come now. We have resurrection life in us now, and yet we still groan. In fact, what Paul is gonna try to say, we are groaning precisely because we have the Spirit.

What is that about? Well, this is what Paul says. We'll get the man here. Ha- Hagios Apostolos Paulos, the holy [00:09:00] Apostle Paul. Now, Paul moves to this question a- and he says this, "It's not only this, not only creation, but we ourselves," and he's emphatic there, "we ourselves, we who have the first fruits of the spirit, we are groaning inwardly."

You sense that? We are groaning on the inside. Nobody may see it. You may look at me and I'm doing fine, you know? You may look at somebody else, they look like they're doing fine. They act like they're doing fine. But yet there's still this... Inside there's this groaning, there's this longing. Longing for what?

Longing for what? But he said, "We groan inwardly as we wait eager- eagerly for adoption as sons." We're gonna unpack that a little bit today. And then he goes on to say, what is that? "That is the redemption of our bodies." [00:10:00] Our bodies. The body that you have now is going to be redeemed. We're not going to be...

We'll, we, we will be without this body for a time, but not permanently, because God is going to, like He did with Jesus, raise Jesus, the body of Jesus, the carbon atoms, the hydrogen atoms, the oxygen atoms in Him, all of that, He raised Jesus with all of that, and He's going to transform that and make it new so that we will have bodies, but they will have different properties than the bodies that we currently have.

We will have a body like Jesus. A body like Jesus. And it's gonna be a glorified, glorious bodies. We are not gonna be disembodied spirits floating somewhere. We're not going to be a drop in the ocean and just be absorbed into the all. Those are different [00:11:00] religions and different perspectives. I respect them, but that's not what Christianity teaches.

We are going to have a different kind. So we are part of this creation, and we are groaning together with it because we have the Spirit. The Spirit is what creates that longing with us. So here's Paul, Umanande, not only creation. That word creation is given to you there by the translation committee. It's not in the Greek originally, but it's there to show you what, what do we mean?

Not only creation is groaning, but we are groaning too. You don't need it in Greek, but we need it in English. So people are part of creation, and that's why you and I are groaning. We are not exempt from it. We are not... Just because we're Christians doesn't mean that- We don't have that. In fact, we probably have it more than anybody else because we have the Spirit that's producing within us something like [00:12:00] longing and something like, as, as Jesus said, those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

Is that something deep within your soul? Then you are blessed, Jesus said. Groaning because we have the Spirit itself. So people are part of creation, we're not... But notice, we have the Spirit. Why are we groaning? We're forgiven. We have a future. We're settled. We're saved. We're rescued, and yet we live in a fallen world.

We live with fallen people. We are broken people. Despite the fact that you and I have the Spirit, there is something not full, not right, and we know that, and we are asking God to make us right. That's what justification is all about, God making us right in this life, through this [00:13:00] life, and despite sometimes our deep problems and mistakes.

So we live in a fallen world, and we live in bodies, this body, your body. Think about your body. Think about the pills that you take. Think about the aches you wake up with. Think about the pains. Think about the bad news coming from the doctor. Think about waiting for that bad news from the doctor, week, two weeks, sometimes longer.

These bodies of ours are going to be redeemed. They are not yet redeemed. Salvation is not yet complete because when it's complete, these bodies will have been transformed into a different kind of body, but not a [00:14:00] disembodied existence. And so this is what Paul says, and we'll focus in upon this a little bit, "Ourselves, we ourselves, we have the firstfruits of the Spirit."

I love that word firstfruits. It comes from a Greek word aparken, and it, it, it just, those of you who know Greek, the, the, really from the first is what it means. The things, the fruit. This is the fors- first portion of the harvest. The first portion of the harvest sometimes is the best tomatoes, the best blackberries, the best squash, and you give the first part of that, the firstfruits, to God because you know that the rest of the harvest is coming.

God tells us to give Him the first day of every week. That's Sunday. This is His day. This is the Lord's day. It's not our day. It's not the church's day, right? You can do church. Uh, should be. But it's the [00:15:00] Lord's day. We belong to the Lord. Whether we live, we die, we are the Lord's, Paul says. And so this is the Lord's day.

We are to give God the very first day of every week. We are to give God the first 10% of our income, our tithe. Not the last, not a tip for a good month, but to give God ahead of time because we know the rest is coming, you know? We know the rest is coming. We know the harvest is gonna come in. We know the money is come in.

We're gonna ... We know that God is working on our behalf. And so we give God the first day of every week. We give God the first, uh, 10% of our, our income, the things that come in, and we give God here ... Or we have within us the first fruits of the Spirit. And [00:16:00] so that little phrase, first fruits, is very important.

Paul uses it, and this is, uh, uh, let's see. Is this the right one? Okay. I'll put it right here. It, the first fruits of the Spirit means, for those of you Greek students, it's a genitive form. It's an ep- exegetical genitive if you want the fancy term, but what it means is that the first fruits is the Spirit.

It's not just some part of the Spirit or something given from the Spirit, it's the Spirit itself that is the first fruits. We have that. That is the down payment. That is, in a sense, the aravon in Greek. Now, that is, that is the, the first part that we know is something else is coming. Do you long for that?

Amen. Do you hope for that? Are you hurting inside because of that? Well, I don't ... It sounds a little strange that we ourselves are groaning. We who have [00:17:00] the first fruits of the Spirit are groaning, waiting eagerly for our adoption. Our adoption. More about that in a moment. This is, um, a wonderful scholar named Leon Morris.

Lived in the land down under, taught at, at, uh, Melbourne, and, uh, he makes the point looking back at 1 Corinthians 15:20 that the same word, Paul uses the same word here to talk about the resurrection of Jesus. The, the resurrection of Jesus, bodily resurrection, not some spiritual thing, but that was just, just spiritual and not physical.

That physical thing that happened with Jesus is the first fruits of the general resurrec- uh, resurrection that's gonna happen one day. That's what we're waiting for. We're not, we're not waiting for something, for something different. We're, we are waiting for the first fruits of the [00:18:00] resurrection to become the resurrection for all.

And so it was an, it was a full resurrection. The first fruits. It was a real physical body, and you and I are going to have a real body. Is it gonna be physical? It's gonna be a different kind of physics. It's gonna be a different kind of body. But it'll be a, it'll be a body nonetheless. A body that will, will not hurt.

A body that will not need pills to sustain it. That will not need rest in the same way as we need it. Will not be limited. We are finite. We will not be limited in the way we are currently limited with these new bodies. That's what I'm looking forward to. My new body's gonna be six-foot-three. Can't wait.

Stand on my tiptoes and... Not quite there, not gonna [00:19:00] happen. Romans 8:23, Paul applies the same sort of logic. He said, "The spirit that we received," and I, I hope you receive the spirit. I should probably pause and say, listen, I'm speaking to Christians today. I'm speaking to insiders. If you're a person here and you're watching, uh, uh, on, on, on YouTube or something, uh, or if you're a person in here that say, "Well, you know, I'm not really, not really into that.

I'm just here as a curiosity and seeker," bless you. Thank you for being here. But I'm talking about people who have been, believed in Jesus and have been baptized and are walking in the Spirit and care about these things, and are deeply moved by them. The spirit we receive is the guarantee of the harvest that is to come.

And what is that harvest to come? It is a new creation. Creation will be turned upside down, inside out, and put right. It went [00:20:00] wrong, but creation will be put right by God eventually. We don't know the day or the hour, but we look forward to it and we long for it. We know. Now, he, he, he says some other things too that I felt was pretty interesting.

Uh, we're gonna talk about that. The gift of the Spirit that you have, I love this statement. It not only satisfies, but it also, it intensifies our groaning. The Spirit that is in you- Creates this longing, creates this desire for that world that is to come. That is not some disembodied heavenly sort of thing, it's, it's the body that is the new, made new.

And he says the down payment awakens the longing for the full possession, the spirit within you. So if you're a Christian today, and you're longing, and you're desiring, and you're [00:21:00] hurting, and you're seeking, doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. In fact, that may be the right, the thing that's right with you.

Now, we, we do have other kinds of, of problems that we create for ourselves, longings. But this spirit longing creates in us a desire for that world that is yet to come. But there's a gap, right? We are... This is what is over here. Think about your life, what is. And then parallel that on the is what will be.

Right now, we're living in this sort of gap between the two. Jesus talked about it like this. He said, "There's a, there's a, there's a farmer who sowed good seed in his field." Remember this? And, and he... And everybody went to bed that night, and an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat. [00:22:00] And the two begin growing up together, and, and the workers come to the master and say, "Master, didn't you, didn't you plant good seed?"

He said, "Yeah." They said, "Well, we got all these weeds." He says, "An enemy's done this." What are we to do? You want us to go out there into the fields and start pulling up all the weeds in the middle of the field? Well, anybody that knows farming and knows that's not a good idea because we pull up the wheat, uh, weeds, you might pull up the wheat.

You damage them as well. And what does he say? He says, "Let the two grow together until harvest. And at the harvest, we'll send out workers. They'll get the weeds, and they'll pile them here. We'll burn them, and then we'll get the wheat, and we'll take it to the barns and fill up the barns. That's what we'll do."

We are living together today wheat and weeds, longing for that harvest day, [00:23:00] longing for things to be made right. And, and because of that, I think Jesus says this: "Blessed are those who mourn." This isn't just people sad about somebody who's departed, though we are certainly that, deeply hurt.

But blessed are those who mourn the brokenness they see around them. The wars they see around them, the death and the dying they see around them, the poverty they see around them. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall, future tense, be comforted. Comfort is coming, but we're not quite there yet. So we, we mourn now.

We groan in- internally. That is the, the standard. And so Mark says about this, and he s- sent me this paragraph, and he said, "The very presence of the [00:24:00] Spirit in us creates groaning because the Spirit is the firstfruits of something that has not yet arrived in its fullness." Right? That's where we are. And so if you have that longing, if you have that groaning, if you have that seeking, if you have that knocking, it's because you have the Spirit within you that is groaning, waiting, anticipating what yet is yet to come.

And so w- we, we continue here. Not only... Come back to the, the main verse. We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of the bodies. And so what are we waiting for? We're waiting for our full adoption. We are waiting for our adoption as sons.

Now, that's a particular kind of a technical word, uiothesia, which means to be adopted and [00:25:00] have the status of a son. Now, ladies, I'm sorry, but the world at that time differentiated things t- in a way, and, and Paul is writing to that world in a way that they would understand. He's not talking about just sons here.

I think he's talking more broadly than that. But the technical word, the key word here, uiothesia, is the idea of that we will be adopted with full rights and in authority into the family. We are waiting to be fully adopted into the family. You and I have not. We're, we're sort of in that in-between time.

We're living in between that. We're living in the gap. That's where we are. And so as Paul says, we are adopted as sons. We are waiting for that. We are hoping for that. We are looking for that day when that comes, you and I. That's, that's our lives today. That's our lives. So let's have a little more Greek.[00:26:00]

Here, here's the... Here's what he says in the next verse. Ro- well, going back. Sorry, this is going back. Romans 8:15. He says, "You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear." Here, the spirit of slavery, pneuma douleias. You haven't to fall back, but you've received the spirit of adoption as sons.

We are thesia, same word. And therefore we cry, "Abba, Father. Abba, hapatere, Father." That's why we cry to Him. That's why we plead. That's why we beg Him. That's why we thanked Him today for protection. Abba, thank you for protecting us. Thank you for protecting our families. Thank you for protecting Jerusalem Seminary and Baruch Kvasnica and his family, even though bombs are still falling, [00:27:00] or ha- or were at the time.

So here's two words I wanna look, l- look at. Elobethe. Elobethe is a Greek word that means it's already done. It's, it's a completed action. So you have already received that s- that spirit of, of, uh, adoption. You've already got it. It's already in you, that spirit. But there's another spirit, the spirit of slavery.

He- Paul says, "O God, you did not receive the spirit of slavery." You've been a slave. You've been a slave to sin. You've been a slave to the powers. A- and that, what does that lead to? That leads to fear, ace faban. That leads to fear, and that leads... That's where you were, and that's where you're gonna go again.

Paul says, "No, that's not what you got." What you got is you got the Spirit that God has given you, a spirit of adoption. I have been [00:28:00] adopted into God's... I had a friend that u- used this phrase, God's forever family. I like that. You and I are part of God's forever family. But our adoption is n- not yet complete.

We're waiting for that full adoption because when we get that full adoption, we're gonna get the full body, full go- full body makeover, complete. Not, not a spa kind of thing, by the way. Spirit of adoption is already yours. So Paul goes on to say this: "We ourselves groan inwardly waiting for our adoption as sons," and then he clarifies, "What do you mean this adoption?"

Means you have been given a time when we are, our bodies will have been redeemed. Our bodies are not second class. Our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made, and God is going to redeem them. [00:29:00] God is gonna take the weakness and make it strength. God is gonna take the faltering eyesight and make that eyesight 20/15, better.

God's gonna take those aching knees and shoulders. And say, "Wow, man, that feels good." You and I- Are walking out of this with a new body, and that's an exciting thing. That's our adoption. That's the day of our adoption where those bodies are redeemed. I was gonna put a picture of S&H Green Stamps. Do y'all remember those?

I, I, I, I ran out of time. I was in Wheaton College this week doing podcasts for our podcast we do with them called Exegetically Speaking. So I was... I did 13 podcasts with them this week, so I was busy doing that. I was gonna look for a picture of S&H Green Stamps, thinking that maybe some of you might remember [00:30:00] that.

Oh. When you took the... You went shopping and you got these stamps, and they're worth what? Nothing. They ain't worth nothing. But you take them, you put them in one of those books, and you go to the redemption center, and what do you get? You get a basketball. That's what I got. I remember going and getting a basketball.

My grandmother had some stamps, said, "Well, do you want my stamps?" "Yeah." She said, "They're not worth anything." They're not worth anything just in these pages, but you take them and you put them in the stamp book, you take them to the store. You go to the right place, and they are redeemed. You take that which is worth nothing- Nothing

and make it worth something. That you and I desire. That's a part of it. You and I are waiting for that day of redemption. We're gonna take our weak bodies into that moment, [00:31:00] and, and, and into that moment, some of will have already passed. Those people will be resurrected from the dead. If you're living, Paul says, your body's going to be transformed.

He says it this way in 1 Corinthians, "We will not all sleep the sleep of death, but we will all be- Changed ... changed." Changed. Metamorphosed. In a moment, in a quick blink of an eye, at the last trumpet, we will be changed. I'm looking forward to that day. I s- I'm looking forward to that day. I, I am, I am... That is the day that the Lord has made, that He's preparing for, even now.

I don't know when that's gonna be. I, I don't have a time, but our a- our adoption, our full adoption waits. Um, Doug Moo, I think, yeah, this is Doug Moo, colleague of mine at Wheaton College. He's now retired, lives in [00:32:00] Arizona. Doug Moo wr- wrote a wonderful commentary on this particular book, Romans. "We wait eagerly for our adoption as sons."

And waiting is hard, isn't it? We wait eagerly for that moment- And this is what he says, that the legal status, when we're become c- when we're in Jesus, that legal status is already confirmed. The paperwork's already done. The lawyers have already done their stuff. But we eagerly await the final, full, definitive manifestation of that adoption in the resurrection.

That is our bodily resurrection. What are you waiting for? What are you hoping for? When you think about the future, where does this Christian faith take me? Well, I mean, I, I sort of grew up with the idea, well, this, this, this Christian faith takes me to the end of my life into heaven when I die. And f- full stop.

That's sort of what I thought was gonna [00:33:00] happen. Um, I go to heaven, be with Jesus. That's great. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, I'm just saying that that's not our final destination. Our final destination after we die and after we are in heaven, we are waiting, we are resting, waiting for the resurrection of the body.

Resurrection of the body on that day. This is what the New Testament continually says. This is what the Christian creeds have said. The Apostle's Creed said, "I believe in the resurrection from the dead." That's what it says. It means all of us who are in Christ will be raised. Doug Moo, great guy. So where's all this headed?

The redemption of the body. Our bodies that are going to be pretty much used u- I hope I use up my body. I wanna get everything I can out of it. I wanna get every mile I can out of it. I wanna get every Netflix show I can get out of it. I wanna g- you know, I [00:34:00] wanna get every, every bit of music, Phil Keaggy songs, acoustic, you know, before my ears go.

Um, I wanna get all... You like that? I'm like that. I wanna get it all, and I think that's okay, but I'm gonna be giving that body back to God who made it. And God is going to completely transform, remake that body into a glorious body like the body that Jesus has. It's gonna be a great day. Great day. And I'm looking forward to it.

I hope you are, too. Tom Wright says, "Popular Christianity often thinks of the body, this body, as a problem." We gotta get rid of the body. Salvation is escape from the body, from down here. Uh, he has a different perspective on that, as, as do I. I didn't actually come to this, I came to this on my own through study, and then [00:35:00] To- Tom Wright actually agrees with me.

I appreciate that. Um, it's g- it's good to have somebody agree with you like that. Paul says we are waiting for our bodies to be redeemed. We're not waiting for that day, say, "Oh, I can't wait to die and go to heaven." Now, I, I plan on doing that, and I'm gonna do that, and you're gonna do that. At the, at the moment to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, but that's not our final destination.

There is something that Tom Wright calls life after life after death. At death, we will have life, but not the redemption of the bodies. But we will have one day a redemption of the body that we experience, and we are waiting for that, and we're waiting for the fullness of the new creation that has already begun in Christ Jesus.

When the body of Jesus is raised from the earth... My doctor, Father [00:36:00] Earl Ellis, used to say it this way, "A piece of the earth has been made eternal." Because our bodies are made of what? Dust. These bodies are made of dust, clay, and yet God is gonna take that body and remake it completely. Man, I got a lot of stuff to talk about.

His book, Surprised By Joy, I'd recommend it. Good summer reading for you if you'd like to see it. It, it's, it's... You can audio book it and all that kind of thing. But he talks about... Here's the s- the subtitle, Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the, key thing, Mission of the Church. What does this mean for our mission?

If all this is true, that we're really looking for God to redeem creation, all of creation, and to redeem our bodies, all of our bodies, if we're really waiting for that, well, how do we live into our mission? The physical dimension of life, of our [00:37:00] existence, is not a cage that's trapping our souls. It's an integral part of what it means to be human.

Our bodies, our physicality, all of it, it's an important part. And, and these bodies are gonna be swept up in that new creation as we are made whole, as we are made complete, as we are made right. That's what we're waiting for from Paul's perspective, and we groan for that. We long for that in these bodies that we have currently.

Well, that's a lot. I've gotta move quickly. I've got about 10 minutes left. Maybe three hours, I don't know. We groan for the first fruits. Now we're gonna talk a little bit about hope very quickly, and then we're gonna talk about the vir- virtues before we talk about, about points for home. The hope, Christian hope.

This is what Paul says, "In this hope we were [00:38:00] saved." In this hope we are saved. "Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?" It's kind of just a philosophical definition, right? What is hope? Well, you begin with what you don't have, what will be. It's a, it's a present to future. It's a gap kind of thing that we've talked about earlier.

What is that all about? Notice Paul says, "In this hope we were saved." Saved in this hope. Wait a minute, I thought we were saved by grace through faith. Well, we are, and Paul wouldn't, wouldn't condi- uh, uh, o- offer any contradiction to that. It, it, it's not, it's not that grace through faith is the problem, i- is the, is the issue.

He's, he's not talking about that. He's talking about something very different. He's talking about a future orientation. Because we have grace, god's grace, because we have [00:39:00] faith and we know the faithfulness of God, yet we still and we do hope, and our salvation is for something. It's away from one thing. We are saved from sin.

We are saved for a future hope. That's where we're heading, to that glorious future. In this hope we are saved. Grace and faith, I put it this way, grace and faith are the means of salvation, and if we put it this way, hope is its direction. I am saved by grace through faith, full stop. But, not contradicting it, my salvation is to something.

I'm being saved away from that and into something else, into this new body, this new creation, this new world that God's gonna... The rabbis called it the haba ha-olam, the world that is to come. The world that is [00:40:00] to come. Knowing that God was going to remake the world. They didn't know it was going to be or they, they didn't realize it had already begun in the middle of history.

That's why we have BC and AD, 'cause in the middle of history, the world began its, its makeover with Jesus of Nazareth at the resurrection, and death is defeated, the powers are defeated at the cross and at that moment at the cross. Tom says, "Salvation is not a one and done." Okay, I'm saved. Don't have to worry about nothing else.

No, it's dynamic. It's justification, yes, and the Spirit's indwelling, but it's heading somewhere. It's heading to the redemption of the body, a new creation. Think how wonderful creation is. Imagine it made new. Think about the mountains, [00:41:00] the stars in the sky made new. These bodies that we have that, that are, that be- are become more and more frail over time, these bodies will be remade into something glorious and new.

That's, that's the hope. We're waiting for that full adoption. We are waiting for the redemption of the bodies, and yet we are waiting in hope. Not wishful thinking, waiting in hope. A lot of times we think of heaven kind of like this, right? Angels sitting on the cloud playing harps. Why is it that angels are always depicted as women?

That's not fair. Why? You know, just 'cause you're better looking than us doesn't mean- Yeah ... that you should be the angels and we don't get... I don't know. That's, anyway, that's not what's [00:42:00] happening. That's not what we're gonna get. That's not where we're going. That would be kind of boring to me. After I played about 10,000 songs, I'd want to do something else.

Right? Well, I like songs. I like music. Back to Leon Morris. What did Leon Morris say? He said about this, it's really interesting, I think, "Hope is at the center of our stance toward the future." Hope. Is that how you feel toward the future? Or do you fear phobon? Do you fear the future? Fearful of the future. I am hopeful.

I'm not... It's not just a silly optimism, it is based upon the words and the deeds of God that have been revealed to us through the scriptures and through the church. Hope is at the center of how I think about the future and how you should think about, how we all should think about the future. And he s- goes [00:43:00] on to say, "It's not wishful thinking.

It's not just sort of vague optimism." You know, everything's gonna turn out okay. Just kind of vague. Yeah, it's gonna be all right. I hope it's gonna be okay, you know? Not that kind of thing, but a confident expectation based on the promises of a triune God. That's what I'm hoping in. Are you fearful toward the future, about your future, about your destiny, about our destiny, about the world's destiny?

It's gonna be remade. It's gonna be remade, and that's gonna be a great day when it comes. "For in this hope we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees?" Oh, gosh, I've got so much here to talk about. Does Mark ever do this? Does he ever run out of time? Yeah. All right, let me, let me move on down just a little bit.

Uh, I c- can I just go fast? Is that okay? [00:44:00] All right. Paul's defining his term. Hope is inherently future o- oriented. I don't hope for things in the past, do you? I hope the, the Astros win the World Series last year. Too late. All right, we don't hope for the past. We hope in the future, for future things. You and I should be forward leaning.

Not sitting back s- "Well, I can't... I don't know what's gonna happen next." No. Paul says we should be future oriented, future leaning in hope, and hope in what God has promised to us. That's, that's our hope, and it's a glorious thing. It's the thing you hope for is not fully in hand. I don't have my adoption yet.

I got my papers, you know, I got the [00:45:00] Spirit. I've got that, but I'm waiting for that day when I really, fully move into to that house. I'm gonna have a, I'm gonna have a big room. Takes a big room for a guy 6'3", you know. Just, just the way it goes. Gotta have things like that. All right, he, but we walk by faith, not by sight, Paul says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not unseen."

Groaning is not a sign that there's something wrong with you. Groaning is a sign that you're a normal Christian who has the Spirit. Think about that. Paul, that's how Paul is recommending all of this. We live in hope. We don't have it fully in hand. It's not there, but m- I'm leaning into the future. I'm not shriveling back from it.

What about you? May- maybe we do a little bit of this, you [00:46:00] know, leaning in, shrinking back. Paul says we should be leaning in to the future 'cause there's hope there, there's joy there, there's satisfaction there. There is the new body awaiting us at that point. Well, okay, I'm just about... I got one minute left.

Let's go points for home real quick. Uh, blah, blah, blah, blah, bloop. Okay, that's not working. Let me go down here.

Oh, man. You wanna see Mark again? You wanna see the statue, uh, bust? No, I'm just kidding. My computer is not working. Isn't that fun? It's not doing what I want it to do. All right. Well, anyway. I'll just do it that way. That's not great. Okay, we're gonna come back. [00:47:00] Sorry. My bad. Just want to underscore a few things.

Groaning is, is a sign of your spiritual health and wellbeing. If you're groaning, if you're longing, if you're, if you are not fully comforted now, if you are, if you are, if you're, if you feel satisfied and yet there's an intensive and, and intense sort of desire to move on into God's future, that's a normal thing.

The Spirit produces a desire for what is not yet, but that we know is coming. You've probably had experiences like that in life. Number two, hope is not optimism. I just hope all this works out God's way, or I just hope things work out just generally. You know, the universe will just take, settle all this kind of thing.

But confident that [00:48:00] Jesus' resurrection is the first fruits of a new creation. It's not feelings. It's not how you feel. Our feelings are fickle. Our feelings change. We are here at church together to spur upon ourselves faith, to remind ourselves of these things. It's not circumstances, but it is trust in the empty tomb that we celebrated a few weeks ago at Easter.

If that tomb really was empty, if that body of Jesus really did get up out of there and walk and talk and do the things, if that's all true, then we got a great future ahead. Amen. We got a great future ahead. All right, one more thing really quick. Last thing, one minute after. Steadfast endurance, and I, I just call it leaning in.

Steadfast endurance, enduring. It's gonna get tough. For some of you, it's tough right now. There are some tough days ahead, but [00:49:00] steadfast, faithful endurance is what our posture looks like when it comes to God in the future. And my hope is that you are in a moment of steadfast, steady endurance in your life, leaning in to God's hope, to God's future, and looking forward to that day when our bodies, think about it, our bodies are remade.

Let me pray for you. Father, thank you for these men and women here today.

I pray that our disposition of heart will be one of trusting in the empty tomb, recognizing the hope that is within us, that has been placed there by the Spirit and for the Spirit, and it is our direction, a direction of hope. Lord, we wait for that, a day when we're adopted. You know, our adoption's final, [00:50:00] complete, can't go back.

We look forward to that day when these new bodies are created and we inhabit them yet again. I pray that you will reset our hope on you and what lies ahead, and we pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.