6. New Year's Eve Conference | The Glorious Future of the Church

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Pastor Austin Keeler of the Reformation Church of Shelbyville KY and the Reformed Frontline Missions

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Revive Us Again | Week 14 | Acts 17

Revive Us Again | Week 14 | Acts 17

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Please open your Bibles to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8.
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Very happy to be with you all tonight. Let's read this, verses 16 through 25 of Romans chapter 8.
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This is God's Word. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also.
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Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.
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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.
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For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
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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.
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For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
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And not only this, but we also, we ourselves, having the first fruits of the
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Spirit, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
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For in hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he already sees.
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But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
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Will you pray with me? Father, at this late hour, we are so thankful for your
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Word. Feed us, God. Your sheep, the sheep of your pastor,
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Good Shepherd, visit us. Oh God, add your blessing to the preaching of your
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Word, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. It is my task this evening to preach to you about the glorious future of the church.
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You may be asking, because I was certainly asking myself in preparation, how is it that we are going to take perhaps the most glorious block of the most glorious portion of the most glorious chapter of perhaps the most glorious letter in this most glorious book, a large chunk of it, and get through it in 30 minutes?
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Well, in two hours you'll see that we won't be able to do that. I'm just kidding. No, we'll do it.
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We'll do it. We believe in a miraculous God. So, the future of the church is not grim, it is glorious.
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Would you agree? That is easier to say, it's easier to say that, than it is to see.
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In fact, the Apostle affirms in what we just read that we cannot see all that is promised to us as God's church, promised for our future.
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Instead, we hope for it. Instead, we wait eagerly for it.
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But our hoping and our waiting, it is often stressed and strained by various challenges.
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The present challenges that are common to us while we are yet bound to the body and of this earth.
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Challenges of various kinds of suffering, various battles with sin, various experiences of death, even our own or those whom we love.
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This past year, some of you have perhaps suffered for your faith.
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I know a dear brother who will likely lose his job because he will not comply with the
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LGBT agenda being pushed at his place of work. And some of you have suffered physically.
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I've seen my own wife in and out of the hospital several times this year. I was speaking with a dear brother earlier this evening who is suffering physically.
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This past year, you have discovered within your own heart sins which you did not know existed therein.
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You have rediscovered sins which you thought were long dead. You have, at times, wept and even despaired over your seeming lack of progress and holiness.
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This past year, you have experienced death. Friends, family with whom you can no longer laugh nor cry because you can't see them anymore.
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Perhaps you have even had to come to terms with your own mortality. Now, that is not to say that there was not also in this last year for you great victory and joy.
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By the grace of God, I'm certain there was. But it is to say, along with the Apostle, that in all of this suffering and sin and death that we have experienced in this last year, it will be there in this next year still.
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And these challenges would hinder you from the perseverance to which you are called by eclipsing the ray of hope that is ours in Christ Jesus.
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Suffering, sin, and death cause us to slide into hopelessness because sometimes it's as though that's all we can see.
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I can't spend more than a few minutes at a time on Twitter just receiving this barrage of horrible information from around the world, stuff that I'm not even supposed to know about, without feeling the depressing effects of it upon my soul.
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And sometimes we look out at the world and it's as though that's all we can see and it's grim.
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But because we hope, as the church, for what we do not see, we must persevere in the eager waiting for our glorious future.
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Look at our text. Verse 16 of Romans chapter 8, the
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Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.
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What a great comfort and privilege that we, born again of the
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Spirit, navigate this fallen world as sons and daughters of God.
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His own spirit bearing witness within us that we belong to him.
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And not only that, but that all he has prepared for us belongs to us.
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Sonship is followed by inheritance. It is
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Paul's prayer for you in Ephesians 1 .18 that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.
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And again in Colossians 1 .12 that as children we would give thanks to the
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Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
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Sons inherit the kingdoms and the kingdom blessings of their fathers and because we have been united to the
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Son of God and are sons of God in him, this inheritance belongs to us as surely as we belong to him.
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It is our hope and it is glorious. And it is described by Paul in our text this way, which will serve as the three headings of the body of our sermon.
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First, a glorious fellowship. Second, a glorious freedom. And third, a glorious fulfillment.
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Let me first call your attention to verses 16 through 18 so that you might fix your hope on a glorious fellowship.
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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.
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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.
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The Apostle affirms what we have already said about sonship being followed by inheritance when he writes here in verse 17, if children then heirs also, heirs of God reigning with Christ.
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Now it shouldn't be too difficult for you to spot the condition and the contrast that the
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Apostle puts forward. He speaks of a fellowship then in glory with Christ, but it is contrasted with and conditioned upon a fellowship now.
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Do you see it? The fellowship now is characterized by suffering now.
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You'll notice in verse 18 he refers to them as the sufferings of this present time, contrasting them with future glory.
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And here is the blessed truth that the sufferings of this present time which you have experienced in this past year and which you will experience in the next are not suffered alone.
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You do not suffer in isolation. It is our calling now to fellowship with Christ in his sufferings.
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Christ so identifies with his people in their suffering that when the author of this epistle was persecuting the
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Church of God and the Lord appeared to him, he said, soul, soul, why are you persecuting me?
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And that same man transformed is then longing for this fellowship now, writing in Philippians 3 10, that I may know
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Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death.
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And isn't it true, brothers, that when you are persecuted and hated and mocked for Christ's sake, that you know in those moments a nearer fellowship with him?
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This fellowship isn't, however, limited to persecution or martyrdom.
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It applies to all of life. Peter, in addressing the various trials that the church is undergoing in his first epistle, reminds them of the fellowship they have with the
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Lord as they suffer. Writing in 1 Peter 1 8, and though you have not seen him, you love him.
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And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.
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And so it is suffering as a Christian with hope in God and submission to his will and obedience to his commands and allegiance to his
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Son. Therein do we fellowship with him now, our suffering.
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But it is, in verse 17, so that we may be glorified with him.
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And this is our hope, that the glory is as sure as the suffering, and the suffering prepares us for glory.
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And that is why Paul desired the fellowship of his sufferings, because he understood that if he would know the glory of the resurrection, then he must also know the suffering of the crucifixion.
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So then, considering the fellowship now, Paul then lifts our gaze to fellowship then.
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Fellowship then. While fellowship now is characterized by suffering, fellowship then is characterized by glory.
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Verse 18, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us.
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It is as though the Apostle sets a scale before us, and he takes all of our sufferings, that which to you often feels so heavy, so burdensome, that which has almost crippled you, that which, but for the grace of God, would have destroyed you.
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And he puts it on one side of the scale, and it feels so heavy. It looks so heavy.
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But then, on the other side of the scale, he puts the weight of glory that will be revealed.
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And the scale tips with a thud, because it's so weighty, so glorious in comparison to what you suffer now that you realize.
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I mean, do you realize, with the
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Apostle in 2nd Corinthians 4 .17, that this momentary light affliction is producing for you an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things are not seen.
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There is a real sense in which we are already reigning with Christ as kings and queens.
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We are restored to the purpose of subduing the earth to the glory of God.
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But we do not yet know the fullness of this reign, this fullness of that fellowship we will enjoy at the resurrection of the dead, this glorious fellowship now and then is ours in Christ Jesus.
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Now, to reign with Christ, is that we, the reign with Christ that we enjoy now, is what
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I mean to say, includes reigning over the passions of our flesh and conquering sin, which leads us to what is secondly involved in this inheritance of ours.
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Not only a glorious fellowship, but a glorious freedom. Verses 19 through 21.
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Freedom now and freedom then, says this, for the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
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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.
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The apostle here speaks of the effects of man's sin, not only upon man himself, but upon the whole creation.
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The creation was subjected to futility. When man sinned, the earth was cursed along with him who now existed under sin's dominion.
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And such is still the state of natural man everywhere apart from Christ under sin's dominion.
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But there is freedom now for the children of God. Children of God enjoy freedom now from sin's dominion.
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Jesus has become a curse for us and has made us a new creation. We no longer walk as the
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Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. No, our minds are being renewed.
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And though the outer man is wasting away, the inner man is being renewed day by day.
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Our regeneration and conversion and reception of the spirit who testifies to our adoption is a partial revealing, a limited manifestation of the sons of God in which we experience now the freedom from sin's bondage and eternal consequences.
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Do you know this freedom? Do you know what it is to be freed from sin's dominion?
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Have you been changed? Do you have a new heart with new desires? Do you hate the sin you once loved?
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Are you striving in the strength of grace to walk in holiness? Do you consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God as Paul is discussing here in Romans chapter six, a couple chapters earlier?
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So, yes, I do. That's me. That's my testimony. Well, if you are experiencing
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Romans six, then likely you have also experienced Romans seven and you are aware of the principle of indwelling sin.
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And you find that evil, though you are, though you are delivered from sin's bondage, evil is present with you, even when you would do good.
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And perhaps, perhaps you've come tonight after a hard year, weary of the battle, and you're crying out with the apostle, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?
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There is a freedom already. And there is a freedom not yet. This freedom then is a state of being in which you will be unable to sin against your
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God. I was speaking with this dear brother who's in so much pain. And I told him earlier,
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I said, one day we'll get new bodies. And you know what he said to me? He said, I'm just excited to not sin anymore.
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That is the hope of the Christian. When we are glorified with him, nothing with within us will remain in rebellion against him and obstinate to his will.
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No law of indwelling sin, no present evil, but a glorious freedom. The apostle here, he personifies the created order as anxiously longing for and waiting eagerly for our full revealing, positing our freedom now as the seal and guarantee that there will come a day when the whole creation will be set free from its slavery to corruption, just as we have been in part and just as we will be completely.
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Creation was subjected to futility. And the one who subjected it is
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God. And this refers to God cursing the physical universe because of man's sin, so that the purpose for which it was originally created can no longer be completely fulfilled in its present form.
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So just as we human beings hope for freedom, then as we are being presently renewed, the creation personified here by the apostle hopes also for its deliverance from slavery to corruption, this principle of decay to which it is currently bound.
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Here's what you need to understand about the connection that Paul is drawing between our renewal and the creation's renewal.
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Your sanctification matters. When the sons of God are revealed, when we are glorified, which we'll see in a moment involves our resurrected bodies, it is not as though God wipes out everything about us and replaces it with an entirely new person so that there is complete discontinuity between our freedom now and our freedom then.
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We will still be us. You will still be you. Our bodies will still be our bodies.
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In the same way, the earth is not going to be wiped away and annihilated to make room for a completely new cosmos that never before existed.
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In Revelation 21 verse 1, where it speaks of a new heaven and a new earth, the word used there is not naos, meaning new in origin, but it is the word kainos, which means new in nature or quality.
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And when Paul speaks here in verse 21 of Romans chapter 8 of the creation being set free from its slavery to corruption, he is not talking about a totally different creation.
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It's this creation that is groaning and longing for renewal from its release from bondage.
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It is this creation he's talking about, gloriously renewed, recreated.
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So weary Christian, fear not and fight on because our
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Lord is making all things new. So he says in Revelation 21 verse 5,
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I'm making all things new. That word he uses there again is kainos.
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He is not making you something else. He is making you new. And when your renewal is complete, this true nature of ours as sons of God will be revealed.
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It will be openly manifested to the whole creation, which leads us finally to a glorious fulfillment.
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Verses 22 and 23. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
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And not only this, but also we ourselves having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
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We groan with the creation for the fulfillment of the glorious promises of God attached to our redemption.
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We groan because of our suffering, because of our remaining sin, because we die and those we love die.
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Even our Lord wept at the death of his friend. But, dear brothers and sisters, do not allow the shadow of death to eclipse the ray of hope that is the resurrection, this bright hope of ours in our glorious future, as those who are being renewed death ought not to decrease but increase our hope for the redemption of our bodies, so that though our bodies as they are now fail us and die, we have a hope of resurrection, the firstfruits now and the fulfillment then.
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Let's consider the firstfruits now. Paul says that we groan having the firstfruits of the
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Spirit and that we are eagerly waiting our adoption as sons. But haven't we already been adopted?
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Are we not already sons? It's an appropriate question. The answer is in this eschatological concept of firstfruits before fulfillment or fullness.
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You probably know that in the Old Testament firstfruits were used of the first products of fields and flocks which were to be offered to God.
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Deuteronomy 18 .4, you shall give the Lord the firstfruits of your grain, your new wine, and your oil, and the first shearing of your sheep.
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The firstfruits are the beginning of harvest. But look at this amazing truth.
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The Spirit, as we have received him now, is called the firstfruits.
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Well, who gives the Spirit? God does. So instead of the worshipper giving the firstfruits, now it's
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God who gives the Spirit. Why is this so amazing? Because our reception of the
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Spirit from the Father and all of the spiritual blessings we enjoy now are but the beginning of a much greater harvest still to come, the fullness of our inheritance.
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The Spirit is the guarantee of that. So consider now fulfillment then.
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Do you groan, brothers? Do you know that one day your groaning will cease and we will have the full inheritance?
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We will receive the fullness of our adoption. The sons of God will be revealed and creation will be renewed.
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And in this we have the redemption of our bodies. Resurrection.
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One theologian said this, the future redemption of the body is the not yet fulfilled future aspect of sonship which the
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Spirit will fulfill. And the mind can hardly fathom it because we have never seen it.
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Now we suffer and reign in part. Then we will reign in fullness with Christ.
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Now we are weary of sin which seeks to entangle us and steal our hope.
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Then we will be wholly sanctified. Now our corrupted bodies decay and die.
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But then we will live in glory. Now look at Paul's words in verse 24.
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For in hope we have been saved. What is hope?
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Well it isn't wishful thinking. It isn't optimistic speculation about things ultimately unknowable.
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It is fool assurance. It is your firm conviction that though what you see so much now is suffering and sin and death, what you do not yet see will be realized.
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It is your firm conviction that the glorious future promises of God will be fulfilled.
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A future fellowship with Christ that is more glorious than now.
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A future freedom from sin that is more glorious than now.
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A future fulfillment of our sonship that is more glorious than now.
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So verse 25. If we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
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To persevere doesn't mean to wait it out. It's not inactive. To persevere means that as you suffer now you rejoice in the fellowship with Christ you have now in your suffering and with eager expectation you hope for the fellowship you will enjoy then.
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To persevere means that as you battle sin now you rejoice in the freedom from sin's dominion that you have now and with eager expectation you hope for the freedom that you will enjoy then.
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To persevere means that as you face death now you rejoice in your reception of the
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Spirit of God as your God -given guarantee that one day you will rise and with eager expectation you hope for the fullness of your adoption.
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Christian, persevere in this hope. Go on into this new year and persevere in the eager waiting for your glorious future.
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Let's pray. Father we thank you for all that you have done for us.
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The manifold blessings that you have lavished upon us undeserving sinners are untold and not a million eternities will be enough to count them all and yet Lord all that you've already done for us in all of that we still have so much to look forward to and we thank you great and merciful
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God be with us Lord as we go into this new year