Future Glory
Download MP3If you have a Bible, turn to Romans 8. Lauren and I, we still like to use paper maps. Anytime we're trying to figure out a new place to go, we'll get out our huge map of Alabama or sometimes we'll print out directions. We also print out our airplane tickets. I I notice parking spot spots at arenas.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm essentially the poster child for where they, the progressive commercials, how to not be like your parents. But I'll defend using paper maps because when you just rely on GPS, yes, it's gonna get you where you need to go, but you're not gonna really understand the layout of the city or or the land before you. You know, when GPS is just telling you take a right at the next stop sign, you know, go a half mile, take a left, That's great. You're gonna get there, but you can't visualize the land. And I like to visualize the land and that and that way I know where I am in a city.
Jeffrey Heine:I could think of multiple ways to get to different places. It's the same when I go hiking. Often when I hike I don't use a trail, I just I I go off trail and I just have a compass and a map. And most of the time that works out okay. Sometimes it can mean me being lost for a few days, drinking my own bodily fluid.
Jeffrey Heine:It could get ugly at times, but most of the time it turns out pretty well. And, when I am kind of getting lost, what I do is I try to find a high point and I get up as high as I can, and then if I can see my destination, then I look down and I think, okay, I just gotta go across that stream. I What I have found is that Christians, we often navigate through scripture like a GPS. Or often we're just kinda following the clearly marked trails. And there there's nothing wrong with that.
Jeffrey Heine:There's nothing wrong with going to your bible, and it's more of you're looking at a certain verse and you're like, do I turn right or left? Where you know, and it's just instruction by instruction verse by verse. That's great. But if I were to ask you, so how does this fit in with the whole picture? You're like, I have no idea.
Jeffrey Heine:I can't visualize the entire story of the Bible, the the big picture of the Bible. I I'm just looking at this one verse, which once again is great, but wouldn't you love to be able to see the whole picture? Wouldn't you love to be able to actually know where every left turn, every straight for half mile, all of those things, where it's ultimately leading you? That's what Paul does in this section in Romans 8. Paul is going to give us a map or he's gonna take us to the top of a mountain, leading us to an overlook, which is in which we're gonna see the entire scriptural landscape.
Jeffrey Heine:In just a few verses, he is gonna tell us God's entire plan for humanity and for this world. And if you truly take in this view, you will never read scripture the same. You're not gonna live life the same, you're not gonna go through the joys and sorrows of this life the same. You will understand them all in a different way because you will know where you're ultimately being led. With that in mind, let's read Romans 8.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's begin reading in verse 16. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that these sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
Jeffrey Heine:For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he sees.
Jeffrey Heine:But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. This is the word of the lord. Pray with me. For father, we thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit for our adoption, how you have made us your child. And now we pray that your Holy Spirit, he would do his work in us.
Jeffrey Heine:He would, in this moment, allow us to listen to your word in both our hearts and our minds so that we might look more like Jesus. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:So last week, we got to look at some really good stuff. We looked at how we have received the spirit of God, the Spirit of adoption into us. We're now a child or a son of God. We get to call God Father, Abba Father, that that dear term. So we are heirs of God, we are, co heir with Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean when we were looking at this last week, I felt myself just continually failing as a as a preacher because how can you express that kind of glory. But at least we could just read it and ask the spirit of God to do his work, but what a glorious picture we were given last week. But some of you might have noticed that we actually didn't look at the second part of verse 17, in which Paul talks about suffering. I wasn't, you know, intentionally skipping that just to kinda know, give you your best life now moment and and leave on a high note. I just was saving that for this week.
Jeffrey Heine:So verse 17, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. That's your Yay. Provided we suffer with him, in order that we may also be glorified with him. Lauren and I, we have this bad parenting habit. I'll I'll say had.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm claiming it. We had this bad parenting habit. It's taken us a while to get rid of but our kids would typically ask if they could do something really fun and cool and we would respond not only with a no but not only that, you could do this instead, which was a real damper on things. And so they might ask you know, can tonight, you know, I go out with my friends or can I have a sleepover? And we'd say, no, but you could clean your room.
Jeffrey Heine:Or, Dad can we order pizza tonight? No, but you can eat the leftover fish from last night that you didn't finish. And you know just this these great parenting things that we've done. And so we we've told ourselves we can't do that. You just, if you're gonna say no just say no, but don't say no and then bring in something terrible.
Jeffrey Heine:But it's kind of like what Paul does here. You know like Paul, wow we've got the Spirit of God inside us. We're his children. Can we have the inheritance now? No.
Jeffrey Heine:But you can suffer. I mean, that's what Paul says. No. But you can suffer. Why does Paul transition from sonship to suffering here?
Jeffrey Heine:Well, because although being made into a child of God is a wonderful thing, you have to remember that you've also become a child of the king to whom the entire world is in rebellion against. You were adopted into a family that the world hates. So, yes, there are glories, but there is also suffering. You're going to be persecuted. So the the pathway to glory, the pathway to your inheritance doesn't go around suffering.
Jeffrey Heine:The pathway is going to go right through suffering and Jesus of course was our model for this. When you read through the Gospels, you're gonna notice that Jesus, he's always calling God his father. You'll find that all throughout the Gospels, but you're actually only gonna find one time, it's in the gospel of Mark, that he calls God Abba Father. The very term that he that we were just described that we now have, we call God, Abba Father. I'm sure that Jesus called God, Abba Father many times, but we only have it preserved for us once in scripture in Mark and it's at the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jeffrey Heine:It's when Jesus went off to the garden and he was praying right before he was going to be betrayed and crucified, it was there he cried out, Abba father, I know that you can do all things. Would you remove this cup from me? Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Having the privilege of calling God, Abba, Dada, Father, does not mean you avoid suffering. But it means rather you are called into suffering.
Jeffrey Heine:It means living a life of complete submission. It means saying yes to God even when it means taking up your cross and following him. It means saying yes to whatever, whenever, wherever. And so God says, you said tell God yes, and then he tells you what to do. You tell God yes, and then he tells you where to go.
Jeffrey Heine:You tell God yes, and then he tells you when to do it. Calling God Abba means that you are offering your life in complete submission to him. Jesus modeled this for us. Yes. There is glory, but there's crucifixion and death before there's resurrection and glory.
Jeffrey Heine:And this is what Paul is now gonna begin to flesh out for us, is this path that we are to now walk. Yes. We are destined for glory, which means that we will suffer. And some of the suffering is gonna come to us through persecution. Once again, because we are in the family of a king that the world hates.
Jeffrey Heine:And some of it is gonna come just because we live in the midst of a broken fallen world. In verse 18, Paul says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present life are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Would you all read that out loud with me? Alright. For I consider that the sufferings of this present life are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Jeffrey Heine:Or in other words, the sufferings of this present time are not worth putting on the scale alongside glory. They're not even worth putting on the scale of it. And Paul's not, you know, he's just not being poetic here. This is a man who's familiar with suffering. When he wasn't being beaten or wasn't being shipwrecked or stoned, he was being whipped within an inch of his life.
Jeffrey Heine:He's not exaggerating here. Paul says that all of those beatings, all of those imprisonments are counted like dust on the scales when compared to glory. So I want you to think of your worst pain. It's an unusual ask, but right now think of your worst pain you've endured. For some of you, it's it's fresh.
Jeffrey Heine:Some of you are in the midst of it right now. I mean, this past month, the number of phone calls that your Lorna may have received with somebody bawling on the other side of that line has been more than any time I can ever remember. Or the times that Lorna and I have had gone to some of your homes just to hold you as your world has been falling apart due to either a death of a mom, or a father, or some tragedy. Some of you don't have to think, very hard when it thinks about what is the biggest pain in my life. Paul says, take that pain and you put it on the scale.
Jeffrey Heine:It doesn't even measure. It's dust compared to the glory that built will be revealed to us. He's actually playing off the word glory. The word glory in Hebrew simply means heavy. More glorious something is, more heavy or substantial or real it is.
Jeffrey Heine:And he's saying the glory that awaits us is so heavy, so glorious nothing compares to it, not even our suffering. Paul goes on to say that we are not the only ones who suffer though. Not the only ones who suffer. We're not the only ones who are waiting for something to be revealed. In verse 19, he says that creation itself waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
Jeffrey Heine:So we are waiting for our glory to be revealed and creation is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. And that the image here is creation is on its tiptoes with expectation waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. Now the sons of God is us. We just went through that last week. We are the sons of God.
Jeffrey Heine:That's that's us as Christians, but I believe in particular what Paul is talking about here is resurrected and glorified Christians. All of creation is on tiptoe waiting for our redemption. Why? Why are the mountains or the rivers or the meadows or the trees? Why are the animals and the birds and the fish?
Jeffrey Heine:Why why is all creation on tiptoe waiting for our glorification? Paul answers this here by This is when he steps back and he gives us that 20,000 foot view about what God is doing in the world. Why he created the world, where it's going. We read this in verse 20. Paul says, for creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
Jeffrey Heine:For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together and the pains of childbirth until now. That is much of the bible in a nutshell. In just a few sentences, the bible in a nutshell. Not all of it, but most of the bible. And here what Paul is doing is he's taking us all the way back to Genesis through those first few pages and he's reminding us of creation.
Jeffrey Heine:He says, you know basically you remember when God created the world it was good. After every day God would create something, he'd step back and he'd admire his work and he'd think, wow that is so good. And then the next day he creates something that's so good. He creates this beautiful world and then of course he creates humanity. And when he creates Adam and Eve, he steps back and and we're the pinnacle of his creation.
Jeffrey Heine:Mankind is the pinnacle. He says that's very good. And do you remember, like, we went over this all when we were going through Romans 5 about the beautiful world that God created and how he created Adam and Eve uniquely in his image that meant that we were to exercise dominion over the world. Romans 5, we went over this. Adam was to exercise dominion over the world, mankind was, but not in a cruel way.
Jeffrey Heine:We were to exercise our rulership or dominion in a way that reflected who God was. We're his image bearers. So we reflect his love, his kindness, his wisdom, and how we rule the world, the good world he created. You see, God did not create the world in a finished state. Let me explain that.
Jeffrey Heine:He created the the world perfect and good, but he also created it with potential, potential that mankind was supposed to bring out. If mankind ruled well, then the whole world becomes a Garden of Eden. We unleash the world's potential. But as we know, Adam and Eve screwed up. They sinned.
Jeffrey Heine:And when they sinned everything fell apart. They were removed from the Garden of Eden and then God cursed the very good earth that he had created. And notice, Adam's sinned, God cursed the earth. Adam sinned, the earth did nothing wrong, but the earth was cursed for it. It was subjected not willingly.
Jeffrey Heine:It was cursed for Adam's sin. Creation, nothing did nothing wrong, but has been punished for our sin. It has been subjected to futility. Now now this word futility is important. Elsewhere in Scripture, you find it all throughout the book of Ecclesiastes.
Jeffrey Heine:It's the same word that's, translated as vanity. It means creation now lacks purpose. Creation is aimless. It's frustrated. Creation is alienated from God.
Jeffrey Heine:Creation no longer has the ability to reach the goal of its intended purpose. God created the world for this end, but now it no longer has the ability to reach it. It's without purpose. Verse 21, we read that creation is in bondage to corruption, and it longs for freedom. Nature's not what it ought to be.
Jeffrey Heine:I love nature. In many ways, I mean I think nature's absolutely beautiful. I love to go. I love to get lost in the woods. And and just to take it in leads me into worship.
Jeffrey Heine:But nature isn't just beautiful. If you actually take time to really observe nature, you'll realize it's a killer. Nature is a killer. Everything consuming everything else. Everything decays, plants decay, animals decay, even the mountains erode.
Jeffrey Heine:And of course there are, you know, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, famines, floods, disease, worldwide pandemics. Then, of course, we decay as well. I mean, I know that I know that people often talk about the beautiful circle of life. You know, bring up Lion King, whatever it is. I mean what a sham.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean really you're you're That's beautiful? I mean the reality that Lauren is either gonna have to put me in the dirt or I'm gonna have to someday put her in the dirt, you're gonna call that beautiful? You're gonna you're gonna somehow spin that? There's nothing beautiful about that. Lauren and I, we just watched a a documentary.
Jeffrey Heine:Was it The The Biggest Little Farm? The Biggest Little Farm. And, it's supposed to be this, you know, it is a beautiful documentary about these people in California. They build this farm, and there's all these animals and everything, and it's supposed to be this, you know, natural cycle. This beautiful, nature on display, but all it is is animal eating animal which eats animal which then decays to grow up food so an animal could live to eat another animal.
Jeffrey Heine:An animal It's just endless cycle of animals devouring one another, of decay. And nature can't get out of it. It's like every springtime, nature wants to. Like, we could do better this time. This time is gonna last, and it falls and it decays.
Jeffrey Heine:I could break out of it this year. It decays. It's in bondage. Bondage to death. Bondage to decay.
Jeffrey Heine:It cannot reach its intended purpose. And so what's being described here is a world that is filled with relentless pain. A life is born, then a life is eventually lost. And in between, you have pain and misery. Now realize there's beautiful moments in that, but every beautiful moment is still marked with pain because it's the pain of knowing it won't last.
Jeffrey Heine:As beautiful as that moment is, you know it won't last. So there's sorrow mixed even with the greatest joys. And Paul's saying it wasn't supposed to be this way and the world's in the condition it's in in because of us. It's all our fault. It's all because we refuse to be the children of God that God called us to be.
Jeffrey Heine:We refuse to exercise dominion the way that he wanted us to do it. So instead of bringing out the potential of the world, we unleash death and destruction on this world, both in the world and in us through our sin. I mean, if you wanna if you wanna good and somewhat funny look at how mankind exercises dominion. Just look at how we name subdivisions. Lauren and I, we were thinking about this the other day.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, we name things after what we destroy. Have any of you ever seen the lake in the Lakeview District? I mean go to Lakeview, like where's the lake? It doesn't exist. We destroyed it.
Jeffrey Heine:Any of you ever seen the lake on Lakeshore Drive? You know you could go to like, there's other places in Birmingham, there's there's a Willow Lane and I have never seen a Willow there. There's a Double Oak Drive, and I can't find a single oak. There there's a place near where our girls go to school. Oh, it's called Sunny Meadows, and some of you maybe live there.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a great neighborhood. But we have to drive through it all the time. Sunny Meadows, plural. And all the time, we're like, can anyone find the meadow? The meadow, I mean we're just looking for 1.
Jeffrey Heine:But we find plenty of flat places with with houses all over it. And essentially, you know, Tolkien would call us Orcs. That's what we are. We just knock down all the trees and we just we that's the industry and we build houses and buildings and destroy nature. There's even a there's even a place there called Whispering Pines by there.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm like, what they're whispering is, Don't hurt me. You know, it's just sort of like last little dying breaths, as we knock out all the pines to build stuff there. That's how we exercise dominion. It wasn't meant to be this way. And it's why creation is on tiptoe, waiting for us to be someone different, waiting for our bodies to be redeemed and for us to finally be the people God called us to be, to finally rule the world like an image of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Because when we reach our potential, then the world reaches its potential. When we are redeemed, then the world is redeemed. In other words, when you accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, you need to realize that being saved being saved is not just so when you die, your disembodied spirit can go up to heaven for eternity and play a harp. You might be if if you're Abigail, you're given a harp. But, yes, that's going to happen.
Jeffrey Heine:If you die, you go to heaven. Absolutely. But you read throughout the new testament, that was never their final hope. That's not your final place. The hope was in you will be resurrected and you will come back down to a redeemed world.
Jeffrey Heine:Your redeemed body will come back to a redeemed world. That's the hope of the new testament. That you will be made new, the earth will be made new. Finally, you will become the image bearers that you were created to be. I mean, think of it this way.
Jeffrey Heine:All throughout scripture, we read how as Christians, we inherit the world. Abraham was gonna inherit the world as children of Abraham. We're inheriting the world. Paul talks about that in 1st Corinthians. We inherit the world.
Jeffrey Heine:Who gives a rip if the world burns and your eternal state is in heaven? But with a redeemed world, in which a resurrected body comes and you heaven and earth become 1, Well, that's something to be excited about. God has not given up on this world. You see just as God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden and subjected their lives to futility, but then promised them the hope of redemption, God did the same thing with this world. He subjected it to futility and then he promised the world a hope of redemption.
Jeffrey Heine:A hope of liberation. And the world's redemption is tied to our redemption. That's why it's waiting on tiptoe. But until then it's groaning. That's what we read in verse 22.
Jeffrey Heine:Verse 22, for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we eagerly wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. In this chapter, we actually find 3 things groaning. Creation groans, we groan, the Holy Spirit groans. We'll look at the Holy Spirit groaning next week.
Jeffrey Heine:And I know it seems strange to to ascribe even the Holy Spirit as as one who groans, because groan groaning is is done out of a frustration. It means that not only is are we frustrated in creation, but in some way, the holy spirit is. Even the holy spirit is anticipating something. You could think of it that way. Now this is a groan that does not precede death.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a groan that precedes life. It's a groan that I've heard three times in my life. It's the groan of childbirth. Now I've never given birth to a child. And it's surprise.
Jeffrey Heine:You say things like and they sound so profound, you know, when you write it down. I have never given birth to a child. Well, but what From, you know, the look on Lauren's face, it seemed painful. And so I I mean I remember when, Caroline our oldest was born, I didn't know what to expect, he never do, but it wasn't what happened. I was kind of, I guess expecting to be in another room, like handing out cigars.
Jeffrey Heine:I I don't know what I expected, but but I'm in the room and they're like, you know, hold her hand, lift the leg. I'm like, I have better insurance than this. Like, I'm pretty sure y'all are supposed to be doing this work, but no, like you're you're involved and Lauren's got the death grip on me, and she is just like breaking every finger. It looked painful. And she's groaning.
Jeffrey Heine:What Paul is saying here is that our world is pregnant. Our world is pregnant. It's pregnant with new life. It's pregnant with joy. It's pregnant with glory.
Jeffrey Heine:And someday when we are resurrected, it will give birth. When we are finally fully redeemed, that's when the lion lays down with the lamb. That's when the the the mountains and the hills are freed from the bondage and they break forth in singing. It's when the trees of the field clap their hands. It's when creation is liberated.
Jeffrey Heine:Until then it groans and we groan with it. We suffer. And sometimes this suffering just comes in waves, doesn't it? Like it's just like wave after wave. You know what those waves are?
Jeffrey Heine:They're contractions. Those waves are contractions. This is not a suffering without a purpose. This is a suffering that is leading somewhere. These are the contractions of childbirth.
Jeffrey Heine:And with every suffering that comes, with every contraction that comes, you're just getting closer to a new more glorious life. Not one second of your suffering is ever wasted. It is leading you somewhere. It is leading this world somewhere. And when new life or when this new life comes, when you you finally give birth, all the suffering you've ever experienced, even as weighty and as crushing as it seems, will be like dust on the scales.
Jeffrey Heine:All the heartaches, all the rejections, all the sorrows are not even worth putting on the scales next to the glory you will receive. In this hope, you've been saved. How do you know you have it? Well, we look to Christ. How do we know we were gonna be redeemed?
Jeffrey Heine:Because he was. He was the first fruits. We look at His resurrected body and we're promised our own. How do we know that the world is is gonna be redeemed and everything yet? Well, we've been given the Holy Spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:Who's the the down payment, the deposit of our inheritance to come. We are certain of these things. Though we don't see them, we are certain of that they will come. And even now, we're supposed to begin living into that hope. Will you pray with me, church?
Jeffrey Heine:Father we confess at times it's hard to live into the things we don't see. But if we can see it, if we can feel it, then that's not hope. So I pray that you would give us the faith to hope and the certainty of the glory that awaits us. Thank you that you did not give up on us, you did not give up on this world, but you're redeeming all things. Thank you for a glorious future.
Jeffrey Heine:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
