Our Glorious Future Series

STRAIGHT FROM ROMANS 8 - Our Glorious Future

May 29, 2022

Romans 8:18-25

Introduction:

I watched a movie the other day called “All the Money in the World.” So, spoiler alert. It was the story of J. Paul Getty, the richest man in the world…One of his grandsons, Paul, is kidnapped and held for a 17 million dollar ransom. Getty refuses to pay…He says, “I have 14 grandchildren and if I pay, they’ll all become targets.” After a period of time he agrees to pay 1 million…the amount that’s tax deductible. They cut off his grandson’s ear and send it to his mother…who has no resources on her own. Finally the ransom is paid…Paul escapes his captors and makes it home. The closing scenes show J. Paul Getty dying alone in a home filled with priceless treasures…but with no one around him but a paid nurse. After his death, Gail (Paul’s mother), becomes the executor of the estate overseeing all the trusts being set up for the Getty heirs.

The basic theme is…All the Money in the World doesn’t buy you family or happiness.

Most of us normal folks don’t use words like heir or heiress…Our parents might leave us a watch…or other property that has to be sold or divided between siblings…but when we think of heirs and heiresses we think of Prince William or Prince Harry…Can you imagine being the “Heir” Harry? (LOL)

But in Roman 8 the Apostle Paul is telling us as God’s children, we have an amazing inheritance that all the money in the world can’t buy.

We ended last week’s message talking about being adopted into God’s family through His Holy Spirit…A Spirit which testifies to our new relationship with God by crying “Abba” Father. He testifies…He bears witness with our internal soul (the real us on the inside). “We are God’s children.” And if God is now truly our new father, we are heirs…co-heirs with His only Son.

But our text today is introduced with more sobering words…“If indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.” (Romans 8:17)

When you share something with someone you take a part of whatever it is…You share the last bowl of cereal…the last soda…you share the 20 dollar meal at Apple bee's.

But how do we share in Jesus’ suffering…so we can also share in His glory? What part do we share?

Paul begins our study today in verse 18: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

Born again Spirit-filled followers of Christ are heirs and heiresses, along with Jesus, of a future glory.

But he also talks about suffering and we might ask:

I. WHY DOES SUFFERING HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH OUR INHERITANCE?

Well, let me answer that in two parts.

First of all…like the Apostle Paul…we suffer because of the simple fact we live in a temporary body…a tent…Paul called it a fragile “Jar of Clay” in 2 Cor. 4:17. One that is “dead because of sin.”

[This body ages…as it ages parts wear out…pain increases…wrinkles take hold. I used to visit a lady in the nursing home named Pauline Divine…and I’d ask Pauline…“How you doing?” And she’d respond…“Everything I have hurts…and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work anymore!” That’s a great description of the aging process.]

[Katherine Hepburn, the great actress said, “I’ve discovered that my body is like a car…something goes wrong, wears out and I take it to the mechanic and he replaces the part…until one day I take it in and he says, “We don’t make parts for that model anymore!”]

When Jesus, “the word of God became flesh and made His dwelling among us” (John 1:14), the creator of the universe entered a body, through the miraculous virgin birth and subjected himself to a body that ages…grows older…wears out…dies. Paul describes that amazing choice in his letter to the Philippians…

PHILIPPIANS 2:6-8

Isaiah the prophet wrote these words 800 years before Jesus came to fulfill it.

“He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root of a dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him…He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.” (Is. 53:2-3)

Most pictures of Jesus make Him look like a beautiful, attractive beard wearing Mediterranean masculine man. Scripture says he chose an ugly exterior so that wouldn’t be what drew you to Him…“Nothing in his appearance caused us to desire Him.” Even before the scars and the swelling caused by the beating and crucifixion…He chose a body that demanded inner beauty to be the magnet…not outward handsomeness.

Every person shares in the suffering that Jesus chose…living in a body that’s dying…scars easily, needs fixing and eventually…dies.