What lies in your future? How are you going to live in-between?
If you had known me 3 years ago, you would have never guessed that I was going to become a youth minister!! If you had known me 10 years ago, you would have never guessed that I was going to wait soooo long to get married!!! And if you know me now, you will have guessed that it’s going to be a long time before I’m a mother!!! When we think about future we are thinking about what is going to be or come, after this present time And to think about the future can be really exciting all the opportunities that could be all the different pathways you can take. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could actually knew what your career would be you could take all the right subjects ...you could just study really hard for the subjects that count ... it would be great Or what about knowing if you are going to have a marriage partner and who will it be No more awkwardness when you break up ... no more feeling like you’ve been messed around just a real peace about what the future will hold ... a peace that comes from knowing It’s the same deal with your promotion at work ... if you knew you were going to be promoted in a particular office ... you could suck up to the right boss read up on the right subjects practice the interview with questions that would obviously involve your new promotion Wouldn’t it be great to know the future ... to have peace about what lies ahead (PAUSE) ...(SLOWLY) However the future isn’t always that exciting or even something to look forward to ...you could find out that you’re going to get cancer or that one of your children will die before you do or that you will go bankrupt Where is the peace of mind in those outcomes?
Well what does your future hold’? what are you hoping it will hold happiness?? a good life?? not heaps of pain and suffering thanks A good marriage?? Good marks at school?? A long and satisfying career???? What are you hoping that your future will look like?? Well today I’m not going to tell you what your future holds I don’t even know what my own holds, let alone anyone else’s. Today though I want to talk about the future that is what lies ahead, what is to come after this present time And by the way what would you say if I told you, you were going to have a glorious future, an amazing future What if I told you that you can have peace and assurance for whatever lies in the future ... including the hard stuff like death or sickness or pain How would you respond if I told you that? Well let’s have a look at our passage from Romans 8:18-30 as this gives some answers
Read with me from verse 18 (READ verse 18) The sufferings of this present time You don’t have to think too long or too hard to understand the concept of pain and suffering ...At various times you would have felt it ... your neighbour would have felt it ... Your mother ... your father would have faced it ... Suffering is all over the world But if we continue reading we see I think that suffering is not just limited to people it also includes the creation around us Read with me from verse 19 (READ verse 19 to 21a) A creation that was subjected to futility ...a creation that is in bondage to decay Again I don’t think we need to think too hard about the suffering creation we’re living in it ... we see it all the time in the natural disasters ... the tsunamis ... the earthquakes ... the ozone gases ... the world we live in is suffering the creation is suffering
And as we’ve already picked up it’s also people suffering or groaning inwardly read with me from verse 23 (READ verse 23) At PIG STY we are sponsoring 2 children the youth and the leaders are each sponsoring a child and reading the descriptions of the countries they are living in is mind- blowing life expectancy for example in one country was a low as 43 years old for blokes You see the adds on TV all the time people who are starving to death I’m a nurse in my spare time from my youth job and I was looking after a patient a 39 year-old-female. When I cared for her ... she had been told the day before that she was riddled with cancer In the operation they had opened her up and closed her again without any further intervention she had been given 3 to 6 months to live She had 2 kids the youngest at 18months came in to visit I had to walk out of the room I wasn’t able to control my deep feelings of sorrow for this woman who was dying Suffering is happening all over the world But it’s not limited to others ... to people overseas all of us will have to face suffering at some point in our lives Indeed most of you will have faced it already ... the death of a loved one ... the terminal illness of anther being bullied at school Marriage difficulties Suffering is happening all around the world So what does this leave us with? Is life just about suffering and we need to get on with it ... deal with it ... move on ... ignore it ... What are we supposed to do with the reality around us that both the creation and people in the creation are suffering
Well again lets looks at our passage today gives us the answers because throughout it we actually find hope in the midst of suffering we see that the suffering now is temporary ... verse 18 states that it’s actually not worth comparing the suffering that we might be experiencing now to what will be revealed to us . Something better lies in our future ... something that can’t even compare to the suffering that will happen ... is happening today, tomorrow, the next day
I spent a year overseas about 6 years ago leading up to it I was working really long hours ... I was doing night-duty 5-6 nights a week which is about 50 or 60hrs a week I lost heaps of weight ... because when I do nights my whole body gets out of whack and I don’t eat properly ...I wasn’t sleeping properly didn’t really have a social life How did I get through it the pain of that time ...I focused on the long-term Soon I would holidaying in Canada ... soon I would be living in the UK globe-trotting all over Europe How I got through the temporary pain was focusing on the long-term. We do it all the time during the exam period ... you focus on the holidays after the exams or you might focus on the career that you will have It’s focusing on the long-term Or whilst you’re at work working really hard so that you can take a holiday what do you focus on? Working really hard or the reward in the holiday Long term perspective is a great thing providing you have something to look forward to ... .Verse 18 gives us that something better That what we will see in our future doesn’t even compare to the present time sufferings And that is for creation and for people look with me at verse 21 that the creation will be set free from it’s bondage to decay and will obtain freedom See one day there will be no more natural disasters there will be no more famine no more ozone gases no more droughts ... One day the creation will be set free Well what about people what lies in their future? Well read with me from verse 23 again (READ verse 23) What lies in the future for people is adoption, the redemption of our bodies
What hasn’t already been stated is that in our passage today ... Paul has actually specified who the people he is writing about are the people who’s future is adoption and the redemption of their bodies see the people in our passage today reading from verse 19 ... children of God they are... verse 23 the people who have been given the Holy Spirit ... they from verse 28 love God ... the people here are Christians... we can know that ... because when someone becomes a Christian they are given the Holy Spirit When you have the Holy Spirit you become a part of God’s family Se you’ve actually already been adopted into God’s family when you become a Christian so what is our
passage talking about when it talks about adoption and the redemption of our bodies?? [As already stated Christians have been given the Holy Spirit ... But notice (in verse 23) that it is the first fruits of the Spirit now if we go back to the time that this passage was written (and even beyond that time) ... the first fruits in a harvest given as an offering was both the beginning of the harvest and the pledge that the full harvest would follow in due time, in the future now Christians have been given the first fruits of the Spirit at the beginning of their Christian life ... a Holy Spirit who gives peace of mind and hope for a glorious future 2 Corinthians 1:21 says that God has put the Holy Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. [So we live in this time of foretasting what is to come, what is in our future ... and that will be our final adoption ...an even deeper relationship with our God and the redemption of our bodies now redemption is about being set free to be redeemed is to be set free ... .Christians who believe that Jesus died for their sins and rose again ... have been set free ... that is sin is no longer their master their master is God ... however again the redemption given, when you become a Christian is just a foretaste of what is to come our bodies ... our human bodies have not yet been redeemed or set free ... they still suffer sickness and pain ... and we all age and eventually die So when Paul is talking about the redemption of our bodies ... he’s talking about our bodies being set free ... so that no longer will their be death or illness Philippians 3:21 states that Jesus will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body And this my friends for children of God for people given the Holy Spirit is what lies in your future This is the hope that you have been given ... verse 24 states (READ 24 & 25) Now we know as we look around us that there has to be more to come for who hopes for what is seen but we wait for it with patience
Now if you love God, are someone who has experienced a foretaste of what is to come I can almost here you saying well that’s all very good and awesome to look forward to but what do we do now? How do people who love God live life now? What about peace of mind now? Turn with me back to our passage once more read with me from verse 26 (READ 26-27) ... This same Spirit who is in Christians, in people of God is the same Spirit who helps us in our weakness ... who helps vs )in our present sufferings in the illnesses we might face when death comes upon a loved one ... The same Spirit helps us to pray when we can’t The Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words Now Paul doesn’t state what these sighs are it could be silent prayer ... it could be when you just feel helpless and you don’t know what words to use it could be praying in tongues but know that the Holy Spirit within you will go in-between you and God The same Spirit who gives peace Also know during these in-between times, this now and not yet period ... that ... reading from verse 28 (READ 28 from "that all") people who love God can be assured that all things ...everything works together for good Now there are situations that are easy to see the good that has come from the bad for uni students it might be failing a subject which forces them to really review what course they are studying it might lead to them transferring to another course the right career for them the good that comes from what seems to be bad OR you might have been bullied at school through the whole experience you team about your strength of character you have been tested and find that you can stand strong there are many, many situations where you can see the good has come out of the bad But what of the good when you or someone else you know is really suffering What is the good when you are fighting with someone all the time? What is the good in someone being diagnosed with cancer At this point we need to ask what is this good that verse 28 is talking about well lets read verse 29 (READ 29) the good for people who love God is to be conformed to be made to become more like Jesus that is God uses every situation every bit of suffering every conflict ... everything is used to make you more like Jesus ... that’s the good in verse 28 being a person of truth, integrity, of compassion, of love, of mercy and the list could go on God uses everything to make you more and more like his son Jesus For example the good in conflict is that you realise how selfish and how proud you are — and that’s not like Jesus the good is that you have been made aware and you are called to change called to get rid of selfishness and pride to die to self and be active in that knowing that as you do your bit, God will be doing his Too be honest I don’t know the good that comes out of a terminal illness ... I know of people that have turned to God in dying moments I know that many suffer a lot and it’s nearly a relief when they pass on But I can’t always see the good that happens But I trust God that for those who love Him ... For those who have been given His Holy Spirit God will bring out good ... Now that might be using situations to make people more and more like Jesus but it might be that He takes them from this earth to give them the future a glorious future that is not worth comparing to the present time ...
If you are a Christian know that you are living in an in-between time ... you are living in a period of the now and not yet ... a time where you have been given a foretaste of what is to come ... a glorious future. Let me read from the book of Revelation a picture of that glorious future (READ Rev 21:1-4) ... this is what Christians have to look forward to. How are you going living in this in-between time though? Do you have a long term perspective on suffering? Or do you get caught up in the details and forget to focus on what lies ahead? What are ways you can keep perspective? Can I suggest that memorizing Scripture is a wonderful way to keep perspective or to have key verses like Revelation 21 somewhere obvious to keep perspective that one day the suffering will end. Do you take advantage of the powerful resource you have living within you ... in the Holy Spirit? Are you staying close to God during suffering? Do you pray during your suffering? Do you trust that God is working all things together for good for you?? Are you doing your bit in becoming more like Jesus everyday? Are you doing your bit it caring for the God’s creation? Living in this in-between time ... means that you have a responsibility to care for the creation. Verse 19 states "creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God" ... verse 21 that the creation will be set free from bondage and will obtain the freedom of glory of the children of God Children of God ... are you caring for God’s creation? Giving creation it’s foretaste of it’s future it’s glorious future.
If you are someone here today who feels anxious about your future, who feels uncertainty about tomorrow, the next day and so on if you are someone here today who thinks there has to be more to this life than your current reality ... who feels a real hopelessness about life here and now I encourage you to find out more about who this Jesus is. Who this Holy Spirit is. Talk to me, Chris, Roy or in fact anyone you’ve seen up the front about this Christianity thing find out more
Well what lies in your future? Will it be a glorious one? What lies in your future?
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