Life According to the Spirit, Part 7

If you would take your Bibles,
we are in Romans 8, where we have been now for a number of
weeks in our consideration of divine assistance. Really, Romans
8 being a exposition of what God has done on our behalf, filling
in where we were completely unable God has stepped in and provided
us everything that we needed. Romans 8, as we have seen, lays
out essentially the assistance that the entire Godhead has provided
to us. Not only what Christ accomplished
in establishing us in that foundation of Christ, but here also the
Holy Spirit, which we’ve been focused upon these last number
of weeks. The Holy Spirit’s divine assistance
to us as believers, if you would, we want to take a full consideration
of this. If you would go back to verse
16, where we’re kind of residing for these, as I said, these last
number of weeks begin in verse 16. Let’s read. Paul writes, The Spirit himself
bears witness 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, in order that we may also
be glorified with him. 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. For the anxious longing
of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons
of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of
its own will, 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. Now, as I said, we have been
in this passage for a number of weeks, we are looking at The
divine assistance, particularly here that the Spirit has provided,
and we have seen that this is essentially the fourth in a string
of things that the Spirit has done or is doing, continues to
render on our behalf. First of all, the mortification
of sin that leads to life, as we saw in verse 13. that the Spirit is the one that
comes to our aid and gives us divine ability to put to death
sin in our bodies. We saw secondly, that the Holy
Spirit provides a guidance that ultimately reveals us as sons,
that if we are truly being led by the Holy Spirit, that is proof
of sonship, proof that we are part of God’s family. The third
clear mark The clear indication that the Holy Spirit is active
and at work in our life is an acceptance that engenders affection
in verse 15. That we have received a spirit
of adoption that enables us to call out to God, not just as
an austere God who is far away, but as a beloved and loving heavenly
father. But the fourth, and this is where
we’ve been for several weeks, and the reason that I provided
you an outline this morning, is just to remind you of the
delicate and intricate nature of this lengthy section. And
I wanted you to see where we park ourselves this morning.
Paul had introduced this concept, this affirmation ultimately that
promises an inheritance, but the entire section It contains
verses 16 all the way through verse 25. It all refers to that
one point. Everything in verse 17 and following
supports that one statement. The spirit himself bears witness
with our spirit that we are children of God and the point being, if
we are children, then we are heirs as well. Now, we began
last Lord’s Day. To consider verse 19. And I say we began because we
need to use that as the springboard for the verses before us this
morning, verses 20 and 21. I shared with somebody that I
have longed probably my entire Christian life to preach these
two verses, verses 20 and 21. And so you can, I hope, appreciate
the caution and the care that I’ve put in to the study and
to the preparation of these verses. We started in verse 19. Which itself is a proof, if you
will, a support for the verses that preceded it. Paul said it
this way, 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. And we saw that that was a profound
statement, a stark statement. In some senses, an unpalatable
statement. How can you possibly say that,
Paul? How can you possibly look around at all the suffering,
not the least of which has been witnessed even in our own community
these past weeks? How can you look at that and
say that that doesn’t compare? But we looked. It’s not so much
that the sufferings are small because Paul had his own A very
lengthy list of substantial sufferings, beatings, imprisonments, near
drownings. But Paul puts all of that in
one side of the scale and he puts the glory that is to be
revealed in the other side of the scale and he says it doesn’t
even count. It’s not even worthy of consideration. Then Paul makes this statement
in support of that. And he says, the anxious longing
of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons
of God. Now, we had to pause and we had to step back and examine
what does he mean by the creation? Is he talking about all of the
created order, including angels and demons, including all humanity? Is he talking about that? No.
For sure, Satan is not involved in that. Satan is not longing
for the revealing of the sons of God, neither are the demons.
The angels really have no vested interest in redemption itself.
They long to see God glorified, and in that sense, they are eagerly
awaiting. But what is in view here is creation,
what we would call nature. What God has made, the inanimate
world of nature, is anxiously longing. It is eagerly awaiting
the revealing of the sons of God. It eagerly wants to know
specifically. It wants to get beyond just mere
testimony, it wants to know and it wants to have revealed those
who are truly gods, those who truly belong to him, because
creation and its own restoration is tied up. in our own redemption. It’s tied
up in our own restoration, if you will. We share that many
passages of Scripture speak of this in a future sense. Isaiah
11, the wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will lie
down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the
fatling together, and the little boy will lead them. Many passages
in Scripture speak prophetically of a time when things will be
restored to the way they were. And creation as God made it is wholly dependent on the redemption
of man, creation restored by God as God made it is wholly
dependent on bringing in and manifesting the sons of God.
As one said it, the whole creation is looking forward eagerly to
the revealing of the sons of God, because that event will
also mean glory for the whole creation. Nature’s destiny is
intimately linked up with that of the sons of God. And if you
are not a detailed student of the Bible, you would say, well,
what went wrong? Because I go and I enjoy nature
all the time and it looks plenty good to me. I enjoy the mountains. I love being here in this beautiful
state and I enjoy taking in God’s creation. I love the oceans. I love the water. I love to watch God at work in
his handiwork. And as we’ve said before. This
isn’t bad. For a completely fallen creation,
this isn’t bad. But it could be so much better.
You say, well, how did it get off track? How did it get so
messed up? And what was it like in its original
state? And you mean to tell me that
this is all God’s doing, that God intentionally messed it up? Just so that he could reveal
in time those who are truly his. I didn’t say it, Paul did. I want to take you to a number
of points this morning. We want to look at verses 20
and 21, which outline a subjection of nature. What Paul does is tell us why
the creation is so desperately longing Why the creation is so
desperately longing for our own redemption so that the creation
itself would be set free. Paul wants to tell us why and
he wants to tell us how. First of all, I want you to see.
The subjection’s nature. The subjection’s nature, if you
will, look at verse 20. For the creation was subjected
to futility. That’s the kind of subjection
it faces. It’s subjected to futility. And
as we’ve seen in the past, the little word there that is translated
for explains why the creation is so eagerly expected, why the
creation waits so eagerly for the revealing. Why is creation
longing, because creation is now not what God would have it
to be. Creation longs to be as God designed
it to be, as God created it to be. But now creation finds itself
cursed. It finds itself tainted and corrupted. It finds itself far short of
glorifying to God, even as glorious as creation is. It doesn’t hold
a candle to the way that things were. Paul uses the word here again
in verse 20 creation, and he’s talking about the same exact
creation he was talking about in verse 19. We would call it
nature. I would call it the inanimate
world or nature. But I want to take you back to
the garden, if you would go back to Genesis. Back to the book
of the Genesis, back to the book of Genesis, rather, and let’s
see. How this creation came to be,
what was it like in the beginning? And if you’ve made it back to
Genesis, find yourself to chapter one. And we’ll begin just in
verses 11 and 12, we’re not going to read the entire creation account,
I wish we had time. But in verses 11 and 12. Moses
records, then God said, let the earth sprout vegetation. Plants
yielding seed and fruit trees, God didn’t plant anything not
with the word of his mouth, he just said, let there be and all
manner of plants erupted from the earth. Let the earth sprout
vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees on the earth
bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them. In other words,
there was a an enormous diversity. When he says bearing fruit after
their kind, it wasn’t just one kind of fruit, there was a myriad
of fruit. I would even suggest more than
there is even today. The earth brought forth vegetation,
plants yielding seed after their kind, trees bearing fruit with
seed in them after their kind, and God saw that it was good.
And if it measured up to God’s standard, you know that it was
perfect. Can you imagine that earth is created, everything
green and lush, perfectly watered, everything ripening on the vine? Jump down to verse 26, if you
would. Then God said, let us make man in our image according
to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea
and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over
all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on
the earth. Man was given dominion over this creation. God created
man in his own image. In the image of God, he created
him. Male and female, he created them. God blessed them and God said
to them, be fruitful and multiply. fill the earth and subdue it
and rule over the fish and over the birds of the sky and over
every living thing that moves on the earth. Then God said,
behold, I have given you and note this, I have given you every
plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth.
Can you imagine just being able to walk into the forest? Imagine
this shopping trip, men, you walk into the forest and everything
that you come back with is perfect. Barbara and I have this thing. Every time I go to the store,
I hear the voice. Why did you get that brand? Why
did you get that size? I wanted diced, not cubed. By
the time I get back, if I even make it out of the aisles, I’m
so bewildered and so befuddled, I get my brand, I do my thing.
Imagine walking into the forest, collecting up whatever you wish,
bringing it home, and your wife just thinks you’re the greatest
thing. When it’s God, really, that did it, God said, Behold, I’ve given
you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of the
earth, every tree which has fruit yielding seed. It should be food
for you, every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky
and to everything that moves in the earth, which has life.
I have given every green plant for food and it was so. God had made this incredible
creation and don’t you just long to know what it’s like. We will. We will. Jump down to chapter
two, verse eight. It gets better, if you can imagine.
It gets better, better than this perfect creation where Adam could
go at any time. Watch this. The Lord planted
a garden. Now, trust me. God didn’t have
to send away to Burpee, right? God didn’t have to go in and
amend the soil. God didn’t have to till it. God
didn’t have to water it. God didn’t have to do anything.
But it says that God took a special interest and planted a garden. And if you can imagine God in
his perfection doing anything, whatever God does is perfect.
This was a perfect garden. We don’t know how big it was. But it says that the Lord planted
a garden toward the east in Eden, and there he placed man whom
he had formed. Out of the ground, the Lord God
caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and
good for food. You realize that that some trees
have no other purpose than aesthetics for us, that we would just look
on them and enjoy them. At least we haven’t found a purpose
yet. Maybe they don’t even support our hammock. Maybe we don’t get
any food from them. Maybe they don’t give us any
shade. But there is a God given purpose to every tree that God
ever made, some for sight and some for food, the tree of life,
life also in the midst of the garden in the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. We’ll talk about that tree later.
Look down at verse 15. Then the Lord took the man and
put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it. You know what?
There was work. There was work and it was special
and I’m sure it was joyous and it was thrilling to go into God’s
vineyard. I don’t know what you do when
you cultivate a perfect garden. What do you prune, right? I’m
sure nothing is rotting in there. You just go into the garden and
somehow you cultivate it, somehow you work the land, somehow there’s
work to be done, harvest mostly. As one pastor said, in the rich
and smiling garden of Eden, the vigorous and prolific soil yielded
a spontaneous produce. And the industry of man was confined
to the easy and pleasant work of checking or regulating the
luxuriant growth of vegetation, we don’t even know what cultivating
it meant. But all we do know is that it
was a perfect garden planted by God. We long to see it, don’t
we? We long to see what that must
have been like. We long to walk those paths between
those trees and the perfect temperature in the garden. We long for that. The problem is, It didn’t last
that way very long. And back to the passage here
in Romans, it says, for creation was subjected to futility. It’s a passive verb. You’ve learned to avoid them.
God doesn’t. When we use passive verbs, we’re
usually trying to cover up something, aren’t we? Usually trying to
hide somebody. The lamp broke, right? We don’t know how it broke. We’re
not interested in who broke the lamp. We just know the lamp sits
here in pieces. So, it’s a passive verb. Someone
or something did this to creation. And in a very real sense, Paul
baits the hook. The creation was subjected to
futility. Who would do such a thing? This beautiful creation that
God has made. This nature that surrounds us,
that we enjoy even now in its fallen condition, how much better
would it have been then? Who would have done this to creation?
Who would have subjected creation to futility? You know who? It wasn’t man. We didn’t have the power over
created order. It wasn’t the devil. The devil
didn’t have that kind of authority or power. Back, if you would,
to Genesis. Back to Genesis. This time to chapter three, now
the serpent. The serpent was more crafty than
any beast of the field which the Lord had made, and he said
to the woman, Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any
tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent
from the fruit tree fruit of the trees of the garden we may
eat but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of
the garden God has said you shall not eat from it or touch it or
you will die. The serpent said to the woman
you surely will not die for God knows that in the day you eat
from it your eyes will be open you will be like God knowing
good from evil. When the woman saw that the tree
was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and
that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from
its fruit and ate. She gave also to her husband
with her and he ate, then the eyes of them both were opened
and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves loin coverings. And then they
heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of
the day. And the man and the wife hid themselves from the
presence of the Lord God in the trees of the garden. Then the
Lord God called to them, called to the man and said to him, where
are you? He said, I heard you heard the
sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked,
so I hid myself. He said, who told you that you
were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded
you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom
you gave me To be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate.
Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you
have done? And the woman said, the serpent
deceived me and I ate. And what ensues is the cursing.
And we see the effects of it every day now. Said one regarding this cursed and fallen world in which we
live now. How degrading is the bondage of sin? How entirely
does it destroy all honesty and honor as well as purity and peace? God, however, has a better way. He has thoughts of love toward
the guilty parents of our race for the sentence which he goes
on to pronounce is not retributive. In other words, God didn’t just
pronounce a sentence that was over and done with for all eternity. But it was remedial. And in all
its parts, it is fitted exactly to meet their case. In other
words, God gave the perfect sentence to woo man back to himself. Creation was subjected to futility. That’s exactly what Paul’s saying.
That this extended sentence to Adam and Eve and every person
that would ever be born from them. They’re born into nothing
short of long suffering, nothing short of difficulty, in other
words, it wasn’t designed by God to be like this forever,
but it was designed with a purpose. It was designed with the purpose
of wooing them back to himself. of making them long for the garden
the way that it was, of making them long for that relationship
the way that it was. Glance back at Genesis 3. There
was an element of creation that was cursed there in the serpent,
but I want to skip directly to the cursing of Adam and Eve.
To the woman, he said, verse 16, I will greatly multiply pain,
your pain and childbirth in pain. You will bring forth children.
Your desire will be for you, for your husband, and he will
rule over you. There is throughout this section,
you know, the groanings of childbirth. Those birth pangs that precede
the joy that really supersedes is superseded. Only by the Lord’s
return. The joy of a child being born
into the world is preceded by that incredible pain. Likewise,
the whole creation now groans with that same kind of pain,
but there was another cursing there, as we’ve seen the cursing
of subservience to to man, your desire will be for your husband.
And I take that to mean not just a man, but your husband’s role. And he will rule over you. But to Adam, this is where we
want to focus. To Adam, he said, because you
have listened to the voice of your wife. And I take that to
mean for sin, because you have listened to the voice of your
wife and have not eaten from the tree about which I commanded
you, saying you shall not eat from it. Cursed is the ground
because of you. Cursed is the ground because
of you in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life,
both thorns and thistles that shall grow for you and you will
eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face. You will
eat bread till you return to the ground because from it you
were taken. For you are dust and to dust you shall return. Adam had brought the curse. For the sin of humanity, He had
brought the curse on all nature. He had brought the curse on the
ground, not on himself. He would be cursed because of
it. He would suffer the effects of the curse and the fall and
the effects of it. But the curse was of the ground.
As one said, the awful curse of an offended God fell not,
however, upon Adam himself, as it did on the serpent, but on
the ground for Adam’s sake. He found the immediate accomplishment
of the curse in the changed character of the soil on which he had to
work. For it was from that point. Stingy
of its fruits, unless wooed into productiveness by the soil of
the fallen race, in other words, from that point on, gardening
became not a joy. It became an absolute drudgery
to farm a field, became an absolute chore, work, labor, sweat of
the brow, difficulty, hardship, heartbreak. From that moment. From that moment, man would bear
the punishment. Of his sin. The earth would be
stingy, as he said, it would refuse to just liberally give
up the fruit of its vines and that only by the sweat of the
brow, only by difficulty and hardship. And if you’re sitting
here saying that I’m not a farmer, any one of us knows the difficulty
of labor. There is toilsomeness in all
work, even in the ministry. All the the grain that was so
liberal before where Adam could merely walk into the forest and
come out with armloads of groceries, all of which were pleasing to
his wife. Now, the grain, the vegetables. Would be tainted. They’d be eaten
by worms, by cankers, by all kinds of aphids and all other
manner of difficulty. All different kinds of things
came into the garden and they all began to feast on Adam’s
garden. It’s interesting. One botanist
said that one thistle, one thistle will produce about 2400 offspring. And those 2400 will have several
more births, if you will, in a single season. You don’t have
to take my testimony. I have urged all people, everybody
should have to plant a garden. You would know exactly what Paul
is talking about here. The creation was subjected to
futility. Turn your back in your garden for one week. I remember
one year I decided I’m not going to have a garden this year, I’ll
have one next year. The following year was the most difficult year
of gardening I’ve ever had. It was all weeds, it was nothing
but weeds. The weeds choked out anything
that was even remotely viable. One dear Puritan said, the hard,
unremitting toil of the farmer, wringing a bare subsistence from
the grudging and intractable ground is the standing evidence
of a divine curse. And you ought to know it by having
a garden. Now, bread to eat can only be
extorted in the sweat of the brow. The relative unproductiveness
of the whole earth in comparison with man’s expectations and ideals
is here regarded as the permanent effect of a curse. You say, when
and why? Did God subject creation to futility? He did it because of sin, but
he did it with a cause. So we’re considering. As we’re
rather considering the nature of this subjection, that of futility,
Paul spells it out plainly that creation was subjected to futility. It’s not just that God brought
creation in subjection because it was already in subjection
to Adam. Now, God brings it into subjection.
To futility bugs. Bugs of all kinds, aphids and
worms and caterpillars and beetles. You know what? I’d heard all
my life about Colorado beetles. I had no idea what they looked
like until I planted potatoes. Now I know why they’re called
Colorado potato beetles. Pollination now became a difficulty. Do you know that every year that
I’ve ever had a garden, there’s always fruit on the vine that
never ripens? Right. And you go out there in late
September and you just you know, it’s time the vines have withered
and there’s fruit that will not ever ripen. You gather it up,
you scoop it up, you throw it in the trash, whether it’s a
green tomato or whatever it is. From that point on, everything
became futile. The word talks about a purposelessness. where the world was created to
glorify God and be a glory to him, a testimony to him at every
turn now became tainted at almost every turn. The word literally
means evil, physical or moral, but ultimately what it really
refers to is a liability, a tendency to change and decay, not change
for the better. This is where the sun began to
beat down and erode everything in its path, this is where the
bugs brought disease, this is where the skies refused to lend
rain and we had drought for the first time. And then the skies
would open up and now we have hail for the first time. And
what the drought doesn’t destroy, the hail will certainly take
care of. We had hardship. Now we have
lightning. coming from the skies for the
first time and floods from the water and tsunamis and thunderstorms
and hurricanes like never before. Can you imagine paradise being
described with those elements in it? Those things were absent. Those things were part of the
fall and creation now finds itself in chaos, meteors and comets,
exploding stars, boiling heat, freezing cold, disintegrating
power of the sun. As one pastor said, nature has
been subjected to the frustration of not being able to properly
fulfill the purpose of its existence. I mean, if you will, you’ve got
to personify this to say that nature right now is frustrated. We want to flourish, we want
to glorify God in everything that we do. And we’re stifled
and we’re tainted and we’re degenerating. He goes on to say, we may think
of the whole magnificent theater of the universe together with
all its splendid properties and all the chorus of nature created
to glorify God, but unable to do so. So long as man, the chief
author in the drama of God’s praise, fails to contribute his
part. No wonder that all of creation
is longing, eagerly awaiting for the revealing of the sons
of God, because they know that day. And we talked about it. The Bible is replete with examples
of rocks and trees and hills and all other manner of inanimate
objects praising God. Giving glory to God. When man sins, we brought down
on a curse on humanity that exists to this day. Those of you from
Texas, you’ll know this. In Colorado, we know of ants.
We don’t know of fire ants. Fire ants are that is that is
the curse of God right there because those things will crawl
up your leg and all of a sudden all at once. I don’t know whether
one gives a call or pheromone or some other device that it
uses and they all bite at once. And when they bite, they inject
a poison and when that poison hits your body, you begin to
itch like. Fire, you guessed it. Weeds in the garden, that’s just
the beginning. Weather, decay, hot sun, freezing
winters, broken branches, potholes. Calamities, you can blame potholes
on Adam. Calamitous storms, floods, tornadoes,
hurricanes, all of it. Said one, it may be deemed fitting
that in a world inhabited by sinful morals should partake
of unrest and decay and dissolution. We may deem that earthquakes
and tornadoes and thunder tempests and other fearful and destructive
natural phenomena, fire, flood, etc. belong properly to a world
or world system of disharmony and sin. Everywhere our eyes
meet images of death and decay, the scourge of barrenness, the
fury of the elements, the destructive instincts of beasts, the very
laws which govern vegetation, everything gives nature a somber
hue. Why? Why would God do this? What was the impetus? Look down at the passage. The
second point is the impetus of subjection. Subjection’s impetus
was God’s will. Why would God do this? Because
God desired to do so. The creation was subjected to
futility, not of its own will. And this is kind of an absurd
point if you don’t really step back and grasp the point that
Paul’s making. He’s personifying nature. And
it’s as if to say that nature didn’t ever wave its hand anxiously
saying, oh, please put us down. Please curse us so that Adam
will learn his lesson. The creation was subjected, not
of its own will, it didn’t sign up for it, even if it could.
It didn’t volunteer for this, not even if it could. No, God
cursed creation apart from its will. The subjection wasn’t its
choice, it wasn’t nature’s choice, it wasn’t the voluntary act of
nature. This is not how God made it. It was the result of cursing, it
was because of him who subjected it. That’s what Paul says. It
was because of God who subjected this. It wasn’t the devil. It
wasn’t mankind. None of them lacked the power
and authority to do this. It was God. And you come quickly
to point three, why? Why would God do this? And it’s
the most beautiful point ever. It’s the whole point of subjecting
creation to the futility in the first place. It’s the mercy of
God in wooing creation back to him. Look at the passage once
again. The creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will,
but because of him who subjected it. Why? In hope. It wasn’t the
end, it wasn’t the last word, it wasn’t the end goal. The creation was subjected to
futility in hope that the creation itself will be set free. Go back to that little word in
hope. The translators have left that
kind of hanging, there’s a similar occurrence in Ephesians chapter
one. It’s as if, you know, we didn’t
have chapter and verse, we didn’t have verse designations, we didn’t
have punctuation, they didn’t know exactly where to hang it,
so they hung it there. The creation was subjected to
futility in hope that the creation itself will be set free. The
subjection was with a purpose, it was the hope that to create
the created order would one day be. Delivered. And as we’ve already seen, he’s
not talking about man here is not talking about, you know,
that we sit there longingly. The creation was subjected. To this frustration with a great
deal of hope. that it ultimately would be set
free. It’s beautiful and it’s a very appropriate image. It
says that creation was subjected to futility and hope that the
creation would be set free from and to. There’s a very specific
design here. First of all, from its slavery
to corruption. The point is a very appropriate
image. It isn’t as if creation had an
option in all this, right? We’ve already determined that
it wasn’t by its own will. It was enslaved. It was enslaved,
it was inescapably rather bound to frustration and decay. It
was enslaved to this condition. Creation can’t break forth. and
burst forth in a new garden like there was that day, the seed
probably is here somewhere. But it’s absolutely incapable
of escaping. It’s enslaved in this decay,
it’s enslaved in this physical condition. But it’s also. Destined to be
set free. And Paul just calls it Into the
freedom of the glory of the children of God, what is that? What is
the freedom of the glory of the children of God and how does
how does that relate to creation? Well, we know that one day by
God’s grace, we are going to know in full the freedom in Christ
that we have, that we have been liberated from sin and from the
effects of sin. We will be liberated from death
and from all fears of death forever. The freedom of the glory of the
children of God. One day we will be with God in
glory forever. One pastor said that liberty
of glory is the words literally mean refer to that liberty, which
consists in or is connected with the glory, which is the end and
the consummation of the work of redemption. That’s what we
long for, don’t we as believers? And yet here in some Interesting
way, the creation has a vested interest in it. The creation
can’t wait. Because they, too, will be set
free, released, liberated into the freedom of the glory of the
children of God. It’s not enough that the creation
should be set free from corruption. God doesn’t stop there. God says it must necessarily
be liberated to something new. And you say, what does? What
does paradise look like? What would a place? A state of
complete restoration look like, and we all talk about heaven
and long for heaven all the time, but what would God’s created
order look like? We talked about it yesterday,
Barb says it’s going to be 75.6 degrees all the time. I’ll take
it, but if you don’t like that. Maybe you’ve got to imagine that
somehow God is able to give you personalized climate control
wherever you are. You want a cold day, you got
it. You want warm, you got it. I kind of envisioned a perfect
restored order, white puffy clouds that never really do anything,
they just Kind of amble across the clear blue sky. I imagine trees, trees that never
lose their leaves, no raking, right? The fruit on the trees
is always ripe, perfectly ripe. Can you imagine walking through
your own garden of perfectly ripe peaches? You’d go crazy.
Perfectly ripe fruit all the time available for you. You want
to go fishing? You don’t even need a net. Just
go to the water and woo the fish into your hands. Go home and
cook it up for dinner. Insects. Insects, if they exist at all,
will have their own food to eat, not my garden. Flowers will always
be in bloom. Animals will get along peacefully.
The scriptures testify of that. There will be always progress
and completion in our work. We will be able to be satisfied
at the end of the day. Not stressed out. And Max, do
you know the most stressful day for men? Sunday night. Sunday
night. That’s what studies have shown.
Sunday night in preparation for all the week has, knowing that
they’ll never get it done. Well, in the restored world order,
you will. There will be completion in our
work. There will be satisfaction in
it. Decay ceases. Things don’t wear out or rust
or degenerate. Paint doesn’t fade. The house
doesn’t need to be painted. Termites can’t do their thing.
Earthquakes are a thing of the past. No floods, no droughts,
no lightning, no tornadoes, no hail, no calamitous weather,
no fires. The creation one day. Is going
to share in the glory that God is going to bestow upon the children
of God. The glory of God’s people. Is the context of all of God’s
restoration. God’s created order is standing.
Eagerly looking. For the revealing of the sons
of God. Let’s bow before him in worship. Oh, merciful God, we thank you
for your complete word to us. The word recording of your creation. Of its beauty and of its perfection
and of the tasks given to Adam in it. Oh, Father, we thank you
for recording the fall and for giving to us an explanation of
why things are the way they are now. But, O Father, we thank
you most of all for the hope, for the hope that was woven in
even as you cursed your creation. It was done in hope. It was not
a final sentence. It was a sentence that you longed
to see come to an end. As your created order would be
restored, and that you would be glorified by all things just
as you designed it to be. Father, for us, not the least
of your creation, the very apex of it, you have given this world
as a testimony to us. And Lord, even in its fallenness,
even in its cursed condition, it is a clear enough testimony
to leave anyone without excuse. Father, may any in our midst
come to know the God of this created order and come to know
the Lord Jesus that you have provided as the only. Provision
for sinners. Oh, Lord God. May we be. Among those sons of God, one
day revealed. To the great applause of all
nature. Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We ask Your blessing
on our day. It’s in Jesus’ name that we ask.
Amen.