Eternal Life: The Next Great Chapter

Romans 8:18-28

Hope Beyond Earthly Life

When divers combed the wreckage of the Kursk (the destroyed Russian nuclear submarine on which 118 sailors perished), they found a letter written by Lt. Dmitri Kolesnikov. The handwritten note was addressed to his wife, Olga. It was penned after the explosion that sealed the sub's doom on August 12, 2000, in the Barents Sea and confirmed speculation that all the crew had not died instantly.

A few hours after the submarine plunged to the bottom of the sea, Kolesnikov wrote, "All the crew from the sixth, seventh, and eighth compartments went over to the ninth. There are 23 people here. . . . None of us can get to the surface."

The note included a deeply personal expression of affection to his beloved Olga, who admitted that her husband had a premonition of death when he bade her goodbye before sailing out to the Barents Sea. Eerily, the last lines of the letter indicated that death was closing in. The auxiliary power had failed. Kolesnikov wrote unevenly in the pitch darkness: "I am writing blind."

What a terrible sense of approaching doom.

This sailor's despair and foreboding isn't all that different from what many people feel about this world.

Citation: Greg Asimakoupoulos, Naperville, Illinois; adapted from (Chicago suburban) Daily Herald (10-27-00)

The apostle Paul, blind and knowing that a martyr's death was near, also wrote goodbye letters. His letters, though, were filled with hope in Christ.

In Romans 8 the apostle Paul wrote to encourage believers in Christ to hope in their world dead ends, decay and death.

 

There is no question mom Harmon had a joyful expectation of being in the presence of her Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Read Romans 8:18-28

 

I.    There is simply no comparison of our earthly circumstances to the glory of our future. (v.18)

RESTATE: Don’t formulate ideas of the future glory from your present conditions.

A.  “I consider” – meaning “I have thought it over carefully

1.   No matter what we have gone through, are presently going through or will go through, the sum total is not worth comparing with the glory that awaits us.

2.   We can compare a thimble of water with the sea, but we cannot compare our sufferings with the coming glory.

B.   Context for Paul’s assertion:

1.   The age in which we live, which extends from the fall of man into sin until the second coming of Christ, is an age in which the creation, including our bodies, has been "subjected to futility" and "enslaved to corruption."

a.   Probably the futility and corruption Paul speaks of refers to both spiritual and physical ruination.

1)   On the one hand man in his fallen state is enslaved to flawed perception, misconceived goals, foolish blunders and spiritual numbness.

2)   On the other hand, there are floods, famines, volcanoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, plagues, snake bites, car accidents, plane crashes, asthma, allergies, and the common cold and cancer, all rending and wracking the human body with pain and bringing men - all men - to the dust.

2.   There is an age coming when all the children of God, who have endured to the end in faith, will be delivered from all futility and corruption, spiritually and physically.

a.   According to verse 21, the hope in which God subjected creation was that some day "The creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God."

b.   And verse 23 says that "We ourselves groan within ourselves waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

c.   It has not happened yet. We wait. But it will happen.

d.   "Our citizenship is in heaven from which we await a savior, the Lord, Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our lowliness to be like the body of His glory" (Philippians 3:20,21).

e.   "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:52).

f.    "He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and there shall be no longer any death; and there shall be no longer any mourning or crying or pain; the first things have passed away" (Revelation 21:4).

There is coming a day when every crutch will be carved up and every wheelchair melted down into medallions of redemption. Quadriplegics will do cartwheels through the Kingdom of Heaven. Alzheimer’s patients will communicate clearly, But not yet. Not yet. We groan waiting the redemption of our bodies. But the day is coming.

 

TRANSITION: This hope for the coming age is so substantive that creation groans for it.

 

II.   Creation groans for glory.

A.  Picture of pregnancy

1.   None of us carries a picture in or wallet of our wives in labor. We have pictures of our wives with a delivered child in their arms

2.   Creation will one day be delivered – and the difference between then and now is the difference between agony and ecstasy.

3.   Think what will happen when nature is free to produce as it was designed to produce, free from pestilence and danger. We are going to see that day!

 

TRANSITION: Creation groan but Christians groan too.

 

III. Christians groan for glory

 

 

 

 

 

IV. The Holy Spirit groans, helping us in our weakness.

The Holy Spirit says those things that we cannot articulate.

 

A glory awaits us that exceeds the wildest imaginations of our most gifted science fiction writers. You and I are going to be creatures so glorious that if we saw such ones today we would be tempted to fall down and worship them

Because of the greatness of the coming glory and because of our weakness, we groan. But we are not alone, for the sympathetic groaning of creation and even of the Holy Spirit surrounds us. And one day our groanings will be replaced by glory!

On the final page of the final book of The Chronicles of Narnia, some of the children who have been to Narnia lament that they once again must return to their homeland—the Shadow-Lands. But Aslan (the lion who represents Jesus) has the best news of all for them:

[Aslan spoke to the children,] "You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be."

Lucy said, "We're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often."

"No fear of that," said Aslan. "Have you not guessed?"

Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.

"There was a real railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream has ended; this is morning."

And as he spoke he no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

Citation: C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle; submitted by Eugene Maddox, Interlaken, Florida

Romans 8:15-29

From The Message by Eugene Peterson

 

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

 

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That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us; any more than waiting diminishes a preg­nant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with him­self. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us-who was raised to life for us! — is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

“They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.” None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely con­vinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demon­ic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable— absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.