3. Groaning & Liberation - Living in the Light of the Resurrection - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

all right good morning how are you guys sweet I'm doing good - happy Sunday it's really good to be together here with you guys if your visitor hi if you're not a visitor also hi if you're in summer mode which means I don't know you only comes the sunday gathering occasionally because this is Portland the land of non-committal then welcome to the center gathering so it's Godiva guys here my name's Tim I'm one of the pastor's here we're going to explore a passage of Scripture like we always do during this time we're in this series called the new day we're looking at what Jesus and his earliest followers his earliest representatives the Apostles have to say when they think about the future hope for Christians and for the world and that the resurrection of Jesus is at the heart of that and so we're looking at a really dense complex paragraph from one of Paul the Apostles letters I don't know if you know this but one of the other apostles his name is Peter maybe you've heard and he wrote a letter that's in the New Testament it's called first Peter and he reflects on his co-worker Paul in his writing style and in a second Peter and excuse me second Peter and he says you know Paul's letters got he says god bless that man God given him lots of wisdom but he's really hard to understand this does a the biblical authors saying another biblical author is really difficult to read and understand and that's true you know that's how that's how Paul writes is in these dense theological holy cow type paragraphs and so I'm gonna do my best but this is a magnificent magnificent passage of scripture that has surprising things to say to us the the last the last few months here on planet earth have been alarming and and whether more human beings have died on planet earth than the previous you know three months or so on you know but somebody could probably do the math on that one but the world in which we live with with the screen media in our lives constantly in our pockets and at homes it makes us woven in to the story of what's happening here on planet earth in a new and different way that's like people haven't lived the way that we live because of our constant access to it and so this has been an overwhelming few months for most people in the modern world who have access to screens because what our screens are telling us now on a weekly sometimes daily basis is of some new horrifying tragedy were a very small number of people destroy the lives and kill lots of other people so within the last few days of course what happened in Kabul or what happened in Munich that's just the weekend you know the setup to the weekend whether it's everything going on with the tragic shootings of Philon de Castille and alton sterling and then the shooting of police officers the horrible tragedies that happened after that and then we're talking about nice in paris are you with me it's overwhelming and you know i have habits during my day that I have to keep under control of opening up my news apps and staying in tune with what's happening but you know and I'm sure this is true for you too how have you ever in your life experienced so many moments of hearing or seeing news of a tragedy and having that thing that happens inside of you and I don't know what you say you know I don't know what your response is but it's never happened to me so many times in such a short amount of time as the last few months are you with me and it's what do you do you know it becomes I'm sure we're all gonna remember this season of our lives just like some people can remember precisely the moment that JFK or Martin Luther King jr. was assassinated and where they were and when they heard the news my hunch is that this summer is going to be something like that in all of our life memories as we go on and so how do you how do you begin to sort out the anxiety and confusion of getting barrage that much there been multiple news media outlets that have put out articles in the last week about how to consume the media that they're putting out about these tragedies New York Times had this interesting piece that said listen you need to not be listening to the New York Times all the time you need the money you need to guard how much time you spend following these stories because it's gonna mess you up if you become consumed by these stories not being ignorant but not allowing it to rule your life and so how do you sort out right the anxiety the vulnerability the fear you know and there is in the Bible the first three quarters of the Bible specifically what Christians called the Old Testament there is an amazing set of resources here teaching us how to grieve and how to sort through our anxiety and emotions before God there's a whole book of the Bible that teaches God's people how to grieve it's called the book of lament it's named lamentations and there is another book of the Bible fully half of which the Book of Psalms for the half of it it's people who are angry and confused at God and don't have a problem telling himself that's what half of these poems are in the Book of Psalms and they teach us the language of grief and anxiety in the presence of God and there's one passage in what we call Psalm thirty ones powerful poem but has this passage that I think is relevant for us in this cultural moment the poet says this in Psalm 31 he says be merciful to me Lord I'm in distress my eyes grow weak with sorrow my soul and body with grief my life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning my strength fails because of my affliction and my bones grow weak this is a if a remarkable part of the poem there's seven lines there and if you look at the last word in each line it's a different description of the emotional suffering do you see that their distress sorrow grief anguish groaning affliction weakness so whatever the circumstances are the poem invites us into a place where we name precisely every one of our emotions we give attention to it not stuff it we name it before God and pour it all out and there's something you know I've highlighted one one of them hear the word groaning because it sticks out see how it sticks out in the poem every one of those other words refers to an emotional state except groaning yeah you feel weakness it's a also a physical state you feel distress and sorrow but do you feel groaning what is grunting groaning is something that you do yeah you don't do sorrow or do anguish it's what you feel groaning something you do what's groaning it's a sound that you make isn't it it's a sound and here's what's interesting almost all languages have this words that sound like what they mean and in Hebrew you can see they're the Hebrew word for groan it's one of those work the last letter is the clearing your throat letters I'm enough it's a sound that you make it's like when you're under the weight of something heavy and you breathe out enough it's an office what you do when you have to make a noise but you are bypassing your intellect that's trying to articulate with words what you feel and you just make a noise are you with me so if we have these words in English you see them in comics sometimes ugh or argh ugh if you grew up on the Cathy comic strip and the newspapers she always remember what Cathy always said ACK yeah ack ack ack so here we go we're we're in this realm here groaning I don't have the ability to even articulate the stress the anxiety the pain and the confusion but I have to make a noise and ah I know I don't have to explain it anymore do I I mean why and I can't think of a better word to describe the number of times that I've opened up or woken up and tuned into my news app and I'm being informed of some new horrific destruction of human life and thus it comes out of me whether it's nothing like know or not that's this word and my hunches today I you know exactly you have felt this too and know what the poet's talking about here a nought is an interesting word for lots of reasons it's meaning that it gets us all on the same page as we all know what this feels like it's also significant it's used a lot in the Hebrew Bible but what's really significant is the first time this word occurs in the Bible if you start on page one and you just read through looking for the first person who groans first person who uh knocks it's very significant the first time it occurs I'm gonna read you the paragraph and some of you will know instantly the moment in the story that we're at it's an exodus chapter 2 during that long period the king of Egypt died in the Israelites Anna in their slavery they cried out and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God and God heard their groaning and so he remembered his covenant with Abraham with Isaac and with Jacob so God looked on the Israelites and he was concerned about them it's the first time an aah groaning appears in the story of the Bible and this is a key this is a key moment and arguably one of the most important stories in the whole Bible it's the story that the book is named after yeah Exodus an eiephant joke perhaps you've seen the movie or maybe you actually read the story but this is kiyose as a turning point moment this is the family of Abraham and God said to this family earlier on that he was going to restore his blessing to all of the nations through this family that they're marked for God's purpose in some way and the family grows and then they go down to Egypt looking for food and the king of Egypt sees this exploding immigrant population right in in his own land and in Pharaoh the king of Egypt's mind this is a national security threat and so he does what many nations do in in this case so he ends up rallying them all together puts them in slave labor camps they start building the pyramids the precisely the period of some of the late pyramids storage cities whose grinding them into the dirt and then he starts killing their children throwing their boys baby Israelite boys into the river and that's this moment right here and this story it culminates with their their verbal but not verbal right it's it's a noise there they can't even articulate the suffering in the pain and here it's important because it's not just that having that done to you and your people is horrible that is horrible but it's also the groaning right enough that pain arises out of this tension in the story because this is the family god made promises to us that somehow he's gonna bless the nation's through us and our people and yet this is happening to us do you see this the groaning isn't just about this is a hard circumstance the groaning is about this is who we believe God to be but this is what's happening in reality and I don't see how these two things make sense together seems like a contradiction the gods made a covenant to us but yet this is happening to us and the groaning comes out of that awful tension are you with me in the story so do you know how the story goes the Pharaohs evil turns back on to him because God does raise up a deliverer to save these people his name's Moses and how does how does it happen it happens through an Israelite baby getting thrown in the water but this one doesn't drown it floats into Pharaoh's own family and then becomes the very person who will who will bring down Pharaoh's kingdom and liberate God's people it's a story of the Exodus and so this story became so important because this was a this was the groaning of God's people which is actually even more intense because of they know God's promise in God's character and that tension is what creates the even more intense groaning but yet they were delivered through Moses in the story of the Exodus and so this story right here gets told and retold and retold for centuries annually Israelites have this festival meal called Passover and they retell the story of their groaning which led to liberation from slavery and so as Israel went on through time as they encountered later periods of suffering and grief and groaning they would recall this story from the past I'll just show you one one example by the way this is a message about Romans trust me so but they would recall this this story from the past Isaiah the prophet so great example is real suffering under oppression from different bad guys but bad guys nonetheless and here's how Isaiah puts it when he's gave his voice to his groaning Isaiah 51 he says awake awake oh arm of the Lord clothe yourself with strength this is also if you've read the story you won't get this from the movie but he'll get it from the story there's a lion repeated through the story where God says he's going to free his enslaved people with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm it gets repeated repeated many times throughout the story of the Exodus and so what Isaiah he looks out on Israel of his day and he's like I think the arm of the Lord is asleep God's asleep because look at the world and look at what's happening to us and to our people so it's a poem asking God to wake up wake up o arm of the Lord be strong just wake up just like you did back in the Exodus just like in days gone by as in generations of old I mean wasn't it you who dried up the sea the waters of the great deep wasn't it you who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the people you redeemed out of slavery could go over I think that was you the God of Israel let me see you checked my Bible yep that was you all right so do it again why are you asleep it's very bold powerful and then he states his confidence he says yes it will happen again those that the Lord has rescued will return they will enter Zion with singing everlasting joy will crown their heads gladness and joy will overtake them sorrow and anak will flee it's very intentional this use of language here and so where this lands God's people is in this place of tension where the the the way that God's people experience the world is both living by God's promise to liberate and bring into freedom his enslaved people and as we'll see creation and world but it's not fully happened yet and what this does is it intensifies the groaning if you are looking for a life of trying to escape your experience of groaning don't become a follower of Jesus actually following Jesus will increase the tension in your life because you believe so firmly that this world isn't the way it's supposed to be yet it seems like it's just continuing on and where is God and why isn't he doing something that's what it means to be a part of God's people and it's this story of we're waiting it's God's done it in the past he's relieved the groaning of his people and he's going to do it again somehow and it's through a deliverer that he'll raise up and I would submit to you that this is exactly the story that Paul is inviting us into in Romans chapter 8 Paul's deep conviction along with all of the earliest Christians is that is that Jesus of Nazareth is the deliverer he is the arm of the Lord embodied as a human being and that what he came and that what he did was for others that he lived for us as the human that we are all made to be but perpetually failed to be that he died for us that he took into himself the consequences of all of the sin and the selfishness that we unleash into the world and they allowed it to kill him and destroy him but not gain victory over him his was the victory when he walked out of the empty tomb on Easter morning and declared that his life and his love is more powerful than human evil and death and so what Paul's firm conviction is that Jesus is the arm of the Lord waking up to rescue his world and if you grab on to faith if you grab on to Jesus in faith and in trust which is about allegiance and devotion and just hanging on to him for dear life even when it doesn't make a lot of sense but something happens that that all of a sudden what's true of Jesus becomes true of me as one of his people that he became what I am so that I can become what he is and death and resurrection is a key part of this camera and helped us explore this in Romans six last week we here's how Paul puts it and just right before the paragraph were reading in Romans chapter eight in verse 11 he puts it this way sorry if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you then he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you Jesus became a human subject to mortality and death but God's life-giving presence raised him from the dead and when I joined myself to Jesus I become what he is the hope of resurrection his resurrection becomes my hope hey you guys done okay now let's pause for a second here so as we're gonna see today Paul for Paul this is the concrete hope is the hope of Resurrection but here's what I found and I know I found it because it's true for me I think at this point most of us get kablooie and muddy if you've ever tried to think about this as a Christian okay so Jesus came out of the empty tomb and that's a resurrection most of what I know about Christianity or maybe you've grown up with intercept thing is that what you're hoping for is to get away from Earth after you die and that will be your form of escape to go to some other place some place of disembodied non-physical bliss it involves a cloud and harp and singing a song for eternity I guess I'm just going off of comic strips there's nothing like wait are you with me I guess the cut that's what most people think Christians believe and that is in fact what most Christians believe is their hope and then you're like I guess I'll be a resurrected person doing that I don't know I hope the cloud is comfortable you know we don't think about it that much and so what Paul has to say about the resurrection and groaning and future hope uh it's surprising he doesn't say at all what you would expect him to say and the story that he paints here is so profound it's so profound that it it's been a game changer for me as a follower of Jesus and that's having this Exodus story I think will help us make sense trust me of what what he says look what he says in verse 18 which is where we're beginning here he says I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us so Paul acknowledges here's what it's like to live in the moment the present world as we know it as a follower of Jesus suffering right hardship this world screwed up we were really screwed up present suffering but whatever what he says is our present experience of suffering in the world isn't worse comparing to what he calls the glory to be revealed now if what you have in your head is eternity in some non-physical form laying down on a cloud whistling of worship song my hands just you wouldn't say this out loud but you'd be like yeah I don't know I'd kind of rather go have a sunset dinner with my friend in Portland then do that are you with me well you're like Paul saying like glory is not worth comparing with anything you experienced now in the present and you're like well I don't know maybe clouds are comfortable I don't know Oh a thing forever are you and maybe I'm just trying to be honest here anybody be like oh it doesn't I mean I guess that's cool I don't know where did those images even come from in the first place and you discover there most of them are not actually quite from the Bible in the first place so what what does Paul have in his head Paul has in his head a future that is so beautiful and so real and robust and compelling that our experience of in the present like just they're not even comparable to each other what is that well look at what he goes on to say he says for the creation is waiting in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed now if if if your story about future what Christians believe about the future is this this escape through deaths story or escape through Jesus returning and everything else is left behind and then we go to some other non-physical world forever and this place is left to rot or heat death or something why on earth would the creation be waiting for that are you with me creation is waiting and eager expectation to be incinerated while we all go somewhere else okay that doesn't make any sense at all because that's not what Paul thinks is going to happen he has a different story in his head it's called the story of the Exodus and he's going to be as clear as day about it starting in just another sentence here and what he does he says okay let's stop maybe he knows that he's being opaque here so he stops and he says okay let's go back to pages one through three of the Bible but with my paraphrase of what he's saying in verse 20 he says next he says for the creation was subjected to frustration not by its own choice but by the will of the one who subjected it let's just stop right there that's Paul saying okay let me stop let me remind you of the big story here of of the Bible he goes back to pages 1 through 3 if you've ever wanted to know where I picked up the habit of always taking everything in the Bible back to pages 1 through 3 it's because I learned from the master right here so he's retelling the story of creation creation apparently and by creation he means the nonhumans that's what we call the universe or nature the universe is eagerly waiting for something and it has to do with the glory of God's people and their hope in the future what's that about so he says let's go back here to think about how this thing got started when when God made his world um what what did God have to say about his world on page 1 of the Bible he brought out of darkness and chaos he brought Beauty in a garden and what does God have to say about this world it's good how many times did he say it because that's the seven times over it's good and the seventh time he says it's really really good I like this a lot God likes our world he likes it loves it even so there's that but then the story is really significant how it moves on next what God does is he he rules and oversees his planet by appointing creatures who humans as his image God's image and he says is my image you will rule and oversee this thing and the the image is so powerful it's of creator and creature right God and humanity existing as partners together in intimacy and closeness in trust to then take this world into new undiscovered territory and of course if you know the story how it goes humanity that is us we're all a part of this we don't want to be managers we want to be shareholders we don't want to just manage and oversee we want to be the boss we want to define the terms of what's good and evil and where this world's supposed to go we rebel and what happens in the story is so interesting is that God doesn't roast everything what he does is he allows the world to become subjected to frustration he allows the the dignified creatures that he's made to rule the world he allows them to take creation down with them so to speak the story could be written many times say of like a restaurant here in Portland or something maybe you have a favorite restaurant and this has happened where it was you know the burger or the I don't know the kimchi something it was the magic you know it was the magic and then it gets popular and then like the staff gets bigger and then it's not as good anymore anybody this has happened to you and so what happens it's like you know main management changes or mandaleet bad leadership something it's not as good anymore and then the bathrooms are dirty all the time you notice and then it's like a bunch of people are quitting the head chef that made the original magic he like that chef leave and then it's really not really not good anymore and then the parking lots always dirty and full of cigarette butts and crushed up a lamb at weeks and you know you're just like it no I want to go there anymore anybody this has happened to you so here's what doesn't pop into your mind as a solution oh I know what the solution is we need to incinerate the place right you might be that angry that you can't have that burger anymore whatever buddy you're not gonna think like oh that needs to be burned down or whatever that's not what you think what you think is what we need we need new management we need a new owner who will take this place and make of it what we know it's fully capable of that's the story Paul has in his mind and and so what does it mean to say that the universe nature the physical world was subject to frustration I was talking to the the worship team earlier and I was asking what is the nicest piece of equipment this morning up here and apparently it's not an instrument it's a amp do you see this amp right over here right back here if not maybe you should come up a look at that afterwards it looks like it's dressed in a suit it's beautiful there's this beautiful cloth striped cloth that's because it's handmade it's a binson amp made by our own chris benson and coke apparently so I hear this is a really remarkable unique piece of equipment that is sought after by many people around the world so there you go that's the nicest piece of equipment if this amp was given to me as a birthday gift this fall and that's not a subtle ploy I don't want the amp this is just an illustration right so if this amp would be given to me my birthday this fall what would happen to it well I don't know how to play the guitar so I can hack out G C a D and E minor on my acoustic and it's not a pretty sight and you don't want to hear it I don't know how in the electric guitar is the mystery to me so if this was to be given to me here's what would happen it would sit in my closet then Mike two boys would discover it and they would like draw on it and tear it to tear it apart and it would it would be subject to frustration so when he says creation is subject to frustration he doesn't mean frustrate in terms of like I'm angry I'm frustrated frustration has to it's an inability to fulfill its purpose so creation has been subject to the state of existence where it doesn't fulfill its purpose why because it's under really bad management us us all right we are the problem in this equation and if I just reads Romans 1 through 7 and so that's what Paul's there's a really thorough diagnosis of the human condition it's under bad management and the solution right when something is under bad management is not to destroy it it's to rescue it it's to install better new managers who will make of it what its purpose is and take it where it's intended to go and does Paul the Apostle believe that there exists a human who is the clue to the future of a creation rightly managed does Paul believe that a human exists who can take creation where it's supposed to go - yes and you can get this one alright just say it it wants to come out naturally right who is it it's Jesus it's Jesus it's the exalted risen Jesus who's Lord and who's King and and so watch how he goes on from right here he says listen creation was subjected to frustration not because it wanted to but by the will of the one who subjected it and there's a lot of debate about who this is I think the only option that makes sense is God so it's God allowing human beings to still manage human beings didn't stop ruling the world when we rebelled we just rule it badly now really badly and look at your life look at the world history and there you go like we're just we're bad when we think we're God we make really bad managers and so now the question is well what's gonna happen because we've taken creation down with us but he's not done yet but he says it's been subjected to frustration in hope that creation itself will be liberated in any time you hear slavery Redemption freedom liberation language what story in the Bible ought to fully come into your mind the Exodus story creation itself will be liberated from its slavery to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God we know that the whole creation has been doing what under bad management what they're doing scrubbing scrubbing why are they Israelites grunting in Exodus chapter 2 why they're enslaved they're being killed by whom Pharaoh bad management and Paul invites us to see the story of the universe as this as within the story of the exodus that the universe is groaning why because of us we we have become Pharaoh in this story and the way that we treat each other the way that we treat the creation apparently puts it into a state of groaning what you feel when you hear a headline and you're like no this is not what it's supposed to be apparently is what the creation feels like when it wakes up in the morning and it sees us walking around oh no oh no this is not what's supposed to be yeah when we laugh but it's very powerful very powerful but then look what Paul does here this very he he's a brilliant wordsmith which is what makes him hard to read sometime because he just packs his sentences full so he says all creation has been groaning what's it waiting for it's waiting for liberation for freedom so God's going to do for creation what he did for his people he's gonna free it from bad management and he's gonna do that by bringing it into the freedom in the glory of God's children so now we're brought into this so somehow what Paul thinks is going to happen in the future it's it involves human beings but because it involves human beings it involves this world and creation and that's because he's firmly committed that were Earthlings were of the earth and that God likes this world and that he's committed to rescuing it from us but he's done it in such a way that he can rescue us and rescue at the creation at the same time and that's just happened through through jesus's life and death and resurrection and and so look at what he says now because he believes that Jesus is the key he can say that the creation is groaning but it's groaning Eve morphs it like the pains of childbirth so now it's not just the exodus slavery groaning is it's labor pains now at this point I could stop and just invite all of the women who have experienced labor before and you just tell us you story and that would be a great finish to this sermon so I'm unqualified or had to talk about this I've been present I've stood and been next to the same woman two times through this experience and you know oh my gosh it's just so such a category shattering experience like this is how it happens and so grunting so there's the a woman's body kicks into gear and this human needs to be outside of the body by the end of this story that is going to happen it's crazy it's like aliens it's crazy that's how it happens and then so then the human body kicks into gear a process that so I observe and here is excruciating ly painful MS groaning and that pain is often untranslatable into any language there are often four-letter words are used to describe the pain and no woman is responsible for anything she says well she's in labor the visit of that so doesn't matter four-letter words or you know the words are impossible and so it's argh ah groaning and what Paul advise us to see is that the world as you and I know it is a world writhing in pain but it is a world that God is so committed to that even all of this groaning and pain and suffering it's it's moving towards a new life new creation is so powerful the image he uses here so now he's in two metaphors were in slavery to liberation and freedom and now we're at pain and childbirth into new life and new creations but this is the story Paul has in his head here and not only this way he's gonna pile it on not only so but we ourselves is verse 23 who have the firstfruits of the Spirit we are groaning inwardly so create we're in a groaning creation that no humans again and then we're groaning - we who have the spirit it's the same life animating presence of the Creator God that raised Jesus from the dead and that we grab onto Jesus and faith and it's at work in me - even though I can't always see it or sense it that what the Spirit does is it activates even more groaning in me this is why I said earlier if you want to avoid confusion and heartache in this world don't follow Jesus it intent it will intensify your heartache and confusion because all of a sudden if you follow Jesus you have some a real historical person you can point out to say he's the solution to it all so why is it God doing anything why are things continuing on the way that they are where are you wake up o arm of the Lord why aren't you doing something another day I'm gonna see another headline really welcome to being a follower of Jesus we groan and somehow that groaning I need to get a new story about that it's actually not a sign of God's absence it's a sign that God has given over the human story to what we wanted and what we create in the world but that he will redeem it and he will steer this thing towards new creation and new life somehow and you and I sit here in the President and we groan that's the story and what we're awaiting is what he calls our redemption of our bodies so in Paul the Apostles mind what it means to be a Christian and have hope I think this is what he's saying I am pretty certain this what he means it's - it's to believe and a hope that the future of the universe is what walked out of the empty tomb on Easter morning that God is committed to this world not in the state that it's in it has to be transformed and reborn and liberated in a extremely way that will change it forever but it will be this world and it will be you and it will be me think about the Jesus who came out of the empty tomb was it Jesus yep was was he recognizable to people who walked around with him in Galilee usually but sometimes not - right there Risen Jesus right we've read a story about that in this series where there were two people who walked around with him for a couple years and then when they saw the Risen Jesus we didn't at first recognize him and that was because they had all right there's all these wrong assumptions about who he was and who and so on but then when but then they do see him is Jesus in a body is he is he human in a body walking out of the tomb yes he had many meals with dozens even hundreds of his followers afterwards which I assume means that he pooped off that you know - unless there's nothing else of knew about the human buddy here with me he's a human he ate food was but yet at the same time there would be moments where the disciples would be in a room and they didn't think Jesus was with them and then I'll then he's with them and then he's not with them that's remarkable it's not able to do that and neither can you so there's something Jesus's body underwent a transformation a freedom from bondage to decay but he's a human he's the prototype of whatever it is the where you and I are heading in the universe is going it's the risen Jesus is the future of the universe and you might think this is like science fiction and I so there you welcome to Christianity this is what it means to be a Christian is to believe that what is true of Jesus is true of me and Paul believes it's what will be true of the whole universe now there are passages in the Bible we're going to look at them later in the series well Paul will Paul himself or other biblical authors will use other images to talk about the future though they'll use images of fire and judgment to talk about how God is going to deal with evil in in this world but I think when we see all of these passages together what we see it's right here it's of liberation and freedom and that this world including you and me have to be reborn if we're ever going to get right management over the place and for creation to be to be what it's destined to become so my hunch is that what Paul's saying here actually really messes up your theology or what you believe because it did for me until I realize like oh I think it's great I have a professor who used to say don't read the Bible if you're comfortable with your life and beliefs as a Christian because it'll just mess up everything you think you believe and I think this is one of these what Paul is inviting us to is so profound it's a vision of hope that that in the same breath Paul can look the current suffering groaning world in the face and name it and see it for what it is to have hope as a Christian is not escapism because a part of my hope is the cross is that the cross is the embodiment of everything that's wrong with us and everything that we do to each other the Jesus comes among us and what do we do we kill him and but it also in that moment it's God gaining victory over our selfishness and evil and sin and whatever the empty tomb means it's the future and it's physical and it's here but a new here now that's the Christian hope and I think what this does it'll it enables us to sit here in this present tension and we read the headlines right and and maybe your experience of grounding is overwhelming over be feeling overwhelmed by the headlines and the anxiety and the vulnerability we all feel when we go to a mall or a grocery store now there's that but there's there's also a million little groans that come along through life it's because we're subject to death and and the dissipation of our existence through sin and selfishness it might be the death of an opportunity something happens in your life and you think you're going one direction and something really difficult or horrible happens and boom your life's not gonna do that anymore it's very difficult for us to come to terms with that reality that's the death of a dream the death of an opportunity for some of us we groan because of the breakdown in our relationships with each other and and what I did or what that person did and we can't sort it out and you just go on now this in this fractured existence and it's it's horribly painful when that happens in our relationships and we groan we wonder why I can't we fix this our bodies break down and you're a lot more sore than you were five years ago when you did the same exact thing and you're like dang it it's happening to me - right and we groan there's a million reasons why we groan and as a Christian it doesn't mean I'm called to ignore it or turn that frown upside down and just like act right it's not escapism it's a Christian I can name it and face it for what it is but I don't believe that grounding is the end of the story what I believe is is in more than myself it's of God's commitment to our good world that he's going to rescue it from us that he's going to rebirth it and free it and liberate it to become what exactly what it's made to be Jesus became what we are so that in him we become who he is and what were truly made to be so uh let me land the plane as we come to a time of worship in the bread the cup we all have our own stories of groaning as we sit here today some of some of which is a story for why you're hurting and confused and in pain the you that nobody else knows about because you have you can't tell anybody it's it's so personal or difficult and I think as we come to take the bread in the cup and worship we're coming we're eating the bread and the cup the moment where Jesus becomes what we are he dies on our behalf and as the Apostle Paul said when we eat the bread in the cup we are also announcing our hope that this death is not the final word but the resurrection and new creation is where the story is going and so it's just existing in that tension so here's what I've encourage you to do what what is the thing the relationship the disappointment the lost loved one your own anxiety about the state of the world the thing that makes you groan right now and just to bring it to Jesus and lay it before him as we take the bread in the cup and ask him what it means for you to live with hope in light of his resurrection amen let me close in a word of Prayer you

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

Views: 27,964

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Id: 8TeqbqD8oPg

Length: 49min 46sec (2986 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 19 2017