Romans 8:19-22 "The Groaning and the Glory, Part II" - 10/18/2018

I know last time I said we were going to meet in two weeks and I once again I was incorrect and so I think there's a bunch of guys who thought we were going to meet in two weeks but it's actually today so the Lord obviously has a reason for you to be here and to hear this on suffering and and a reason for me to be giving it this week so I do want to welcome everyone watching on live stream and as I travel it's just amazing how people come up to me by their own initiative and say hey I'm a part of the men's Bible study and what's interesting is how many ladies watch the men's Bible study so ladies we are so glad that you're a part of this and thank you for tuning in and we've got a great Bible study lined up today so welcome wherever you are and we'd love for you to send in your comments to us as well there's a place on the bottom of the screen where you can communicate with us so I do want to begin with a word of Prayer but for those of you who are new to our study welcome we love having you around the table and having you with us and then there's other separatist guys that sit way far away from this table yeah yeah you know what the word Pharisee means it means a separatist okay they can't touch other people can't be too holy yeah so that would be Matt had a bomb and Chris Cobb had a ball sorry bomb so I told him if we had a table out in the parking lot that's where they would probably sit down yeah otherwise known as back-row baptists so so anyway I want to begin with the word of Prayer and we're gonna dive into this and a great study today so let me begin in a word of Prayer father as we look now into your word we ask that your Holy Spirit who is the author of this book and who is the teacher of this book would be so present among us and within our hearts that the truth of your word would come through crystal clear we need clarity into your word and we need challenge we need conviction and we need comfort we need correction so we ask that you would do all of these things with within us so we humble ourselves under the authority of your word and we know that great blessing always accrues to our lives as your word feeds us so feed us now from your text in Christ's name Amen okay we're in Romans 8 and we're gonna be looking at verses 19 through 22 but I want to begin reading in verse 18 which is where we were last week and last time just to remind you we put a title on this the groaning and the glory and we were unable to get through it and so this is like part two for the groaning and the glory we could call it from groaning to glory either way you like it and this is the way life works so I want to begin by reading starting in verse 18 but we're gonna be looking at verses 19 through 22 but let's get the running start here Paul writes 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 willingly but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God for we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now I will stop right there any time we look at a passage of Scripture we want to put our finger on what's the live nerve in this text what's the main idea what's the big idea of this passage because we want a major on majors and build out from there and so it should be fairly obvious to us what this passage is about becomes in verse 18 he talks about sufferings and that carries forward from the previous verse verse 17 where he says we suffer with him and this is talking about our present suffering in this world and that is a reality for each and every one of us whether you're a believer or an unbeliever there is suffering in this world and whether God has caused it or whether God has allowed it God nevertheless controls it and it's a part of daily Christian living and you and I basically oh this is going to be an overstatement but I'll go ahead and say it we would be rather worthless if it was just all prosperity if it was just all good times if it was just all everything's just falling into place and I don't have any problems I don't have any troubles we would never pray we would never long for heaven we would be so settled down in this world that we would think that this world is our home and so God in His infinite wisdom mixes in with good times difficult times and he has a very wise pattern and purpose in this and it is to cause us to be humble we would be so stinkin arrogant if it was just we were just cruising through this world we would think that we're the reason that all these good things have happened and so to keep us humble God brings adversity and trials and tribulations and as I've already said in order to ground us to the altar of God in prayer to cause us to walk by faith and not by sight to prune things out of our lives that are UNCHR iced like God uses our trials and tribulations to purchase of worldliness and things that are not honoring to the Lord and it also helps us identify with other people who are hurting so that we can minister to them it's always been amazing to me that when I go through difficulty the people who rally around me to encourage me are people who have gone through a very similar trial I remember when our last son was born he was born with with with SIDS and with many difficulties and I remember he turned blue we had to rush him to the hospital he had stopped breathing the people who came up to the hospital and we're in that waiting room with me were people who had gone through basically the very same thing God strategically brings trials into our lives so that tomorrow you can have an outreach to other people and so you can get in that foxhole with them and identify with them and connect with them so God's doing I agree with John Piper God's doing a thousand things in your life right now you're only aware about you're only aware of about two of them and there's another 998 things God's doing in your life that you and I are just oblivious to God has this whole thing wired in our Christian life and his networked ever every step of Providence and I agree with RC sprawl there's not a maverick molecule in the universe everything he's causing to work together for our good and just to remind us all Romans 8:28 just right around the corner here I mean we're in the neighborhood of Romans 8:28 when he says and we know that God causes all things to work together for good those all things include verses 18 through 22 all of this suffering so God has appointed it for me God has appointed it for you none of us get a free pass and none of us have an exemption to this and I want to say one more time sometimes the godly err you are sometimes there there will be more trials because you're now cutting against the grain of this world you're now slimming upstream as long as you were going with the flow of this world there is a sense in which everybody in the world with men they were on your team they were patting you on the back but when you reverse your course and you now begin to go with the Lord you now are cutting against the flow of this world and you're gonna face opposition and stand now for the first time you're facing the devil head-on and there's some pushback going on so we need to be aware of the big picture the macro as we look at the micro now in in this passage we should not be surprised as we come to these verses and we see the word sufferings and we go what's this where'd this come from okay so as we begin looking at this last time here's the big idea in order that we would be longing for Evon God brings sufferings into our life right now so that we do not become too comfortable in this world to keep us longing for heaven so that's what Paul is is laying out for us here so last time we looked at only verse 18 and verse 18 we called I called it the comparison and I'm going to give you an outline as we walk through this each verse will just have one main heading and it's just I need this for me I need to like slice this passage up John Calvin said that a Bible teacher should be like a father sitting at a table and there's a and as with little children around the table and there's a piece of steak in the middle of the table and the father cuts it up into little pieces and then just feeds it one bite at a time if he gave him the whole steak they would just choke to death okay so I need to slice this up into little pieces for me so I can understand it and so I can digest this and I think you're probably at the same place where I am as well on this so verse 18 the first little slice is the comparison and Paul says in verse 18 for I consider that the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us I don't need to re teach what we looked at last week but as we go through suffering in this in this lifetime as a believer Paul wants us to know that the glory that awaits us so far overshadows our present suffering that it is an encouragement to us to hang in here just a little bit longer because it's only a relatively short time that we're here and the sufferings are so little compared to an eternity of future glory so that's that's the perspective that we have to have and whatever the difficulty is that is surrounding your life right now just know it's only for a moment relatively speaking and that an eternity lies ahead of the extraordinary glory of God that awaits you now I want to move on I don't I don't want to get bogged down so as we come to verse 19 I want you to write down the word expectation the expectation because what Paul will do now is he will give us really an explanation of why we should patiently endure our sufferings you'll note the first word of verse 19 is the word for and I've told you multiple times that introduces an explanation and you'll note verse 18 verse 19 verse 20 verse 22 verse 24 verse 29 all these verses start with the word for the quotation in verse 36 verse 38 it's just four four four four and Paul is just stacking up explanations so verse 19 explains verse 18 just like verse 18 explains verse 17 and so what Paul says is for the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God now we need to understand this Paul is communicating with what we call a figure of speech it's a figure of speech known as personification and personification is a figure of speech in which an inanimate object like this table is represented as a human being and the inanimate object is doing something that only a human could do whether it's the mind whether it's the emotions whether it's it's the will it's a powerful form of communication and so Paul is representing here creation the physical creation of this world as though it's a person and this person is going to be groaning because of the suffering of the physical creation but in verse 19 he says for the anxious longing of the creation this this verb this anxious longing are not the verb the the noun it's it's a it's an interesting word and it the idea is the turning of the head from the neck and the idea is you are appearing your head to look in a direction in anticipation for something that's coming so you don't have your your nose down in the grindstone and and unaware of what's coming no you you have you've turned your head and you're looking for it so creation here is represented as craning the neck to see what is coming for the anxious longing that that's intense of the creation talking about the mountains the meadows the forests the valleys waits eagerly and and in one paraphrase on this as it is waiting on tiptoes I mean there's an anxious longing for something to come and he says at the University 19 for the revealing of the sons of God now the revealing of the sons of God is what will happen at the end of this age when Jesus Christ comes back and bursts onto the scene and we are caught up to be with the Lord forever we will be made fully known as sons of God now we are already sons of God and there is a sense in which it is already revealed in that there is fruit in our lives the fruit of obedience the fruit of love but we will be fully revealed right now our life is hidden in Christ but in that moment we will be made known in that we will no longer be suffering right now we're suffering with everybody else you go down to the hospital a room 101 is a Christian room 102 is an unbeliever room 103 is a Christian room 104 is an unbeliever and so we're just we're hidden with the world in that sense we don't have an easy path to walk the narrow path is not an easy path and so there's a sense in which we're we're just in the same experiences of life we face the death of our parents we face the loss of a job we face hunger we face going without certain things just like anybody else but at the end of this age we are gonna be so revealed and uncovered as the children of God as we graduate to glory we will step into the fullness of our inheritance and there will be no more sorrow and no more pain and no more death and and no more struggle so we will be fully known when we enter into the full experience of our inheritance in that day but until then this world that we live in it's a broken world my friend and and creation itself is longing for the second coming of Christ for all of the futility of this world to finally be evaporated but until then the creation is longing how much more so should you and I be longing for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ how much more so should we be longing anxiously craning our neck standing on tiptoes looking for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ let me remind us all for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout 1st Thessalonians 4 verse 16 for the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout the trumpet of God and the voice of the archangel and the dead in Christ shall rise first and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord and the air and thus we shall always be with the Lord therefore comfort one another with these words we need to keep our eyes on the horizon and longing like creation is longing to get out of this world that is filled with suffering to be with the Lord now we can still enjoy being here and you and I can enjoy the mountains and the meadows and the forest more than an unbeliever because we know who made it and we have different eyes and we have an eternal perspective so this is not saying that we're to go through life with a martyr's complex and just just looking at it how horrible everything is but we do need to be longing like creation for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ which will reveal us as sons of God now verse 20 I want you to see the subjection for the creation was subjected to futility not not willingly but because of him capital H him who subjected it in hope Paul now explains you see it begins with the word for verse 20 is explaining verse 19 Paul is explaining why there is this eager longing by creation for the return of Christ and he tells us because the creation was subjected and that means to be put under something to futility now this word futility means emptiness vanity perversity even frustration and I want to say it again we live in a broken world and it's not just the world system it's even creation itself and he says not willingly I meant who would want to be subjected to futility I mean that would have to be done by someone else and there's only one who has the authority to put the entire world under subjection to futility and that is the sovereign God of heaven and earth and he says because of him who subjected it and the it refers to creation now we're gonna have to go right now to Genesis 3 so I just want you to turn with me this is not going to be a passing reference we cannot understand this without networking this to Genesis 3 and we're gonna look at verses 14 through 19 and this is what is known as the curse see you are se the curse and after Adam sinned God said you remember in chapter 2 I think it's verse 17 the day that you eat of this fruit you're gonna surely die well as has been noted by it some will add a mate from the fruit and he still lived well not so fast because death entered the world and death began to work in Adam from that moment I understand this there are always painful consequences to wrong decisions an Adam stood as the federal head of the entire human race and whatever he did affected you and me and you say well that's not fair well if you'd been in Adams position you'd have done the same thing fact you would have folded your tent earlier than he did and when Adam sinned God brought the hammer down because God is a holy God and the wages of sin is what death and the day that you eat of this fruit you will surely die and so starting in verse 14 is the subjection of creation to futility and this is still in effect and this is the only explanation for the world that you live in right now this is the only explanation for what's wrong with everything okay so beginning in verse 14 please note who the speaker is the Lord God said God mounts the pulpit and he begins with the serpent and behind the serpent and perhaps in and through the serpent was the devil and God said to the serpent because you have done this and that this refers to the beguiling and the seducing of Eve in order to get to her husband Kirsten are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field there now came a curse on the entire animal kingdom there just happened to be one that was more cursed and you want to know why there is such emnity between some animals with other animals and the fierceness of survival and one feeding off of the other it's a part of the curse God never set it up that way and God put the curse on the serpent which is like a snake and he said and on your belly you will go and dust you will eat all the days of your life and it is very possible that before this the snake had legs and now the subjection even physically I'm bringing you all the way down to the dirt and now everything else will walk on top of you and tread on top of you and there's going to be enmity now between you and the other animals and you and man and I'm going to put fear between you and man and that's a part of God's curse upon creation and it wasn't there before Adam's sin all of the animals got along great and one wasn't feeding off of the other there was no death before Adam sinned think about it so now in verse 15 and this too is a part of the curse and I will put enmity that means hostility and warfare and conflict between you and the woman you the Serpent and in reality Satan who is behind the serpent in the serpent speaking through the Serpent and the woman who is Eve and between your seed and her seed your seed refers to every unbeliever and her seed refers to believers and there is now going to be conflict between light and darkness between truth and lies and that's why second Corinthians 6:14 says do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers what what harmony is there between light and darkness between Belial and Christ there is no harmony and I want to go further that's why and forever is watching this that's why you need to marry a believer you marry an unbeliever you're gonna have conflict for the rest of your life because there is this conflict that's built in so because you have a whole different worldview a whole different set of of standards now note the next line he read that he refers to just one of her seed and it's a reference to Christ the seed of the woman he shall bruise you the serpent on the head and you the serpent meaning excuse me Satan will bruise him referring to Christ on the heel and there is now going to be spiritual warfare between the king of kings and the Lord of lords and the god of this age and the Prince of this world there's going to be conflict and everyone who is a believer under Christ and everyone who is an unbeliever under Satan there is this inevitable opposition and we are to live in love and love our neighbor and reach the world for Christ but we cannot escape this curse that God has placed upon the world in which we live and you just pick up today's paper you watch cable news and all of the conflict politically economically sociologically it all goes back to this curse now continue to read verse 16 to the woman he said and now God continues to speak I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth and literally it is in conception in the womb I mean from the moment you conceive there's gonna be morning sickness there's going to be they'll even be the death of the child in the womb there will be pain and delivering and it is to be a constant reminder to you of original sin and it and it is there until the end of the age and it's a part of the cursed now look at the universe 16 and in this explains the world in which we live and your desire will be for your husband now this desire is a desire to dominate and a desire to rule and this is the beginning of the women's lib movement right here which is to usurp her God assigned a role and part of the curse is aggressive women who want to dominate their husbands and dominate men that's just part of the curse men and if you'll look at chapter 4 and verse 7 in Genesis just to give you in context how the same word is used the Lord said to Cain if you do well well not your countenance be lifted up but if you do not do well sin is crouching at the door Slyke a lion ready to devour you and please note its desire is for you same verb and you must master it so the desire is a desire not to be in submission but to rise above and to dominate now note the next line and he will rule over you and this rule is an ungodly rule to be heavy-handed to abuse dominant in this clash of the sexes of both struggling now to dominate the other and you will also have aggressive women in passive men and just look around and that's a part of the world that's a part of creation being subjected by God to futility now verse 17 then to Adam II said because you've listened to the voice of your wife and I've eaten from the tree about which I commanded you sing you shall not eat from it curse it is the ground because of you and so the very the very earth now is subjected to the curse of God and he says in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life I mean before this that he lived in a grocery store needed I mean everything was just right there in front of him but now now God says I'm gonna cause thorns and thistles to grow in this garden and it's going to be by Blood Sweat toil and tears you're gonna have to work the land you're gonna have to get the weeds out there's going to be adverse weather it's going to be the challenge of your life and there's going to be droughts and there's going to be famines and there's gonna be floods and there's going to be storms and there's going to be tsunamis and there's going to be hurricanes and there's gonna be tornadoes and there's gonna be earthquakes and it's gonna be tough now to work is not the curse God had already assigned work now the challenge and the difficulty of work and earning your living is going to be the curse and so notice what he says is it in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life verse 18 but thorns and thistles it shall grow for you there were no thorns and there were no thistles before this there were no thorns on the rose by the sweat of your face until it's dripping off the tip of your nose by the sweat of your face you you will eat bread till your return to the ground because from it you were taking remember God took earth and he just fashioned a man and he breathed into it he says for you are dust and to dust you shall return and the process of death began in Adam that moment and though he lived to be 930 years the aging process began the deterioration began the decline began the wrinkles began the gray hair began the slump shoulder began the loss of eyesight began as a part of the curse the whole creation man-woman earth work Satan was cursed by God because one man sinned now let me tell you some good news this whole thing is going to be reversed by one man the second Adam the Lord Jesus Christ and before we get upset with Adam you better be glad that one man can do a lot for you because you're gonna gain more in Christ than you ever lost in Adam and this world is going to be Paradise Lost will become Paradise Regained but it's going to be even better with a new heavens and a new earth and a new Jerusalem it's going to even be it's gonna be even better than the garden but over in the Middle East where this all happened it was a desert I mean it was a garden at one point it's nothing but stinking desert right now it's a wilderness so severe was the pinpoint of God's curse that came down upon it that now it's like a blowtorch hit that area and it's just a burned over district which is where they lived between the Euphrates and the Tigris River in the cradle of civilization and it's rather strange that the conflict in the whole world continues in that one little area and it won't go away and it's not going to go away all right come back to Romans 8 but in order to understand what Paul is saying here in Romans 8 we had to go to that text in Genesis 3 so look at it again now in Romans 8 and verse 24 the creation was subjected to futility not willingly but because of him who subjected it in hope and the in Hope refers to genesis 3:15 and the seed of the woman who would bruise the head of the serpent and this is metaphorical language the devil would bruise the heel of Christ upon the cross but Christ would crush the head of the woman upon the cross Satan would be nipping at the heels of Christ who is the author of all death but Christ in his death would literally crush the head of the serpent upon the cross and when an eternal victory for everyone who is of the seed of the woman for everyone who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ so verse 21 write down the word liberation the liberation and Paul now specifies the hope at the end of verse 20 at the end of verse 20 he said in hope and so now he specifies this hope in verse 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption there's coming a day when God will remove the curse from creation and creation will be restored to what God originally intended it to be and in the new heavens and the new earth and in the New Jerusalem it will be extraordinary you and I are gonna live again in the beauty of of the garden of the new heavens and the new earth we can't even begin to comprehend the future glory that that awaits us where you and I are going to to live it's going to be a Gustin national on steroids okay that's what it's going to be am i communicating okay all right so the creation will be set free that says right now creation is not free creation is in bondage is is imprisoned in chains and and that's why right now there there is all of these national disasters that take place that kill people and leave people without homes and leave people without food and and just wipe out everything that they've ever worked for in their life it's a part of the curse so the creation itself will be set free from its slavery to corruption and right now it is subject to corruption there is decay there's deterioration there is destruction and there's death all of that but it will be set free into the freedom of the glory of the children of God and when we are revealed as children of God and we enter into our full inheritance creation itself we'll share in this liberation and we will be liberated from our earthly bodies that are subject to decay and deterioration and decline and the physical creation will also enter into its new glorified state and so Paul is driving this home so that the believers in Rome and think about the believers in Rome they were not living in the buckle of the Bible Belt they they weren't living in a city that had a church on every corner that they weren't going to revival meetings every night they were under the thumb and the heel of Caesar in Rome and they were odd-man-out you talk about them the moral minority I mean that was a tough place to be a believer in Rome at this time in Rome is nothing more than a cesspool of iniquity and so to encourage them hang in there just a little bit longer as you're going through persecution and tribulation and difficulty hang in there just a little bit longer because if you had any idea of what's waiting for you on the other side it will so encourage you to just be steadfast and not collapse emotionally and not burst into fear and trembling and tears the best is yet to come it's just right around the corner relatively speaking and it's not just for them it's for us as well in fact Christ could come back before I even finish this lesson he says behold I am coming quickly and my reward is with me he didn't say I will be coming he says I am comings present-tense the idea is I'm on the way James 5 says the the judge is standing right at the door in other words he's got his hand on the handle and he's ready to open it push it open and burst onto the scene at any moment so look at verse 22 and what will bring this to a conclusion for we know that the whole creation whole creation just takes in the the entirety of this world for the whole creation nothing was excluded that there's no little neutral zone someplace that was exempt from the curse every square inch of this creation has been subjected to the futility of this curse verse 22 we cannot be that the whole creation groans and again this is this world it is like a person just groaning and pain and suffers the pain Genesis 3 and verse 6 together until now and as the woman approaches that time of delivery those pains of constriction become intensified and become stronger and become more frequent and that's the way it is as the end of the age approaches it's going to become more turbulent and greater conflict and greater contrast building up to that time when the Lord returns at the end of the age and just look around I've seen it in my own lifetime I grew up in Norman Rock Rockwell Ville I mean everything was I mean his father knows best it was Leave It to Beaver it was I Love Lucy it was the Dick Van Dyke Show that was the world I was born in and it still had a lot of problems a lot of problems but nevertheless that was kind of the level of morality in the level of the conflict until now you don't even know which bathroom to go into a nun till now look at the Cavanaugh hearings until now look at what's going on in the Middle East it's only gonna get worse not better look at the nations in an uproar and wars and rumors of wars and it's just going to intensify and come quicker and quicker and the purpose of it is for us to long for the world to come and I tell you there there are now more times than there used to be that I just think maranatha lord come quickly aye Lord just take us home get me out of here and we think about our children and the world in which they will live all of this suffering should have a sanctifying purifying effect upon our lives to wean us off a worldliness to drive us to our knees in prayer to cause us to walk in a manner worthy of our calling to make us more dependent upon the Lord in prayer to identify with others who are in their suffering so we can talk to them about Christ it's all God's master plan for the world in which we live and especially for the end of the age as the time approaches for the return of Christ so I think we stop right here at verse 22 I think we land the plane here and and this text is a dose of reality I mean this text is a Christian worldview this text gives us the divine perspective on the world in which we live and the difficulties of life now week we will know God's grace in the midst of all this and we will know God's blessing in the midst of all this but it's kind of like there are two streams feeding into one river and there's both prosperity and adversity they're both feeding into the same river it's like there's the hot and cold faucets and they're both on and they're both feeding into the bowl of our lives and it's it's it's it's not all prosperity and no adversity so trust me I didn't vote for this if it was left up to me we'd all just be have cruise sailing but in the infinite wisdom and genius of God he does all things well and this is his plan so let me stop right here and let me let me just open it up to any thoughts you have questions feedback before I say to Ken who it's called in is upset with me for saying women's liberation so this is Kant says this why I missed the middle of the fairway no it's so I can go look for your ball for it win so so guys how does this strike you what resonates with you about this yeah yeah here right here say that again well I would just mention it it I to know grew up in that simple life I guess you would describe it yeah I just said you left out rocky and blue block Bullwinkle yeah rock rocky and bullwinkle thank you for that spiritual and social insight it's good to be back in BBS yeah Matt yeah right right yeah that came from the guy who wouldn't join the Bible study that was mentioned earlier yeah he really wasn't a question it was it was more of a comment which is a good comment which is why it says in Isaiah that there's coming a future age in which the child will play with a Viper and the lion will lay down next to the lamb and that's when God removes the curse from creation and there will not be this enmity between within the animal kingdom and between the animal kingdom and and mankind and there will be peace that will cover the earth like like the sea and there will be harmony and the way God originally intended this this world to be so that's yes Matt thank you for that that's a great great reminder yeah someone else yes could you make the argument that the curse is already being undone because as believers we have God's presence in us I'm gonna say no I don't think the curse is being when I hear undone I hear removed I think that we are to pray that that your kingdom will come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and the kingdom of God is coming gradually through our lives as we bear witness of Christ and live the reality I think we are stemming the tide in some places of the curse but the curse is still there I mean we're mean we're like the Netherlands building a dam from the ocean to encroach I mean we're able to hold back some of the effects of that curse but in no way does that dam remove the Atlantic Ocean I mean it's just still there so but I understand the point you're making I agree with the point that you're making I would just word it slightly differently but it's a good point that that the light will extinguish the darkness John 3:19 and 20 and so as we live our lives and the light shines through us it is exposing the deeds of darkness and is bringing the truth of God to bear upon the world in which we live but that darkness will remain till the end of the age yeah I can't what have you got there good you know walking in the light yeah yeah that does speak to the attentiveness to walking or not walking in the counsel of the wicked but just to walk in the christ-like life and we recognize that sitting is just a sloppily act actually you're not being attentive you're just sitting there so you may not be mocking but you're sitting there in the midst of it yeah you need to be attentive and be addressing it and your address that in your walk sure yeah either there either they're gonna be your mission field you're gonna be their mission field I mean it's one or the other either you influenced them or they influenced you can't what have you got well we've got a lot of questions here bud but one in particular he says dr. Lawson can you comment on the recent social justice gospel social justice issue both inside and outside of the church in light of today's text yeah great question and of course I need like 30 minutes [Laughter] yeah can you explain evil in the world well to try to be as succinct as I can possibly be yes this is the reason for the social injustice that we see in the world we live in a fallen world and let me just tell you it's going to be here til the Lord comes back I mean Jesus himself said the poor you will have with you always that's just the reality of living in a cursed world and we can never correct that all the way should we try to establish true justice well of course we should but we must realize going in that that we cannot set everything in right order it's it's a fallen world I mean there will always be prejudice there will always be injustice and the the present movement is an attempt to try to correct the in justices that we see in the world and a few isolated places but here's what we have to understand the only way to correct it is with the gospel of Jesus Christ the only way to correct it is one heart at a time for people to be born again and to come and to have the mind of Christ and to do that which is pleasing in the sight of the Lord now we want just laws and we should strive to have men in office who will put establish justice in the court systems and in the world in which we live and and so we should do everything that we can that we can so that there will be equity and and fairness in the world in which we live but we are we are putting our fingers into a damn that has now holes in it that are so big that the ocean is just pouring through it and our little fingers can just barely stop it but that doesn't should not prevent us from doing everything that we can in our little walk with the Lord and with the influence that we have to try to establish what's right but the question is so huge that it would be impossible to even to try to begin to to answer that but it is a recognition that there is prejudice that there is inequity that there is wrong one man against another and we should try to do what's right and and to have love for people who do not look like sound like us and live like us wherever they are and in the world I mean the world is our neighbor but having said that the tip of the spear is is the gospel preaching the gospel bearing witness of the gospel which changes people from the inside out so and God is even working through even social injustice remember our eyes quoting pipe or God's doing a thousand things in the world you're only aware of two of them God's doing a thousand things in the world right now and we're not even aware of what they mean for evil God means for good and how God is causing all things to work together for good so I'm sorry for just such a brief answer and I hate when that question is answered guys who dodged the question and talk for an hour and don't ever come close to the answer and that's not my desire but just in the time space that that's the challenge the world's history where it's there's been time as everything seems to be cyclical you know there were times of war and and then there was also times of peace and you talk about like you growing up in that Norman Rockwell ioan area era yeah could there be another cycle like that yes there could be and I don't want to first of all I don't know when Christ is coming back and so I don't know that he's coming back in my lifetime and if that were the case then things would get worse and worse could we have another Reformation we have another Great Awakening of course we could and so your word cycle is a good word I mean we this could recycle back to good times and that we should live working for that so no question so thank you for bringing that up and that's a good adjustment for a couple of my sentences there and we we don't know what God's getting ready to do and Christ may not come back for a thousand years I have no idea I'm not on the reception committee you know I I don't know when that is and I and I do hope things will get better and the motto of the Reformation was after darkness light and I pray that after the darkness of this time there will be the light of the gospel that will shine more brightly may it be yeah yeah I'm gonna close and and we'll address a few more questions and and then I've got ahead to the airport again so I'm not I can't remember when we meet next so November the 8th ok so and if any of you are not on our email list we send out an email simply so you know when we're gonna meet again we don't send you pledge cards or anything like that you know there's there's none of that I mean you get what you pay for with this study unfortunately but we do want you to know when we're gonna meet next so if you want to know let Kent know or Ford know someone someone who can get the word to us so we can send you an email let me close and a word of Prayer and if you want to stay I'll be happy to answer a few more questions father thank you for these verses we need this insight we need this worldview we need this perspective and we also need perseverance in the midst of our suffering and and and who knows even here today just the difficulty that's in our lives and may you use this to enlarge hope of what lies ahead in which you have a far better world planned for us and this is just a blip on the screen this is such a short man a second and soon we'll be with you we long for that time make us like creation just craning our neck and on our tiptoes anxiously longing for that time when we will be revealed as sons of God help us not to become too attached to this world we pray this in Jesus name Amen men thank you so much for being here thank you just for your faithfulness being a part of this study please know how much apart you are of this study even if you don't have the opportunity to speak up with a question there's a dynamic that you provide for everyone who's here it's an amazing thing teaching and preaching it's a two-way street even when you're not saying anything you're communicating with your eyes your body posture nodding of the head taking notes looking at the text I mean that's communicating back to me as I'm communicating to you so thank you for all that so Kent what have you got there yeah one is talk about how Jesus entered this cursed world well he entered through the virgin birth and he was born under the law and he was born of a virgin and Mary went through the constricted pangs of childbirth and he lived in a cursed world and he was in the world and yet the world did not know him and he came into his own and his own received him not and Jesus suffered what you and I suffer and was tempted at every point such as we are tempted yet without sin and he was met with disappointment he was betrayed by one of his own disciples we have no record of Joseph throughout the latter part of his life he knew what it was to have loss of relationship he had no place to lay his head he knew what it was to go without creature comforts he knew what it was to be so exhausted physically that that he would sleep through a storm on the Sea of Galilee he knew what it was on the cross to cry out I thirst and to suffer the pains of death of crucifixion upon the cross he was not spared that so he knew exactly what it's like for us to live in this broken world and to to to suffer what you and I suffered just in different ways that were connected to that day and time in which he lived so I don't know if that's answering the question but that was a great answer today my wife and I were celebrating our 3rd anniversary yeah and in three years we've experienced a lot of pain suffering with the loss of babies miscarriages and it's being very very difficult very difficult but we go to the hope that we have him in Jesus yeah and we go to Scripture and that's what we found refuge and comfort and my wife and I we our faith is and we're looking and longing for that day and we know that these are just reminders that we live in a fallen world it wasn't supposed to it wasn't supposed to be like this and we we just give the glory to God for that now we belong to him and we know that there's gonna come a day where there's not gonna be more miscarriages no more cancer no more pain you're gonna be with him for all of eternity so yes and I just pray for for people that don't want to hear this they don't want to hear about suffering and they just want the good life this is one of the good life now but they don't want to suffer and this is not the Christian life jesus said we're gonna suffer you want to be my disciple there's gonna be consequences if you want to be my disciple you're gonna suffer you have to die to yourself you have to pick up your cross and foul it's not gonna be easy yeah it is impossible the Christian life is impossible and that's why we can do it on our on our own and we need him so amen thank you thank you nice so well said thank you for adding that and just to add just to affirmation I mean Christianity is not the removal of suffering it's the addition of grace to go through our difficulties and His grace is more than sufficient and at times we were brought to the end of ourselves and we don't feel like we can go on but we can go on because I can do all things through him who strengthens me Philippians 4:13 and it's in our weakness that his strength is made perfect and I know you and your precious wife have come to experience that in ways that you would not have otherwise experienced it and in God's strange providence some people seem to suffer more than others and they're marked out for that path but it's not random it's all very intentional and purposeful by an all-wise God who has far greater purposes for his glory and for your good so that's how that's why we walk by faith and not by sight yeah thank you yeah randy says what is the best way to be grounded and settled in the faith in this world yeah what is the best way to be grounded and secure in this world and it would be what we call the means of grace the ordinary means of grace which is the Word of God and prayer worship Christian Fellowship ministry and service all of those ways we have to have all these to be grounded we have to be in the Word of God and have the Word of God in us and that also includes to be under the preaching and teaching of the word of God there there has to be this input into our lives to be strong in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ but we also have to be on our knees in prayer and bringing our petitions before the Lord and bringing our worship and our praise to God in order to be strong but there also has to be the corporate church life as well and to be with the body of believers who are standing on both sides of us who are like bookends and make keeping helping keeping us upright as we worship with them corporately as we take the Lord's Supper as we observe baptism as we're in a local church I mean that's God's design for healthy Christian living and if you're not in a setting like that it's going to be a challenge for you and then also you've got to be active in serving the Lord and it's just like exercise I mean if all you do is eat you're just gonna be bloated I mean you've got to exercise and work it off and so you take it in the feeding of the Word of God but you've got to serve others and you've got to have your eyes on others to be ministering to them and serving them in order to have a healthy strong Christian life and I'll just say this times in the when I've gone through difficulties have been those times I've had to look for new ministry opportunities so I get my eyes off of myself and get my eyes onto other people and pour my life into others and it's true I get more out of it than what they will ever receive from it so to Randy everything that I just said it's not a multiple choice either it's all the above it's got to be in place and you've got to have some Christian friends with Christian Fellowship or around you not just the large group at the small group as well it's not either/or it's both in the early church met in the large gathering and then also house-to-house and there are dynamics that take place in both settings in the larger setting there's a sense of the awesomeness of God the preaching of the word comes with more force but there's also small group settings that are more intimate and personal and sharing struggles and prayer requests and that kind of thing you've got to have both to be strong in the Lord so that would be my answer and then obviously if the Lord gives you a Christian spouse that that's huge and in helping you walk with the Lord and when you trip she's there to hold you up and when you collapse emotionally she's there to to bear you up and vice versa so anything else Ben I think the Lord I want to respect your time thank you for being here at the iconic herbs house so please come back your first opportunity and we'll be here November the 8th anything you order put it on Kent's tab okay [Laughter] thank you can [Music]

Channel: OnePassionMinistries

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Length: 74min 29sec (4469 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 18 2018