Romans 8: Our Champion (4- Jesus Has Won Our Freedom)

Fourth of July and enjoyed the ability to celebrate in our country and freedom and be able to worship our God without you know worry about what people are gonna think, and it's an incredible time.

It's in the peak of summer and really excited about being here today with you.

My name is Eric Leach and I'm part of the preaching team here at RLC, and it's interesting because we're in the chapter about Romans 8, the champion, and it's incredibly great news right that Jesus is our champion.

He's come to rescue us and to save us.

But there's all this bad news in the world and Pastor Brandon has talked about some of the bad news and the good news In this chapter.

It's kind of like the dichotomy of Paul telling us about some bad news but then the good news looped on top of it and we're surrounded by bad news.

In fact, this morning my Fitbit gave me bad news.

I looked at it and it said you are highly unachieving right now.

You need to become more active.

And I'm sitting there going.

What do you mean?

For those that don't know, I recently opened a restaurant and yesterday I did 23,000 steps and three hours of cardio, and so I'm like Fitbit's telling me I'm underachieving and I look back and I'm averaging 100,000 plus steps a week and 12 hours of cardio and I'm like what do you expect out of me?

I mean to me that's bad news.

And there's other bad news going on in the world today Taxes.

Some of you are like, yes, don't bring that up, because you get taxed on your paycheck, you get taxed on your home, you get taxed on your property, you get taxed on gas, everything else.

Turmoil.

There's a lot of turmoil going around, not just in the US but around the world.

Tensions are mounting and it continues to mount.

Bad news is Bowling Green is talking about building more roundabouts.

For some of you, that's really bad news.

For some of you, that's really bad news.

I was following somebody the other day and they came to a complete stop.

There was another car in the roundabout and I'm like it's okay to go.

So more roundabouts.

Ragweed I have allergies.

I'm on prescription over-the-counter about everything you can be.

Wake up in the morning, just absolutely clogged.

Radicalism Lots of bad news going on out in the world, but Paul's going to talk about some what's perceived as bad news.

But then good news and we got a lot of good news going on too Football in seven weeks.

Amen.

Go Broncos, go Huskers.

Nobody cares about the Huskers because they haven't been relevant in a couple of decades, but my Detroit Tigers are in first place.

That's good news for most of you.

But better news is the Yankees have lost six in a row.

You know?

Yes, amen.

Great news is pizza exists.

It's an incredible food and pretty soon we're going to have tambourinos to go visit right across the street and get even better pizza.

And to me, good news is fall's in three months.

Fall is in three months.

I love three months.

I love fall.

I'm not a big heat guy the humidity when you walk outside and you can cut it with a knife and and that so soon fall will be here.

But did you know?

There's better news coming.

What you don't know is we have the bible breakdown toy coming of pastor Brandon.

So as you go through life, when you're struggling, you can pull out the toy, pull the string, and it's going to say I've got 99 problems, but Jesus isn't one of them.

It's going to say somebody has a battle that they're struggling with that nobody knows about, and the third string pull is just going to go Jesus.

So pretty soon you'll be able to have this in your back pocket, and that's really really good news, isn't it?

But the best news is that Jesus has won our freedom.

Amen, jesus has won our freedom, and that's what we're going to dive into in Romans.

So, if you want to open your Bibles, turn to Romans 8, 18 to 25, and we're really going to dissect this and just take a look at what God is talking about in our present sufferings and future hope, because that's where we're at, and Paul is really speaking to us at the church at the time and to us today, about present sufferings and future hope.

So here's what the text says.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us, for the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time.

Not only so, but we ourselves.

Present time Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to the sonship, the redemption of our bodies, for in this hope we were saved.

But hope that is seen is not hope at all.

Who hopes for what they already have?

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Let's pray and then break it down.

Dear Heavenly Father, we just come before you today as we open your word, we ask that your presence be a part of this.

Use this message to encourage us, inspire us and to help change us and mold us into who you want us to be.

Lord, we just thank you for being our champion, for coming and rescuing us and saving us.

There's nothing more that we can give you but our heart, our passion and our glory in your name, amen.

So the very first part is the acknowledgement in this world that there is suffering, and the whole point of this is we're going from imperfect to perfect that there's suffering in the world and here's the reality.

Ever since the fall of man, suffering entered into what our existence is, and that God is going to fully redeem us.

There has always been and always will be suffering.

Now, who in this room enjoys suffering?

Kind of silent, kind of silent.

Nobody enjoys suffering, and it's not a fun process, but sometimes the end result ends up being what God wants us to be and develop.

And so the 18, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that God has revealed in us.

And here's the interesting thing is that the current sufferings, god has that kind of trump card to it.

Right, how many in here have ever played Connect Four?

A lot of people have.

There's different rules, there's house rules.

There's house rules.

There's the real rules.

And if you play where you can compound, like you draw four, the next person has to draw four.

They can slap it down and play draw eight.

So you get to draw four and everybody's like, oh, he got to draw four.

And then you drop that other one.

You're like throwing down that trump card, and the next person's like, oh man, I have to draw eight.

That's kind of a house rule that we play with.

But that's kind of what God does in suffering.

He says you're going to have to endure it, but there's better on the other side.

We all have sufferings and struggles, and even Paul in this text talks about his personal struggles and suffering in other chapters, but here's some of the things that we suffer and struggle with.

We struggle spiritually, I do.

There's times that I'm kind of down in the depths and I'm like I don't understand this God.

I'm struggling, I'm hurting emotionally.

Everybody has something that they're dealing with.

Everybody has self-doubt.

Everybody has something that they're dealing with and struggles Physical struggles, ailment, illness, sickness, all those things and of course, the silent struggle.

In case you've never heard it from this stage, we all have a private battle that nobody knows about that we keep inward because we're too scared to share it with somebody and get that support.

So everybody has struggles and it's happened throughout the course of time.

I want you to turn to your neighbor and say he's talking about you Again.

This has been going on for a long time.

Ecclesiastes 1.9 says what has been will be again.

What has been done will be done again.

There is nothing new under the sun.

And I remember reading that as a younger child and going what does that mean?

There's nothing new under the sun.

So literally in Ecclesiastes, all the way back in the Old Testament, god was saying that there is nothing new on this earth.

Everything has already happened.

Everybody has done it.

Now does it look different?

The struggles?

Yes, it looks different from back then to now, but there's literally nothing that has happened that is new.

We have always had struggles and will always continue to have struggles until Christ returns, and Paul personally suffered during his life, and so did all of the church.

Paul had tremendous amounts of struggles and he references this in 2 Corinthians 11, 24 through 31.

Sometimes I think my struggles are bad.

And then you read this Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one.

Jesus received the 40.

Paul wasn't worthy to receive the 40.

He received 39.

Five times that happened.

Three times I was beaten with rods.

Once I was pelted with stones.

Three times I was shipwrecked.

I spent a night and a day in the open sea.

I have been constantly on the move.

I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country.

Again, my struggles seem pale compared to Paul, and yet Paul continued to serve and worship God.

I can't even imagine one of these, much less a lot of those things, endangered from bandits, endangered in the city, endangered in the country, well, where could he go without being in danger?

Paul had a great deal of suffering, yet he never turned away from God.

In fact, a little bit to the opposite.

Paul suffered for Christ, but he also revered it.

He revered it.

It's a certain mentality that Paul had here in Romans 5.3.

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character.

Hope, perseverance, character and character.

Hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love for us has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

So it's almost like Paul wants that suffering because it's continuing to grow, him in developing and that's a hard mentality to get sometimes of wanting to endure suffering, mentality to get sometimes of wanting to endure suffering.

It's a mentality shift that we need to have, that in the times of hardship, knowing that the end is going to be so much better.

In the military a lot of them will have a term and it's called embrace the suck right.

When you're going through the training and you're going through all that toughness, it's like almost walking up and saying, giving a hug and saying I want that.

Give it to me so that I can push through, I can persevere and I can come better at the end.

Anything that's worthy in life of accomplishing often requires difficulty and sacrifice and things like that, and it's no different in our Christian walk.

Sometimes we just want to mope, but we should embrace that difficulty and go Lord, show me and reveal to me the end on how much better it's going to be.

And that's a difficult proposition to have when you're in the midst of a struggle, right, Sometimes you got to turn to friends, sometimes you got to turn to family, but most importantly, we need to turn to God and say I'm yours, please make me better at the end of this season.

So we all suffer.

Every single person in this room has sufferings that they're dealing with and it's a process of growing closer to God.

But Paul continues on and acknowledges that there's suffering, but also that what Creation experiences it?

Creation experiences the suffering as well, in verse 19,.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

Creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

But the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself would be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time, and so creation, just like man, has been struggling.

Creation was designed to be perfect by God, and then it was the sin of man that destroyed that perfection.

The day man sinned, it all changed.

See, adam and Eve worked in the garden.

We're all designed for meaningful work.

There's a difference between work and toil.

Right Toiling is not fun.

Work, in God's original intent, was meant to be enjoyed.

In fact, genesis 3.17,.

The toiling now is cursed as a ground because of you, through painful toil, you will eat food from it in all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your brow.

You will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken for dust you are and dust you will return.

Now, how many in here like to garden?

A few of you.

My wife is a big gardener.

I hate gardening.

Do you know why I hate gardening?

Because I hate all the weeds.

I hate all the imperfections, I hate all the difficulties that you have to do.

Do I enjoy eating the produce?

Absolutely.

In the original creation, again we would work, but now there's toil.

So my wife has a big, giant garden and every year, magically, these little things fly from the sky and plant like trees in our garden.

They're weeds that grow about this tall.

I'm not even sure what they're called I try not to learn it because it's just a nuisance and every year she's like I'm going to do this, this and this and it's going to prevent that.

And guess what happens?

Every year those weeds come back and it's toiling in the garden.

And now we've got these awesome mats that we rolled out and nothing's growing in between them, except except all the edges.

The weeds still grow, so there's still toil.

And gardening is just a minor example of what creation is going through.

Ever since the fall of man, the earth has been in turmoil and destruction.

God's creation was perfect.

Man destroyed it.

God will restore it.

There will be a new heaven and a new earth and we will have new bodies.

And that's all coming man and creation.

We were designed for the meaningful work.

Adam worked in the garden and then sin changed everything with what was going on.

Isaiah 24, 4 through 5 says the earth dries up and withers.

The world languishes and withers.

The heavens languish with the earth.

The earth is defiled by its people.

They have disobeyed laws, violated the statue and broken everlasting covenant Boy.

This isn't a very cheerful text, is it?

We struggle, the earth struggles, but there's hope in future restoration.

And that's the incredible thing that's coming up is that there's suffering creation experiences that but there is hope in God's promise.

There is hope in God's promise.

Now, one of the things that I love about hope is there's all different types of levels of hope.

I remember as a kid around Christmas time hoping for a certain present.

Anybody ever experience that man you're hoping.

You wake up on Sunday or Christmas morning and you're like I hope mom and dad got me X.

And then you get X and it's really awesome for a short period of time and then you kind of quit playing with it and all those types of things.

We all have hopes.

We all have dreams.

Some of those hopes are far-fetched, some of them are present, some are attainable, some aren't, and hopes and dreams are oftentimes what things are built on.

Oftentimes we talk in America about the American dream about being able to do a wide variety of things, but hope springs eternal.

But the hope that Paul's talking about here has tremendous, tremendous power.

So let's dive into that text.

In verse 23, not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly, as we wait eagerly for our adoption to the sonship, the redemption of our bodies, for in this hope we were saved.

But hope that is seen is no hope at all.

He who hopes for what he already have.

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

We wait for it patiently, and oftentimes that can be a difficult thing.

So, in verse 23, not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly, as we wait for eager adoption in the sonship.

So the first fruits of the Spirit.

What he's talking about here is oftentimes for sacrifice.

You would take the first fruits of your harvest and present them to God, and God has given us the first fruits with the Holy Spirit.

Once you accept Christ, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells within you, and I think that we underestimate the power of what the Holy Spirit can do for us.

I know that I tremendously miss out on that sometimes and forget about it, and it's interesting that totally unplanned.

But the song Gratitude, the last song that we sang, was really.

I absolutely loved that song and about five, six weeks ago, as I was preparing to launch my new business, I was overcome with just self-doubt, questioning everything, and I'll never forget it.

I'm driving down Scottsville Road and I'm literally just going.

What in the world have I done?

I quit my job, decided to open a business, everything's going wrong, nothing's going right and I just feel this overwhelming weight of self-doubt, insecurity and just going.

I don't know what to do.

And so I'm channel surfing on the radio like I do a lot, and I just said you know what, I'm going to flip on Christian Family Radio and I hit the button and the song Gratitude comes on Next thing.

I know I am singing as loud as I can and nobody wants to hear me sing because I'm not a very good singer.

It's pretty terrible.

Know, I am singing as loud as I can and nobody wants to hear me sing because I'm not a very good singer.

It's pretty terrible, but I'm singing as loud as I can and I start to get tears in my eyes.

And it was right.

At that time my radio shuts off, the whole little screen goes black.

Never happened before.

And I literally just said Satan, get behind me.

God's in front of me and the radio clicks back on and I'm like I get chills just talking about it and I'm like what in the world just happened?

And by me saying that the Holy Spirit, I fully believe, interceded for me and took that self-doubt and said you know what?

For the moment, you're good, I'm going to intercede for you.

And Satan got behind me.

And a couple of days later guess what?

I wasn't listening to Christian Family Radio and the radio did it again.

It just went black and it was almost, I think, satan saying see, that wasn't anything special, because it hasn't ever happened again.

And so I give that example because the firstfruits of the Spirit is that we have the Holy Spirit within us and that might be the best gift, but there's so much more to it for when we finally get to heaven, amen.

The fact that the firstfruits was just 1% of that harvest and there's so much more that will be coming, but we have that in us, and there's still yet even way more to come.

The second part of that verse is the adoption into sonship, and Pastor Brandon talked a lot about that last week, and I don't want to underemphasize the importance of the adoption into sonship.

See, adoption, it's different.

Adoption is a choice by the parents who adopt the child.

They don't have to do it, they want to do it, they have undenying love and are going to treat them like it's one of their own.

There's a full difference in that you are chosen, you are special and you are wanted.

Isn't that what we all want in life?

We want to be wanted, we want to belong someplace and we belong in a relationship with God.

And that's what's really incredible is God has adopted us and wanted us.

We have a new identity in him.

When you're adopted, you change your last name.

When we're adopted, we have a new identity in Christ.

Not only that, but we are full heirs to everything that God has for us.

It's not like oh no, you just get this part, you get this part and you might get this.

No, we're full heirs in his family.

And then the other great thing is that there is absolute security and assurance and again, so much in life we want to be accepted, we want to belong, we want to feel safe, we want to feel secure, and we have that in him.

We have that in our relationship with God, if we truly allow him to be a full part of that.

And then the third part is the redemption of our body, the full restoration into what God has intended for us to be, a full part of that.

And then the third part is the redemption of our body, the full restoration into what God has intended for us to be.

It's not just for a new heaven, a new earth, but for us as well.

And I can't even wrap my brain around what that would look like and what that will be like.

If the Holy Spirit is just the first fruit and there's so much more to come imagine what that full relationship is going to be like.

And it, holy Spirit, is just the first fruit, and there's so much more to come.

Imagine what that full relationship is going to be like.

And it's incredible to think about hope and what we will have one day.

Hope it's not if, but when.

Another thing about my family and I is we live for a brief period of time in the Dominican Republic.

I myself for four years as a missionary and my wife for nine years.

And down there there was a thing about it's not if it's when, and that's when you start driving in the Dominican.

If you've ever been to the Dominican, it's like second to last in the Western Hemisphere as far as driving North America, south America, central America.

It's terrible drivers.

And it's not a matter of if it's when you're going to get into an accident.

And I remember the first time I started driving, somebody told me that and I'm like, no, I'm not going to get in an accident.

Yeah, I got in an accident Because people will.

You'll have a four-lane highway or two-lane highway and there'll be four cars all just going at it.

And I finally drive in a 26-passenger van.

Somebody ran out in the street, I swerved to miss him.

I clip a car.

Next thing, you know, I'm down at the police station and I barely speak any Spanish and trying to explain everything.

So it's not a matter of if you're in an accident, it's when, and then kind of how many.

I was fortunate and I just had that one.

But hope is kind of the same thing, if we truly have it.

It's not if it's when, it's not if it's when that hope becomes reality and that one day in what we will have one day.

So the Greek word for hope in this text is apizo to expect or trust that something is going to happen.

To expect or trust that something is going to happen, it's not a question mark, it's a statement.

And there's a huge difference in that, because you will have the hope you expect or trust that that's fully going to come to fruition.

And that's what Paul was talking about when he says that we have hope in God.

We have hope in the future.

You don't hope for what you currently have.

You hope for what is coming, because what you currently have, if you have it, that's really not hope.

You already possess it.

But it's hope in the future that we'll have full restoration and that true hope this is the hardest part.

True hope develops patience in the process of realizing it.

My wife was one of those.

As far as gift giving, she likes to know well in advance of what the gift is.

She almost gets more excited about that gift.

I'm one of those.

I like surprises because I don't have the patience in the process to realize it.

I want it then, and so that's the most difficult part about hope and full restoration is that oftentimes we want it now, but patience is what is required out of us and I don't know about you, but I'm not the most patient person in the world.

I often want to get to that end result as quickly as possible and fully realize what that hope is going to be.

And patience can be all the different things and sometimes that's hard Not sometimes most of the time that's hard.

Hard is to have patience for the full realization.

So Romans 8, 18 to 25 ways we talk about it.

There is suffering that can be perceived as a negative.

Creation experiences it.

Again that can be perceived as a negative.

But hope in God's promise is positive and all these things can be positive.

All of these things can be positive if we truly have our relationship in God, because there is suffering, but inside that suffering is growth for believers in the process.

There is growth when you go through struggles.

The scriptures outline that and oftentimes we think about the darkest points in our life and the biggest struggles that we have.

And as you come through that, you're so more well equipped to help out other brothers and sisters.

You've grown as Christ has taught you.

You become more and more like the image of what he has for you.

Creation experiences it.

Watching my wife give birth to our first son in the midst of childbirth, there's anguish, there's pain, but out of that comes new life which, when I look at our boys, it's incredible to think through the childbirth process, through the pains, results in new life.

And as creation goes through that, eventually it's going to be fully restored and a new life is going to come, goes through that, eventually it's going to be fully restored and a new life is going to come out of something that is slowly being destroyed and decayed.

And there's hope in God's promise.

Hope brings light as we go through everything in life.

If you have hope in Christ, there's a certain light and a certain thing that exudes out of that.

A couple of weeks ago, pastor Brandon and I were having a conversation and he just asked me randomly Eric, what's your favorite Bible verse?

And my favorite Bible verse is actually in Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes 7, 8.

And the verse means the world to me because it says Ecclesiastes 7, 8, the end of a matter is better than its beginning and patience is better than pride and a lot of what Paul's talking about here.

To me, ecclesiastes 7, 8 exemplifies, the end of a matter is better than its beginning.

When you're in the midst of a struggle, when you're at the beginning of the struggle, the end is going to be better.

God wouldn't tell us it otherwise.

Right, it can be the simplest thing, it can be the biggest thing.

The end of a matter is better than its beginning.

And the hard part is patience is better than pride.

It's easy to say I'm going to take on this myself, I'm going to lump it on my back, we're going to trudge forward and we're going to get through it.

Oftentimes, that's pride.

Instead, maybe, have the patience to say Lord, what are you trying to teach me?

What are you trying to work on me right now so that I can become better and I can help my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ?

What are you trying to teach me in this process?

To grow and become more like you?

Teach me in this process to grow and become more like you.

There is suffering, but a lot of it's how you approach it.

Are you willing to say teach me, grow me, develop me, because we'll be better in the long run?

Birth pains result in new life.

Patience through that process to get to where you truly are intended to be In Ecclesiastes 7.8,.

The end of a matter is better than its beginning and patience is better than pride.

And we are all in this process of going from imperfection to perfect in our relationship with him and we're not going to see it until we're able to meet up with him again.

And oftentimes that's the difficult thing.

We want it instantaneously and we want it now.

But it's really incredible how Paul lays it all out and the vision and the foresight of Christ had for him to write this and to understand that we're all in this process and this journey together.

And no truer has it been said so many times that everybody has a personal battle that nobody knows about and that through that we can help one another.

But we have to give ourselves to Him.

In a minute the band's going to be coming up and we're going to be closing and this opportunity as we close for those who don't have a personal relationship with him and want to have that hope, that hope that it's not just for an immediate fix, the hope that one day we'll be fully restored, the hope of the first fruits of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit coming and dwelling in you, that you have that opportunity by accepting Christ as your personal Savior, to have that true hope, to know that one day you'll be fully restored and you will be part of his kingdom.

You will be adopted into his family.

There's no repercussions, there's nothing else, no strings attached.

You will be fully adopted and heir to the kingdom.

That's an incredible, incredible thing, and I'm so thankful that Paul recognizes and lets us know that there were struggles back then.

There are struggles today.

There is nothing new under the sun.

There is nothing new that anybody else has gone through.

Does it look different?

Yes, does the struggles today look different than back then?

Absolutely, but it is struggle nonetheless, and struggles that we've all gone through.

And the fact that we can lay it down at his feet and that he can intercede, the Holy Spirit can intercede for us, and that we can have that relationship, is incredible, and today might be that day for you.

We'll have a prayer team in the back and, if you want to, they would love to pray with you so that you can have that personal relationship with Christ.

Let's pray, dear Holy Father, just.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to open the Word and to study the Word and to dive into it and, most importantly, that you are our champion, that throughout this entire process you have always been and always will be the champion for us.

We sinned and you sent your Son to restore us fully in a relationship with you, and for that we are eternally grateful.

We just thank you so much for the opportunity to come here today and, lord, for those who don't know you, it is our deepest and sincerest prayer that they come to have a personal relationship with you, so that they'll have hope in the future, and not just hope for this world, but hope for so much more, hope for beyond and hope for eternity.

In your holy name, amen.