02: Hope Amid Suffering

Good morning, Redemption Church Denver.

It's good to see you.

My name's, well, you know, whatever.

It's figure of speech speech.

My name's James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church.

And we've got a couple of announcements that I want to cover, and then I'll read our scripture for today.

These are actually I'll go I'll go in order and I'll read the scripture.

That'll probably be easier for the slides, won't it?

So let's go ahead and uh read the scripture for today.

This is Romans 8, 18 through 25.

It says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

For the creation waits with eager longing 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 will be set free from its bondage to corruption, and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly, as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved.

Now, hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

This is the word of the Lord.

So we're continuing through our series Romans for New Times.

Um yes, that is a joke about the font Times New Roman.

Uh and we're just going through one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture, which is Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

I memorized this with a friend in college, you know, like you do.

And we uh uh since then it's been one of the places that I always return to.

Uh at any shaky point in life where there's big decisions or a lot of uncertainty, I'll always find myself wandering back to Romans 8.

This is one of the most encouraging chapters in all of Scripture to move us through the difficulties that life brings our way.

That's because it teaches us how to live life in the spirit.

It's a really counterintuitive idea that we can live in a way that isn't from our own strength that we well up from inside, but in a way that actually draws on the strength of God, so that God's strength can be ours.

That's what we're going to be talking about today.

But first, I want to announce a couple of things.

Immediately after this service, we'll have our Zoom call, uh, which is just a church-wide prayer.

So uh if you need prayer for something or would like to pray together with us, uh, as you can imagine, there's a lot to pray for right now.

And we've been making it uh our intention to pray that God would uh heal uh those that are suffering from this virus, that he would take this virus away, um, and that he would hasten our being able to gather together again.

Um so uh God is our healer, he promises, names himself as our healer.

So we take him at his word uh together after the service.

The link for the Zoom call is in the description of this YouTube video.

So if you just click the description, you'll be able to click the link and it'll bring you right together with us.

It's usually about 20 minutes.

Also, uh an announcement that I'm really excited to make.

We are going to be launching membership at Redemption Church Denver.

So you'll actually be able to come to become a member of our church.

Now, this is so exciting to announce because it feels like the culmination of such a long journey.

Uh it with so many different factors involved, maybe not that long time-wise, but uh it was just under two years ago that we established Redemption Church, and that we came up with the name Redemption Church by by voting.

Many of you were a part of that.

Um then we developed our own 501c3, which was just approved, which is also exciting.

Uh and since then we've sold buildings, moved service times, uh, we were doing 430 services there for a while, which was miserable.

Uh so yeah, that one was kind of on me.

Um, and we've also uh did pop-up church for a season at Centennial Elementary.

Then we got one service here.

We've established an elder board, we've uh created our uh statement of faith and all of these things that have kind of they've all been arcing towards this moment where we can establish in a clear way what it means to be a member of Redemption Church.

Now, membership may seem like an afterthought or like something that's not really necessary for uh for a church or for a Christian to be a part of.

But I think that there's a real value and even a biblical mandate for something like church membership, to where you can say in an explicit way, I'm a part of this local body.

I'm submitted to these elders.

And so there is a uh uh making explicit our coming together, which is so very important.

So the membership process is going to be very simple.

We're going to be having uh next week, uh a week from today, after the service, instead of our Zoom prayer meeting, we'll be having a membership class.

And it lasts 90 minutes, and uh we'll be covering what membership is, what our statement of faith is, and what the membership covenant entails.

Uh after that, you'll schedule a meeting with one of our elders, and our elder, an elder will meet with you or you and your family, and you'll be able to go through the membership covenant, ask questions, and then sign the membership covenant together.

Now, if you aren't able to make the class on Sunday immediately after service, we've heard that just keeping your kids together during a time like this uh is uh pretty difficult anyway.

So to stretch that out another hour and a half another hour and a half, I don't think that would be able to happen in our home.

Uh so we're offering the class uh on Wednesday again, so you have another chance to take it on Wednesday, May 6th.

Uh so that's a week from this Wednesday at 5 p.m.

And that's in the Zoom link that is in our app.

So if you consider Redemption Church Denver your church home, uh right now I I well uh if you consider Redemption Church Denver your prayer your church home, then I'm asking you to become a member of Redemption Church Denver, to move through that process with us.

This is such an important thing and an exciting culmination of uh a long journey together.

So uh with that, let's pray, and I will get into our text for today.

Holy Father, we're all separate and scattered in our homes, but your spirit is present with us.

I pray that your spirit would apply the words of scripture to our hearts, that we would build our lives on this solid foundation that is your word.

Lord, your word has the power to accomplish exactly what you intend from it.

And it just as you spoke light into the darkness, just by calling it into existence, so you can speak light into our hearts by calling it into existence by the power of your word.

Lord, would your word be heard today?

Would our hearts be softened?

Would we be able to create a sanctuary type of space for this small time on a Sunday morning?

Uh, although not gathered together, Lord, might we consider each other in the work that you have for us?

Lift this up in Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, so uh we're continuing through our series in Romans 8, and this is uh where we left off last week.

It was verse 8 uh 17, and it says this and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him, in order that we may also be glorified with him.

So we kind of skipped over that part, and we spent most of last week talking about this incredible, glorious reality that in Christ God considers us his children, that we are adopted into the family of God, and like sons, we are heirs of God.

That's why it's particularly the son language, because what he's referring to is this idea of the firstborn son as the rightful heir.

And so, in uh all of us being sons of God, we we are our lives are moving towards inheriting this glorious eternal glory to be with him forever, to relate to him as our heavenly father, not as an adversary.

Now that picture of the gospel is amazing and so beautiful that we can come to God and call him Father.

But you might have thought, hey, James, uh I think you kind of skipped over a part of that verse that uh stood out a little bit, which is this part that says, uh, we are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him.

You think, okay, of course.

This seemed like good news that we're just the adopted sons of God, but really this is just a way to coax us towards more suffering, so that we might be under the hand of someone who's just trying to motivate us towards some martyrdom, towards some sort of masochism or something like that.

Uh, there's a new show on Netflix called Waco.

Uh, and it's about uh Waco, Texas, the cult down there, the branch Davidians.

And Megan and I have been, my that's my wife's name, Megan, you'll meet her.

We've been watching, watching it.

We haven't finished it yet.

It's just like eight episodes.

And it's like, I I'm I'm so frustrated this whole show because there's this terrible narcissistic leader who uh is just using the suffering described in scripture as a way to manipulate and maintain control over this group of people.

And you watch it and you just want you you just want to fight him so badly.

It's terrible.

And um, I know so many people, even myself, who have experienced and uh uh uh seen just the pressure that can come from uh spiritual leaders who use this idea of suffering to take advantage and to uh uh brutalize the authority that's been given to them.

Um so it to gloss over this verse could be dangerous, could be a dangerous thing.

We need to have a clear understanding of what biblical suffering is.

Uh and today we're looking at how we are given hope in the midst of the suffering that we experience in this life.

Now, what's interesting about the gospel is that Christ's suffering is linked directly with his glory.

They're inseparable.

Suffering and glory are the same thing.

And the gospel as we see it and as it's described to us, is is union with Christ.

And that means that we are joined together with him as our representative, so that when Christ dies, it's counted as our death, and his righteousness is then counted as our righteousness.

So for us to be united in his glory means that in this life we are united with him in his suffering.

So it's very important to see that the glory and the suffering are one thing.

They're married together, they're inseparable.

Now we understand this idea of glory and suffering being one thing in certain contexts, but generally the suffering that we experience in our lives, uh be it economic or be it sickness, uh, two that just happen to come to mind now.

I'm not sure why.

Uh the suffering that we experience in our lives, we have a we have a difficult time understanding or or rationalizing or being able to grasp in any way.

But in certain contexts, it's so evident that glory and suffering are united.

Consider watching a marathon runner.

Uh when somebody wins a marathon, what we're crowning, what we're saying, wow, this is amazing, is the suffering that was just endured.

The suffering and the glory are the same thing.

If running a marathon was painless, uh then we would not be as impressed as we are with it.

But it's the endurance.

And endurance implies pain that we see and we celebrate.

And so the glory and the suffering are united as one thing.

But our suffering in our own lives is much more difficult to pin down than just a marathon.

It seems like the suffering doesn't link so clearly with an outcome, a victory.

There are two ways that I think we tend to deal with our suffering as a culture.

There's a religious way and there's an irreligious way.

These create the paradigms through which we view suffering.

Now, the religious person tends to view all suffering in terms of punishment.

So the reason that the sickness happened was because of this unaddressed sin.

The reason that your depression is there is because of some uh, you know, missing your uh spiritual disciplines, you're not getting your quiet times or whatever.

Um and so we view all punish me, we view all suffering in through the lens of punishment.

And the irreligious person views all suffering through the lens of desire or attachment.

So the problem isn't with the bad event itself.

The problem is that you are feeling too attached to the bad event.

And and because of your attachment to it, you are experiencing suffering.

So you could consider it like this.

If you reflect on yourself, I think what you'll discover is that you're some sort of an amalgamation of both of these, depending on the event.

I don't think you'll ever meet someone who is uh purely religious in their understanding of suffering uh or purely irreligious in their understanding of suffering.

In fact, the religious person, if you were to ask someone, uh, if you were to pick someone at random out of a church in the United States uh and ask them, like, hey, say, hey, I'm so sorry that you lost your job, you'd probably hear a sentence in response like this.

They'd probably say, you know, losing my job really exposed how much I idolized my job.

And because I idolized my job, God is teaching me uh a lesson by taking away my job.

And you see how that is kind of a mixture of both paradigms.

It's a mixture because instead of the language of attachment or desire, we use the language of idolatry.

Say I was idolizing this job.

Uh and then instead of the language of punishment, we'd use the language of learning.

You know, God isn't may not be punishing me, but he's just teaching me something.

And then once I grasp this thing, then the suffering will go away.

Once I learn this, then I will no longer have to suffer anymore.

That's kind of what's behind both of those assumptions.

Now, the irreligious person who lost a job might say something like this you know, I've got all this time on my hands now, and I realize that I was just too invested in my career.

And I was so stressed out about things that I look at and see now just don't actually matter.

I mean, what's the difference anyway?

Does any of it really matter?

Why was I so invested in something like that?

See, the irreligious person addresses this in the language of attachment.

I was so attached to my job.

I was so desirous of what I had there.

And then when I zoom out on the big picture, I see none of it really mattered anyway.

Now, the interesting thing about both of these reigning dispositions towards suffering is that they teach us to understand the suffering itself or to look on the suffering itself with contempt.

That is, the problem isn't that something bad happened.

It isn't that there's real suffering in the world, and the world is actually dangerous, and it's really hard and terrible out there, and it's even really broken and catastrophic in my own heart.

No, that's not the issue.

It's just that there's a lesson that I needed to learn.

I was too desirous of the things that I saw in the world.

I was too attached to certain things in the world.

And once I learn the right strategies to not have to learn these lessons anymore, or once I learn the right strategies, the right mental strategies to create some distance between myself and what I feel so attached to, then I will be able to eliminate the suffering in my life.

Because when we look at suffering with contempt, that means that we consider it as something that is negligible.

Uh, it can be avoided.

Once we get our strategies right, then we won't actually have to experience suffering.

You know, it's kind of like Job's friends.

Uh Job, uh, or is it Gob?

That's Job.

When he is uh going through this incredible amount of suffering, you know, this unthinkable, he loses everything in a day.

Um, he's he's sick, he's covered in these terrible boils, and he's sitting in this terrible suffering.

And Job's friends come to him and they say, You know why you're suffering?

It's because you're not humbling yourself before the Lord, and you're not getting your act together.

You say that you're blameless in all these things, but you're just not blameless in all these things.

Let's show some humility, and then God will take away the suffering that you have.

You know, his friends look on that suffering with contempt.

But in Job 12, verse 5, in his response, uh, he says this.

Job 12:5

He says, In the thought of one who is at ease, there is contempt for misfortune.

It is ready for those whose feet slip.

So he's saying, look, it's easy to look into suffering and s and have contempt for the misfortune that somebody experiences, and to quell our own mind saying, sure, suffering happens to people like that who lived their life like that, but I don't need to worry because the world won't be that dangerous for me.

I've strategized my way around it.

I've developed the proper mental coping mechanisms, and the religious person can say, I can live up to the standard where I won't have to learn such painful lessons.

And the irreligious person will say, I can always fall back on remembering that this is all meaningless anyway, and I need to remain detached from it so that I don't experience any suffering.

Both of those strategies teach us to view suffering as optional and view it with contempt.

But remember what we said the heart of the gospel was.

It's our union with Christ.

And if Job is a great example, uh Jesus is the true example of the innocent sufferer.

Jesus had no lesson to learn.

Uh he did not live in any certain way.

Uh he wasn't too attached to the world.

He he knows exactly what the world is.

He knows precisely its value.

He knows precisely the meaningful and the meaningless aspects of it.

He was not too attached.

Jesus did not sin.

He was not being punished and he wasn't being taught lessons.

And Jesus' life was full of suffering.

So we need to develop a new way of understanding the suffering that takes place in our lives.

What the Bible does is it teaches us that suffering is real.

Very bad things really do happen.

And very bad dispositions in our hearts really do reign and rule over us.

That's true.

That's not a misunderstanding of reality.

And once we see that suffering in itself.

Is very real.

And we take the suffering out of our disposition toward something, and we see the thing itself is actually bad.

That causes us to reflect on a question, which is, well then what's the point of it all?

What is the point of this suffering if I'm really experiencing it?

By coming to terms with suffering as a reality, it forces us to come to terms with all of our lives in reality.

We can't dodge the question and say, I'm only suffering because of some bad strategy.

We have to face the facts.

Does suffering mean that life is meaningless and useless?

Or is there something behind our suffering?

Now imagine running a marathon.

It's a horrible thing to imagine.

And in the midst of this marathon, you're at mile 22.

I just can't believe someone would do that.

And you're running, and your body is like, every step it's like, stop running, stop running, stop running, stop running.

And somebody comes along next to you, and they're like, hey, you're too attached to the way your body feels.

The suffering isn't real.

You need to detach from the way your body feels.

You'd be like, but it's detached from the way this is, it's my it's it's my body.

There's not like a difference between me and my body where the say it's my it's this is just me.

And yet we teach ourselves like, we talk to ourselves like that.

You don't need to be taught, or even stranger, I guess, is somebody who would run up and say, like, the pain will go away once you learned your lesson about the pain of running.

No, that's not the type of thing that actually helps in the midst of suffering.

And it certainly isn't the type of language that's going to get you to the end of the race.

What you need to finish the race amidst suffering is encouragement.

Oh, that vastly underrated attribute of Christianity.

Encouragement.

This passage in Romans 8 is some of the finest encouragement in all of Scripture to move through suffering.

And so for the remainder of our time in Romans 8, this week we're going to look at our hope amid suffering.

Next week, we will see our help amid suffering, and then finally we'll see our security amid suffering.

But this week, let's look together at our hope amid suffering so that we might actually be encouraged to finish the race.

Three points of hope amid suffering.

Our suffering is disproportionate.

Then we'll look at creation's hope.

And then we'll look at our hope.

So first, disproportionate suffering.

Romans 8, verse 18.

Romans 8:18

Paul says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Look at how different the shape of Paul's encouragement is from either the religious approach or the irreligious approach to suffering.

He doesn't say that the suffering of this present time isn't real.

It is very much real.

Bad things, legitimately bad things, are happening.

But there's something else that's coming.

There's a glory that is awaiting us in Christ that so vastly outweighs this suffering that if we were to look at it, we'd say it swallows up our current experience of suffering in glory.

So let's address this plainly, and then we'll practice with our imaginations this principle.

So plainly, what Paul is saying for this encouragement is that it is vastly disproportionate.

The amount of glory that we are headed towards will swallow up the amount of suffering that we are experiencing now.

It is like dust in the scales compared to the glory that we will experience.

Now, if you think of that and you look at the world, not as not in the way that we've we're learning to not look at it, which is suffering is just an accident or a uh uh something that can be avoided with the right strategies.

But if we look at the world as truly dangerous and vicious as it is, and we face it, the reality of it, you know, we see some absolutely horrific and terrible things, even in our own hearts, that feel like these terrible obstacles that can't be overcome.

Imagine all of that being nothing compared to a glory that awaits.

What must that glory be like?

Now we dealt with it plainly, so let's use our imaginations.

Come with me, and you'll be in a world of pure imagination.

Yes, my next example is from Willy Wonka.

Uh if you consider the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the one without Johnny Depp.

Johnny Depp one, look, I don't know, we all make mistakes.

Uh and the uh uh but the original.

It's the end.

Uh Charlie has been through so much in this movie, uh, from poverty uh finally making it to the chocolate factory.

Uh Willy Wonka seems to be insane.

There, there's just this catalog of child murder and OSHA violations and industrial candy making accidents.

And uh at the end of all of that, Charlie and his grandpa are in Willy Wonka's office, and they're like, look, we went through all of this.

Don't we get the unlimited supply of chocolate for life?

That's what we went through all of this for.

That at the end of this, we'll get unlimited chocolate for life, which that's a good, you know, for that amount of suffering, that could be a good deal.

This was a really bad day.

It was very strange.

But look, we never have to pay for chocolate again.

That's that would be pretty great.

But now they go through one more terrible thing, which is they realize that they didn't measure up to getting the chocolate.

And so now they have to have this terrible experience of getting berated by Willy Wonka in his office uh and eventually almost walking away.

But Charlie, of course, remembers he has the everlasting gobstopper.

And so he humbles himself.

He takes on the pain of the humiliation, the pain of regret, the suffering that all of that entails, and he sets the everlasting gobstopper on Willy Wonka's desk.

And Willy Wonka turns to him, you did it, Charlie, you did it.

And then what does he get?

The whole chocolate factory.

He gets all of it.

They go up in the elevator, they see the world.

It's not that you get unlimited chocolate, you get the whole factory.

It's not that you uh get to be around this crazy Willy Wonka person, your Willy Wonka now.

All the candy in the world, everything that you could possibly imagine, your wildest dreams have come true, your family out of poverty, everyone's lives have completely changed.

We see now that response seems vastly disproportionate to one bad day.

Completely out of proportion.

Now, how much more?

How much more?

That's one chocolate factory, a great one.

How much more that when you're running the race, you might hear, yes, but at the end of this marathon, at the end of this race, all that was wrong will be made right again.

All that is in poverty will be lavished in riches.

All that is broken in your relationships will be truthful and whole.

All that is lacking will be made new.

All that is fearful will be made courageous.

All the sin that robs you of the joy that you might be able to experience will be done away with, and all of the tears that fell will be wiped from your eyes by God Himself.

That's what's at the end of this race.

So keep moving.

Hold fast amidst this suffering.

Why?

Because the hope of what we're headed towards will look back on the suffering that we endured in the new heavens and the new earth, reigning in our glorified bodies with Him after the resurrection in Christ.

And we'll look back on that and we'll say, that was hard, that was real, and that was bad.

But it did not deserve this.

This vastly outweighs any amount of suffering I possibly could have endured.

So what pulls us through, and what's so different from the religious approach or the irreligious approach, is the vast disproportion of our suffering compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Now, Paul switches over into the language of hope.

And he starts describing that all of creation is bound up in this longing to uh to experience the redemption of us humans by Christ.

This is a weird concept, so let's move through it slowly.

This is creation's hope.

Romans 8, 19 through 20.

It says, For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it.

Okay, so this present longing that we experience that all things might be made right.

He's saying, Paul zooms out into this cosmic lens, and he says, all of creation actually experiences this type of longing.

You can see the longing everywhere.

And so that means that the decay that we see in the world is really wrong.

When we see things start to fall apart, and we think in our guts this is not the way that things should be.

What we're tapping into, what we're experiencing, is the longing of creation itself.

It's a longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

Now, this is like a commentary on Genesis 3 for Paul.

Because he's saying there was an order that creation was built with.

And we, if you uh were with us through our Genesis series, which we just did, uh, then you'll remember in Genesis 3, we see there's an order established in creation in Genesis 1 and 2, and then that order devolves in Genesis 3 when sin enters the world.

And humans play this key role for all of creation in that order, which is we're right at the keystone.

We are what holds everything else into its shape by bearing the image of God forth in creation, so that we continue his project of promoting his glory in our flourishing and the flourishing of the world.

Now, when humans sinned, that means we removed the keystone of creation and everything else fell apart.

The center doesn't hold.

And so uh when we look at creation now, it seems like it's on a constant march of futility.

John Stott says this regarding uh this passage in Romans 8.

He says, for it, creation, expresses the existential absurdity of a life lived under the sun, imprisoned in time and space, with no ultimate reference point to either God or eternity.

That means that if we take creation uh and we assess it of uh just of itself, then we will find nothing that points us towards any ultimate reality or any certainty of uh of things not going towards futility.

So if you measure anything, if you if you take a measurement of existence, then you'll see, you know what?

Ultimately, everything is tracking towards decay.

When a child begins to grow, it looks like you see this project of flourishing that's starting to take place.

But every creature hits a point where their life becomes an experience just of loss and decay that was introduced in Genesis 3.

And so what that is, is it's a longing that we are subjected to this futility because of sin.

And so all of creation being subjected in that way expresses this longing, this groan to return to the way that things were supposed to be, which is tied up in the redemption of the people who were supposed to form the keystone over creation.

You know, we we need stories to help us craft our imagination towards things like this.

And an example I've used before of the right king returning and therefore creation being restored is well, that's like the plot of like every Disney movie.

So let's pick one Beauty and the Beast.

The beast is the prince, uh, and when he becomes the prince again, then they're all everybody is brought back into their right order.

The ottoman becomes a human person, and the candlestick becomes a butler, and the clock becomes uh the butler's friend.

And in all of that, because of the transformation of the king, because the keystone is put back into its right place, everything else is brought back into its right order.

And so we see creation's longing for that very thing.

Now, here's the question: who did the binding?

It says, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly.

Creation wasn't like, oh, i that means that decay is not intrinsic to creation.

Not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope.

So who subjected creation to futility?

Is that humanity in our sin?

No, it's a it's a factor.

Is it Satan who's just always wanting to plunge things into futility?

Not ultimately.

This is referring to God.

And we know because he subjects it to futility, not just as an end in itself, but in hope.

When he subjects it to futility, he also introduces this other value into existence, which is hope.

In hope of what?

Romans 8, 21 through 22.

That the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Creation's hope is that we will be set free in Christ and then placed back at the keystone of creation, under its rightful ruler, as we too come under our rightful ruler, who is Christ.

And so this changes the way that we understand the futility and the entropy that we're surrounded by.

If you measure it of itself, then these are the death throes.

You know, everything is red shifted or blue shifted.

Which ones mean things are going away?

Come on, none of you are saying anything.

Everything is shifted such that we're all just getting further and further apart, and all the galaxies will vanish and everything will just wink out into meaninglessness.

Right?

If you measure existence, that's the story that we're living in.

And so all of this longing that we see is just the death throes of an existence that never really measured up to what it was intended to be.

But these aren't death throws.

They're birth pains.

So, how do we understand the pain that we see in creation?

The things fall apartness of existence, the buildings that get built that only to crumble again.

In this hope, Scripture teaches us to see them as birth pains, because something better is coming.

That better thing is our redemption in Christ, which results in our resurrection.

We will be resurrected, and in our resurrection, all of creation will likewise be made new, so that we will dwell eternally on a world that was not so corrupt that it needed to be thrown away, but a world that was so glorious to God that even when it became totally corrupt, he saw fit to rescue it, although at great cost to himself.

At the end of uh this book, The Chronicles of Narnia, that this is the last one, it's called The Last Battle, uh, there's this there's this great scene where they actually run up uh the these kids, speaking of uh movies and books where all the kids die, um uh at the end of, I'm just kidding, uh in Willy Wonka they end up being fine.

In this one, they all die, but it's good news.

And uh he's there they find themselves that they're in heaven, okay?

They're they're running into the new creation.

And they keep using this language of we're moving further up and further in, further up and further in as things become more and more real, and the longings that they see that were there the whole time are finally realized.

And uh when they're uh when they're moving, one of one of them, it's a uh uh a unicorn, so he's trustworthy, says this of where he's running.

I have come home at last.

This is my real country.

I belong here.

This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.

The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.

Come further up, come further in.

Why do we love it here?

What do we love about here?

That sometimes it reminds us of the eternal glory that we're headed towards.

That once this is redeemed, we'll be able to see the truth of the world that's not riddled by entropy.

Creation itself shows us that longing.

So have eyes to see it.

That even the pains of something like a terrible virus now are not death throes, they're birth pains.

So keep running.

The encouragement continues and it moves from creation into our own hearts.

Romans 8, 23, this is this is our hope.

And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

See what Paul was doing, the structure of this argument is he goes cosmic and he he implies this longing where he says that the sufferings of this time aren't even worthy to be compared to the glory that's to come.

And so he implies, so your heart should be longing.

And he says, Look, even creation itself is longing for this.

You can see it in the decay that you're surrounded by.

And then he comes back again in this verse and he closes the loop and he says, See, because the Holy Spirit is in you, you are longing as well.

You're waiting eagerly for your adoption as sons to be made complete, so that you're no longer wondering, Am I in or am I out?

You'll know for certain because you'll look in your father's face.

And because the Holy Spirit is deposited in you, you groan and you wait for the redemption of all of creation.

You desire to see it.

So, what does that mean?

It means when we receive the Holy Spirit.

It closes the door on our religious approach to suffering and on our irreligious approach to suffering.

In our religious approach to suffering, it closes the door because it causes us to see that it's the Spirit that does the transforming work in us.

And that even when the Spirit is doing this absolute transformative work in our hearts, that there is still suffering because the world and our hearts are that broken.

And it closes the irreligious approach to suffering because no longer can we comfort ourselves by pretending that all suffering is meaningless.

Instead, the Spirit brings a war into our hearts, which makes us see the meaning of the world.

And therefore, we have to say that that which is bad truly is bad.

And so we groan because we see the badness.

And hope is nothing if not a groan.

Hope is so much more difficult than either stoicism or than the religious approach.

It is so much more challenging to say there's real bad and there's real good.

And when I'm surrounded by all of this real bad, I'm going to consider that one day this will be better.

I can't write it off.

I have to make myself vulnerable, put myself in the hands of God to consider that He is making all things new.

It's kind of like a smell.

This is not a Jesus joke.

But he he uh uh after high school, and he uh I would always ask him, like, hey, like what's the measurement on this thing, or how are we going to do this thing?

And he he would always say, I think I'll be able to figure that one out by smell.

You know, point of smell is like it's not giving us much information.

Even if you try and describe a smell, it's difficult.

Uh good, bad.

And then smell has this weird thing where when you smell a good smell, like if you smell cookies uh or if you smell barbecue, it's a good smell.

It smells good, but it's also this brutal experience.

Because when I smell barbecue, I'm not like, oh man, if I smell that enough, I'll be satisfied.

No, it's drawing me towards this longing of the true experience of the barbecue.

Or the cookies or whatever.

Smells good.

The Holy Spirit is this first fruits deposited in our hearts.

It's like the smell of the kingdom that is to come.

And out of the decay that moves in the world, God has deposited his Holy Spirit in us as Christians to become this aroma.

And so you you can imagine someone walking past and you smell, and it's like, wait, I thought this was all decay.

In fact, I'd become so familiar with the smell of decay, I'd forgotten there could be a smell that was so good.

I'm not satisfied by just the smell.

It's drawing me towards something.

I desire its completeness.

And that's what the Holy Spirit being deposited in our hearts does for us as we desire the kingdom that we're headed towards.

And so how do we live?

We live in hope.

Romans 8, 24 through 25, for in this hope we were saved.

Now, hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees.

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Like I can just smell it.

I can't see it.

I can't see the cookies that are coming or the barbecue that's on its way.

But I wait for it with patience.

So I move through the suffering because I'm so encouraged by the glory that is to come.

You know, there's so much loss that's being experienced right now.

And uh, if you'll return with me to Narnia for a second, they keep moving further up and further into heaven.

And they realize that they have passed through not just Narnia, what they thought was Narnia, although better and more real and more brilliant in its colors, because it's the heavenly Narnia.

Uh and they realize that they've moved into England, which is their home.

Say this is just like England, but it's better.

You know, this was this was the real essence that we were going for the whole time.

Why?

exclaimed Peter, it's England.

And that's the house itself, Professor Kirk's old home in the country where all our adventures began.

I thought that house had been destroyed, said Edmund.

So it was, said the Fawn, but you are now looking at the England within England, the real England, just as this is the real Narnia, and in that inner England no good thing is destroyed.

Amidst all this loss, what type of hope could keep you running?

You're running towards a you, towards a family, towards a home in which no good thing is destroyed.

So keep running.

That's the encouragement of our hope amid suffering.

So with that, let's pray.

Actually, let's take a question if there's time.

I have a feeling I went kind of long.

No questions today.

Somebody's watching the clock.

Holy Father, thank you for this time together, uh, uh together apart.

I just pray that you would attend this word, that you would give us imaginations to contemplate the new heavens and new earth that you bring about at your resurrection, that we have a hope even for our own bodies and the brokenness that we experience in them, that that will one day be made complete and perfect.

Lord, let that hope, the quantity of that hope, take over the the suffering that we're experiencing now, so that we might see it in its proper light and be motivated forward through the race.

Lord, we know that this is certain because of the sacrifice you've made in Christ, because of the deposit of the Holy Spirit that you've put into us, so that we know we will be resurrected into this hope with Him.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.