In This Hope We Were Saved

Introduction

I appreciate those of you who have taken efforts to support us, as Mike said, particularly supporting Xander and making him feel like he’s like a lot of other people here in the audience. He can’t be here this morning, had a little bit of a fever last night. We were watching him through the night and kind of borderline to the point where we thought we might have to take him in the hospital, but he never hit that twice, which you have to do within an hour or so. and so fortunately he’s still home resting, and Katie is there with him. So anyway, those of you who participated in that, I really appreciate that. You can see them scattered through the crowd this morning.

I appreciate you know, Ernie and Jonathan Harris and some of the others who I really do appreciate it, and it means a lot to us the way that you care for us and make us feel like we are important to you and the love that you demonstrate through a variety of actions, and this just being one of those. We just sang the words of the song A common love, and as we were singing it kind of struck me that some of these words really fit well with the content we’re gonna look at this morning in the middle part of the book of Romans. a text that’s often overlooked because it seems strange or out of place, or maybe we don’t often know how to make sense of it when we start seeing Paul talking about the whole creation and God redeeming creation, and why is he talking about all of this?

And so we’ll get into that here in just a moment. but in the midst of that, these words that we have a common bond holding us to the Lord, a common strength when we’re weary, a common hope for tomorrow, and a common joy in the truth of God’s word are certainly pertinent, particularly the strength when we’re weary and hope for tomorrow, to this section that begins, I guess more precisely or technically in verse 18, and then goes down through verse 30. We aren’t going to cover all of that this morning, and in fact, when I read, I’m going to back up to verse twelve, because there’s sort of a context around all of this, and we’re going to have to do a little bit of background work to even get to what we’re going to talk about in this small section in 18 through 25.

So just be aware of all that, and I’ll try to help us work through it to the best of my ability, which I feel very insufficient in reality to do that. This chapter is so deep and so rich, and it’s it’s hard to pull out the significance, the full significance, and I don’t suggest to you this morning I’m even going to be able to do that to the fullest extent. But we’ll do the best we can and try to get some good meaning out of what’s happening here and what Paul’s doing in Romans 18 through 25 specifically. If you will begin reading with me in verse 12, Romans 8, verse 12, it says, So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Ah the Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the suffering 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 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. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we need not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Now the context continues on, but we need a stopping point somewhere, and I wanted to get that phrase there about the Spirit and the groaning too deep for words, because it sort of fits the rest of the context above that, and there’s no doubt that it flows from there through the end of this section in verse 30, and we’ll probably talk more about that next time. At this point in the letter, as we’ve worked through it, we sort of need to stop and do some background work again, because there’s multiple or parallel themes or ideas kind of running all through what Paul’s doing here. It’s one of the reasons why I backed up and read the preceding verses a little bit, because hopefully, if you remember some past lessons, which you may not, and that’s fine.

But hopefully, if you’re a good Bible student, you remember the stories of Scripture, which I would always suggest you have in mind as we’re reading the New Testament, you hear language that attaches itself to things like Exodus. Right? They’re led by the Spirit, we’re told in verse 14. Being led by the Spirit or being guided by the Spirit is particularly an idea that comes out of the Exodus story, right? Or we’re being led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The Spirit is guiding them, he’s leading them to the promised land. So this is an idea that is certainly within or enveloped by this concept here. We have echoes of creation in all of this. So we have creation, and we’re gonna kind of go somewhere with this here in just a moment, but we have creation echoes when he’s talking about in verse 20, the creation being subjected to futility, not willing, but because of him who subjected it in hope.

It’s it’s bound to corruption. And you will remember in the story of the fall, which is kind of implied or implicit in what’s going on here, that there was a curse on the earth. It’s no longer what God intended. So God in creation created the world and it was good, and he created Adam and Eve, and they were to be essentially as the wording, we could work out this more if we had time, but they are to be priests inside this garden temple. That’s the concept. You have the inner garden Eden, and we’ve talked about some of this in Bible classes and other lessons. The inner garden is Eden, it’s like the holy of holies. This is the where the presence of God is there.

He’s walking with them in the garden. You have the outer garden, and then you have the world itself. And Adam and Eve’s mission was to then expand that to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and even more than that, to have dominion and rule over the earth and subject the earth to themselves as God’s vice regions. They were the ones given authority and power. A text that really stands behind all of this, that is, I think often in the background of Paul’s thinking, and there’s been tons of work to demonstrate this in scholarly writing, is Psalm 8. it’s a passage you’re probably familiar with, and when I read this, you’ll be very familiar with it. the psalmist is looking at David is looking at the heavens, and he’s thinking about the things that God has done and what he has created, and then he stops and considers man.

You’ve made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the work of your hands, and you’ve put all things under his feet. Now, what we often do with this text, and I have no problem with this, is we make it messianic. Certainly it has messianic overtones, but as David’s writing this and considering what’s happening around him, he’s thinking about the place of humanity. Right, and in either way, however we want to get there, we get to the same place. Either he’s talking about humanity, and there’s also kind of secondarily or in the distant future the messianic implication here, which I think is probably likely, or this is only messianic, which is very atypical in scripture, and yet we are to be recreated after the image of his son anyway.

So we are to be image bearers of Christ, to be like him, and so in the sense that he is truly human in the way God wanted man to be human, and he has dominion and has rule, we are to be like that. And so we are to be like our brother because we are fellow heirs with him. That’s where we left off in 17. He says, You are children of God, if children, then heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ. Now, there’s this little provision, which is what everything has to do with in the following verses. Provided we suffer with him in order that we also may be glorified with him. So there’s a lot of imagery that is built into this text, and I want to pull out just a couple more verses before we get to this text proper and talk about the concepts here, and a lot of this is prophets.

And so if you know the prophets, you’re going to have a kind of a round understanding of what’s taking place here. One of the things, and I don’t want you to freak out about this because it’s all going to be okay, but Paul does not talk about heaven in the book of Romans. That’s not what he talks about. He talks about a restored humanity. And he talks about a restored creation. Now, both in the prophets and in the New Testament, they speak contextually. And what I mean is, for example, in the Old Testament, in Ezekiel 40 through 48, he’s talking about this renewed perfect temple. And when Old Testament people, when God’s people of the Old Testament heard this, they would think that a new temple, physical temple was going to be built.

It’s a contextualized message, something they would have understood and conceptualized in their mind. This is what God’s going to do.

Looking back, we know the reality of that is quite different. That’s not exactly what’s being said there, but he’s using a message to help them in a way they understand, to understand that God’s rule is going to return. Right? And so what he’s talking about here in this section that we’ve we’ve worked on, whether it’s literal or figurative, doesn’t really matter too much to me in the end, because God is going to do what God does, and we need to have faith in that. But here it’s fit fitting with the Old Testament prophecies, for example, in Isaiah 65, he says, Because the former troubles are forgotten and are hidden from my eyes, for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into my mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. God’s going to do something new, something that people cannot imagine. And this is what we’re waiting for. This is what we’re longing for. We don’t fully or quite understand it. It’s just like our bodies themselves, which he’s going to talk about in this passage as well. We don’t know what we’re going to be like, John says in 1 John 3. But we know that we’ll be as he is. I don’t have to fully understand the bodily resurrection. I don’t have to fully grasp what my body will actually be like when it is resurrected from death. But what I do know is that God says it’s going to happen.

And I believe the same thing about a passage like this and what God is doing and what he’s working in the world, again, not to minimize my salvation and your salvation, but it is bigger than my salvation and your salvation. It’s not just that he’s going to redeem me and redeem you, he is redeeming everything. The whole creation is going to be redeemed. And that’s what Paul’s talking about here. Everything is going to be made right. And so with that in mind, there are a number of concepts and ideas that Paul wants us to get from this. And like I said this morning, I can’t really even cover them all. But what I will say is we will better understand Paul’s picture in Romans 8. If we have in mind God’s plan through Adam and Eve, and how it was halted due to sin.

And that God’s working in the world was not just for Adam and Eve to live in utopia and for them to be fine and everything to be okay for them. No, it was for them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. It was for them to expand, to have rule and dominion. And now what’s being recovered through the Messiah is that very thing. And those who are conformed to the image of his son, verse 29, which we didn’t get to, they’re going to reign with him. They’re going to rule with him, and they’re going to continue on this work that was halted due to sin. And so God and His planning and His purpose and His will, when He brings all things together in heaven and earth, He sums them all up in Christ, as Ephesians 1, verse 10 tells us.

The working out of that is that God is going to redeem everything. And we are in the process of that very thing happening right now. It’s already begun. And it’s happening through his people, through the church, in which his spirit dwells, which is what the first part of Romans 8 was all about. Living according to the Spirit, not according to the law of sin and death. Right? And what the Spirit does and how it empowers us and how it changes us, and how we have this new life that is activated, that is motivated, that is inspired by the Spirit. And when that happens, now we are Christ’s people. We are God’s children. We are heirs, and we are receiving this inheritance. And so we need to talk about some of the terminology here, and I think to get a better grasp of what’s being said here.

The first section he 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. Glory is an interesting term. And what does glory mean? I think if you ask maybe an Israelite in the Old Testament, what is this glory or this hope of glory? They probably would have a response somewhere to the idea of that God is going to subjugate the rest of the world, and he will be glorified in all the earth. Which that’s pretty much what the Old Testament says in a number of places, so that would make a lot of sense. But what’s interesting in this text is it repeatedly says that we will be glorified. And the idea of glory, really, what’s attached to that and what that is the concept of rule and authority.

It is a concept of power. It’s always portrayed in, you know, for example, in well, in the ancient world, it was on coins and things like that, like sunbursts, I guess you could say, or beams of light coming from a ruler’s head, from a crown, right? This crown of glory, right? That’s what it says in Psalm 8, will be crowned with glory and honor. Why is it a crown? Because the concept of glory has to do with authority and dominion and rule, and this is what was lost at Eden. God’s plan for Adam and Eve was to subjugate the world to have it under dominion. Right? This was what they were supposed to do, and that was lost. That plan was halted because of sin. And now what’s going to happen is that the sons of God are going to be revealed in glory, and they are going to rule with him.

Look at the end of this story in Revelation chapter 22. Revelation 22, when a lot of the things that had happened in Scripture had been undone. Right? That’s where we are in Revelation 22. In verse 1, it says, Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river, the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed. So all the curses have been removed. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more, for they need no light of lamp or sun. For the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

And trying to make yourself master of your own world. It is subjugating yourself to the one who is the creator, who reigns over all, and ultimately reigning with him forever and ever. That’s the message. The message is not that one day we become disembodied spirits that float around an ithera realm that have no substance and have no purpose. That’s not the message. The message is that God is creating something new, a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, where we will be enthroned with him. Jesus says that very thing in his message to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, that we has a He has a place for us on His throne, and we will reign with Him. Pretty amazing.

1. Glory Will Outweigh Suffering

And he says it fairly plainly, it’s just going to put it in my own words here, and that is that glory will outweigh suffering. That’s number one. Glory will outweigh suffering. Whatever it is we’re going through, and each one of us go through difficulty and suffering and problems. There’s going to be glory that is unimaginable beyond that. I’ve heard it said a couple different ways and from a few different people, but particularly from a pastoral sort of approach, you know, a shepherding approach to a flock, that everyone that you’re dealing with has some sort of suffering in their heart that they haven’t revealed. Everyone here is struggling with something, whether it be loss or pain in their life, or sin itself. But there’s something going on that we all have to deal with to some degree that we’re struggling with, and that is a part of this creation.

And that is just a reality that we will come back to here in a little bit. That’s just a part of life. But what we have to understand is God’s people is that the glory is going to outweigh that to a magnitude that we cannot even understand. It’s incomprehensible to our current thinking and to our finite mind that one day we will reign with him forever. Reigning with God is incomprehensible. Forever is essentially incomprehensible. And so all of these ideas, they’re very hard for us to calculate, to understand, which is interesting because the phraseology that Paul uses here in verse 18 is this idea of counting or reckoning. He’s used it earlier in the text, as he’s talking about kind of calculating things or adding things together.

It’s sort of the idea of conclusion, right? For I consider or I calculate or I’ve summed up this idea that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.

This is the idea of the first fruits of the Spirit a little bit later in the text. He says, we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, what that means is there are latter fruits, right? That’s implied in the idea of first fruits. Something has already been given to us. We have this down payment of the Spirit, Paul calls it in Ephesians chapter 1. Some elements of this are already evident and they’re already real in our life. Something a little bit like what we’re doing right now. This is part of this down payment, the first fruits of the Spirit, that as God’s people, we gather, and the Spirit dwells among us, and God’s doing powerful things through his spirit through his people. That’s part of the first fruits.

2. God's Purpose Involves Redeeming the Whole Creation

But it’s just the first fruits. It’s just the initial stages. Something far bigger and far greater is on the horizon. The second part of this is that God’s purpose involves redeeming the whole creation. I’ve already alluded to this slightly, but it’s it’s bigger than just personal salvation, which strangely enough, or ironically, often people take the book of Romans to kind of be this whole discourse on personal salvation, which is not what it is at all. It’s about God making the world right again. And it’s about the unity that should exist between Jew and Gentile in this reality that the solution to humanity’s problem and the problem of all creation is solved through the Messiah and not the law, and they should come together on this. It’s really a treatise on the workings of God in the world in total.

And of course, a part of that certainly is my salvation, your salvation, and the individual salvations of many people throughout the centuries that have come from this time period, but it’s much bigger than that idea. In essence, the Messiah made possible the original plan for man to have dominion and rule and be fruitful and multiply. Notice even the wording of verse 29. For those who before knew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. It’s going to be a big family. They’re going to be fruitful. They’re going to multiply. He’s the first fruits of that, we’re told in 1 Corinthians 15. He’s the first fruits of resurrection. And so this image or this symbolism is used in similar ways in other places, but there’s something bigger coming, and it’s going to be the reinitiating or the accomplishing of God’s plan as it existed from the very beginning.

That what was lost in Eden due to sin is all going to be reversed. It’s all going to be made right, and it’s all going to happen through the Messiah, not through the law, which he’s talked about already, not through anything else that humans have come up with, human agency or human plan, it’s all going to happen through his plan that he directed through the Messiah. Now, an element of the symbolism that I didn’t quite get to before because I was saving it for the moment, is this idea of the indwelling spirit that exists in the early part of Romans 8, really up until where we just finished our reading this morning. And if you understand the connection or the echoes to the fall, and then the Exodus language, and then ultimately exile.

Exile is the end of chapter 7. You know, what Paul’s doing, and this is very typical pattern for ancient writers, particularly Jewish writers. It happens in the Gospel of Matthew as well, is they sort of tell the story of Israel as they’re telling the story of the church. In Matthew, he’s telling the story of Jesus, kind of laying that side by side with the story of Israel, and Jesus repeatedly does it better. All the things that Israel did and where they failed, Jesus comes along and he does it all right. Right? Like he wanders in the wilderness for 40 days, and he’s tempted by the devil, but he overcomes those temptations. He doesn’t give in to them. So every step of the way, it’s those sorts of things whereas the story is being told, it very much looks a lot like Israel’s story.

But what’s happening through the Messiah, through the one who is truly human in the way God wanted humanity to be, is everything is working out the way it’s supposed to. And here we have these echoes of Exodus where God is bringing deliverance and his spirit is guiding people. And even in the midst of that, they still are disobedient, like the end of chapter 7. And so they are sold under sin. They are brought into exile. And then chapter 8 is the redemption. It is salvation. And now here we have with this section what is that supposed to look like, or what does it mean for my life? And what God does when he’s going to create new heaven and new earth is he rebuilds the temple.

The temple is where the spirit dwells. And so all of this talk that we’ve been looking at, the early part of Romans 8, about if the Spirit dwells in you and you dwell in the Spirit, and Christ dwells in you and you dwell in Christ, which is kind of that section in verse 9 and following, it all relates to this sort of temple imagery, which connects to creation. Because the temple is modeled after the structure of creation in the very beginning. Most things, not everything, but most things, as you read your Bible, connect to creation in some way. But certainly the temple pattern and the way it was constructed is a pointing back to creation. And what’s happening with these representations of the temple is that ultimately they point to God’s glory filling all the earth.

The Psalms talk about this. Isaiah talks about all this. We’re working through Isaiah with the high school class right now. And part of what we’re doing is breaking down the parallel structure of the book of Isaiah. You have sections 1 through 12, which are really about Judah and Israel and their failures. And that is as paralleled later with 28 through 39, as they’re struggling there. And there’s multiple ways to outline the book of Isaiah. This is one of them that fits really well. But the end of those is Isaiah 24 through 27 and Isaiah 55 through 56. And what’s happening in those sections is renewal of the world. God’s judgment on the world and what God’s doing in the world, how he’s going to change the world, how he’s not only interested in Zion and Israel and Judah and his people, but he’s really interested in his name being magnified in all of creation.

And that’s what’s happening through Messiah. The temple is not some small structure. That’s not ultimately what the temple really is. The temple is all creation. And God’s glory is not just going to fill this little building as it does in Exodus 40 or this other little building in 1 Kings chapter 8. Ultimately, the plan is that God’s glory is going to fill all the earth. And his name is going to be glorified and magnified everywhere. And this is the picture that’s being painted for us by Paul here. This is the plan. This is what’s happening. And so ultimately, then what is my part in that? And what is your part? Our part is not that we just sit around and wait for God to do what God does.

3. We Have a Part to Play as Priests

It’s not ultimately that we just look at the world and say, well, look how horrible the world is. You know, it’s just going to go to pot, and we’ll wait till eventually till God returns. No, there’s something that, as God’s priests, as servants in his temple, there are things that we are doing along the way. That he is working with us. We are the means by which that he is working in the world, that his spirit is working in the world. And there are big things on the horizon that are happening because God’s people are working with God because ultimately they’re going to reign with him, as the text tells us. And so, third, we have a part to play as priests and God’s temple within a pain-filled world.

So the first idea, glory is greater than suffering. The second is that God’s purpose involves all creation, not just humanity. He’s going to bring it all back to right. But this understanding then helps us with our role as the vocal elements of creation. Those who God has empowered, those who God has given a voice and has given a purpose to have dominion and have rule. And some of this we don’t feel capable to do.

Paul is talking about our vocation, not just to get through difficult times, but to stand in prayer where the world is in pain, so that God’s own spirit may be present and intercede right there. As God’s priest, a royal priesthood serving in his temple, it is not our job to act like everything is fine. It is not our job to ignore pain and suffering and pretend like they aren’t that big of a deal because eventually it’ll all be solved. Well, certainly there’s elements of that are true, and we understand that. But we stand as a beacon of light in a world that is suffering with pain. We are the light of the world, as Jesus says, and as this does the prophet said in Isaiah 60, that we illuminate the world because we reflect the light of God.

And we live in a world that is in the midst of darkness, and it is undeniable that there is suffering and pain, and as some have said, so much so that even the Spirit Himself is resorted to groanings that are too deep for words. These are not our groanings that are too deep for words. It’s that we don’t even know what to pray for. When we look around the world and we see the problems that exist, we see that the mass genocide that takes place in places like Gaza or Israel or Syria and various other places throughout the world, and see how horrible and how evil people are. We have no words for that. And not only do we have no words for that the Spirit Himself has no words for that.

It’s just groanings that are too deep for words. But in the midst of all of this, God understands what we’re going through. And our purpose and our plan in the world is that we were saved in this hope. That it is not about what’s here. It’s not about denying the problems that are here, but it is not about what’s here. And ultimately, it’ll be the redemption of our bodies. This is not the end. And the pain and the suffering and the difficulty and all the things we see around us in the world, it’s not the end for that either. Notice some other symbols that he uses here. First of all, he talks about the whole creation being set free from its bondage to corruption. This is going to happen.

This freedom is going to become as a result of the children of God being glorified. That’s kind of a strange little structure there at the end of 21, so it might be a bit confusing. It’s a bunch of genitives in Greek. And so they translate it that way, but it kind of strips it of its meaning. But the idea there, when it says that it’s set free in its bondage from corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. The idea there is that the creation is obtaining freedom when the children of God are glorified. When they now become what they were supposed to be from the beginning. When they now have the dominion and the rule, when they rule the earth and they rule the world as they were supposed to rule the earth and the world when Adam and Eve were given this dictate from the Lord, when that happens, then the creation is freed from its bondage.

So this is God restoring everything. But we are groaning together. This is not something that’s abstract, that’s kind of off and not real to us. No, we groan together. Just as the world itself, we see the corruption, we see how things die, we see how entropy happens, that things kind of tend toward destruction in our world, and we see suffering and pain in our own lives. We groan together with all creation, even as those who have the first fruits of the Spirit. And we wait for the adoption of sons. This is all coming from the earlier part of the text where we said we receive the spirit of adoption in verse 15. That we’re going to be heirs.

And Christ will be there. He is the firstborn of all creation. So our place then is to understand that all of this is going to be made right and to proclaim this message to the world. To admit that we and all creation are groaning because of the corruption of sin that is real. And it impacts all of us on a daily basis in a variety of ways, sometimes more obvious and sometimes less. But our hope is that the creator, and when I say hope, that means the reality that this is going to take place. Our hope is in a creator who is working through the Messiah and through the Messiah’s people, those who have been conformed to his image, even at this present moment. To spread his glory over all the earth and to fill the earth with his glory.

Conclusion

And I saw no temple in the city, John says. For its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it. For the glory of God gives its light. And its lamp is the Lamb. In this new creation, in this new heaven and new earth, there’ll be no need for a temple. Because that hope that we await is that we will be in the presence of God, literally. There’ll be no need for representation anymore. Right? Isn’t that what Paul’s saying here at the end of 25? I mean, we don’t hope for things that we see. The temple’s about hope. This is about hope. It’s about the hope that one day we will surround his throne in eternal glory and we will reign with him.

And all these things that we deal with now, the suffering and the pain, the crying and the disease and the oppression, and all that will be done away with. It’ll be no more. And we’ll be forever with the Lord. The message of the gospel is that you can have that if you are in Jesus Christ. There’s now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That’s where Romans 8 starts. So if you are in Christ, you get to experience all the things I just described. If you’re not in Christ, you don’t. You don’t experience the glory. But you do experience the suffering. You go through all the same things that everybody else goes through, it’s just there’s no hope in the end. And that’s the difference.

You don’t live with any kind of expectation of glory. You don’t have this expectation that the sufferings of the present time are going to be outweighed by the glory that’s going to be revealed to us. None of that exists for those who are outside of Christ. The reality is it just gets worse. It just ends in separation, eternal separation from the Father, as 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 talks about. And to an eternity of darkness.

But it begins, as Romans 6 talks about, by dying with him, being buried with him in baptism, being resurrected to new life.

That’s the first Corinthians 15 talks about. There’s new creation. And so this new creation is going to be a part of the new heavens and the new earth that God is working through his people and through his spirit. And so you’re invited this morning to take part in that, to give your life to him, to become one of Christ’s people, and to be conformed to him. Can we help you do that? Why don’t you come as we stand and we sing together?