Title: The Expectation
This is some very colorful, and somewhat difficult language to understand that Paul has laid out before us today. He uses a lot of metaphoric language and symbolism, all of which points to one theme: the return of Christ and the hope we have in the coming Kingdom. Paul’s main focus is on expectation, and he builds a metaphor into that thought using the parallel of pregnancy and birth.
A year ago I watched my wife go through the trials of pregnancy. There we some fun times, like watching my family oogle and fuss over Mary’s growing stomach. And then there were the days when Mary would just look at me and say, “You did this to me.”
But with that backdrop, there was always an expectation of something great that was to come. We knew there’d be pain, discomfort, and doubt in the process, but we also both believed that all of that trial would be worth it for the end result. And we were so richly rewarded in the process with the birth of Nevaeh last April.
I. What We Hope For
V19(read)
What Paul is illustrating here is that it is our desire to see our Lord. We want to be able to talk to him face to face, as we’ve seen the O.T. prophets speak to the Lord, as we read of the disciples walking with Jesus and conversing with Him. We realize that for us, in this place in history, we have to wait for that to occour. For the Kingdom has begun, but it is not yet manifest until the return of our Lord.
I’d also argue there is another expectation we await for, and that is the expectation that that kingdom may bring redemption, justice, and justification to our lives. Right now, we live on in hope and faith that what we are doing, and how we are living, is right, and just, and favorable before the Allmighty.
When the return happens, we will know definintively that we were right and our names will be redemed. We will see justice in that thought today we see man constantly scheming his way out of what he deservers, we see man being praises by other men for calling what is sin righteousness and what is righteousness, sin. And we know that when the Lord returns, there will be no fooling or manipulating Him. Justice will be served.
And finally, we we also feel a justification for ourselves. That truly the way we lived our lives in the absence of the seen God was correct, and honoring to him.
Not in a selfish way, but in a righteous way, do you not join me this morning in clammoring, begging that God would reveal Himself to this world, to this nation, to our government, to Hollywood, to racists, to our own relatives.
When we pray for an individual’s salvation what are we asking God? “Lord please show yourself to them, that they may know the Truth.”
When we pray to our Lord in the darkest of moments what are we asking for? “Lord please, show yourself to me, that I might know you are still with me, even in this trial.”
In short, we want our Lord to return, that we might know we are his, and right with him.
II. The Complex State of the Christian Heart
V20 (read)
We do not desire to be in this position. Paul himself said, “If it were up to me, I’d die right now to go on and be with my Lord, but I understand that I have work left to do, and, for that I will remain.”
We share Paul’s heart on this matter. Last week I said that I often wish, as much as I love my wife, my daughter, my family, my friends, this church, my work, my hobbies, and laughter, as much as I truly love allof these things, I’d give them all up in a nanosecond for even a chance to be intimately conversing with Jesus. My greatest desire is for him.
And Paul tells us in the second part of verse 20 that we are not willingly in this position, but put in this position by God, that we must be forced to have hope, and to therefore develop faith. Later Paul will tell us in verse 24 that “hope in what is seen isn’t hope” and that is why Jesus wants us to have hope in the unseen, faith in the unseen.
Another way to look upon this situation we are in is this: Christians must have faith and hope in what we can only beleive in. Both my daughter and my Lord are very real to me. But these two things are very real to me for very different reasons. My daughter is real to me because I can touch her, I can see her, I can hold her, and three in the morning I can hear her. And on some very special moments I can even smell her. All of my senses difinitively repeat to me: Nevaeh is real!
But I cannot touch my Lord. I cannot see physically any evidence of my Lord. I cannot hold my Lord, I cannot hear my Lord’s voice the way you can hear mine right now. But Jesus is as real to me as Nevaeh is. Why? Because I believe.
I cannot convince another, there is no empirical proof. I can share the subject of my experience, but personal experience is just that, personal experience.
In essence, the only thing that makes my God real, is the faith inside my heart that tells me He is real. Now, if I manufactured that faith, if I convinced myself that He is real, then it’s only a self-deception. But if that faith was put there, inexplicably, and I cannot deny the existence of what I beleive, then what am I to do?
Am I to deny my Lord, thought my heart rejects and aches at the thought of even suggesting he is not real?
Am I to supress the reality of my Lord, becuase the world says, “I cannot see your God!”
Or do I embrace my belief, and develop my faith, having hope in what is unseen.
God draws us to himself my forcing us to reconcile what we beleive, not what we can prove to others.
There is a brilliant scene in the second LOTR movie, the Two Towers, “Why do we continue, we don’t even know if Frodo is still alive?” Aragorn: “What does your heart tell you?”
III. And what is our hope in?
V21
That the creation itself will be delivered from the bongdage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God.
We see the transition that Paul speaks of here: We will go from being in bondage, slaves to corruption and all the ways of this world, all of its sin, its vices, its snares, its wicked ways, into the glorious liberty of being children of God.
We will be set free into the liberty of knowing that all that we’ve strived for, all that we’ve hoped in, all that our parents taught us, all that we hope to teach our children, all that comforts us when there is no comfort to be had, all that gives us hope when there is no hope to speak of, will be proven right, and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord.
This world will be fixed. God reign will be difinitive. But we wait for that day. We wait for the kingdom.
And if that day is not today, does that make your faith stronger, or weaker?