Sermon Central
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Awaiting The Glory Series
Contributed by Bobby Stults on May 6, 2012 (message contributor)
Summary: Oh how I hate to wait... waiting is so difficult for me, but I have found that waiting is a 'universal' problem... it is just that some of us do it better than others and make better use of our time while we are waiting...
Sermon Brief
Date Written: May 3, 2012
Date Preached: May 6, 2012
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Title: Waiting on the Glory!!
Sermon Text: Romans 8:18-25 [NLT]
Introduction: Show verses as I read…following me
18Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later. 19For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are. 20Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children,[a] including the new bodies he has promised us. 24We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. 25But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently).
Now to set the stage for those of you who may not have been here to hear all what we have learned so far in this letter to the Roman churches… Paul shares a lot about WHO WE ARE as humans!
How we ALL are sinners and we have NO excuse before God!
How we are hopeless against our sinful nature and sinful desires!
How there is NO amount of work we can do to gain forgiveness from God!
But Paul’s message focuses on what Christ did on the Cross!
Paul tells us that when we accept Christ- He forgives us...
Paul shares with us that when Christ forgives… He wipes our slate clean!
The Bible calls that… justification… ‘In Christ’ we are justified before God! We are blameless of the guilt and penalty of our sin!
3 weeks ago we learned that ‘in Christ’ meant that there is NO condemnation held by God against us! This is because Christ has done all that needs to be done and we stand NOT GUILTY before God!
Last week Paul continued in his teaching about what it meant for those who had rec’d Christ in their lives…
We looked at what it meant to be forgiven?
We looked at what it meant to be redeemed?
We looked at what it meant to be justified?
We looked at what it meant to be stand blameless before God?
Last week we looked at and began to grasp an understanding about what our freedom in Christ really MEANS for us…
But today we are going to look at another section of Paul teaching… Remember in v.12 Paul made a transition from sharing information to explaining what he was teaching about…and last week we dwelt on that first section of explanation… today we move on to the 2nd section…
This 2nd section found in Rom 8:18-25 speaks toward something that is NOT a strong suit for many people… this section deals with patience and WAITING! By show of hands how many of you hear this morning are good at waiting… OK…how many of you LIKE to wait on things?
I will admit I am TERRIBLE at waiting… let me give you an example! I would rather drive 25 miles out of the way and be MOVING than sit and wait in traffic to drive 10 miles… who’s with me on that one?
Waiting is something NONE of us do well… but Paul teaches us from another perspective when as it pertains to ‘waiting’, let’s look at these verses and take in what God has to say…[show verse now]
[show verse now]
18Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later.
Now in this verse Paul speaks about an issue we ALL must face as a believer and it’s the issue I asked you to chew on this past week… It stems from the end of v.17 when Paul says, if we share in the glory of Christ then we must also share in the sufferings of Christ!
For most people… no let me correct that… I am sure that there are ZERO people who actually WANT to suffer! Well let me take a survey… how many in here, by the show of hands, WANT to suffer? Anyone?
I know that if I have a choice between suffering and almost ANYTHING else, I will choose ANYTHING ELSE! Even when our lives are coming down to the end, and we know our time is short…
