Week 34 - Free Weekend Program for Street & Vulnerable Children.

Text : Romans 8 : 21-25

Theme : Confident Expectation of Glory

Verse 21. “that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”

God has promised to make a new heaven and a new earth, creation will be redeemed from the curse, delivered from the consequences of sin ( death & decay) into the effects of perfect righteousness, ever-lasting peace, and wholeness where God’s love will be fully enjoyed by His children.

Verse 22 -23 “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, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.”

Creation is cursed. "Cursed is the ground for your sake." God laid this curse in the Garden. It has not been revoked. Women have pain in childbirth, even believers. Though we have the Holy Spirit living in us, we still suffer the effects, consequences of the curse.

There's death & decay, our teeth smell in the morning, we are growing old, there is pain, and suffering and we long for a new world, a new body that will never die or decay (grow old) Heaven is not here, life is not easy until heaven.

Everyone suffers, death comes for all. Hunger, heat, mosquitoes, etc, are a natural part of life. There's no heaven on earth. No Paradise of ease and comfort here.

Yes, believers groan too. No matter how much faith and love, trouble still happens. We have sin within, and the consequences of sin all around us. It's horrible and no light thing to see sin's damage. It's destructive. Death is the final picture of sin on earth, then the Judgment after.

Sin makes us die, because these bodies are cursed, but our soul will live forever. We will receive new bodies, we have a blessed hope of eternal redemption. In these new bodies, we will experience total peace, free from sin and its consequences forever. These perfect bodies will bring us perfect joy, and in heaven, we will be happy for much longer than we suffered on earth. It's worth trusting Jesus.

Verse 24 “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?

There's a great deliverance for us who suffer a little while now. We're hoping for this. We do not see it, it’s in the future, we do not know when it will happen, but we take it by faith, faith that waits, which is hope. We believe God's promise, which strengthens us. One day hope will be gone, because we have it.

Now, we wait, fully persuaded, like we wait for vacation, holiday time from school when we can go home, we wait because we know it’s coming, except in this case, we are not coming back to suffering but gone forever to celestial city.

Faith knows it's there because God raised Jesus from the dead, and he forgives our sins, and he's given us spiritual life and the Holy Spirit.

Verse 25 “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

True hope waits. It doesn't turn back. It doesn't say, "I'll live in sin now." It waits like a man for his bride, but he knows she is coming. It waits in spite of doubts, failures, temptations, and sufferings. It waits with contentment and power, because hope strengthens us, like you know dinner is coming. True hope makes us patient. We wait with hope knowing that God takes away all our pain and gives us eternal pleasure in his presence soon.

We wait knowing that everything we could dream of in joy and excitement and happiness is on its way to us, and we're meeting God and Jesus who love us immeasurably. We wait knowing that we'll get rewarded for what Christ has done. We wait knowing that God loves us and is so good to us, though we suffer now. We wait like a woman in childbirth to see her baby, yet we wait for something perfect that will never die nor disappoint. We wait for no more pain

Reference :

Teaching on Romans 8 : 21-25

by Heshimu K. Colar