Published: April 7, 2024 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Romans - Part 44 | Scripture: Romans 8:19-22
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there's a lot going on under our feet the question is has it always been that way of course the scientists will tell us yes it's been that way it's because of how the earth was formed with
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a lot of hot gas there's still a lot of hot gas on Earth forming together and becoming a planet you know we're told that this is all nothing more than than
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materialism this is just the reaction of of physical laws that have no original lawm maker they just are Paul's pect perspective here seems
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rather quaint to the modern year and very many people even within the church professing Christians will dismiss what Paul has to say as being nothing but the
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ignorance of a pre-scientific world but when we think about it science can tell us the how and the what but it can't tell us the
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why science deals with physics he can't handle metaphysics he can't explain why the Earth is the way it is why it is so
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violent but the scriptures do explain that and Paul says for the creation was subjected to futility not of its own will but because of him who subjected
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it I don't think Paul would change his theology one bit if he happened to study modern geology I don't think it would surprise him at all to find out the
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earth is made up of plates that are moving around in fact scripture would have taught him that in Genesis when God moved the place the continents away from one another in the days of Pelle and
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spread out the peoples so there's nothing really unscientific about what we read in the scripture though the scripture is not a textbook it is far more dealing with the
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why of all of the what of science so he would not have changed his Theology and Believers today can immerse themselves in the science of what and
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how but the why will be found only in scripture only in the self-revelation of God so when we hear of earthquakes in various places now we hear of an
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earthquake a a massive 7.4 I think earthquake in Taiwan we think well yeah it's on the ring fire that goes around the Pacific right it's where you find
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volcanoes and and earthquakes pretty commonly we're not surprised and then we hear of a 4.8 earthquake in New York we have to wait for the 700 Club to
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explain that one to us I mean there's really no major plate boundary there but these things happen we've even had earthquakes here in the upstate very very very minor um but
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these things happen all over we hear of earthquakes in various places as as Jesus told us we would we need to consider them as
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evidence of what Paul is teaching us here in Romans 8 these are manifestation of creation's groaning and the pangs of childbirth they are not eschatological
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signs for the future see this is where the church has gone wrong so many times blaming hurrian Hurricane Katrina on the homosexuality of New Orleans you know
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that sort of of of purile answer explaining what God is doing when God hath not said I'm going to wipe out all the homosexuals in New Orleans and
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everyone else as well you know we can't keep saying okay you know New York City that must be the equivalent of modern Sodom and Gomorrah no it would have been a whole lot bigger
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earthquake if that had been the case in fact it probably would have been a volcano that would have really shook people up people up oh a volcano in New Jersey no it's just a chemical
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a chemical plant you know we always want to explain eschatologically prophetically that's what we've been trained to do frankly by the entire body of teaching known as
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dispensationalism we've had over a hundred years of this looking at every event and saying oh this portends on Return of the Lord now what it prends is the fall of Adam this doesn't look
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forward to some ES eological future but rather P past to the original fall of Man and the plunging of creation into
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corruption this is the full impact of Adam's sin this is what Paul is bringing to us in this Treatise of Romans he is giving us the full impact of what Adam
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did in the garden but over the past 500 years especially we have developed in the
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western church an anthropocentric theology simply put that means it's all about us it's all about man we interpret God's revelation with respect to man and
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so we go back to Genesis 3 and we read about the fall of Man and we we read about okay here are the impacts for women pain and childbirth for men
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frustration in labor for all death the perspective ignores the other player in the original
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drama Creation The Creation was not just a convenient place to put man once created it also was the manifestation of God's
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creative goodness the creation was not just a stage that God built in order to place man to act out the drama as Paul sees it and as scripture
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sees it it's part of the play it's part of the drama because it also reflects the glory of God Paul says as much and has said as
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much in Romans 1 where he says for since the creation of the world his invisible attributes his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen again I
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always want to point this out his invisible attributes have been clearly seen now notice the contrast of those statements and how is this
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being understood through what has been made the fact that there is not nothing is a testimony to the power and the nature of
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nature of God the fact that there is this world that sustains life and proclaims glory for what Paul says in Romans 1 is
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nothing more than a reiteration of psalm 19 the heavens are telling of the glory of God and they're expand is declaring the work of his hands day to day pours
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forth speech night to night reveals knowledge this is not the testimony of the prophets or of the missionaries this is the proclamation of
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God's creation itself day after day night after night after night but sadly Christianity has largely given up this part of the testimony to
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the Pagan religions and now we look down our noses and condescend to those barbarians who still Worship in creation now don't get me wrong I'm not suggesting that you can worship God on
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the golf course on Sunday morning I expect you all here next week but we have we have forgotten the testimony of what God has created we've
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left it out of the equation and we're only worried about where do I go when I die when you die if you die today do you know if you'd go to heaven now I know I'd go to be with the
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Lord but I don't know exactly where that is and I also know that God didn't make me for heaven he made me for Earth and the Earth for me you see there's another
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major player in this drama that we frankly ignored we spend our time worrying about getting our Doctrine right or making sure that we are socially and politically active for the sake of
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also testifying and it testifies not only as Paul says to the power and the goodness of God it is also testifying to the Redemption through Jesus Christ it's
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testifying through the hope that it has Paul personifying creation here frankly reformed the theologians do not like personifications they really have a fit
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when you talk about nature personified they think you're going liberal they think you're going wacky frankly but Paul does it so if he's liberal and he's wacky I'll be with him he actually he
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gives creation a voice not an articulate one because as he's going to show our response to what's going on in this world can hardly
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ever be articulated and we're going to find out we're going to need the Holy Spirit to groan in inarticulate prayers on our behalf so why should it wonder
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that creation itself groans groaned in Taiwan groaned in New Jersey groaning all the time so what this teaches us is that the
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world around us is also a source of divine revelation it is not saving it is only sufficient to render us without
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excuse that's what Paul teaches in Romans 1 it's all out there it's all evident anyone who denies a god a Creator is not being scientific
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he is simply being rebellious because it is obvious that this didn't just happen we did not just happen but that's not enough to save
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anyone it's merely enough to render everyone without excuse so that when every single human being stands before the Judgment Throne of Jesus Christ he
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will say you had creation that was enough but you rejected that rejected that in fact you taught others to reject it in fact you taught a whole generation to
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reject it depart from me you workers of iniquity I never knew you but Christianity has always had a shaky relationship with science at least
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in the modern era we're very jealous of Revelation and therefore very nervous about any coming from the realm of science that seem
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seems to contradict what we read in our Bibles and that's an ongoing thing science may be able to Enlighten us on the mechanics of the Earth the way the
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earthquakes actually function the way volcanism works with the magma coming up from the base below the mantle we have the thermodynamics of global warming
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that teach us how the these greenhouse gases trap radiation and warm up the globe they're telling us about the mechanics but please keep in mind that
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science has been consistently wrong throughout the ages and wrong in major ways and we have no reason to think that modern science has reached an era of
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infallibility that it did not reach in the days of Cernic's or Kepler or Newton and so let's not put too much faith in science let's not too much put
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too much faith in the World Health Organization let's remember it's acronym who keep that in mind let's use our
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minds but then again let's not let's not be afraid of science let's not be afraid for example that the Earth may be warming again again because it's happened many many
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times before we were watching a video with my geography class on Friday about Lake Aral in Kazakhstan it was once the fourth largest Inland Sea it is now one
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of thear deserts in Kazakhstan the reason well during the Soviet era starting in the 1960s the waters were diverted for cotton plantations in order to produce cotton
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for sale and the lake slowly drained and is now become a desert now of course the narrator points out that this is a man-made problem then he goes on to
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discuss the fact that it's happened four times previously in fact they found a 13th century 13th century town that was on the seabed of Lake Aral
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that had been obviously lived in okay these things happen and yes science wants to tell us what the human impact is but it's really the groanings of
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creation and they happen and they happen and they happen over time cyclically and we can understand the mechanics of that but scripture explains the why of it all
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he says he says in Genesis 3 this part of the curse that we tend to to forget about he says that then to Adam he said cursed is the
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ground because of you now we go over that we think oh that means weeds right I think that when I go out my front yard and see the sge and the dandelion cursed is the
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is the ground thank you Adam you know it's like that's what we think of but we don't realize the comprehensive nature of that statement Paul does he says for the
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creation was subjected to futility not of its own will but because of him who subjected it now in The New American Standard at least in my version where I read Because of Him who subjected it to
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him is him is capitalized maybe your Bibles also have that capitalized thus blaming God for subjecting the creation to futility no it wasn't
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it wasn't God it was Adam the Cur the ground is Cur because of you okay not because of me I told you not to eat from that one tree you had
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the whole garden to eat from and you chose that one that I had forbidden Because Of Because Of You the Earth is cursed so on the one
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hand when the environmentalists blame the human race for whatever they're blaming us at this time this decade we can say you're right you're right it's
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because of us that the Earth is cursed it's because of us there are earthquakes in volcanoes in various places it's because of us that the global temperature is indeed cyclical and then
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when these Cycles reach their peaks someone somewhere suffers that is true the ground is cursed because of you that is what the Bible teaches us
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the why of it all not just the how and the what but the why it's because of our sin because the f fall of Man was also the fall of creation and so Paul turns
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that around and he tells us the Redemption of man will be the Redemption of creation we're in this together and that is a very glorious thought Paul says for the anxious
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longing of the creation Waits eagerly for the revelation of the sons of God this is not just some arbitrary plates up thrusting or down thrusting or cross
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thrusting it's not just the the magma pressure the cone collapsing the magma releasing that's not the the mechanics of it it's the
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Earth also waiting to be delivered from the body of this death the parallel I think is direct between Paul's talking about us and our
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dwelling in the body of this death and our waiting for the Redemption of this body that he goes into and much much more detail in 1 Corinthians 15 but even
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then he speaks of creation as well that all of it will be redeemed the parallel between the weak and vulnerable physical body in which we live as
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Believers and the weak and vulnerable planet that man has subjected to corruption and the common denominator between these two is actually
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hope hope eagerly waiting for the revelation of the sons of God is all of this revent to the believer's life
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believer's life today perhaps not as to what we do day by day although I would say that as children of children of God Believers ought also to be
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environmentally sensitive as as those who know that the creation was given to man to subdue to manage to watch over knowing that we
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are stewards we should not exploit the resources that God has given us and while we don't need to buy into the liberal agenda we also don't need to
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take the other View and exploit the Earth as if it is our servant what I think Paul is showing us is that it is not our
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not our servant it is also a pilgrim alongside of us eagerly awaiting the perusia the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ why has
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Paul inserted this creation message into Romans it it does seem somewhat out of place and yet it's not when you understand again what was Paul's purpose
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he was presenting his gospel to the Roman congregation ahead of his attending them and hopefully using Rome as a base for further missionary
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activity even as far as Spain and so he included this because it fit naturally into his thinking at this point he's actually in his mind he's
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rising to a crescendo because he has brought everybody to the point at which we have recognized the futility of the law to
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conquer sin and we have come to the realization that in Jesus Christ there is therefore now no now no condemnation because of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus that has been given
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to us which now enable enables us to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law and in other words this is what it means to walk in newness of life this
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is what it means to be the new Humanity in the new creation oh yeah let's talk about creation because that's also what Christ has done here through his resurrection he did not just regenerate
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a people and is regenerating a people he in aurated the new creation and the early church understood this and for a thousand years creation formed an
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analogy to analogy to theology then the Reformation came and we all got scientific about it and we don't talk much about nature anymore and I'll tell you from firsthand experience
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that if you speak and personify nature either within a seminary class or heaven pvid and a dissertation you will be told that that is allegorizing and we don't do that
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here I wonder if Paul would be would be welcome in many of our reformed sem semin seminaries excuse me but Paul was certainly welcome in his
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own mind and he was welcome in his own theology because his theology was biblical he understood what Israel was waiting for better than most of his
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second temple second temple contemporaries and certainly better than many modern evangelicals he read Isaiah chapter 65:1 17 for behold I create a
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new heavens and a new Earth and the former things shall not be remembered or come to come to mind he knew that the Redemption of creation was proof of the Redemption of
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Israel then he learned through Jesus Christ that that is the Redemption of all God's elect from every tongue tribe and nation that what Jesus did to affect
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the Redemption of individual human beings Sinners also affected the Redemption of all of all of creation he said in Isaiah chapter 66
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for just as the new heavens and the new Earth which I make will endure before me says the Lord so your Offspring and your name shall endure that actually puts
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creation ahead of us Paul understood the comprehensive plan of God to restore not just a people
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but the whole place for his name's sake Peter understood this as well Peter writes but according to his promise we
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are looking for new heavens and a new Earth in which righteousness
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dwells but in our day that concept has been replaced with the Evangelistic question if you died today do you know that you would go to
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heaven now I understand the the UN the logic behind that there's is Heaven or Hell logic but underlying that and that's true we're either redeemed or
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we're damned there are no other alter No Gray areas but it underlying that is a false understanding of where we are destined
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to be the idea for for example of floating around on clouds playing the harp what's wrong with a
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guitar what's wrong I mean we sang a song The Psalm today praise him with trumpets and trumpets and cornets we don't ever see them in the images we're told that every time a bell
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rings an angel gets its wings I mean see this is the kind of silliness that has actually invaded the church to Rob us of our true es chological
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hope and that's not heaven now the error comes from a misunderstanding of Philippians 3:2 excuse
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3:2 excuse me Paul writes for our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly wait for a a savior the Lord Jesus Christ for our citizenship is in heaven
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and so we logically think that that's where we're going in the afterlife that we're going to be in heaven and then we create all these images Heaven has golf courses you know that you always score par or below you know we get these
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Notions but that is not what the passage means this was Philippi Philippi was specifically created by the Roman government as a colony for its retired
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legionnaires anyone born in Philippi was born a Roman citizen so their citizenship was from Rome but Rome had no intention of the Philippians moving
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back the whole point of creating the colony is that Rome was already crowded and with releasing all these legionnaires upon their retirement the Roman government did not want them all
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coming back to Rome they were in Philippi they were a colony of Rome we are a colony of heaven and we're not awaiting going back that's
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not what the passage says we're awaiting a savior a savior from just as the Philippian ex soldiers would be delighted to hear that the
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emperor is going to stop by who was also by the way called curios and curios and soter Lord and Savior names that Paul
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pointedly and politically puts Upon Jesus Christ we are an expectant Colony not waiting to go back but waiting for our Lord and Savior to come because this
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is our home this what is what was created for mankind heaven was not created for us nor us for heaven I don't think we'd be happy
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there because we are Earth creatures and the Earth is our home the first Adam subjected it to futility the last Adam will release it
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to Glory he says yet despite the spoil one author says yet despite the spoiling of creation it has been subjected in hope it has not been cast off God still
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values it and his plan is for its final transformation this Earth as Peter says is being reserved for the purification
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of fire but this is the earth that God said was good this is the earth that God said after he created man was very good he is
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not going to abandon his creation just as he's not going to abandon His Image we might say the creation is the temple into which he placed his image
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he's going to restore them both and so Paul says one element of the Gospel is that we're in this together just as
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Jesus is the firstborn from the dead Paul writes he also writes in Colossians he is the firstborn of all cre creation was made through him and by him
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and we know that nothing was made except by him and now will be it will be reborn through him and by him and with us and
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we will be the heires of that new creation we will be the ones who will inherit that new Earth and that is truly our Biblical eschatological hope have
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you ever stopped to think as you've lived in this world and and thinking in terms of something that you enjoy whether it's hiking or golfing or
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whitewater rafting or whatever it may be will they have this in
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heaven I don't know doesn't matter CU they'll have it here and they'll have something else righteousness in fact righteousness will be the dwelling the atmosphere of the new Earth and so Paul is out lining here
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parallel paths to Paul the believer's suffering is in the body of this death and these are parallel to Creation suffering under the curse brought by
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Adam's sin you see Adam unfortunately is to blame for both right in Romans 5 we sinned when Adam sinned and so the
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suffering of the body of this death comes from Adam and that first sin but also the suffering under which creation groans not of its own will not of
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anything it did wrong not of The Big Bang Theory not of plate tectonics but because of him who subjected it in
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it in hope that as we were joined in the curse at the at the Garden we will be joined in the revelation of the sons of God through Jesus Christ as both were plunged into
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corruption both humanity and creation both have been raised to newness of Life both have been raised to glory and that is the intended hope of all
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believers that not only will we be glorified with Christ that everything around us all that we see as I mentioned all that we see around us which is
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imperfect which is corrupted which is weak which is sometimes very dangerous all will be made right in the very same passage of the New Creation in
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Isaiah 65 we read that the lion will lie down with the lamb and that the child will play at the edge of the Viper's pit
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there will be no more killing upon my Holy Mountain says the
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Lord that is to me a beautiful hope now this is far from worshiping the creation instead of the Creator Believers are to see that creation is a fellow Pilgrim not not a God God is not
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in creation God is not working through creation God is not revealing his will to us through nature none of those Notions are biblical and that is not what Paul is teaching in fact he
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actually condemns that creation is a fellow Pilgrim but it's also a fellow sufferer now this is where Christian
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doctrine interacts with the world around us and hasn't done very well
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both ultimately and proximately meaning the root cause and the day byday cause much of the suffering that
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creation undergoes is undergoes is man-made and even if there is something that we did not do firsthand right at the moment we did not
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create the earthquakes in Taiwan and New Jersey and yes we did when we fell into sin and subjected creation to corruption
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so our attitude toward nature our attitude toward science our attitude toward the creation should not be one of hostility and it should not be The Escapist mentality that someday God's
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going to Rapture me out of here and so I really don't care what happens down here that is not Paul's attitude that is not God's attitude it should not be our
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attitude whether we agree or not with what the science of global warming has to say I do not think that Christians can abide by
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littering pollution exploitation of resources oppression of Labor these are all things that are an Abomination to our God and they should be an
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Abomination to us as well creation as as a fellow Pilgrim creation as a fellow sufferer that might sound liberal I hope you consider it according
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to what scripture says according to what Paul says but we're in this together there's nothing we can do proactively any more for creation than
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for our own Redemption so don't get me wrong I'm not suggesting that we become environmental activists anymore than I'm suggesting that we become active legalists I cannot bring about my own
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sanctification only the Holy Spirit can do that through the finished work of Jesus Christ I cannot bring about the Redemption of this planet only the power of God through the Redemption of Jesus
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Christ can and will do that but just as I Gran in the body of this death I grown in a plant that is groaning with me a creation that but through no fault of
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its own but through my fault through man's fault has been subjected to corruption and corruption and suffering creation is a fellows sufferer waiting to be set free from its bondage
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to corruption as we wait to be set free from the body of this death so as mankind is the cause of creation suffering and this is where
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God's grace is so wonderful he could have easily said that creation is groaning awaiting the revelation of the Son of God right yeah he could have said
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that because that's really what it's all but this is where we're getting ahead of myself but this is where we're more than conquerors this is where we are in the
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Triumph of Jesus Christ because he says by God's grace and not by anything we have done or could do that creation is groaning awaiting the revelation of the
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sons of God the children of God so just as we plunged Creation in to suffering because of our sin so the revelation of
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the redeemed children of God will be the event of creation's restoration together redeemed Humanity in the new Earth fully the work of our
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Lord Jesus Christ through the power of the holy spirit this is our hope this is our expectation in Jesus Christ let us
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pray father we do thank you for your word and the comprehensiveness of it that you leave out nothing that you have created you will redeem so that you will
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be found all in all when Christ presents his kingdom to you but we thank you even more that you have not only included Us in the
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in the redeemed but you have included us with Redeemer and that by your purpose it will be the revelation of the children of God
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of God that will reveal the new Earth we look forward to that day we pray that the hope and the promise of that day never
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day never diminishes For Your Glory we ask that we would remember these things all our days in Jesus name amen so as we come to the
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table of the Lord's Supper I would ask that you consider the implications of What U Paul has written to us here in Romans 8 like to ask