Present Suffering and Future Glory

Well, it's good to see all of you here this morning. Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8 for our time of study in the word, this morning. We're doing a verse by verse study through Romans 567 and 8.

And as we continue in our study through this section of the book of Romans, we come this morning back to Romans chapter 8, verse 17, and We'll be doing well to get out of this verse, and we, we'll get into verse 18 at the end of the message. so we're getting stuck in this verse, but it's not a bad place to get stuck. if you want to give a title to the message, it is Present Suffering and Future Glory. Present Suffering and Future glory.

This passage, this section of Romans, basically the, from verse 17 through the end of the chapter is, is a marvelous passage. It is a breathtakingly honest and an unflinchingly forthright, and it's description of the Christian life, both now and in the age to come. If you're here today, and you want a, maybe you're a new believer, and you want a good and a robust And realistic understanding of what you can expect as a Christian in this age, and in the age to come. The second half of Romans 8 is a great place to go if you're looking for a way to view your hardships and your trials, Suffering the pains that you experience in this fallen and broken world, and you're wanting to try to understand and connect the dots and how does this connect with eternity and the glory to come.

This is a great place for you to go. This is a searching and thorough and honest portrayal of life in this world, and in the world to come. And it'll give you a real clear idea of what to expect in the Christian life., nowadays it happens sometimes that you read some advertisement, you're thinking about going somewhere, you read an advertisement and it's like, wow, this seems like a great place to go for vacation or whatever and all the pictures look great and and the descriptions look look great, but then you may act on that and go to this place that is advertised and to your dismay you find out that it is not all that it was billed.

To be, and I think all of us would have occasions where that has, has happened.

and our expectations are disappointed because either there was false advertising or maybe it was true, but it wasn't fully forthright. All the details were not included. Paul Tripp in his book, What Did You Expect to Married Couples? It tells a little story near the front part of the book that I think serves our purpose as well.

He tells about how he and his family had read some brochures about Disney World and decided, what, let's go there for a family vacation. But they were disappointed with some of what they experienced. I'll let him tell the story. He says, we took our family on a vacation to Disney World.

We looked at the beautiful Disney literature. But we weren't told that we would stand under a blazing sun for 90 minutes in 120 degree heat. And 200% humidity. I don't even know if that's possible, but But whatever, it felt like that to him.

90 minutes in 120 degree heat, 200% humidity to ride a ride that takes 33 seconds. My son, who was at this time just a little guy, saw a ride that he wanted to go on. We walked for what seemed like forever and finally found the end of the line. We stood in line so long that my son and I had this conversation.

Dad, he said, why are we standing here? I said there's a ride at the end of this line. And he said with a look of complete exhaustion, And what right is it? We had been in line so long that he had forgotten why we were standing there.

in reading that, I think that resonates with all of us who have been to an amusement park, number one, but, but this resonates with us, I think, on another level when it comes to life in this world, especially as a believer. obviously, in their case, they were disappointed. There were details maybe left out of the advertising literature. Only the positives were stated.

And also there was a very long wait. For a very short brief little payoff, and they had to endure heat and humidity and long lines for what, for a 33 2nd ride and at least in his perspective as he looked back on it, the weight and the suffering was greater than the payoff. The suffering was heavier than the pleasure at the other end. Well, this is what happens in our fallen world when Someone might be looking at some literature that is maybe not fully forthright of all the details that one could expect to encounter.

But if as you approach your Christian life you want a realistic portrayal of exactly what you are in for, the second half of Romans 8 serves as a nice little piece of literature, a brochure to give you a realistic appraisal of what you are in for. Look at the language we find on both ends of the spectrum. There's the language of suffering, and I don't have the verse references, but you can go through and find all these words. There's suffer, sufferings, futility, slavery, corruption, pains, weaknesses, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword.

If you're wondering what you're in for as a Christian, this is a part of the picture. And then during the season of all of these experiences, we experience the following anxious longing, waits eagerly, hope, groans, groan, waiting eagerly, hope, hope, hope, hopes, hope, and wait eagerly. And all of this, the suffering, And the longing ultimately as the curtains open, give way to the glory to come. And we find language like this glorified with Him, glory revealed to us, revealing of the sons of God, freedom of the glory of the children of God, our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body, conformed to the image of His Son, and glorified.

If you are wanting to know what to expect, In the Christian life, you can expect virtually everything you see on the screen. In this life and then in the life to come, the suffering and the longing in this life and in the life to come, glory. The way we're going to break down verse 17 and 18 this morning is 4 certainties. We observe 4 certainties in these two verses that Paul wants us to know that God wants us to know that can shape our expectations regarding life in this age and in the age to come.

Paul says, let's begin in verse 16, the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed. To us 4 certainties. Certainty number 1 that you can expect is this, that we and Christ will suffer together.

I won't spend a lot of time on this because we have talked much about this last Sunday and even the Sunday before. But here's what we're in for in the Christian life. This is absolutely certain. If we're a believer, we're heading to glory, we will experience suffering together with Jesus Christ.

Paul says, if indeed we suffer together with him in order that we may also be glorified, together. And again, this isn't so much like we talked about last week, the focus is primarily on what Christ has done in entering into our suffering. And there is a choice on our part on some levels of suffering with him. But basically, God is saying, if you're one of my children, plan on this, you and Jesus are going to suffer together.

I didn't get to show you this full slide last week. I showed you a part of it. Let me use it this morning here at the beginning. When when Christ was on the cross, He basically experienced three kinds of suffering.

Number 1, satanic assault. Satan bruised his heel. According to Genesis 3:15. Human persecution or evil.

human mistreatment. He also experienced the wrath of God upon him. And number 3, he bore our every sorrow and our every grief. So we talked about those three at length, but what's interesting is to look at those three kinds of suffering and then evaluate how we are related to those three.

And if you look at the wrath of God, what happened is Christ suffered the wrath of God and fully absorbed the wrath of God so that we don't have to. Amen. So he absorbs that, and the wrath of God never will get to us because he fully absorbed that in his person. But there are two other kinds of things that he suffered.

He suffered satanic assault, human injustice, and also he experienced on the cross our every sorrow and every grief, and he didn't bear those in the same way that he bore God's wrath. He didn't bear our every sorrow and grief so that we no longer ever experience sorrow and grief, right? He didn't say to us, I bore satanic assault when I was on the cross, so that you never will have to, because I absorbed it all. I bore human injustice when I was on the cross, so therefore you will never experience human injustice.

No, he experienced God's wrath and fully absorbed that. But Jesus himself and the rest of Scripture tells us that the other two kinds of suffering. do get to us. But Christ bore God's wrath so that we don't have to.

And he bore satanic assault, human injustice, our every sorrow and grief, so that when we experience those things, we have him with us. As a sympathetic friend and a high priest. He so wanted to be our closest and intimate friend in the midst of our circles of pain. He wanted that so badly that he was willing to bear that personally on the cross, so that he would feel all of that himself and then can walk with us as a sympathetic high priest.

One of the certainties that you can count on is that you will. You and Jesus will suffer together, and we unpacked that a lot last week. Acts 14:22. Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

We're going to suffer. 2 Timothy 3:12. Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will. will be persecuted.

First Thessalonians 2:3, you yourselves know that we are destined for these afflictions that Paul is talking about in the context. If we truly know this and believe this and view it as a certainty, Then we're set up to obey Peter's instructions in 1 Peter 4:12, when he says, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you which comes upon you for your testing as though some strange thing were happening to you. When suffering comes your way in any way, shape or form, don't view it as some strange thing.

Don't be surprised.

I told you in the literature that this would happen to you. As my child. So we can not be surprised whenever we experience normal sufferings in a fallen world, any physical, mental, emotional, relational, marital pain, the pain of a parent, the pain of a child, whenever we are persecuted for Christ and for righteousness' sake, whenever we're on the receiving end of any. form of injustice as we make our way through a fallen world full of sinful people whenever we experience the negative effects of any natural disaster, satanic attack, temptations from within and from without, even when we experience discipline from the Lord, we know from Hebrews 12 that the Lord disciplines those whom He loves and.

Discipline is sorrowful. OK, it's painful. That's suffering. But even when we experience discipline from the Lord's hand, we know that Christ is with us.

And even when we experience consequences of our own sinful choices, we can know that Christ as our High Priest is with us in a feeling, sympathetic way. I had someone come up to me, a couple of people last week after the message and ask, I get the fact that Christ is with us in our suffering, maybe when we're suffering unjustly or just something bad happens to us, but what about when I've made bonehead decisions and have sinned and I'm suffering now as a consequence of sinful choices that I've made?

Is Christ with me in those? And my answer was a resounding yes, Christ on the cross bore even those sorrows and those griefs.

And so Jesus doesn't look at you and, and evaluate your suffering and say, what, I think you brought this on yourself. So what, sorry, but I'm not with you on this. I'm not your sympathetic high priest on this. No, he doesn't do that.

Think about it. If Christ was willing to have all of your sins put on him and experience the very wrath of God that you deserved, then would he not also be willing to bear your sorrows and griefs according to Isaiah 53:4, and then be with you as a sympathetic friend and high priest? As you experience suffering and grief that maybe you brought on yourself. It's the fact, it's the witness of Jesus, even in those moments that he's with us so that he can lead us out and beyond those sinful choices that we've made.

So the first certainty is that we in Christ will suffer together. A second certainty that we observe in verse 17 that we can count on that Paul wants us to know about to give shape to what our expectations are in this life and in the life to come, is that we and Christ will be glorified together. This is the positive side, guys. Just as certainly as it is true that you will suffer together with Jesus in this life, it is that true that you will be glorified together with Jesus in the life to come.

You can take this to the bank and be absolutely certain about it, he says. And if we're children, we're heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with Him. In order that we may also be glorified with Him.

We will be glorified with Jesus. That raises the question, what does it mean to be glorified with Christ? I want us to ponder this for a few moments. one of the great aspects of our salvation is called glorification.

And there are several aspects that are embodied in our being glorified, as Paul makes reference to it here. And let's see, I think there's like 6 things for us to think about in connection with our glorification. And by the way, this is really good news. So even though glorification is a large word, this is, this is exciting stuff.

This is your future and you ought to be interested in it. The first aspect of our glorification that is coming to us is our resurrected bodies. Most theologians, when they think about glorification, the first place their minds go is to resurrected bodies, and in some cases it's the only place that their mind goes when they think about our glorification. And certainly we do well to realize that at the core of our glorification is resurrected bodies.

In fact, at the end of verse 23 in Romans 8, Paul speaks of us as waiting eagerly at the end of the verse for our adoption of sons, the redemption, or the deliverance. Of our body from the corruption from the decay that we experience in this life, and we all see that as our bodies die and waste away, we will be physically experiencing a deliverance. Our bodies will be delivered from corruption and from decay, and we'll be raised from the dead. Even if we die and our bodies are buried in the tomb, our bodies will be raised.

By the power of Almighty God, and we look forward to this in Philippians 3:20 and 21. Paul says, Our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now here's one of the saving things he's going to do that we're waiting for, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity. with the body of His glory by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

Christ has accomplished so many saving things in our lives, but there's something we're eagerly waiting for, for Him as a Savior to basically come and transform, resurrect these humble bodies. And glorify them into conformity with the body of His glory to where our bodies will be glorified as His resurrection body is glorified. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul helps to unpack what it means for our bodies to undergo this glorification. And again, this is you're learning.

If you, if you read 1 Corinthians 15, the passage I have on the screen, you'll be learning about your body's future. I don't know that interests me, well, about my body's future, but we, we want to know these things, and he sets up a contrast, like our bodies now are sown a perishable body. They undergo death and decay. They become wrinkled and, and, and weakened and subject to disease.

And physical ailments sown a perishable body, but our glorified body will be raised an imperishable body. There will be no death, no decay, no weakening, no disease in any way, shape or form. Our bodies, 1 trillion eons from now in eternity will be as physically strong and lively. As they were on the day of our glorification, we're not going to be together forever and watch each other waste away and get older and older and older for trillions of years.

Our bodies are imperishable. Also, our bodies now are sown in dishonor but raised in glory. And, and one of the resources I was reading says this tends to speak of beauty. Our bodies now has, especially as we age, become less and less attractive physically, but it will be raised in glory with the idea of beauty.

We will be beautiful and any unattractive, ugly features will be completely removed, so you can rejoice in the fact that there will not be some glaring Ugly unattractive feature about you that you will have to live forever with. You will be beautiful. We will look at each other, guys. Realize this is not just true of you, it's true of your brothers and sisters around you, all right?

We're going to be amazed when we look at each other and how beautiful, how amazing, how lively the way that we all look. In our glorified bodies, our bodies now are sown in weakness. We experience weakness and sickness, but we'll be raised in power. Our physicality in heaven will be characterized by power, power to do anything and everything that God would want us to do throughout eternity.

We will be able to be close to Jesus and, and close to God. We will be able to see his glory in a way that right now we cannot. Our human eyes, were we to see things now that we will see then, it would strike us dead. But our eyes will have a power that our eyes now do not possess.

Our bodies now are sown a natural body, but raised a spiritual body. A natural body speaks of a body that is subject to the impulses of this age, the impulses of sin. We have indwelling sin inside of our physical bodies right now. We have a sinful flesh that is not our physical bodies, but it is, as we have seen, profoundly affiliated with our physicality.

And we've got this sin muscle memory, as it were within our physical members. But when our bodies are glorified, we will have spiritual bodies. That doesn't mean spiritual as opposed to physical. It means spiritual as opposed to natural.

In other words, get this guys, our physical bodies in heaven will be totally under the control of every impulse of the Holy Spirit. And that will be the only impulse, the only thing that governs what we do with our bodies. No more sin, no more indwelling sin, no more flesh to even do battle with or to give in. It's just the spirit and every spiritual impulse, and we just do those impulses totally reigned over by the Holy Spirit.

And also our bodies will in a very significant way bear the imprint, not so much of the first Adam but of the second Adam. We will bear the image of Jesus in a profound way which leads to a second thing that we should think when we think about our glorification, and that is think Christlikeness. In Romans chapter 8, verse 29, Paul says those who foreknew, he predestined to become conformed to the image of his son. And you might look at yourself now and say, I am so not conformed to the image of God's Son, but I long to be, but I have so far to go.

God says, I'm not done with you yet. The day will come when you will be amazed at how conformed you are. Inside and out to the image of my son. In First John 3:2, John says, Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared as yet what we will be.

We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. That means two things. It means that when we see Christ, the sight of Him will be so powerful that just looking at Him will cause a transformation to occur. We will become like Him whom we are beholding.

But another idea is that we will be able to behold him and see what he looks like and be able to observe, wow, we, we look alike. And we will enjoy that observation. We will be like Christ in our character, and even in our physicality, we will bear a certain likeness to Him. Another aspect of Our glorification is being with Christ, being with him.

We get to be with Jesus forever. Paul says that, we suffer with Him, and we'll be glorified together with Him for all eternity. we will be able to say that we are together with Jesus. This is one of the most glorious aspects of our glorification.

CS Lewis in his sermon, I believe it's called the weight of glory. he, he lists off 5 things that he thinks the scripture teaches about our future glorification, and first on his list is being with Christ. And then he lists 4 other scriptural things, and then when he, when he's done with that list of 5 things that starts with being with Christ, he then says, the first question I ask when I look at this list of 5 is why add anything to the first one. Because in his mind, the greatest thing about our glorification, the greatest thing about being in heaven, is that we're going to get to be together with Jesus.

And that is something that we can relish. You think about it, if heaven was everything that it is right now, in the total absence of pain and suffering and tears, and sorrow and death and all of the glories that are there, if heaven was everything it is right now, but Jesus was absent from there. It would not be heaven. And being glorified, it means we're going to get resurrected bodies.

We're going to bear a Christ-likeness, and we're going to get to be with Him. There's a 4th thing to observe about our glorification, a 4th thing to think when you think about glorification, and that is radiance. All of us will have an amazing radiance. There are theologians that when they think about our glorification, they go to the idea of luminescence, a radiance, we will shine.

You guys are gonna shine in glory. in Matthew 13:43, it says the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Imagine you shining like the sun. In Daniel 12:3 it says, and those that are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever, shining like the sun, shining like the stars, that's pretty bright, and we will have this radiance through all eternity.

There's a 5th thing to think about when you think about our glorification and being glorified together with Christ. And, and I'll, I'll, I'll say upfront, this is, this is something I, I don't think I would have arrived at on my own without CS Lewis's help. And CS Lewis himself arrived at this idea of glorification somewhat reluctantly. and he shares that in the sermon.

that he gave a number of years ago entitled The Way of Glory, but he thought about it and at first he wanted to reject this idea, but then came to acclimate himself to this idea, and that is the idea of the pleasure of God with us or the pleasure of God over us. listen to, because there is an idea of glory in the Bible, Old and New Testament that has the idea of fame, renown. and so how does that apply to us being glorified? And listen to what he says.

He says such different Christians as Milton, that's not me, by the way, and Thomas Aquinas took heavenly glory in the sense of fame, or good report, fame with God, approval, or I might say appreciation by God. That's a part of the package in the minds of some thinkers, Christian thinkers, of being glorified. And again he had to arrive at this reluctantly, but he says, when I thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural. Nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade.

Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Imagine knowing everything about you. And yet, God's done a work in you and he's used you in some ways when you were on earth and standing before the God of the universe who at one time was your judge, and you deserved his wrath forever. And that God's going to look at you and look at your life and say to you, well done, good and faithful servant.

You will say this is glory. This is glory. I have found. In the healthiest of ways, fame with God, approval from God.

CS Lewis goes on, he says, in the end that face, the face of God, which is the delight or the terror of the universe, must be turned upon each of us either with one expression. Or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. It is written that we shall stand before Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us shall actually survive that examination.

shall find approval. Shall please God. And then even beyond that, listen to what he says, to please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness, to be loved by God, not merely pitied but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father and a son, it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so It is.

You think about the judgment scene Jesus speaks about in the Gospels and people who lay claim to him saying, hey, look at all the good deeds we did when we were on earth, and they're expecting to be recognized by Jesus. Like, oh, yeah, I know you. And Jesus says, I never knew you. Imagine the shame, the humiliation of that.

I never knew you, never had a relationship with you. That's the opposite of glory. But for us to come before that same Jesus, and his eyes light up, and he's like, I know you. I know you, you're mine.

That's glory. That's the glory that he's speaking about here. This is a wonderful aspect of our glorification and even Christ's glory. You think about it in John 17.

Christ is praying to the Father and He says, Restore to me the glory that I had with you before the world was. What is that glory? It's not that he had a physical body back then, because he didn't have a human body back then. What was that glory?

Well, we find out what that glory was that Jesus so cherished and wanted restored. Later in that prayer in John 17:24, Jesus is praying for us. And he says, I, I pray that they may see my glory, which you've given me. What is the glory?

For you loved me before the foundation of the world. That's to be loved by the Father. Jesus would say, that's my glory. That's my glory.

And for us from the moment of judgment when God says, Well done, thou good and faithful servant, and then through all of eternity, we're recognized by God, we have this relationship with, with God, and we, we throughout eternity, it's like we, we know I am an ingredient in the divine happiness. I make God happy. I delight Him, and He knows me, and I know Him. Living in the good of that for all eternity is glory.

There's a final thing to think about when you think about being glorified with Christ. And that is thank heavenly treasure and roll through eternity. We don't have time to unpack all of this, but in Matthew 6 we learn that we can lay up treasure in heaven, so there's wealth and treasure waiting for us there. First Peter 1:4, there's an inheritance that is waiting for us there that is imperishable, undefiled, will never fade away.

So there is treasure that is awaiting. Us, that's a part of the glory that that we can enjoy and use in service to God's purposes and in heaven, in the life to come. There is also a role for us to play, or many roles. In Revelation 26, it speaks of those who reign with Christ, even upon the earth, like during the millennium, I believe, and And then even things like 1 Corinthians 6:3, the Corinthians were taking each other to court and Paul's like busting them up for that.

And one of the things he says is, you, you guys are taking each other to court. Don't you're going to judge angels one day? And we're like, what? And then he moves on.

He doesn't elaborate, but something amazing is going to happen. We're going to have some amazing roles to play. And he's like, you guys, you ought to be able to get along and judge between yourselves in these matters because one day you're going to have a role to play of judging angelic beings. And Matthew 25:21.

Jesus tells the parable of the steward, I believe it was, that had 5 talents, and he invested them and doubled the investment and And he brings that to his master and his master says, Well done, good and faithful slave. You are faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.

The master does not say, Hey, you did a great job. You never have to do another thing ever again for me. No, it's, what, I'm going to double what I've asked you to do. You get to now serve me even more.

Enter into the joy. Of your master, we will have roles to play. We're not going to sit in heaven. And do nothing and play harps for all eternity.

Although if you do play a harp, that's great, and some will no doubt do something like that. But, but there's we're going to be living as a community. There's going to be roles that we're all going to play. And those will be different and having a role to play in the community of eternity and having treasure that can help us in serving those roles and blessing others in the name of Jesus Christ will be part of the glory of heaven.

And so those are just a few thoughts when Paul says in verse 17, if we're children of God, we're heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. The first certainty is that we're going to suffer together with Jesus in this life. The second certainty is in the life to come, we're going to be glorified together with Him. There's a third certainty, and that is that our, and this ties both of them together.

The next certainty is that our present sufferings are divinely allowed for the purpose of shaping our future glory. With Christ, there's, there's a symbiotic relationship between our present suffering and glory. They're not disconnected realities. It's not like, well, you're suffering now, but if it's any help, know that there will be glory to come, and then when the glory comes, it's completely detached.

It has no connection to the sufferings we experienced. No, it's connected. Look again at verse 17. If children were heirs also, heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, in order that we may also be glorified with Him, that, that, that expression so that or in order that joins our future glorification with our present suffering.

suffering we suffer together with Jesus now. God places us in His gracious providence in circumstances of suffering at the present time, and he submits us to that so that, or in order that, or for the purpose that we might be glorified with Him. This isn't so much our purpose. This is the divine purpose.

God has a purpose in any suffering that he providentially allows into our life. Guys, what this means is that there is no purposeless suffering that you will ever encounter, large or small, in this life. There is no senseless Pain, no meaningless suffering. If you suffer in any way, shape or form, that suffering has reached you because God has a purpose in that suffering.

And that is to enrich and give shape to the glory that is coming your way. One writer says it is not merely that the glory is a compensation for the suffering. No, the glory actually grows out of the suffering. There is an organic relation.

Between The two, Paul alludes to something to this effect in 2 Corinthians 4:17 when he says our affliction, the affliction that he's going through at the present time, is producing for us an eternal weight of glory. He's like, what, there's glory to come right now. I'm experiencing affliction, but this affliction that I'm undergoing right now is connected to the future glory. My present affliction is actually serving to produce a greater weight of glory that is coming my way.

My present suffering is helping to enrich and enlarge and actually inform and give shape to the glory that is coming. To me, Imagine us thinking this way and seeing and believing in the divine purpose of our suffering. Paul speaks this way even in Romans 5. He says we've been justified and being justified, look what he says in verse 2 of Romans 5, we exult in hope of the glory of God.

I'm a justified one, and as a justified one my future is secure. I know that glory is coming to me and I'm not going to wait till then to start celebrating. I am exulting. I'm jumping up and down.

rejoicing in that certain hope of the glory of God that I know is coming to me. And look what he says next. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations. We're exulting in the glory.

We're exulting in the tribulations, are those disconnected? No, look at what he says. We exult in the hope of glory. We exult in our tri, tribulations.

Why? Look at this, knowing that our tribulation produces perseverance. And perseverance is producing proven character, and proven character is producing hope. This hope that I have towards future glory, it's enlarging and refining my hope.

And hope does not and will not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Paul would say this Spirit has been given to us as a guarantee of our coming inheritance. So it's all connected. I'm rejoicing in future glory and even in tribulations that ultimately serve to enlarge and enrich my hope.

Of that future glory. And so this glory that comes to us is not disconnected from our suffering. It doesn't come to us in spite of our suffering. it doesn't come to us merely as a compensation for our suffering.

It's a glory that grows out of the suffering. Does that make sense? just like we said last week, the glory that Christ knows in heaven is tied to the fact that he died. Worthy are you.

That's what we're going to sing in heaven. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. He's the one who died. He will always be known as the one who died.

Christ's glory is all the greater in heaven because of his suffering. You think about Joseph, for example, who was hated by his brothers, sold into slavery, went to Egypt, was taken to Egypt, was a slave in Potiphar's house, falsely accused, left in prison, and forgotten there. And he suffered greatly. There's no denying that.

And yet ultimately he ended up rising to second in command in all of the land of Egypt, and God ended up using him to save the people of Egypt, to save Jacob and the 75 approximate members of his family. So the Messianic lineage ended up surviving because of Joseph. And, hundreds and hundreds of years later, the Messiah ended up being born and salvation comes to the whole world and Joseph played a significant role in that chain of events. The glory that Joseph experienced.

Later in his life was not in spite of his suffering, but it birthed out of his suffering. It's tied to, if he didn't suffer the way he did and experience what he experienced, he would have never risen to such prominence and usefulness for God's purposes. Let me just tell you the 4th thing and then we're going to shut it down. We'll explain this next week or when we're back in Romans 8, and that is that the glory coming to us will be incomparably greater than our present sufferings.

Yes, it's tied to our present sufferings, but when it comes, guys, you take all your present sufferings and you put them all together that you've ever known in this life, and all of it will be but a feather. In weight compared to the weight of glory that is coming to you. And don't just wait until that glory comes to start thinking that way. Do what Paul says.

He says, I consider right now in the midst of my suffering, here's the way I'm thinking now. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not even worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us and literally into us. My sufferings are great, they're heavy right now, but I know that glory is coming, and it's going to blow this suffering away, and this suffering as awful as it may feel, is nothing compared to that glory that is coming. Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning and let's Just thank the Lord for His I don't know, just, just the beautiful, realistic.

unflinchingly honest portrayal of what we can expect in Our lives in this age and in the age to come. What a good God He is to do these things for us and, and then to speak of these things to us so that we have perspective. Let's pray together. Father, I pray if there's any here in this room this morning that have never just submitted to your loving sovereignty.

And looked to you as their savior. That you would move in their hearts, Lord, and, and cause them to cry out to you today and if they've got any questions, Lord, that they would know that I and anyone else here, we'd be honored to pray with them and just help them along in their journey. For those of us that are your people, Lord, help us to think like children of God ought to think in the midst of suffering, that our eyes would be on the glory to come. And we would know the weight of that glory to come.

And that our sufferings are no. No comparison. Give us your perspective. May we see with your eyes.

And be able to live in the good of these gospel truths. We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to give of our offerings to you, and we ask that you would take these funds that we give today in this offering and do much with them for the glory of Jesus Christ. And we ask these things in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said,