Our Hope

You may be seated. This morning we have two texts in the New Testament that we're going to be looking at. Both are on a similar theme and we actually will refer to a few more passages of scripture as well. And our theme this morning is the hope, which we have as Christian believers.

First of all, Romans chapter 18. I invite you to turn your Bibles to Romans 18, reading verses, or rather eight, rather, Romans 8, verses 18 through 25. That would be a little stretch to have a chapter 18 in the book of Romans, since there are only 16 chapters, rather. So, but let's hear the word of God.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

And then in John's first epistle, the end of that epistle, chapter two, starting at verse 28 through chapter three, verse three. And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.

If you know that He is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it does not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him. because we shall see him as he is.

Prayer for Illumination

And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure. Let's pray. Gracious Father, we come to you today and ask and pray that you would help us to hear your word today, that we would be challenged by it, comforted by it, strengthened by it, but above all that we would treat it truly as it is, your word, and that you would guide me as I proclaim it and open our hearts and minds and eyes to see for every one of us who hears it. For in Christ's name we pray, amen.

Sermon

The most important question that any human being needs to face is really what happens after we die. Every culture has faced this, and skeptical unbelievers even try to make the claim that this is the whole reason why we have religions in this world, because people are always trying to figure out what happens after death.

For example, in Japan. where state Shintoism is still the most dominant religion, it's fascinating to me that most people still contact a Buddhist priest for funeral rites, because even if they're not practicing Buddhist, they're Shintoists or even secularists.

They know that the Buddhists kind of have the corner on the market on the funeral rites. And they're the ones with the elaborate funeral rites. So here are these people who are Shintoists all of their life, just before someone is dying or they know they're dying, they'll contact a Buddhist priest to do the funeral. Because they have a more elaborate funeral rites and a more elaborate understanding of life after death. I said, like I said, even secular Japanese will do this.

But our culture has become increasingly secular, and many people don't want to think about the question of eternity. But that doesn't stop people from having ideas about eternity. Many people today will tell you, and you may run into people like this, well, I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious, which is just a kind of a, I think, a funny way of saying that they don't want to really think too hard about it. In many ways, too, this turns out to be another example of our consumer pick-and-choose culture.

Well, I'll take a little bit of this, a little dab of that, a little pinch of this, and a little pinch of that, and I'll throw it together and make up my own ideas of what I think life after death is going to be about. Now, there was a fascinating little book on by two really fine Reformed theologians, Sinclair Ferguson and Scott Oliphant, some of you may be familiar, and particularly with Dr. Ferguson, a little book on the afterlife.

And they repeated what they heard on a radio interview with a number of famous people. They didn't tell us who the famous people were, but there were a number of well-known media celebrities and others. And there was a kind of a consensus when they asked these people about the afterlife. And this is what the consensus was, something like this.

All of those interviewed said they believed in heaven, and all of those interviewed believed that they were going, of course. Didn't matter what else, anything else in their lives, they all were sure that they were going. But when they were asked to describe heaven, the fascinating thing is not one of them apparently said God will be there. In other words, their idea of heaven had nothing to do with God. It was just the idea, well, that's a pleasant place that nice people like me, of course, will go to. That's the gist of what their idea of heaven was all about.

Now, this shows us that biblical thinking on this topic is really waning in our culture. Sometimes, the only time, frankly, we talk about this is as funerals, and I've done a number of funerals in the last few years, including a couple here. And as a pastor, it's not always an easy thing to do, but it's a privilege to be able to do a funeral because you're able to bring hope. But oftentimes, that's the only time we talk about. And in a funeral setting, you have a limited time and a limited opportunity to talk about sometimes just some very specific things. You wanna talk about giving people hope for their deceased Christian loved one, but you don't have time to really develop and think of all the details about what the scripture really teaches about our hope.

And in particular, the more I age, as you're well aware, I'm retired now, and I have to look at the reality that I'm much closer to the end of my life than I am to the beginning. And when you start thinking about that, it makes you think that you have to start thinking about these sort of things. how we should prepare for death. And I've been particularly stimulated by this because there's a really fine Reformed theologian, and I would highly recommend you read some of his books, they're really fine because they're very accessible, but Todd Billings is his name, and he's in his 40s and he has terminal cancer.

And here's a man who has been through treatment. He had several months of total isolation. His nurses had to come in because he has a rare blood cancer and they have to do total bone marrow transplants and all this. The nurses had to come in with hazmat suits on practically to deal with him.

But he writes from a perspective of orthodox reform theology, but from the personal experience of having to look death in the face. And he says, I have small children, he says, and I know I probably won't live to see my children grow to adulthood. But he talks about how this has shaken him to say, I need to recognize I live with the reality of death. And he says, that's really the way all of us need to live. It's made me much more aware of the need to have a biblical framework.

But Mr. Billings said a couple of interesting things. He says when he talks to other Christians who have cancer, and he's had the opportunity, because he's had to go into cancer support groups, as you may guess, and all this, gets invited. He's a professor in Michigan. He gets invited all over Michigan, for example, to speak to cancer support groups. How many Christians, the only thing they want to talk about is, certainly God will heal me. And he said, God may heal them or give them long remission. He says, he's given me some remissions.

But he said, we need to come to grips with the fact that until Christ returns, we are all still 100% mortal. Just like I had to come to grips with the fact, he said that I am mortal. So these other Christians who have cancer need to come to grips with that. Until Christ returns, we are all mortal. And he reminds us of the need that we need to die well because we've lived well.

And it's interesting, I also recently read a book by a physician, a New York City physician, and she doesn't write it specifically from a Christian perspective, although she lets slip in there that she is a practicing Christian, but her name is Lydia Dugsdale, she's an internal medicine doctor, and she wrote this book called The Lost Art of Dying.

She's a middle-aged woman, and she's an internal medicine doctor, and she deals with people who have serious diseases a lot of times. And she said, there used to be a whole literature until the last about 100 years of dying literature, literature that told us how you died. And she's trying to revive this and saying, we need to understand this. She said, until we are ready to understand what our future is and that we have a limited time here, we're really not ready to live here.

Our forebears actually were much better at this. Now most deaths are in the hospital or in hospice, and we're sealed off from them. Funeral directors, even the godly Christian funeral directors, will sometimes try to use language like, you know, and I remember when I was in seminary, and a Christian funeral director took us in pastoral duties class to give us instructions on how to help, you know, what a funeral directors and pastors work together, and he would use, he was using language like, you need to tell them grandma is resting in here, and I felt like thinking, resting? Nothing, grandma's dead in there. You know, our language even is trying to cover up the fact that we have to deal with the question, what is our real hope?

Charles Dickens is a novelist that many of you, of course, are familiar with. He wrote A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Tale of Two Cities, a number of others. He wrote a novel called The Old Curiosity Shop, and he put it out in serial form, so every week another chapter. Apparently there was a long drawn out, I haven't read it, but apparently there was a long drawn out chapter on a girl named Little Nell and her deathbed scene. And they said in England in the 1840s when he wrote this, people stood in long lines to get the next edition of that. They were interested in this question. How does Little Nell handle her dying? You might say, well, Victorians were just morbid, weren't they? No, I think they were realistic. They understood that we are mortal and didn't try to hide it.

However, not only do we shy away. from dealing with reality with the question of eternity, we imbibe unbiblical ideas. And then what I wanted today in particular to focus on is what are the biblical ideas that we have? What does the scripture teach about this so that we can face the future with the true hope that we as Christians have? And now there are a number of New Testament texts that speak about this. I've read two of them, and these are gonna be our primary texts today. But there are some others that I will allude to as well that talk about what is our hope as Christians. First thing we should know is that we will know our Lord as resurrected people living on a new earth. Now this is a crucial point. This is going to be a little shock to you, but there's a well-known Reformed theologian who made this statement, and I'm sure it'll shock you at first, but this is what he said, and he's absolutely correct.

The Bible, and I have to emphasize this, does not teach we spend eternity in heaven. Okay, have I shocked you? The Bible does not teach we spend eternity in heaven. The Bible says we, as Romans 8 says, we get a resurrected body eventually and we spend it on a renewed earth. But how many of us don't, oh, haven't believed somehow that the Bible teaches we go to spend eternity in heaven?

After all, the historic Christian creeds, like the Apostles of Nicene Creed, so-called ecumenical creeds, what do they teach? We believe in the resurrection of the body. The Reformation creeds, like our Westminster Standards, emphasize the body will be resurrected. One of the first heresies the early church faced, and the Apostles' Creed was probably written to counteract that, that's why there was this emphasis on the bodily resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of the body, was that somehow the spiritual was better than the physical, and our redemption was primarily so we could become Casper the Friendly Ghost sort of creatures eternally, because bodies were necessarily evil and bad.

That is the most unchristian idea you could ever have. Our hope is not that we will become pure spirits and go, quote, to a heaven in which we are some sort of ghosts flying around on clouds, strumming harps. No matter how many cartoons tell you that, that's not a biblical idea. Nor does it teach us we become angels when we die.

I love, it's a wonderful life as much as anybody. It's a great Christmas movie, and I love Clarence Oddbody. He's a great guy, and he doesn't have his wings yet, and it's a great, crazy Christmas story, but it has taught several generations now of people the most unbiblical ideas about the afterlife. We're not angels, first or second class, waiting to get our wings. Angels and humans are totally different species of creatures.

Our passage here in Romans chapter 8 says that the whole creation, and that includes us, is waiting eagerly for the manifestation of us and the redemption of our bodies. That's what it says right here. Philip's translation puts it as quaintly and as well as any. It says the whole creation is standing on its tiptoes, standing on its tiptoes, waiting for when we get our resurrected bodies.

It says it's waiting, as the New King James that you have in your pew says, in earnest expectation. Earnest expectation. It's like a little kid at Christmas time when he can't wait until the Christmas presents are open. And any parents who have little kids know that on Christmas morning, they're waking up at five o'clock in the morning because they can't sleep anymore because they want to get in and open up the Christmas presents. That's the picture Paul is painting for us. We are waiting with earnest expectation.

The whole world is standing on its tiptoes until the revelation of our full sonship, our full redemption, in which we get the new bodies. The Apostle Paul says it's a time of groaning until then, because he says the creation is subject to decay. Believe me, the more you age, the more you realize your bodies are subject to decay.

Even if you're in good health, can get off the floor as easily as I did 30 years ago. When I'm playing with the grandkids on the floor, you have to say, oh, this is harder. They can, boom, they pop right up. No, not me. My body doesn't do that anymore. My body is subject to decay.

And it says it's in futility. Now, this word futility is interesting. We say something is futile, that says Might as well not try. To the world around us, that's what it looks like. It looks like we're in an ever-ending cycle of decay and death and nothing will ever fix it. Looks like it can never be overcome. It looks like when we're battling with sin, we will never win. The passage says that's not true. It looks like we won't win, but we will. Jesus Christ has triumphed.

He rose from the dead, and he, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, is the first fruits, the down payment of the fact that we too will get new bodies. That's why we're groaning, because we understand Our bodies aren't the way we would like them to be. They're subject to decay, disease. If this last year and a half hasn't reminded you that we're subject to disease and decay and death, I don't know what can.

That's what we're subject to. We all age. The fall of Adam subjected us. It subjected the whole creation. The argument Paul gives here is it's because human beings sinned, God subjected the whole creation. It was a curse on the whole creation. And when we, as God's children, are fully redeemed and get our new bodies, the curse on the creation is turned around. Notice that the passage clearly, though, does not say something like, cheer up. You're going to heaven anyway. Did you notice it does not say that? Cheer up, you're going to heaven anyway. Rather, it focuses on the fact that our bodies will be resurrected and we will be openly manifested as children of God.

Matter of fact, Paul uses in a parallel passage in 2 Corinthians 5, a very fascinating phrase. He says, to be without a body is like you're unclothed. Put it bluntly, it's like you're running around buck naked. Now, how many of us wouldn't feel weird? I mean, I know there are nudist colonies. There was one about four or five miles from my aunt and uncle's farm. And there are weird people that run around in nudist colonies. I understand it. But most normal people, we don't like the idea of running around naked. And Paul says, without a body, that's really what we would like.

The redemption of our body and our full manifestation as children of God is tightly linked in this passage. Our personal groaning is because our creation has been subjected to decay and corruption. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15 that we are going to have a spiritual body, as he says in 2 Corinthians 5, a house made not with hands. which means a body freed from sin and corruption and completely empowered by the Holy Spirit. Jesus' resurrection, as I said, was the first fruits of that. The whole creation will be set free.

Now, 2 Peter 3.10 describes this as coming of the new heaven and earth as rather cataclysmic.

And theologians will discuss among themselves and kind of argue in a good-natured way, does this mean, as the saying goes, that all things are new or all things are made new? In other words, does God totally destroy everything and make a brand new creation, or does he purify and purge all the evil out of the old one? Theologians will argue, and there's a certain number of theologians that I have some sympathy with them that say, I'm an agnostic. I don't know, God's gonna do it, but I don't know how he's gonna do it, and maybe we can leave that in his hands. Regardless of which position you take on that, This new heaven and earth is going to be totally new.

Now, you might be asking, well, that's at the end of history. What happens until then? We're going to talk about that. But we must make sure that we understand that our ultimate hope is not going to heaven, but it's getting a resurrected body, living on a perfectly restored earth. One theologian who's written on this has said, this is a quote, one of the tragic results of this mix up of heaven and the new heavens and the new earth is that Christians often remain overly attached to this present world despite what they may say about looking forward to the joys of heaven.

What he means is this, we are bodily creatures. And if your view of heaven is that of floating around in the clouds with the harp, you might be tempted to say, what looks good about that? You know, this seems better down here in spite of all of its troubles. And I think he's got a point.

It's because we haven't grasped the full, final redemption that Scripture gives us that we sometimes are so wedded to this earth. Now, Paul says we should live with patience, or with some translations say perseverance, in light of this truth. But the main point of this passage is he wants to dazzle us That's the right word, dazzle us with the beauty of what is to come. 1 John says we have confidence in light of His coming, and this should lead to a keen desire for righteous living.

He who has this hope purifies himself, even as he is pure. He says it's a privilege being a child of God that flows from the love of God. What manner of love hasn't God bestowed on us that we should be children of God and have this hope? What manner of love isn't that? That God has lavished upon us that we have this hope. Being a child of God now means that the glorious future of a child of God, the bodily resurrection, is a hope that's almost beyond imagining, but nevertheless completely true.

Now, some have argued, well, this has ramifications, implications for funeral practices, and some theologians have said this means we should have a burial rather than cremation. Others have said, no, it doesn't. You'll have to sort those kind of things out. I have my own particular points of view on that.

But one thing it should mean is that we should neither over nor underestimate our present bodies. We shouldn't overestimate them because these bodies are not the final bodies we're going to have. But also, we shouldn't underestimate. We should, of course, be called to take care of them, to treat them with dignity, because realize that we are by nature bodily creatures.

It doesn't mean we don't grieve, by the way, over the loss of a loved one. Paul says elsewhere in 1 Thessalonians 4, we grieve, but we don't grieve as people without hope. Do you see the difference? Unbelievers grieve. They think this is all there is. We know that it isn't. We grieve, but not as those with no hope.

Second Point

But the second truth we want to focus on from these passages is that we will enjoy eternal rest with our divine lover and delight in his presence. In 1 John 3, verse 1, the Apostle John says, one of the greatest things we can think of is that we are children of God and that one day we will be with Him and we shall see Him as He is. That's what he says. We shall see Him as He is. Theologians call this the beatific vision, seeing God.

Now, as always, there's always sometimes a pendulum. There were a lot of really fine reformed theologians who have emphasized the resurrection body in New Heavens and New Earth, so much so that Dr. Michael Allen, president of Reform Seminary, had to write another book saying, have we lost the beatific vision? And Dr. Allen is probably right. We can't throw one out for the other.

Because the beatific vision is crucial. Being in eternity with Christ must be at the forefront of our Christian hope. Because John links our transformation into sinless perfection with being in the presence of Christ. Notice that the Apostle Paul in Philippians has himself in a kind of a tension. He says, to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. He said, really, some ways I'd rather be with Christ, but I'm going to be here. I've got to be here to do the work he's called me. And Paul senses this tension. And he says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Well, you might say, why is Paul so conflicted?

Not only because I believe he knows that the Lord has worked for him, but he also knows that until the second advent, he's not gonna have his resurrected body yet. The intermediate state, when we literally do, quote, go to heaven, is a disembodied state. It's called the intermediate state because it's a temporary state.

It's with Christ, but it's not our final resting. One theologian has put it this way, it's the better, but it's not the best. It's the better, but not the best. Well, the better is great. That's why Paul says it's better. It's better to be with Christ. But Paul's still thinking, but there's still the best out there.

As I said in our introduction, all those famous people who were asked about heaven, none of them said it's where God is. And yet, that's exactly what 1 John says is so beautiful about the eternal hope. It's there with Christ, God incarnate. That should be our greatest joy. Now, this is something that I've noticed in recent years.

Many people today at funerals, and it even happened at my own parents' funeral, will oftentimes talk about, well, the deceased Mr. or Mrs., fill in the blank there, is now with her husband, his wife, they're with the children, a child who may have gone, they're seeing all their friends. The whole emphasis becomes on seeing the departed loved ones.

Now, the Bible does talk about being gathered to our fathers. joining the assembly of the first form and a great multitude that no man can number. But the one thing you find in scripture is there is minimal emphasis on seeing our loved ones. Is it wrong to say that? No, but if that's our whole focus, haven't we missed the biblical balance?

Yeah, I long to see my parents. I lost them, both of them in the last 10 years. I have godly grandparents that I still remember from when I was a little boy. I remember my grandfather sitting in our living room, and I'm being delighted with the stories he would tell them, and he was a good storyteller, and I would pepper him, and I was always a curious kid, so I would pepper him with all these stories.

Yes, yes, we long for, yes, there's something good about that. But that's not the primary goal. The primary goal is Christ will be there. We shall see him as he is. I think our forebears, again, had a much better understanding of this than most of us do today.

After all, the psalmist says this in Psalm 73, 25. Whom in heaven have I but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. You probably have sung that psalm more than once in Psalm 23. The question is, is that your hope? Let me read that again. Whom in heaven have I but you? There is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. Do you desire to see Christ? That's biblical hope in its finest expression. Sin has brought shame into this world.

Remember Adam and Eve in the garden? What was the first thing they did when God came into their presence after they sinned? What did they do? They went and hid. They went and hid because they were ashamed. They were ashamed even of their nakedness and God had to make animal skin clothing for them. They were ashamed to come into the presence of God.

We've lost some of that shame, but we still see it. Pictures of it, for example, the parable of the publican and the Pharisee. What did the tax collector, the publican, do? He says he looked down, beat his breast, and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. There was shame. One day when we are with Christ, there will be no shame. There will be no shame. We will see him face to face.

After all, what are one of the Beatitudes? The pure in heart will what? See God. You might say, I'm not very pure in heart. Well, one day you will be because we're gonna focus on that too. We will be pure. The great early Christian theologian, Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. That's why our redemption from sin is so important. We are forgiven. and are in the process of sanctification, but one day that will be completed and the beatific vision should be a stimulus for us for holiness. Our glorification will mean that we will be cleansed and purified so that we will be fit to stand in the presence of a holy God.

Now you might say, that's beyond my current understanding. We only know how to live in a world of sin. I don't know how to live in any other kind of world but a world of sin. I struggle with it as much as you do. That's why in the Lord's Prayer we say, not only forgive us our sins, but keep us from the evil one. Keep us from the hour of temptation. But there's a time coming when not only sin and suffering will be gone, but even the desire to sin will be gone. This should color our whole approach to life.

And every time a decision needs to be made, whether to prolong life or realize that since we are mortal in our current state and the Lord is calling us home, it's not always easy and crystal clear when to make those decisions to so-called pull the plug, as they say, and let someone realize that they are a Christian believer and they are ready to meet the Lord.

As Christians, we believe to be with Christ is far better. And when our bodies have worn out, sometimes even Christians might be tempted to do incredible, sometimes painful, extraordinary measures because we somehow think God will do a miracle. I mentioned Lydia Dugdale's book on dying well. And she says in her research, she has found that the more Christians believe God does miracles today, and some Christian traditions really emphasize that, the more likely are they are to ask for extraordinary measures that sometimes are painful for their elderly people who are dying, because they somehow believe God must be going to do a miracle. And grandma will probably live several more years yet, even though she's 92 and has health problems as long as your arm, but God is going to do a miracle in grandma.

The question is, isn't she maybe ready to meet our Lord? And shouldn't we say it's going to be far better? That doesn't mean we adopt physician-assisted suicide. I'm not arguing for anything like that. I'm just arguing for a realistic understanding that to be with Christ is far better.

But we also need to remember that we will serve our great King as subjects in his eternal kingdom. We pray for the coming of the kingdom of God. We pray in the Lord's prayer. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Paul, in his all his talk here about the creation groaning, is really saying the kingdom isn't here and it's fullness yet.

We read that Old Testament text from Isaiah chapter 60. Could have read Isaiah 65 and 66, because it's on the same theme. But did you notice how earthy the language of the final new heaven and new earth was? Granted, the Old Testament oftentimes uses concrete language in a way that sometimes the New Testament will sometimes show that there are spiritual meanings sometimes behind this, but we shouldn't completely spiritualize these kind of texts. Because that text spoke of kingdoms and flocks and gold and incense and vine lumber and houses and vineyards and even dangerous animals that aren't dangerous anymore.

Revelation 21 and 22 speaks of the holy city, the new Jerusalem that comes down to earth. Some have said, well, maybe death and heaven and earth merge, but others have said, no, the fact that it speaks about a new Jerusalem coming down to earth shows us that our final home is a renewed earth. And heaven coming down is a way of saying it comes down and purifies everything on this earth. God will dwell with us on this renewed earth and wipe away every tear.

Death will be no more. There will be no more mourning, crying, or pain. The new earth will have such splendor that it can only be described with rare jewels and the light of the glory of God will be visibly manifested and nothing unclean will be allowed. There'll be no curse on agriculture.

Let me put what it says in Revelation 21 and 22 in a slight paraphrase for Midwestern agriculture folks. It's almost like you've got your planter out and you drove it across the field without any herbicides and pesticides and a month later, boom, 1,000 bushel corn popped up. That's really what he's saying here. You drove your planter across the field, you didn't need any pesticides or herbicide, 1,000 bushel corn every month popped up out of your field. It's a beautiful picture of the abundance of the earth. We're bodily creatures.

We're gonna have resurrection body, and it's fully appropriate that our final home will be on a resurrected, rebuilt earth, and we will serve the Lord there. Now, how we'll do that isn't spelled out, but if the descriptions of the intermediate state show extended worship, and that's what the book of Revelation is all about, the intermediate state, it shows worship. In the book of Revelation, it makes perfect sense that we will worship the Lord a great deal of our time in the renewed earth. But it also leaves the possibility, open the possibility of a whole host of sanctified activities.

Now, one of my favorite theologians is J.I. Packer, and J.I. Packer, He's British, he just died a couple of years ago, wonderful theologian, but he was a jazz clarinetist, and I'm a poor jazz trombonist, and so I can identify with him, but he was a pretty good jazz clarinetist. But he says he likes to think of Jelly Roll Morton, one of his favorites, and playing Jelly Roll Morton's jazz eternally.

And really what he is saying is we'll have an eternity of learning new things. It means human relationships, while no longer the same here on earth, because Jesus clearly says there's no more marriage or procreation, will be so completely sanctified that they will be absolutely incredible. And they are going to be something that are going to be on what we have experienced in our current state. In other words, we'll live in more than paradise restored, but beyond paradise. to fit our completely new spiritual bodies.

Now, sometimes, like Packer, it might be good for us to think of all the things we love to do and try to imagine what it would be like to do them, stripped of all the negatives that sinful existence has attached to them. And in Packer's case, with Jelly Roll Morton, he has to really do that because much of Morton's jazz was basically worked out in the body houses of New Orleans. So you really have to do a lot of purifying and sanctifying to make that fit for a new heaven and a new earth. But it's important to think about that. Maybe I'm a horrible jazz improviser. Maybe I'll be able to do that on my trombone when I'm in eternity. I don't know. But the point is is that sometimes we need to remember that God has an eternity.

My old Dutch grandmother used to say, oh, we're going to work there, because she couldn't imagine a life without work. But if it is work, it'll be stripped of all of the thorns and thistles that came with work as we know it today. 1 John reminds us that we will be like Him, and we will see Him as He is, and it hasn't been revealed what we will be like, and I don't think it's been revealed at all much what the world... God has just used language that we can try to understand, but we don't know exactly what that will be like. Our text, though, will remind us that the future glory, while still unseen, are as certain as the gospel that they rest upon. And they should fortify our thinking throughout all of our lives.

It should be a crucial part of our hope that Paul goes on to flesh out in the rest of that chapter in Romans 8. And he ends with that, says, who shall separate us from the love of God? And he says, nothing, nothing, nothing. In other words, that hope is so certain that nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from that hope.

The last thing we want to focus on today is that we will be transformed in glory to be able to glorify our glorious triune God. Glorification is the final state in what Paul lines out in Romans 8. He called us, he justified us, and he will glorify us. But 2 Corinthians 3 says that he's in the process of actually beginning of glorifying us now, as we in the gospel are being transformed, as he says, from one degree of glory to another. And in chapter four of the book of 2 Corinthians, he says that the gospel has its goal of shining in our hearts the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now, our shorter catechism's famous question one. What's our chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's what God made us for, to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.

Now, as I said, exactly what this will be like isn't spelled out in great detail. But when 1 John says, it hasn't yet appeared what we shall be, but when Christ comes back, we shall see Him as He is because we will be like Him, that should really astound us if we think about that. C.S. Lewis put it this way. That's an interesting thought.

He says, when we are glorified and receive our glorified bodies, we will be such glorious creatures that if we saw ourselves today, we'd be tempted to fall down and worship us. We would worship each other if we got a glimpse of what our glorified bodies are like.

As I said, the Bible doesn't give us a lot of details. We just know that all our doubts, questions will have sufficient answers. Even that answer of what about the unbelievers or an eternal judgment. There have been some people who said, well, how can I possibly be happy in heaven if I have, you know, a brother or a cousin or a parent in whose suffering eternal judgment because they weren't a Christian believer? Well, only thing we can say is we will see things from God's perspective. Our hearts will be so purified that we will end up saying, God, you were right and just in your judgment, and I thank you, though, for your grace for me. This is crucial for us today because we don't fully glorify God, even though that is our chief end. We allow unbiblical and ungodly ideas to cloud our thoughts and feelings.

That won't be the case in the eternal state. As believers, everything about us will delight in God and have the goal of bringing glory to Him. And what we were designed for in the Garden will become a reality for us that even surpasses the Garden of Eden, because that's the pictures of the eternal state. They surpass the Garden of Eden. And this is the crucial one. In a glorified state means that we will no longer be able to sin.

Eternally and this is why we will be able to glorify God as I said, I have no idea what it's like to live In a way that I can't sin and none of you have either because we all do but one day That will be our existence Glorification then is the final step in our salvation, but not one that we focus on nearly enough. I Perhaps those believers who struggle with particularly long, difficult terminal illnesses and painful deaths might long for this stage in a greater way than most of us, but sometimes they are even faced then to attempt to say, why has God abandoned me? But he hasn't. God never abandons any of us. The gospel has as its climax in Romans 8, and Romans 8 is kind of the high peak of the biblical story of salvation. that we will be glorified.

And nothing can separate us from that reality that we will be glorified. The death of Christ is not only paid for the guilt of our sin, but it's purchased for the right for us to have new bodies and to be glorified so that we will no longer be able one day to sin. To be completely new creatures in reality that we are in principle already. That should put our view of the future into a completely different perspective. We will be fit to be in the presence of a holy God. Our relationship to the relationships in the new heavens and the new earth will be completely pure.

Not only will we be stripped of the pain and suffering, but let's put it bluntly, all the bickering, petty jealousies and squabbles and everything else that afflict us here today. We won't have those anymore. There will be no more bickering. I've seen that even in the best families. You get around your siblings and sometimes somebody will say, hey, remember when you were 16 and you did that to me? And we start bickering and squabbling. Even those we love the most, even our spouses, sometimes we bicker and squabble. There will be none of that. We will be completely purified. This is a glorious future. The Bible makes it, of course, clear, this is not for everyone, but only for those who are in Christ.

There's a temptation for everybody, especially at times of funerals, and I have seen people who are Christians, and they have a relative at a funeral that they know is not a Christian believer, and they will say things, because it sounds like the right thing to say, well, he or she is in a, quote, better place.

And there have been a couple of times I felt like jumping up and down and saying, no, they're not. This person denied Christ their whole life. Had nothing to do with the Christian faith. You can't say that they're going to be in a better place. It's for Christian believers. Nor is there any hope for a purgatory or a second chance after death. There have been some theologians and some Christian traditions who've speculated on this. Even the best theologians in those traditions admit there's not a single word in scripture about that and these are just speculations because somehow it makes people feel better that there'll be something like purgatory or a second chance after death.

The Bible makes it very clear, now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Here, while you're here on earth, you come to grips with that. I either believe in Christ and this glorious hope, or I recognize I'm apart from Christ and I will hear the words, depart from me, I never knew you. Those are the two options. Jesus doesn't say, on the day of judgment, here, come into another place and try it over again, and I'll give you a second chance. No, Jesus says there are sheep and there are goats. My children, those who denied me, those, he says, depart from me, I never knew you.

But what we have focused on today is the glorious hope that we have as Christians, and it's a beautiful hope. I hope that is your hope today. And if it is your hope, if you are a Christian believer, really make it your hope. Revel in it. Make it so central in your life that it really defines who you are and how you live right now.

Closing Prayer

Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for these beautiful truths from your word, from these passages of your word, and pray that we would live out of that reality. For in Christ's name we pray, amen. We want to sing our final psalm today. Let's stand then as we sing Psalm 73.