Getting Prepped for Sunday

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Getting Prepped for Sunday
Text: Romans 8:18-31
Title: Romans 8 – What the Spirit Gives Us: Hope
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing
with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in
eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed…in hope
that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay
and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of
God…For in this hope we were saved…But if we hope for what we
do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:18-21, 24-25)
I
remember seeing the headline: Window Washer Falls 47 Stories, Survives. In the news account, the
attending physician remarked, "If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one."
The doctor was talking about Alcides Moreno. By every law of physics and medicine, Moreno should have
died. Moreno was a window washer in Manhattan. He rode platforms with his brother, Edgar, high into the
sky to wash skyscrapers. From there he could look down to see the pavement far below where the people
looked like ants. On December 7, 2007, catastrophe struck the Moreno family. As the brothers worked on the
47th story of a high rise, their platform collapsed, and Alcides and Edgar fell from the sky.
No, Alcides Moreno didn't land on a passing airplane or catch his shirt on a flagpole or have anything else
amazing happen like you see in the movies; he fell the entire 47 stories to the pavement below. As would be
expected, his brother Edgar died from the fall, but somehow Alcides did not. He lived. For two weeks he hung
on to life by a thread. Then, on Christmas Day, he spoke and reached out to touch his nurse's face. One month
later, the doctors were saying that he would probably walk again some day.
His doctor was right: “If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one.”
In the beginning of the human race, Adam also fell from a great height. From sinless glory in the image of
God, Adam rebelled against God and fell into sin and death and judgment, and in this terrible fall he brought
with him the whole human race. But "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever
believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). God the Son left the heights of heaven and
descended to the earth to become a man. He lived a sinless life and then willingly went to the cross to die for
the sins of Adam's fallen race. On the third day he rose again, and in his resurrection he made it possible for
all to rise again and live forever.
The word of God is right: If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one.
Simply the fact that Christ came so far down to reach us in our own fallen state is the miracle of all miracles.
Not only this, but—as we read two weeks ago in Romans 8:11—“…If the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from
the dead is living in you, He Who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because
of His Spirit that lives in you.”
I love the simple way the N.T. Wright puts it in Following Jesus:
“We are not to be surprised if living as Christians brings us to the place where we find we are at the end of our
own resources, and that we are called to rely on the God who raises the dead.”
The God Who raised Jesus and Who will raise us can even now deliver us from the challenges we face today.
Bottom line:
The Spirit gives us hope in the present as we anticipate the future.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed…in hope that the creation
itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of
God…For in this hope we were saved…But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
--Romans 8:18-21, 24-25
So grateful we can live together in the present challenges as we await the blessed future,
Jim
brookwood baptist church
follow our first love