REFORMED CHURCH BELLVILLE: SUNDAY 14 MARCH 2004: MORNING SERVICE

REFORMED CHURCH BELLVILLE: SUNDAY 14 MARCH 2004: MORNING SERVICE

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Beloved grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Psalm of praise: 27:1
Confession of faith (Apostles Creed)
Law
Hymn 26:11
Prayer
Psalm: 4:3+4
Scripture: Romans 8
Text: Romans 8:24

"For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?"

The Lord wants us to cling with all our might to the new life in the hereafter – as He promised it to us – notwithstanding that in the present life we have many bad experiences.

We look at the following matters:

1.   Who may hope?
2.   The first-fruits of the Spirit are the proof that we may hope.
3.   What must we hope?

1.   Who may hope?

This passage builds up to a climax.

First we are told that we are children of God. But immediately – as always the case in the Bible – the judgment is taught with the grace because God's grace is not for everybody.
Hence it is written in verses 13 and 14 that not everybody can claim to be a child of God. Only the people who are led by the Spirit of God to mortify the deeds of the body are the children of God.

One can look at this issue from two sides:

If you are a negative kind of person you would say that judgment is written here, and you could be correct as far as it concerns yourself.
The true believer will see the grace of God in this issue. God proclaims here that His grace encompasses all true believers only.

What is written here is that the believer is free but that he is not unbridled.

The Holy Spirit guides him to ban out of his life everything that is sinful and abhorred by God.
Put differently: the Holy Spirit ensures us here that every believer who has a true understanding of his calling and who lives under the guardianship of the Holy Spirit shares in the promise of life eternal.

Now one could ask oneself the question – does this mean that somebody who has a firm faith will never suffer troubles and pain in this life?

The Bible answers that these children of God will in the present time and in their life on earth suffer many tribulations.
But immediately the grace – do not allow the suffering to dominate your life – the glory of the life hereafter is much greater than the suffering of this life.
From verses 19 to 22 the Lord reminds us that people are not the only ones to suffer.
We must know that the whole creation suffers with us.
In all that is created there is a longing for the Second Coming, when God will reveal His perfection to His children and evil shall be past.

This passage stresses the hope that all of creation may by God's grace be liberated from the curse that was pronounced over it because of man's sin.

2. The first-fruits of the Spirit are the proof that we may hope

Then the Lord returns to our own struggle. We, the believers, have the first-fruits of the Holy Spirit, but we too groan in expectation of the day of the Second Coming.

The term "first-fruits of the Spirit" appears to be difficult to understand, but it is not so:
It deals with the image of a harvest, the first-fruits of the harvest were brought as a sacrifice.
But it was not the whole harvest, the remainder of the harvest was still on the land to be harvested.

So we have as the first-fruits of God's promises the Holy Spirit which is with us, but the rest of everything God promised us in Jesus Christ is still to come.

That is the perfect life in the new heaven and the new earth. And this only comes with the Second Coming.

Note the words – we groan in expectation of these things.

The other believers also struggle like us with pain and suffering – they too groan.
And just like you and I they see nothing of the glory and perfection we are promised and they too await it.

But now you should not forget the comfort - we do not have nothing.

We have the Holy Spirit as the first-fruits of God's complete promise.
The rest, namely that our bodies shall be resurrected and that we shall be delivered from God's wrath and that we shall be liberated from eternal damnation, is still to come.
Then we read our text in which it is written that the believer, still oppressed by imperfection and evil, nevertheless hopes for the perfection which is to come.

The Holy Spirit works this faith in us and the nature of faith is that it hopes for the things which are to come.

Faith contains the prophetic element which can see the future and use this to help you to overcome your strife and stress.
Hence it is written here that our hope saves us.
It is not intended that hope takes the place of faith. We all know that we are saved by faith.
The meaning is that our faith allows us to hope for the salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. The hope lets us look forward to the salvation that will be perfected in future.

The grace of God is also shown in the words that one does not hope for the things one can see.

You hope for the things you cannot see – in other words, our hope is not for this world, as we can see that this world was corrupted by sin.
But we hope for the hereafter in which there is no evil or corruption. Our faith lets us hope for what is invisible.

It is as if the Lord tells us not to loose heart when we see and experience only evil.

We must also not loose heart when we are engaged in a fierce struggle.
We must in faith look forward so that we can see the Second Coming. For this we must hope.

The following verses demonstrate the comfort:

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

3. What must we hope?

The Holy Spirit was given to us as the first-fruits so that we may learn to hope for the salvation and the perfection when the Lord resurrects our bodies. The Holy Spirit gives us the certainty of the bliss which is to come.

The Lord Jesus died on the cross to give us the eternal perfection.

It means that he will care for us during our life on earth with all its suffering and strife, that we will not loose our faith and that when we die and stand before the last judgment God will not judge us.
The Lord Jesus' death on the cross also assures us that after our death He will resurrect our bodies.
The promise is that my body that is totally putrified and no longer exists is to be recreated so that when it arises from the earth it will be alive and my soul be within.
A further result of our Lord Jesus' merit on the cross is that the Holy Spirit is in the church on earth. In this way God in His omnipotence is with us.
The Holy Spirit makes us patient so that in our struggle we do not loose heart but wait patiently for God's Counsel to be fulfilled.
The Holy Spirit supports us not only in our hope but also in our prayers.

What must one pray when in the dark days of one's life it is a struggle just to keep head above water? And what sort of hope is there in those days?

The Holy Spirit will help you to pray correctly and help you not to fall into depression but to know assuredly that perfection is coming.
We cannot see it now, but this what we hope for.

The Lord's comfort is this:

Do not hope for the things you can see, because no hope lies in them.
Hope for the perfection the Lord promised you, because it will certainly come.

Amen

Closing prayer
Closing Hymn: 42: 1+3

The grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Amen

Dr MJ du Plessis, Reformed Church Bellville.
14 March 2004
Scripture NIV