July 28, 2019 Romans 8:12-25 “Jesus Gives and Gives and Gives…”

26 Jul July 28, 2019 Romans 8:12-25 “Jesus Gives and Gives and Gives…”

July 28, 2019   Romans 8:12-25   “Jesus Gives and Gives and Gives…”

I have to come to you today with a confession.  Sometimes when I preach I get a little carried away.  Here is what I mean.  There are so many bad things happening in the world that I have a tendency to focus on that and not on the Good News of Jesus Christ.  I usually plan this somewhat.   But we have to be careful here because we have to know the consequences of our actions. There would be no reason to have the Good News if we did everything perfectly.  And we are far from perfect.  And I’m just like you folks who get caught up in being a Democrat or a Republican, being a liberal or conservative and being harsh in my views on many things instead of being kind.  Paul, who wrote Romans, had many reasons to feel just like we do as he spent time in the Roman prisons.  But He didn’t dwell there.  He knew first-hand about how Jesus brings people to a better life.  Today we are going to see if we can follow his reasoning as he tells us how wonderful life can be in Jesus Christ.

I’m going to begin today with a true story.  Pat Summerall spent 50 years with the National Football League. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1952 and played with the Chicago Cardinals and New York Giants until 1961. After his retirement from the game, he joined CBS as a broadcaster, and in 1993 switched to Fox. During his CBS years he and a fellow broadcaster partied hard off the field.  Pat says “We raised Cain. I was the first guy at the bar and the last to leave.” Summerall was told that if he kept on drinking he was going to die.

After checking himself into the Betty Ford Clinic, his counselor urged him to seek a better life through faith. At age 66, Pat Summerall was baptized. In USA Today he told a reporter that when the minister “leaned me back in the water, I never felt so helpless.” Summerall testified, “I knew I just became a Christian. I can’t tell you how great life has been since then.”

Paul had a very similar experience.  Paul was a Jewish Pharisee and a very good one.  He was the one that led the charge against the new Christian movement.  He was responsible for the jailing and killing of many people of this new religion.  But Jesus will never be thwarted.  He met with Paul on the road to Damascus and blinded him.  After his recovery, Paul realized how wrong he had been.  Soon he was just as adamant about following Jesus as he had been about being a Jew against Jesus.

Sometimes I think that Paul is really hard to understand.  One of the reasons is that he talks a lot about subjects that are quite deep.  Today is no exception.  Also Paul was a very intelligent man and his writings reflect this.  It doesn’t take much to talk over my head and he is way over my head.  Also they had a different way of communicating in those days.  Today we would usually start with the general idea and work our way to the individual.  The Ancients did just the opposite.  Therefore we tend to read ideas into his writings that we think are in the wrong place.  This probably doesn’t make a lot of sense but I hope that you will be able to use this in the future.  Paul begins this by talking of the individual and goes to the general.  I’m going to start at the end of this passage, the general, and work my way forward to the individual.  Hopefully, we can make some more sense out of this because it is important!

Paul goes right back to the creation story.  We have to remember who made all the things around us.  God made everything!  God not only made everything but He made everything with an innate desire to be with Him.  This goes from all living things up to humans.  John told us that we have a place in our hearts for Jesus.  Here we have Paul telling us that all creation was made to go to Jesus.  Now this doesn’t mean that dogs need to repent and come to Him because dogs and cats aren’t able to make up their minds like we can.  Therefore God has built into them this desire to be with Jesus that no one can see until the end times.  The Bible tells us that the lion and the sheep will live together in peace.  How in the world does this happen unless God is involved?

An example might help here.  Have you ever noticed that there are good dogs and bad dogs or you can just fill in the blank on whatever pet you like?  I don’t think this is true.  I think that there are good owners and bad owners.  The owners make all the difference in the world.  I once knew a dog that was the most vicious beast you would ever see.  He would attack just for the sake of attacking.  His owners actually cheered him on.  One day the city had enough of this and made them get rid of the dog.  A friend of mine agreed to take the dog to his country home to live.  It wasn’t too many months before that dog was the nicest dog you could ever meet.  It was because of a better owner.  But the point of this is that no matter what kind of dog or cat or whatever you have, they were made to be with God because they are His creations.  This is because Paul tells us that all creation groans and labors with pains until the coming of Jesus Christ.  Wow!  This is great stuff!

People are especially tuned into Jesus Christ.  As I mentioned, John tells us that every person in the world has a place in their hearts for Jesus Christ.  I notice this a lot as I talk to people.  This is why when you talk about Jesus or the Scriptures, people will stop and listen.  They may attack or do other things but they will usually stop to listen.  This is because they are part of creation and deep down they know, they know that Jesus is God.  They too are suffering from the groans and labors of living in this world where there is much pain and many bad things happening.  So I hope you get what I’m trying to say here.  All creation is waiting for the return of Jesus Christ.  They may not know it.  They may not be able to express it but they are waiting for the return of the King of kings and the Lord of lords!

Now we have mentioned the pains and sufferings that will happen.  I think we all know that this is just part of life.  I think that one of the worst things we do is that we listen to how much suffering goes on from people who don’t know Jesus.  You can look at the news every night and you will see story after story about ‘poor me this’ and ‘poor me that!’  Now don’t get me wrong here.  People are suffering everywhere we look and many or most of them are not believers.  We should be reaching out to these people but we should never let them define what suffering is.

This is because we know what suffering is.  Just take a look at Buddhism.  They have a statue of a heavy set man sitting with a trace of a smile on his face.  It doesn’t look like he has ever seen suffering.  As a matter of fact all other religions have some sort of made up God who is so far above everyone else that they don’t even have a clue as to what suffering is.  But look at Christ.  Look at Jesus!  He came down from heaven which always was and always will be a perfect place.  He came down to live with us.  He experienced all the bad things that the world could throw at Him.  He even died a terrible death on the cross.  As a matter of fact, the symbol of Christianity is the cross.  There is no smiling on the cross!  This is the cross where He defeated sin and death.  God is not too good for us that He wouldn’t endure what we have to endure.  He came and experienced it.

Therefore we don’t have to go through all of this because of our sins.  Jesus Christ died once and for all for the forgiveness of the sins of the world.  This means that everyone can be forgiven.  Everyone!  Everyone can know for certain where they will spend eternity.  All you have to do is make Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior of your life.  Confess your sins to Him and invite Him in.  You will never regret this.  Oh, you will still have the trials and tribulations of life because we live in a world that is controlled by Satan, but now you have a place to take that garbage that Satan hands out.  Take it to Jesus.  No matter what you do, take it to Jesus.

And this is an important concept for all of us as individuals.  We need to remember that we are all sinners.  There is no way to put this nicely.  The Bible says that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God.  I’m going to compare this to making bail.  If you commit a crime, you can get out of jail before the trial by posting your bail.  At your initial hearing the judge will set your bail at say $100,000.  You would be required to come up with 10% of that or $10,000 and the bondsman would loan you the rest.  Anyway what would happen if that is how Jesus worked?  What would happen if Jesus required you to put 10% down for the sins you have committed?  Well, ‘praise the Lord,’ He doesn’t.  He went ahead and paid all of your bail when He died on the cross.

It is done.  It is over.  If you have Jesus living in your life then your sin debt has been paid.  However, if you don’t have Jesus living in your heart, then you owe your debt 100%.  So we don’t have to worry about it but we do have a lot of people around us that need to be reached so they can have this assurance also.

So what is our obligation in all of this?  First of all Paul tells us that we have to put our sinful nature into the past.  Even though the world and much of what is in it belongs to Satan, you don’t.  That part of your life is over.  Paul is very clear in telling us that if you remain in your past you will die.  But you don’t have to.  As a matter of fact you will not only ‘never’ die but you will be considered to be sons and daughters of God.

Wow!  Suddenly the stakes have become huge.  You are now part of God, being in His family.  The consequences of this are mind boggling.  Suddenly anything is possible for your life.  There is a story of a young girl whose family didn’t believe in God but her next door neighbors did.  She wondered as the neighbors came home from church one day, “What happens if we are wrong about God and they are right?”  So she asked God for a sign.  Later that same day she went to the park.  There she saw all the grass, flowers, trees, birds and people and suddenly she knew that God had made all this and more.  And suddenly her life changed for the better.  This is a God moment we should all have.

Not only is the change and the new life great as children of God, but Paul tells us that we will now be able to face the challenges of life like we never have before.  In the old sinful life, we would face the loss of a job or the loss of a spouse or the loss of a child or any other loss you can think of with utter devastation.  These things or persons had become the very core of your life and now they are gone.  Suddenly they have no place to go.  They have no help and the help they get from the secular world is just barely better than no help at all.  I have seen this happen over and over again.  With Satan as your boss you have a very hard life ahead of you.

But what do you have when you are in the very family of Jesus himself.  The Bible says that Jesus never promised these types of things wouldn’t happen.  What He did say was that He would be there to help you through anything that comes upon you.  Anything!  When you have a spouse or family member die, Jesus will help you get through those terrible times.  I don’t know how many times I have heard people say that there is no way they could have gotten through something like this without Jesus.

The same is true when you lose your job or something similar.  Sometimes God will lead you to another job or sometimes He wants you to go into a new profession.  Over 13 years ago I worked at the Post Office and I thought I would retire from there but Jesus had another plan for me.  He made me a pastor and I have never been happier.  Jesus does things like this all the time.  He will change your job, your vocation, or He will even change you major in college or school.  This is why a daily prayer life is so important so that you will know that it’s Jesus talking and not the evil one.

This is a very important passage because it shows just how deep the love that Jesus has for you.  He has done so many things to make this world a great place to be if you just accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.  Plus He will keep giving you great things on into eternity.  Please join Him in all you do and you will never, never regret it.  Thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.