WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:16.780 Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful 00:00:16.780 --> 00:00:20.780 that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either 00:00:20.780 --> 00:00:24.920 by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray 00:00:24.920 --> 00:00:31.520 for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself? 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:37.939 The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really, 00:00:38.179 --> 00:00:42.579 I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible, 00:00:43.240 --> 00:00:48.760 they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will 00:00:48.760 --> 00:00:54.560 do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:59.340 non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't 00:00:59.340 --> 00:01:04.680 hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:07.760 types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless. 00:01:13.859 --> 00:01:22.740 It's been nearly 27 years since Henry John Dutchendorf flew his plane into the ocean and to his death. 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:32.280 off the coast of California. Now, some of you folks will know who I'm talking about if you were raised in 00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:42.159 the 60s and 70s. As a boy growing up in Mexico, John Denver's music had given me a really live link 00:01:42.159 --> 00:01:48.000 with the United States, which was very much where I came from, even though I was born in Mexico. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:55.980 You can think about that later, I suppose. Just hearing him pronounce words like Blue Ridge 00:01:55.980 --> 00:02:05.879 Mountains had me mesmerized. It evoked images of clear mornings and all wholesome things like 00:02:05.879 --> 00:02:14.000 grandma's feather bed and homegrown tomatoes. You can imagine how thrilled I was to get to shake his 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:21.520 hand and to thank him for his music when I met him as a student in Moscow in the Soviet Union in 1984. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:29.560 As part of a tour he was doing in the Soviet Union at the time, he and Jim Henson, famous from the 00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:36.180 Muppets, were giving a small Christmas concert there in the home of the American ambassador. And I managed, 00:02:36.180 --> 00:02:45.020 even as a student at a language institute in Moscow, to get the day off to go and meet and hear John Denver and 00:02:45.020 --> 00:02:52.600 Jim Henson. I was well aware, of course, at the time already, that he had songs that were of a more serious 00:02:52.600 --> 00:03:01.879 nature, along with songs about love and life and places like Starwood in Aspen. On his tour of the Soviet Union 00:03:01.879 --> 00:03:08.759 that year, he was already singing this song. I won't sing it because I'll get arrested for disturbing 00:03:08.759 --> 00:03:15.039 the peace. You'll see I stood over here as we were singing so as not to interfere with your peace. 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:22.599 But anyway, the words, one stanza went like this. It's about time we start to see it. The earth is our 00:03:22.599 --> 00:03:30.240 only home. It's about time we start to face it. We can't make it here all alone. It's about time we start 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:37.620 to listen to the voices in the wind. It's about time, and it's about changes, and it's about time. 00:03:38.640 --> 00:03:44.860 How many of you have heard that song? Okay, we have one. All right, that's fantastic. I've recalled 00:03:44.860 --> 00:03:50.800 John Denver, not to draw the attention to, you know, my moment in glory there meeting him, 00:03:51.180 --> 00:03:57.600 but because his hope for the future, his doctrine of things to come, the big word there 00:03:57.599 --> 00:04:07.340 is eschatology reflects a real yearning to hear creation speak. And here he aims to be prophetic, 00:04:07.620 --> 00:04:12.419 calling us to work together to care for what he believed was our only home. 00:04:13.699 --> 00:04:19.219 And this brings us to the fourth and last core value of progressive Christianity that I want us 00:04:19.220 --> 00:04:27.220 to reflect on. We've tried to do these reflections carefully, trying to understand what motivates it, 00:04:27.620 --> 00:04:38.480 and here the big word is non-duality. That's in my title. And what in the world is that? What is non-duality? 00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:48.120 Well, let me just say that this talk will be the most systematic, I suppose, in the sense of asking 00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:55.620 us to think various parts of our faith, of what we confess, together as a coherent system. Don't let 00:04:55.620 --> 00:05:01.879 the word put you off. Don't mentally check out at this point, please. Let me just say that the 00:05:01.879 --> 00:05:08.280 Apostles' Creed that we just recited refreshes our mind about the systematic nature of our faith. 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:17.280 Because it doesn't just give us isolated points that we affirm like a shopping list or something 00:05:17.280 --> 00:05:24.860 like that. In fact, we're all systematic when it comes to things that we care about that we know 00:05:24.860 --> 00:05:30.620 well. Why are we systematic? Well, because we understand the component parts and how they fit 00:05:30.620 --> 00:05:36.980 together. And that's a system, no matter what area of expertise you happen to have. 00:05:36.980 --> 00:05:45.780 So too, as Christians, I think we need to appreciate how the ancient creeds summarize the story of 00:05:45.780 --> 00:05:52.180 redemption. That is, from creation to the new creation and how God has provided the way there. 00:05:52.180 --> 00:06:03.259 And it's with this tool that I think we can discern the profound non-duality in a song like John Denver's 00:06:03.259 --> 00:06:10.160 Wind Song, which you can look up later today if you like. Don't look it up right now on your phones because 00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:16.920 you'll get distracted with everything I'm trying to explain. So what is non-duality? Well, the non 00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:24.860 tells us something is being negated, right? Non. But put in positive terms, it's the idea that reality, 00:06:25.160 --> 00:06:34.120 that everything that is, is one in its being, in its essence. It's not two, but one. And I suppose 00:06:34.120 --> 00:06:42.139 one form of non-duality would be materialistic. That matter is all we have. It's all that's there. 00:06:42.139 --> 00:06:48.479 But in using the term non-duality, our progressive Christian friends mean something else. I suspect 00:06:48.479 --> 00:06:55.219 that John Denver was more of a progressive Christian, at least in this sense. What they mean is that the 00:06:55.219 --> 00:07:04.579 creator-creation distinction, creator-creation, is an illusion. And if not that, then it has somehow been 00:07:04.579 --> 00:07:13.399 overcome or abolished in the incarnation. And let me explain. If they say it's an illusion, 00:07:14.039 --> 00:07:21.979 they intend a form of pantheism, which is a big word for everything that is, is God. It's a little 00:07:21.979 --> 00:07:27.099 more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea. If they say it's been overcome, then they will 00:07:27.100 --> 00:07:36.439 extend the incarnation to all of creation. Here's how one theologian summarizes the idea of deep 00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:45.640 incarnation. He says this, while God is uniquely incarnate in Jesus, that incarnation extends into 00:07:45.640 --> 00:07:52.140 the depths of the created world in such a way that all living things are touched by divine grace 00:07:52.139 --> 00:08:01.360 and are caught up together in movement towards union with God. You see, this sounds almost 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:09.439 reasonable because we know that the incarnation speaks of what God intends for material things, 00:08:09.539 --> 00:08:17.719 for matter, for creation. The divine Logos didn't just float around like a ghost. He took on human 00:08:17.720 --> 00:08:26.780 flesh, the same human and flesh and nature, which he took up in a transformed way in the resurrection 00:08:26.780 --> 00:08:33.980 and ascension. But progressive Christians want to say more than that. What they mean by deep 00:08:33.980 --> 00:08:41.040 incarnation is something like the Logos assumed all flesh, all material things. That's why folks like 00:08:41.040 --> 00:08:47.220 Richard Rohr, one of the godfathers of today's progressive Christianity, can take a phrase like 00:08:47.220 --> 00:08:54.220 Christ is all and in all, you remember from Colossians 3.11, he can take that phrase right out of context 00:08:54.220 --> 00:09:00.440 and declare things like Christ and creation are the same reality. 00:09:02.440 --> 00:09:11.019 You see what I mean by a distinction being abolished. With the same logic, Rohr can say that the resurrection 00:09:11.019 --> 00:09:19.019 is an ongoing process, a natural extension of life itself, which Jesus' resurrection happens to illustrate. 00:09:20.779 --> 00:09:26.019 And all this informs a particular way of relating to everything we encounter. Rohr asks, 00:09:26.019 --> 00:09:33.019 do we approach things automatically drawing distinctions? Do we say to the gentleman we're 00:09:33.019 --> 00:09:39.659 talking, do we think, is this man saved or is he unsaved? Is this lady orthodox or not so orthodox? 00:09:39.860 --> 00:09:47.220 Is this man gay or is he straight? He says, if you do that, you will, quote, never be able to be a loving 00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:54.399 person. Have you heard such a thing? He reinforces this with the idea that knowing God is not about 00:09:54.399 --> 00:10:03.740 things of the mind, but about going into the mystery that is always darkness and light, not insisting on 00:10:03.740 --> 00:10:13.720 certitude or answers. I might just point out that he's making a distinction there. The truth is, I'm not 00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:19.860 sure we can really avoid making distinctions. We can't actually think unless we make distinctions of one kind 00:10:19.860 --> 00:10:25.220 or another. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said that when you think, you have to think thoughts. You have to think 00:10:25.220 --> 00:10:31.759 something. You have to think things. You have to do that so that you can distinguish the thing you're thinking about 00:10:31.759 --> 00:10:38.399 from things that are, from the non-thing, from what it isn't. But it turns out that there's a whole area where 00:10:38.399 --> 00:10:44.779 Richard Rohr really doesn't want us to think. Prayer, he says, is not supposed to involve the mind 00:10:44.779 --> 00:10:53.279 since at its core it's about breathing the sacred name, in and out, he says. And he coaches you in 00:10:53.279 --> 00:11:03.039 how to pray this way, breathing in Yahweh, like that. And he says, practice this and you will find 00:11:03.039 --> 00:11:10.939 that it will revolutionize your prayer life. Now, I think he's right about that. He's probably right 00:11:10.939 --> 00:11:16.659 about that. If instead of listening to God who speaks in his word and responding to him, I disengage 00:11:16.659 --> 00:11:23.480 my mind, I'm bound to experience a revolution in my concept of God. I'll move on from the God who is 00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:30.519 there, who is transcendent in relation to the world he made, and I'll move to the God who kind of flows in 00:11:30.519 --> 00:11:36.620 the depth of everything, through, in and through every living thing. And in my case, right from my 00:11:36.620 --> 00:11:44.199 root chakra right up to my crown. And what does this look like as I relate to what, as far as I can tell, 00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:51.480 is not me? I mean the land, the rivers, the lakes, the animals, the world out there. I was going to say 00:11:51.480 --> 00:11:57.980 as I relate to nature or creation, but that would presuppose the binary that our progressive friend is 00:11:57.980 --> 00:12:05.060 trying to avoid. It presupposes natural versus supernatural, created versus uncreated. But 00:12:05.060 --> 00:12:10.600 since progressive Christians do talk about the earth as something that's distinct from me, what do they 00:12:10.600 --> 00:12:21.200 believe is my duty in relation to it? Well, Lindsay Perez Lopez, the theologian who writes for Sojourners 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:24.519 that I've been bringing into our conversation here and there, says this, 00:12:24.519 --> 00:12:34.759 the Christian hope for the future is to see the world healed. Here she expresses the fourth and last 00:12:34.759 --> 00:12:41.259 progressive core value that we're considering together. Quote, to strive to protect the earth 00:12:41.259 --> 00:12:50.639 and ensure its integrity and sustainability. To strive to protect the earth and to ensure its integrity and 00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:57.819 sustainability. That's the core value I want us to consider and respond to from scripture. I think 00:12:57.819 --> 00:13:07.699 that what we can affirm here is the proper yearning to see the world endure because God declared it to be 00:13:07.699 --> 00:13:17.059 good. After all, creation speaks of God's glory. Psalm 19 reflects his good design, his handiwork. 00:13:17.059 --> 00:13:26.539 But because progressive Christians are also committed to this non-dualist or non-binary idea that the world 00:13:26.539 --> 00:13:34.739 flows out of God's being like rays from the sun, and because they don't divide time with the fall into a 00:13:34.739 --> 00:13:45.639 before and after, they are more hopeful where they shouldn't be, and they are not so hopeful where they 00:13:45.639 --> 00:13:52.399 have every reason to be. Let me explain that for just a minute. We've seen how progressive Christian 00:13:52.399 --> 00:13:59.120 friends read good news into the bad news when they say, well, whatever the fall may have been, 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:08.480 man's relation to God is not so terribly broken. It's still pretty much intact, so we should not dwell 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:18.039 on sin and rebellion, but we should focus on original blessing. By the same token, they read 00:14:18.039 --> 00:14:25.480 bad news into the good news and assume that God's command to subdue the earth, Genesis 128, can only be 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:32.800 a bad thing. Well, why do they see it as a bad thing? See, they assume that hierarchies are a bad idea 00:14:32.799 --> 00:14:40.000 when in fact the command entails a loving stewardship of creation that's given before the fall. 00:14:40.959 --> 00:14:47.459 But by getting things backwards, progressive Christians can't help but go into something of a panic mode when 00:14:47.459 --> 00:14:55.179 it comes to caring for the earth, because the task of seeing to its integrity and its sustainability is up to us. 00:14:55.179 --> 00:15:01.859 How could it be otherwise? The upshot is that as progressive Christians think about what they call 00:15:01.859 --> 00:15:11.379 incarnational mission, they declare that the next mission frontier is, well, the environment 00:15:11.379 --> 00:15:19.979 where climate change activism will be the mark of true discipleship. Now, I got a sense of what that meant 00:15:19.980 --> 00:15:28.060 when I did some interpreting for Greenpeace some years back. They had Russian guests and they 00:15:28.060 --> 00:15:35.700 needed interpreters, so I got to be a fly on the wall of this hope that through some kind of activism, 00:15:35.940 --> 00:15:43.259 we could bring in a better day and proceed to the earth's healing. Now, since I want to turn to 00:15:43.259 --> 00:15:50.980 scripture, I won't dwell for long on how it is that we in the evangelical world sometimes make just a 00:15:50.980 --> 00:15:57.840 little bit of room for this confusion that I'm talking about, but here's how it happens very briefly. 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:07.659 We know better than to say that in the incarnation the logos assumed all of creation, assumed all material 00:16:07.659 --> 00:16:15.899 things. But sometimes we do entertain the idea that the logos assumed Christians or the church. 00:16:16.539 --> 00:16:24.159 And so we come close to confusing Jesus and the church, which means we start to locate the new 00:16:24.159 --> 00:16:31.939 heaven and the new earth, well, in the church. What does this look like liturgically as we think of 00:16:31.939 --> 00:16:37.539 celebrating the Lord's Supper later? Well, here and there, some of our teachers would like us to think 00:16:37.539 --> 00:16:43.559 that when we consecrate the bread and the wine of the Lord's Supper, that what's going on is that the 00:16:43.559 --> 00:16:49.980 bread and the wine are assumed by the new creation. A little bit like the logos, assuming Jesus' human 00:16:49.980 --> 00:16:57.860 nature, so the new creation assumes the consecrated bread and wine, if only for a moment. And that means 00:16:57.860 --> 00:17:07.139 that for that moment, at least, we can take the world to come into our bodies. From there, the idea is 00:17:07.140 --> 00:17:14.600 that you and I are priests of the new creation. We offer the world and ourselves up to God so that 00:17:14.600 --> 00:17:23.280 he'll heal it. And in this way, we imagine a kind of gradual, uninterrupted line between here and the 00:17:23.280 --> 00:17:29.940 new creation. Now, I hope you've understood my basic concern here. I'm talking about same team people. 00:17:30.040 --> 00:17:34.580 I'm not talking about people who are coming from a totally different worldview. I'm talking about same 00:17:34.579 --> 00:17:41.699 team people who are thinking that this is the way we ought to be thinking. But I'm concerned that 00:17:41.699 --> 00:17:49.659 by emphasizing that the creation primarily needs to be healed, which of course it does, 00:17:49.980 --> 00:17:58.599 but if that's what we emphasize on and put at the top of the list, we miss that creation needs 00:17:58.599 --> 00:18:03.939 something far more radical than healing, like something like resurrection. And that's what 00:18:03.939 --> 00:18:11.799 takes us to our passage in Romans. You see, when we think that the new creation is already here, 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:19.039 as if contained in the Lord's Supper, we miss the longing and the waiting for Jesus' return in glory 00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:26.879 when he will come to make all things new. So let's go through Romans 8 to the passage we read. 00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:33.600 And three questions come out at us as we read this passage together. What is creation waiting for? 00:18:34.120 --> 00:18:41.160 What are we, God's children, waiting for? And how are we called to wait? So I'm going to 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:49.040 take that in three parts and read verses 18 to 22. Once again, follow with me. If you don't have a Bible, 00:18:49.160 --> 00:18:53.660 you're very welcome to one that's up here. You may need a pair of glasses to read it if you're like me. 00:18:53.660 --> 00:19:01.820 I consider, says Paul, verse 18, that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory 00:19:01.820 --> 00:19:09.220 that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be 00:19:09.220 --> 00:19:15.860 revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one 00:19:15.859 --> 00:19:24.099 who subjected it in hope, verse 21, that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay 00:19:24.099 --> 00:19:30.199 and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation 00:19:30.199 --> 00:19:36.019 has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 00:19:36.019 --> 00:19:44.859 Let me ask you, what do you think of the idea that creation is actually waiting? 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:53.240 I tend to think that we imagine that creation is just there, not an actor, but something that gets 00:19:53.240 --> 00:20:00.579 acted upon. Makes sense, doesn't it? In the progressive Christian vision, it might be waiting 00:20:00.579 --> 00:20:07.679 to be healed, but it's not waiting for anything like what God teaches us here in Romans 8 through Paul. 00:20:08.579 --> 00:20:15.019 That's because for the progressive Christian, the future has been, as it were, collapsed into the 00:20:15.019 --> 00:20:23.000 present. There's no fundamental distinction between nature as we know it and nature as it has yet to be 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:28.500 redeemed. Remember, we're not supposed to make these kind of distinctions if we're supposed to truly 00:20:28.500 --> 00:20:36.279 love what's in front of us. But here in Paul's message, it's as though creation, excuse me, is a bride 00:20:36.279 --> 00:20:44.740 waiting for her bridegroom to appear. The marriage still lies ahead, in other words. There's a longing 00:20:44.740 --> 00:20:55.940 and waiting for the day when God will reveal to the earth its true caretakers under God. It's clear that 00:20:55.940 --> 00:21:04.120 in Paul's mind, inspired by the Holy Spirit, there's a legitimate and holy hierarchy, let's say, a proper 00:21:04.120 --> 00:21:13.720 place for earth to bend the knee to God's sons and daughters, all children of the first and second Adam, 00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:23.740 as to monarchs in their coronation. A proper hierarchy. From there, I should say apart from the theme of 00:21:23.740 --> 00:21:29.599 waiting in verse 19, there are two points in these verses that we need to pay attention to. The first is, 00:21:30.019 --> 00:21:39.720 what exactly is creation longing to be liberated from? Verse 21 speaks of its bondage to decay, 00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:48.339 such that according to verse 20, it experiences frustration. What do these things mean? 00:21:48.339 --> 00:21:57.179 Well, because of the fall, the earth isn't sort of just weak and wobbly, but it's deformed, it's impure, 00:21:57.819 --> 00:22:05.379 and it can only disintegrate. It has a shelf life, if you like. Far more than healing, it needs a complete 00:22:05.379 --> 00:22:14.220 reversal of this decay, this entropy. It longs for complete restoration inside and out, and it needs a new 00:22:14.220 --> 00:22:22.440 heart. It needs a new vitality. It needs a new purpose and direction. Even transfiguration, a theme 00:22:22.440 --> 00:22:30.299 that's common among our Eastern Christian friends, does not quite get to the most basic need, even though 00:22:30.299 --> 00:22:38.579 transfiguration does speak of the glorious restoration of an image that it lost, but decay means decay, 00:22:38.579 --> 00:22:49.059 and the earth longs for integrity, for reintegration, so that it's once again fit for its original purpose. 00:22:51.460 --> 00:22:59.480 Excuse me, the clear teaching here is of the earth's restoration. That means that the fire that we read 00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:07.439 about in 2 Peter 3 is not one that finally annihilates the earth, sending it into the big cosmic scrap heap or 00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:14.100 whatever, but that purifies it and refines it. The second theme is the glory that's anticipated. 00:23:14.559 --> 00:23:21.279 When Paul speaks of glory, it's the glory that will be revealed in us. That is in God's children, 00:23:21.420 --> 00:23:28.820 verse 18. That's why it's specifically the glory, verse 21, of whom? Of the children of God. It's the 00:23:28.820 --> 00:23:36.120 glory of God's children. So it's not a glory that the earth will experience, enjoy on its own, 00:23:36.119 --> 00:23:42.099 in isolation. It will be the glory that will be manifest when God's children are revealed. 00:23:42.899 --> 00:23:50.879 It's a glory we can't yet fathom, although I think we get a glimpse of it when we think of the splendor 00:23:50.879 --> 00:24:01.059 of a bride as she comes and makes her way up the aisle to meet her groom who's there waiting for her 00:24:01.059 --> 00:24:09.139 and delighting in her. We get a glimpse of this. What a wonderful thought that nature has purpose 00:24:09.139 --> 00:24:16.980 and direction. We often recall how the heavens declare God's glory, and here, through the special 00:24:16.980 --> 00:24:25.679 revelation given to Paul, we get to consider how creation declares. It speaks of the purpose that God, 00:24:25.680 --> 00:24:35.299 of God's purpose, the purpose that God implanted in it as it waits. And I think we can even say this, 00:24:35.960 --> 00:24:40.060 in its waiting, creation is serving as a kind of missionary. 00:24:42.160 --> 00:24:48.820 What is creation's end or purpose in a word? Well, to be a vessel that's filled full with God's 00:24:48.819 --> 00:24:56.059 presence and a fit place for God's children to dwell forever. There we have the true unity 00:24:56.059 --> 00:25:03.200 of heaven and earth that God has in store. Oh, that takes us to the second question, 00:25:03.339 --> 00:25:08.819 and it's right there in verse 23. What are we, God's children, waiting for? 00:25:10.819 --> 00:25:15.319 Verse 23, not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, 00:25:15.319 --> 00:25:23.659 grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. Underline 00:25:23.659 --> 00:25:29.899 that mentally, redemption of our bodies. In the progressive Christian vision, there's no distinction 00:25:29.899 --> 00:25:36.559 between the children of Adam and the children of the second Adam. That is, everyone without exception 00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:44.279 has been adopted as God's child. It's just that some don't realize it yet. By the same token, 00:25:44.279 --> 00:25:50.740 everyone without exception is already participating in the resurrection since that too has already 00:25:50.740 --> 00:25:57.420 taken place. That's why Richard Rohr can say this, resurrection is just incarnation taken to its 00:25:57.420 --> 00:26:05.519 logical conclusion. He explains, if God inhabits matter, then we can naturally believe in the 00:26:05.519 --> 00:26:09.759 resurrection of the body. Resurrection is just happening all around us, he says. 00:26:09.759 --> 00:26:18.099 But not so in Romans 8.23, Paul says we wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies. 00:26:19.099 --> 00:26:25.539 At death, the original unity that God blessed us with in the garden necessarily disintegrates, 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:32.259 as our spirit is severed from the body, that original unity. But what we wait for is not 00:26:32.259 --> 00:26:39.839 ultimate release from bodily existence, but a reintegration. The resurrection of our earthly 00:26:39.839 --> 00:26:47.579 bodies on the day when Jesus appears in glory. Together with this, Paul says, is adoption to 00:26:47.579 --> 00:26:55.579 sonship. Now by the spirit and through faith in Jesus, we're already adopted. So what does Paul mean 00:26:55.579 --> 00:27:03.779 here? Well, he means the fullness of our adoption. Just as creation is waiting for God's children to be, 00:27:04.279 --> 00:27:11.480 if you like, brought out and put on display, so too we wait for the great day when Jesus comes to do 00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:19.639 just that, to publicly show who are his children and to reign with them forever. Let's bring in the 00:27:19.640 --> 00:27:24.380 missionary theme here. We have missionaries with us this morning. We'll be saying a word in a few 00:27:24.380 --> 00:27:33.420 moments. If creation has a missionary role or function as it waits, so too we are called to 00:27:33.420 --> 00:27:40.520 evangelize others by speaking of the promised adoption in Christ for all those who put their trust in 00:27:40.520 --> 00:27:49.160 Jesus. There's a third theme in our passage, and it has to do with the way we wait. 00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:56.880 And it's in verses, I'll read verse 23 again and then conclude with the remaining two verses, 00:27:57.040 --> 00:28:03.460 verses 24 and 25. I'll just shift the emphasis slightly to make my point. Not only so, but we 00:28:03.460 --> 00:28:11.320 ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to 00:28:11.320 --> 00:28:17.480 sonship, the redemption of our bodies. And then verse 24, for in this hope we were saved, 00:28:17.480 --> 00:28:23.039 but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 00:28:24.440 --> 00:28:31.039 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it, you see the word there? Patiently. 00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:39.299 We see that to the fact that we wait, Paul adds the how of waiting. And here I want to just 00:28:39.299 --> 00:28:47.879 emphasize two things. First is our waiting that is with eager inward groanings. What are those? 00:28:49.159 --> 00:28:53.659 Well, Paul links them to the first fruits of the Spirit. 00:28:53.660 --> 00:29:01.660 This means that they are inward longings that we don't produce ourselves. They're the gift. They're a 00:29:01.660 --> 00:29:07.600 gift that comes through our union with Christ Jesus. Since we're saved in the hope of redemption of 00:29:07.600 --> 00:29:15.540 our bodies, verse 24, it's clear that the longings produce in us an assurance that what God has in 00:29:15.539 --> 00:29:24.359 store for his children is there. To the eager, eager waiting, we add the second patient waiting, 00:29:24.460 --> 00:29:33.879 verse 25. Paul implies that the hope is patient by definition. By definition. He says, if we hope 00:29:33.879 --> 00:29:41.859 for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently, verse 25. So while in the day-to-day, 00:29:41.859 --> 00:29:50.179 you and I can kind of wait patiently and sometimes not so patiently when we have to stand in line or 00:29:50.179 --> 00:29:58.659 whatever it is, baptized hope is always patient and eager because it's sure of God's promise and 00:29:58.659 --> 00:30:07.319 sure that God's promise is good and worth waiting for. For the progressive Christian, waiting is 00:30:07.319 --> 00:30:13.379 minimized, if not abolished, because he's persuaded that he hasn't really left the Garden of Eden. 00:30:14.679 --> 00:30:21.019 You get a sense of this when you, well, you might come close to Rec Beach there in Vancouver or 00:30:21.019 --> 00:30:27.059 you go to some lovely spring in Vermont where, well, folks think they're still in the Garden of Eden 00:30:27.059 --> 00:30:29.779 because the clothing is entirely optional. 00:30:29.779 --> 00:30:36.680 I hear a chuckle. Maybe somebody's wandered down into those parts. By contrast, 00:30:37.259 --> 00:30:45.259 through union with Christ, we look forward to a city. Yes, it's a city that has a tree in it and 00:30:45.259 --> 00:30:52.319 a river flowing out of it. So it's like a city with a garden, but it's a city, right? It's a city with 00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:59.039 foundations, our theme that we've been considering. It's a city designed and built by God himself. 00:30:59.039 --> 00:31:05.519 And it's there. And that's the glorious truth. To make things just a bit more personal, because so 00:31:05.519 --> 00:31:12.339 much of this is abstract, isn't it? Although I hope you can see the practical working out of how we're 00:31:12.339 --> 00:31:17.899 considering the biblical worldview here. But to make things more personal, maybe this is a good moment 00:31:17.899 --> 00:31:27.740 to ask ourselves, how would I describe my waiting? Is it an eager waiting so that I can say that I'm 00:31:27.740 --> 00:31:36.759 longing for Jesus' appearing, that I pray, come, Lord Jesus? Is it a patient waiting so that I find 00:31:36.759 --> 00:31:45.539 myself trusting that God is actually working out his purposes in and through human history, 00:31:46.220 --> 00:31:53.579 bringing things into his perfect will, in spite of all the upheaval, in spite of all of what's in the 00:31:53.579 --> 00:32:05.720 news, in spite of suffering and ways in which we begin to doubt that God's purposes are being worked 00:32:05.720 --> 00:32:11.899 out? And yet, he strengthens us by his Spirit. And in what practical ways can we wait for Jesus' 00:32:12.139 --> 00:32:19.259 return? Well, I really can't think of a better answer than to do something that we all need to grow 00:32:19.259 --> 00:32:26.059 into together more and more, into really digging into Scripture and into letting Scripture get into 00:32:26.059 --> 00:32:32.980 us so that it can do its work of sanctifying us and setting us apart for the work that God has for us. 00:32:33.019 --> 00:32:41.339 So let me just conclude with a few thoughts. I hope that through these four talks, responding to the 00:32:41.339 --> 00:32:47.059 core values of progressive Christianity, that I haven't been trying to hurl rotten tomatoes. I've been 00:32:47.059 --> 00:32:54.000 trying to understand the shape and the hopes that progressive Christian friends have so that we can 00:32:54.000 --> 00:33:01.779 speak of a greater hope that we're called to through the gospel. I hope it's been clear that progressive 00:33:01.779 --> 00:33:10.720 Christianity, while picking up certain Christian themes and here and there sounding very, very gospel-centered 00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:19.200 even sometimes, isn't really Christian in its foundations at all. I know that's not going to 00:33:19.200 --> 00:33:25.600 please a lot of people, but I think that's what needs to be said. It's coming from a different 00:33:25.600 --> 00:33:31.440 universe of meaning, if you like. Think of the way John Denver's remains were laid to rest. 00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:39.440 We're told that his ashes were just scattered throughout the Colorado Rocky Mountains. 00:33:40.160 --> 00:33:49.539 Now the God who formed us can surely reform our scattered ashes, most certainly, but symbolically, 00:33:50.340 --> 00:33:57.940 symbolically, I think the scattering of ashes bears witness to a lie. It speaks of a final 00:33:57.940 --> 00:34:06.559 disintegration of created things. It speaks of a final loss of individuality as when a drop of water 00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:14.800 goes back to the ocean. I think scripture calls us to a far greater hope, a reverence for material 00:34:14.800 --> 00:34:23.659 things. Yes, not so as to worship matter, but to handle material things as good stewards, as were commanded 00:34:23.659 --> 00:34:30.099 in Genesis. This, of course, is the business of creation care, which is a way to bear witness 00:34:30.099 --> 00:34:37.920 to the goodness of God's creation, but also as a form of hospitality as we think of caring for the 00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:44.199 world around us for the sake of those we want to show hospitality to in the next generations to come. 00:34:44.500 --> 00:34:51.359 But there's no panic. There's no panic in this because we don't panic about this matter because it's in 00:34:51.360 --> 00:34:56.079 God's hands in the same way that you and I, we don't fret about our own death if we're in Christ. 00:34:56.519 --> 00:35:04.780 If we're truly united to Jesus, then we already are by grace participants in his death, which is the 00:35:04.780 --> 00:35:12.099 same as saying that we carry the down payment, if you like, well, that's the scriptural word, 00:35:12.099 --> 00:35:22.199 of our resurrection. So, and I'll end with this. May the way in which we wait for the day of the Lord 00:35:22.199 --> 00:35:30.139 serve as a living question mark for our progressive Christian friends. And may God give us joy 00:35:30.139 --> 00:35:38.339 in waiting for him and waiting for the day, anticipating the city that has foundations, 00:35:38.340 --> 00:35:44.400 whose architect and builder is God. Do I hear an amen? Amen.