James Meehan - Our Heavenly Inheritance
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— Well, welcome to this week of "Switch Uncut".
— Ooh.
— I'm James, this is Kaitlyn, and today we're gonna talk about the Bible because you know the B-I-B-L-E, that's the book for me. And what we know is that as followers of Jesus the more we study the word of God, the better we can understand the will of God so that we can actually live as citizens of the kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven.
— This week at "Switch" we talked about how if God is our father...
— Come on.
— ...that means we are children of God.
— Yep, daddy, God.
— Oh, good. So we are gonna walk through a passage. It's it's pretty meaty, it's pretty dense, but we're gonna get through it together starting with Romans 8:15-25.
— Yep, and in honor of this week's message topic thing, every time we get to God I'm gonna read daddy God.
— No, please.
— I'm just kidding.
— I can't. I can't do that. All right, Romans 8:15-25. Here's the apostle Paul, he says, "So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him, 'Abba, Father.'"
— Keep going. Please keep going.
— "For His spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share His glory we must also share His suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later for all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse, but with eager hope the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory. For we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as His adopted children including the new bodies He has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. If we already have something, we don't need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently".
— Come on. So there's a lot in there, a lot about creation, and new creation and God's children so what we wanna do is set up the context of this passage. Who wrote it? Who was it written to? And why did they write it? So James, Romans talk to you about that.
— Romans. Ah, what a beautiful letter. It's a letter from the apostle Paul to the Christians living in Rome. Now the interesting thing that can be easy to not understand is what was happening in Rome that Paul was writing this letter to address. What was happening is the Christians in Rome were divided. They were set apart in different factions. Those who were a little bit more Jewish, and those who were a little bit less Jewish. Those who felt like you needed to follow these laws, and those who felt like you didn't need to follow those laws. And so when the apostle Paul is writing this letter, what he's trying to do is help these divided Christians in Rome become a united church...
— That's good.
— ...because we are all children of our Father in Heaven. We are all one united family. And so that's what the apostle Paul is doing throughout this entire letter. And in this specific portion, he is making sure that all of these Christians understand that they are united in one family with God as their father.
— Come on. So that's a great jumping off point to start back. Let's read verses 15 through 17 and start breaking it down.
— Here we go. "So you have not received spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him, 'Abba, Father,' for His spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share His glory we must also share His suffering".
— Cool, so lots of adoption language in these couple of verses. And as you pointed out, Paul is writing this to remind these group of divided believers that we have actually all been adopted into the same family.
— Come on.
— But the thing that is sticking out to me the most in this is in verse 17 where it talks about, "In fact with Christ we're heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share in His glory we must also share in His suffering". And that doesn't sound awesome to me.
— No, it does not.
— But the thing about being children of God, it doesn't mean that we won't go through hard things.
— Right.
— And I think that that's important for us to note 'cause we can sometimes think like, "Eh, God, if you're supposed to be this good father, why am I going through this crap"? But the beautiful thing about when we go through hard things as children of God, we can learn to see it as Him actually teaching us how to do life really well. Because we know that hard things like suffering is part of life and God wouldn't be a good dad if He didn't prepare us to live life as it actually is.
— Right, a hundred percent.
— And so I really appreciate that as God being my father that He doesn't just shelter us from what life really is, He prepares us to actually engage with reality as his kids.
— Yeah, I think that's so important for us to remember is that there are gonna be times where people will try to convince you that if you have enough faith then God will make you happy, healthy, and wealthy. And while sometimes God will bless us in some of those ways, the reality is is that Jesus, God's firstborn son, the son of God who is one with God wasn't coddled, He was crucified.
— Yeah, wow.
— And as His followers, we are called to take up our crosses, to deny ourselves, and follow Him and so the way of Jesus is a way marked by suffering. But it's the kind of suffering that happens in alignment with God's will so we know that it is always for the good.
— Yeah, Jesus showed us exactly what it looks like to be a child of God, and He suffered to the nth degree exactly like you're saying so we get to consider Jesus.
— Come on.
— So we don't grow weary and lose heart.
— Come on. So continue on, 18, 19.
— Verse 18, "Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later for all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are".
— Yeah, so the question that comes to my mind reading those verses is, why is creation waiting for God to reveal who his kids are?
— Yeah, yeah.
— And I think that it has to do with, because as children of God, we are invited into the family business so to speak and God from the very beginning has been in the business of redemption and renewal and all of creation is really excited about that.
— Come on, that's so good.
— So yeah, as God's kids, we get to take up the family business and be part of the redemption and renewal of all the world.
— That's so good.
— I'm excited about that.
— That gets me really excited.
— Verse 20, "Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay".
— So that's bringing a little more of the picture to what the previous person has just talked about. As God's kids, we get to be a present preview of what's coming. And that is what creation looks forward to that day when it will join us God's children in freedom from death and decay.
— Interesting. So in verse 20, I think it's really interesting, it says that, "All creation was subjected to God's curse".
— Mmm.
— So that raises the question, did God cause all of this? Couldn't God have just not cursed the world?
— Mmm. I love this because it takes us all the way back to Genesis three. And this is...
— Love Genesis.
— This is where Adam and Eve, these people that God created to partner with Him in ruling over creation, they actually turn their backs on God, and in their rebellion, they pull all of creation with them away from God.
— Interesting.
— Separating us from the source of all that is good and true and life giving. And that's what it's talking about when it says all of creation was subject to God's curse because these people that God had given authority over creation, turn their backs on their Creator and let all of creation away from Him who is what is good and right and true and that's what that means for all of creation to be cursed.
— Interesting, that's super helpful, thank you.
— Yeah, continuing forward in verse 22.
— All right, verse 22, "For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as His adopted children including the new bodies that He has promised us".
— Right, so, I love this because it sets up that contrast of we are getting to experience what it means to be children of God right now, but there's also more that is coming. There's the now, and the not yet. And the part that's sticking out to me is we are waiting to receive the full rights of being His adopted children. And I'm asking myself the question, "Okay, what does that mean, the full rights of being God's child"? And what I think it means is that there is an inheritance that's waiting for us. Not only do we get to relate to God as our father right here and right now, but we have something that we can confidently look forward to. And it's like we've been written into God's will. And what is God's will? Well, he goes on through the passage to explain that His will is that all of creation would once again experience His goodness and that any and everything that has been damaged by sin, that damage would be undone and in fact that is happening through Jesus...
— Interesting.
— ...right now. So it's like the now and then not yet. We get to relate to God as father right now but there's even more coming.
— Right, so it's kind of like if we're trust fund babies.
— Ooh.
— Right now we have not yet received the full ownership of our trust fund.
— Right.
— But eventually, we'll get all the money, all the bills. Remember what I said earlier about being happy, healthy, and wealthy? Maybe I was wrong.
— Oh no.
— I'm kidding, no, no, I wasn't wrong.
— But I think that image works where it's, when we enter into eternity, all that God has for us will be there. Right now though, we don't have all of that because we live in a fallen world that is subjected to God's curse. That has been infected by sin and suffering and death and evil but because of Jesus, there will come a day when all of that is no more and that's what we get to look forward to and that's really good news.
— Yep, a hundred percent. And Paul explains that in these last two verses, 24 and 25.
— Verse 24, "We were given this hope when we were saved. If we already have something, we don't need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don't yet have we must wait patiently and confidently".
— Yeah, I love that. I love the connection between patience and hope and the idea that if I trust God's character as my father, I can also trust His timing.
— That's good.
— And that makes me be able to be patient in whatever present circumstance that I'm facing.
— Right, absolutely.
— I'm gonna read actually 29 and 30, 'cause I think it just paints a cool picture of what that patient's process kind of looks like as we're waiting for that full inheritance that we get to step into. So 29 says, "For God knew His people in advance, and He chose them to become like his son so that His son would be the first born among many brothers and sisters. Having chosen them He called them to come to Him, and having called them He gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, He gave them His glory". So what Paul is saying is we engage in this lifelong process of becoming like Jesus for the sake of others. Jesus is the first born, and God chose to make us part of that family. As we talked about in the beginning, we get to look to Jesus as our example of what it looks like. And the most mind blowing thing to me is is that Jesus being the first born had the rights to the largest share of the inheritance but he chose to give that also and share that with us.
— Come on.
— That is the grace of Jesus right there.
— Come on.
— And then the last thing, would you read 38 and 39?
— "And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love, neither death nor lie, neither angels nor demons, neither are fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord".
— So I just wanted to read those verses at the end because the thing that Vince continually pulled out of that message on Wednesday is that God is a father and He will never stop loving His kids.
— Come on, and that's really good news.
— That is really good news. So as we read this passage, James, we are obviously looking for the things that the Holy Spirit is kind of convicting us about, the things that He's pointing out to us, the questions that we're asking. So what's standing out to you?
— Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that I keep coming back to that's found in this passage and it's found all throughout the gospels and then the New Testament and even the Old Testament is the fact that the end of the story is not us going to be in Heaven and having a party for the rest of our lives.
— Sure.
— The end of the story is God bringing Heaven to Earth and making everything new.
— Yeah.
— And I think that's the thing that's so powerful is that God's final act isn't to throw out the old, but to make old things new. And so when I look at the world around me and I see all of the tragedies, I see all of the horrors, I see all of the evil, all of the violence that is done, I'm reminded that there will come a day when that will be no more. And that gives me so much hope and confidence...
— It's good.
— that the mission of Jesus didn't stop when He ascended into heaven, but actually there's gonna come a day when He comes back to make everything that's wrong right.
— Yep.
— And that just helps me have so much peace and confidence even when everything around us is going crazy, I know that He's still King, He's still good, and He's gonna make all things new.
— Yeah, that's so good. I love the part where it talks about all of creation longing for the freedom...
— Come on, yeah.
— from death and decay. That is exactly what you're just talking about. That it is so much more about God bringing freedom than it is about Him just burning everything up and starting over.
— Yeah.
— So that's pretty exciting. The question that I'm asking is that question about trust. If I really trust God's character as my father, am I also trusting His timing? 'Cause there are some things in my life that I would love to either not be happening right now, or to like be happening immediately right now that I'm waiting for. And that's what this passage is talking about how hope is connected to patients. And when I trust who God is as my loving father then I can patiently and confidently wait for what is coming and endure present suffering.
— That's so good.
— So, yeah.
— He may not give us what we want when we want it, but He'll probably give us what we need when we need it.
— That's good.
— And that's...
— Cause He's a good dad.
— Right, He's really good and He knows way more than we do and we get to trust in Him because of the examples set by Jesus and I think that's really powerful for us to be able to learn from.
— A hundred percent. He's like the big bro that we get to to see who's gone ahead of us and done all the things, set the perfect example. And as an oldest child, that gives me a lot of hope and confidence that Jesus has already gone before me and set this perfect example 'cause I know what it's like to try to set an example for my siblings to follow.
— Come on.
— And I really don't always do an awesome job with that.
— Right, and so instead of me putting all that pressure on me, it's like, "No, no don't look at me, look at Jesus".
— Look at... Please, please, just look at Jesus.
— Oh man.
— So yeah, that's exciting to me.
— Yeah, so as you're listening to this, what is it the Holy Spirit is speaking to you? What are the implications that are being drawn out? What are the things that you're wanting to change your mind about? Or maybe even change your habits and your actions about so that you can better reflect the truth that you are a child of God. That God is your father and He will never stop loving you. And because of Jesus, we have been invited into His family. We have been adopted into this beautiful inheritance, the kingdom of God that's coming on Earth as is in Heaven.
— Come on.
— So how can you live according to that kingdom? What would that look like for you? Comment down below, let us know, talk to somebody about it because we know that life change happens in the context of relationships. So the more we can surround ourselves with great people asking the right questions and pursuing Jesus faithfully, the more we're gonna get to experience some of what we just read about, the goodness of God in our lives.
— Great, that's awesome.
— With all that being said, let us know how we can better support you, what questions y'all have, and we look forward to catching up with you next time.
— See y'all.
— See you.