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The Eighth Sunday After Pentecost

Option #1: "Waiting for Our Full Redemption"
Romans 8:18-25
Rev. Wayne Dobratz

I. What redemption?--v. 23--apolutrosis–i.e., ransom in full, Christian salvation, deliverance. See also Lk 21:25-28; Rom 3:24, 8:13-17.

II. From what?--text, vv18-22

       A. patheema--sufferings, v18--the afflictions Christians must undergo in behalf of the same cause which Christ patiently endured.

       B. hupotassoo--to be put in subjection, in this case to mataiotees--frailty, weakness, depravity--v20

       C. From douleia to phthora--from bondage to corruption, destruction, that which is perishable.

       D. Christians and the whole creation sustenazoo--groan and sunodinoo--i.e., "Feel the pains together with, to undergo agony along with..."

       E. As we wait for redemption in the fullest sense of the word, we ourselves stenazoo--sigh, groan within ourselves waiting for the...

       F. uiothesia--the adoption, that is, the redemption of our bodies.

III. How shall we wait?--2 Cor 5:5-10; Gal 5:22-23; Eph 5:8-11; Col 3:4; 2 Thess 2:14-15; 1 Pet 1:13; 1 John 3:2

       A. In hope--elpis--(to anticipate, usually with pleasure); expectation (abstract or concrete) or confidence--faith, hope.

       B. Believing without seeing--v24--see also John 20:29.

       C. With patience, v25, hypomonee--cheerful or hopeful endurance, enduring patience, patient waiting.

(All definitions are from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance as found in QuickVerse 7.)

Albert Barnes writes on Rom 8:23, "Groan within ourselves": We sigh for deliverance. The expression denotes strong internal desire; the deep anguish of spirit when the heart is oppressed with anguish and earnestly wishes for help. "Waiting for the adoption": Waiting for the full blessings of the adoption. Christians are adopted when they are converted, Rom 8:15, but they have not been yet admitted to the full privileges of their adoption into the family of God. Their adoption when they are converted is secret and may at the time be unknown to the world. The fullness of the adoption, their complete admission to the privileges of the sons of God, shall be in the day of judgment, in the presence of the universe, and amidst the glories of the final consummation of all things. This adoption is not different from the first, but is the completion of the act of grace when a sinner is received into the family of God. "The redemption of the body": The complete recovery of the body from death and corruption. The particular and striking act of the adoption in the day of judgment will be the raising up of the body from the grave and rendering it immortal and eternally blessed. The particular effects of the adoption in this world are on the soul. The completion of it on the last day will be seen particularly in the body; and thus the entire man shall be admitted into the favor of God and restored from all his sins and all the evil consequences of the fall. The apostle here speaks the language of every Christian. The Christian has joys which the world does not know; but he has also sorrows; he sighs over his corruption; he is in the midst of calamity; he is going to the grave; and he looks forward to that complete deliverance, and to that elevated state, when, in the presence of an assembled universe, he shall be acknowledged as a child of God. This elevated privilege gives to Christianity its high value; and the hope of being acknowledged in the presence of the universe as the child of God--the hope of the poorest and the humblest believer--is of infinitely more value than the prospect of the most princely inheritance or of the brightest crown that a monarch ever wore.

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Option Two: "God's Word: The 'Boomerang Effect'"
Isaiah 55:10-11
Rev. Kelly Bedard

A. Mad Gardeners

       1. Thinking and acting like we have control over the weather and the course of nature generally

       2. Disdain for rain and snow (God's Word) and basically not knowing God's way of "gardening"

B. The Master Gardeners

       1. Only God controls the weather and the course of nature and nuture in His Word

       2. Prospering us, unworthy as we are, with the reign of His Word and will in our lives

Notes

1. ravah (v10): water, make drunk, fill, satiate, bathed, satisfied, abundantly satisfy, soaked; have or drink one's fill; to be drunk, be intoxicated; to drench, water abundantly, saturate; to saturate, water, cause to drink.

2. tsamach (v10): grow, spring forth, spring up, grow up, bring forth, bud, spring out, beareth, bud forth; to sprout, spring up, grow up; to sprout, spring up; of plants; of hair; of speech (figurative); (piel) to grow abundantly or thickly; (hiphil) to cause to grow, to cause to sprout.

3. zera (v10): seed, child, carnally, carnally, fruitful, seedtime, sowing time; seed, sowing, offspring; a sowing seed, semen virile, offspring, descendants, posterity, children; of moral quality; a practitioner of righteousness (figuratively);
sowing time.

4. zara (v10): sow, yielding, sower, bearing, conceive, seed, set; to sow, scatter seed; (qal) to sow, producing, yielding seed; (niphal) to be sown; to become pregnant, be made pregnant; (pual) to be sown; (hiphil) to produce seed, yield seed.

5. tsalach (v11): prosper, come, prosperous, come mightily, effected, good, meet, break out, went over; (qal) to rush, to advance, prosper, make progress, succeed, be profitable; (qal) to prosper; (hiphil) to make prosperous, bring to successful issue, cause to prosper; to show or experience prosperity, prosper.

6. Originally addressed to those who have been torn from their homeland and forced to live in exile in Babylon, this "word" is still alive and active for any exile who longs for home, for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness... (Peter Haynes)

7. The acid test is not "What does my religion do for me?" but "What does it make me do for others?" (Ray Stedman)

8. The great tragedy of the church today is the neglect of the Scriptures. People no longer know what the Bible teaches. They no longer think biblically, to think the thoughts of God after him. (Stedman)

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