Standing Firmly on Future Grace

We have been in a series called This Grace In Which We Stand and we have looked at the important role of grace in justifying us, sanctifying us, sustaining us through trials, and even the place that grace has in our friendships. As we bring the series to a close this morning, I thought it would be appropriate for us to consider grace in one more part of our lives and that part is the part we haven’t lived yet. The pages of our lives that haven’t been written yet. I want us to consider the grace of God in our future.

If we stop and think about the future, one of the first things that comes to mind is that it is a mystery. We don’t know what the future holds. We might think we do, but we don’t. I found a Popular Mechanics article written in the ‘50’s that predicted that by the year 2000 all homes would have plastic or synthetic furniture, drapes, and carpets so vacuuming and dusting would be a thing of the past, to clean a room you would just hose it down. All the water would go down a drain in the middle of the room that, of course, would be covered by a synthetic rug when not in use. That’s a future many of us are still looking forward to. One of the more creative predictions in that same article was that people would wear underwear made of Rayon which, rather than being discarded when it grew old, would be gathered by Chemical companies and converted into candy. I have serious questions about that idea. As much as we parents don’t like the fact that the first ingredient listed in candy is sugar, I’m not sure we’d feel better about giving little junior a box of candy if the first ingredient listed was “used boxer shorts”.

What that article highlights is that the future is unknown. I remember years ago getting ready to go to a men’s conference and my younger son Matthew (he was about 7 at the time) asked if he could go. I told him no, but I looked forward to the day when he was 15 and could go with me. Out of the blue he said, but daddy, when I’m 15, you’ll be dead. Wow, I hope not. But I don’t know. Neither do you. We don’t really know what the next 15 minutes hold, much less the next 15 years. The future is unknown.

The other thing about the future is, it’s where our lives are headed. Life is future-oriented. God meant for us to live life forward. The past is important, but it is past and we cannot relive it or recapture it. Some people live in their past by reliving their glory days over and over again. Others live in their past by reliving their regrets over and over again, wishing they could change their past. But life is meant to be lived forward, not backwards.

The present is also important, but it is fleeting. Jesus taught us not to presume on the future when he taught us to confine our concerns for today, but there are some who I believe miss biblical perspective when they tell us to live for the present. They say, “the past is gone, the future isn’t here yet, the present is really all we have”. But what is the present? Is it right now? Because the “now” that was present when I said that isn’t the present anymore. It’s the past. We have all journeyed 4 seconds into the future in just the time it took for me to say that. Our lives are always moving into the future. The mentality of living for the present is the mentality of those who said, “eat, drink, and be merry (live for the present), for tomorrow we die.” Paul condemns that attitude.

That’s why God speaks so much to our future. The Bible is full of promises –declarations of what God will bring to pass. Calls us to live with faith – which is also future oriented. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So when we talk about future grace, we are talking about the confidence, the assurance, that God has good in store for our future – good that isn’t earned by us, it’s all of grace. And so when we consider the grace on which we stand, it’s not just God’s past grace to us or the grace we’re enjoying in the present – it’s God’s future grace to us as well.

And as we read Romans 8, I think we’ll find that Paul anchors us on the assurance of future grace. Sum it up this way: Christians can live each day absolutely confident in God’s grace for the future. Let’s pray and then begin reading at verse 18.

Romans 8:18-30

I. The present isn’t meant to be enough for us (Rom. 8:18-25)

In verses 19-25 Paul reminds us that when Adam and Eve fell, creation fell too. And that has left this world very different than God originally created it – we still see much of the beauty and glory but it is fallen and it’s groaning under the weight of its fallenness, this world carries a sense of futility – the cycle of life here seems meaningless and empty and wearying. Days and weeks and years and centuries come and go. Things are born, live, and die. What’s the purpose? What’s the meaning? In the words of Ecclesiastes, “vanity, vanity, all is vanity” and creation longs to be restored to its unfallen state. Verse 23 says we live with that deep longing too.

And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (vs. 23)

We want to be free from these fallen bodies and the wearying cycle of our lives and see with our eyes and experience with our bodies and minds and souls the redemption that Christ purchased for us. That’s future, it’s not here, it’s not now. We wait with hope and with patience for future grace.

II. God’s future grace conquers the fears of “what if” with the confidence of “we know” – vs 28

We live our lives forward – constantly moving into the future. If you have dreams, aspirations, goals, they are all in the future. And most of our fears are for the future too. Fear fights most of its battles on the battlefield of our future. Fear asks the question: what if? What if things go really badly? What if I lose my job? What if I can’t find a job? What if I can’t pay my bills? What if my mother has cancer? What if my son rejects Christ? What if?

Tomorrow we celebrate Labor Day but a lot of people in the US don’t have paying labor. With an unemployment rate of 9.1 and a national debt that is unsustainably high and an economy that is struggling, the question should be asked, “what if?” What if our economy crashes in a way never seen in our lifetime? What if all our savings, all our jobs, all our lifestyles, come crashing down? It could happen – we are in uncharted waters and the future is unknown.

In the last two weeks the east coast has experienced what some were calling a hundred year storm, and tornadoes, and an earthquake. The hurricane did significant damage in some areas but other than that not much harm done. But what if? What if the next storm is the devastating storm that some thought Irene would be? What if that earthquake was a precursor to a much worse earthquake? What if these are the beginning of the birthpangs of the last days? What if? We don’t know – the future is unknown.

Christian faith speaks to the fears of what if, but not by taking away all uncertainty. Christians still face what ifs. Some believers in Vermont have had their homes destroyed by flooding just like unbelievers. Christians lose their jobs, get cancer, and have kids who rebel. Faith doesn’t take away all the “what if’s” of life, but faith answers these “what ifs” with the assurance of verse 28: “we know”. We know that all things work together (that is, the good and the bad) for the good for those called according to God’s purpose.

See, both the question “what if” and the statement “we know” recognize that life and the present is going somewhere. What if asks, what if this is heading toward disaster, toward harm, toward something really bad? The fear of “what if” is that the current of life is sweeping me or those I love towards some evil end. Towards heartbreak, towards shame, towards destruction. God’s word answers with “we know” We know that our lives are in the hands of a sovereign God and He directs the currents of the lives of His children to a good and glorious purpose. We can’t know every circumstance we will face – and it will include suffering along the way – but we know the end, and it’s good.

Christians can live each day absolutely confident in God’s grace for the future

Maybe you’re struggling with a fear right now – trust the Lord. You’ve trusted His grace to you in the past, trust His grace to you in the future. Your tomorrow is unseen to you, but it’s not unseen to Him. Take a moment right now and ask the Lord to help you to trust Him with that fear – lay it at His feet. Let the “what if” be conquered by the “we know” of God’s future grace.

III. God’s past grace is bringing us to future glory –vs. 30

ILL: there is a man named Clive Wearing who has the worst case of amnesia on record. Tests show he has a memory span of 7 seconds. He forgets everything that happens to him within seven seconds. Having no memory of his past gives him little hope for his future – we need our past to make sense of our future.

All of God’s future grace to us is possible only because of His past grace expressed through His Son Jesus Christ dying on the cross to pay for our sins. Our lives would be unstoppably moving toward destruction if Jesus hadn’t taken the punishment that we deserved on Himself by dying on the cross. God’s past grace assures us of His future grace to us.

And it goes the other way too. The only reason Jesus’ death means anything to us is because His death has purchased an eternity of future grace, which is often summed up in the word, “glory”. In verse 18 Paul says that the suffering of this present age aren’t worth comparing to the glory to be revealed to us, verse 21 speaks of the glory of the children of God, and look with me at verse 30:

And those whom He predestined he also called, and those whom He called, He also justified…

I don’t have the time to get into the bigger theological issues of predestination here, so all I want to point out is that these things are past grace. We have been foreknown, predestined, called, and justified. That has all happened to you if you are a believer. But Paul continues…

…and those whom he justified he also glorified.

He says it in the past tense, but looking around, I don’t think many of us have been glorified yet. I hope not – no offense to anyone here who thinks you already have been glorified, but I want it to be better than anything I’m seeing in this room. It’s yet to come. And it’s better than anything we can imagine. The word glory in it basic meaning speaks of opinion, or the honor of a person. The glory of God is the brightness and splendor of His person and being – His honor - and it is so glorious that it would kill us to look at it in our present state.

Our glory will be amazing – sinners elevated to glory. For all eternity we will live in a blessed state of glory that is the mirror glory of Christ – it will be His glory we reflect, just as it will be His righteousness that we wear. Forever and ever we will experience the goodness, the grace, and the brilliant splendor of God’s greatness, and share in that splendor as if it were our own.

Redemption will elevate us to be glorious beings – conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, God the Son – and we will be honored and brilliant and powerful and exalted. And if you’re thinking, “woah, this is too much about how great we’ll be” that’s the beauty – we really will be great, but it will not give rise to one ounce of pride, for we will know that our greatness and our glory belongs to Christ and we will gladly give the glory back to him. We will be amazed at how good God is being to us – forever. Ephesians 2 says:

So that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:7)

This is where the Bible places our hope. Not that everything in this life is going to go peacefully, or that nothing bad will ever happen to us. It’s that even the bad, even the tragedies, are going somewhere good. Somewhere eternally good. And the bad and the suffering will not be comparable to the good and the glory. Knowing that and believing that gives us strength and purpose that sustains us in the hard and confusing times.

IV. God’s future grace is as assured as His love for us

The final question we might wonder, what if that glorious future grace is real, but I won’t get there? What if my failures and sin and the challenges of life cause me to fall away from God and fail to reach that future grace? Life is unknown – what if something I can’t even see right now cuts me off from the future grace of God?

Paul has one more amazing assurance for us in this chapter. Read with me verses 35-39.

Nothing – not death, not life, not this fallen world, not all the what if’s that could possibly happen, not spiritual powers, not anything that is presently happening, and not anything in your future will separate you from the love of Christ.

As a parent, I would never want anything to take my children away from me. Janice and I know what it’s like to constantly be watching kids when they were younger and riding that tricycle in the driveway – watching that no one tried to kidnap them. No harm came to them. Never willingly allow harm to come to them or something to take them away from us. But as parents we only have so much control and tragedies beyond our control do happen.

But God’s love doesn’t want anything to separate us from Him, and His power and omniscience and sovereignty are such that nothing can separate us by force or by taking Him by surprise. So, Paul looks to the future and says, nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Not because we’re holding that tightly to God, but because He’s holding that tightly to us and nothing can, and nothing will, ever break His grip. That’s the grip of grace.

And that’s our hope of future grace – the best kind of grace, cause it’s what we will experience and enjoy forever and ever. And it’s a done deal. If the economy tanks, the earth is shaken with earthquakes, the US is taken over by a hostile nation, and we are all exposed to some deadly disease, we will still be able to meet here and sing and preach the goodness of God with confidence.

Christians can live each day absolutely confident in God’s grace for the future