from verse 18 to 25. Our focus this morning is going to be on 23 to 25. Romans chapter 8 verse 18 to 25. "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruit of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons of redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." Let's pray. Father, we entrust this time to you, asking for your blessing and your Holy Spirit, Lord, it would empower us, soften our hearts, open our ears, that we may have a clear vision of who you are.

We pray, Father God, that the Holy Spirit that you've promised that we have would continue, Lord God, to cause us to grow and to mature. I pray that you would empower this time for the sake of your name. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Okay, just as a quick review, as you guys know, the previous passage, Paul has been talking about the place of suffering for Christians in the context of this world.

And there's three, just as a review, there's three things that we talked about last week. One, that all creation continues to groan in suffering. That the suffering in this world is universal. Suffering in general is not unique to Christians. Anyone who lives in this world, sooner or later, will experience some kind of suffering.

In fact, if you sit down and have a conversation with somebody, you really want to get to know somebody, eventually they will share about the different sufferings that they've experienced in life. In very eclectic, very different backgrounds. But every single one of us has some kind of story of suffering.

So, number one, suffering is universal in the context of this world. Number two, we talked about how suffering reveals the genuineness of our faith. That God causes us, or allows us, to experience different kinds of suffering. And it's kind of like having a sponge and you squeeze, and you really don't know what's in there until it's squeezed.

So, suffering causes the squeezing of our life, and it exposes, or identifies, whether the genuine faith causes us to run to God, or it causes us to run to other things. And thirdly, we talked about how glory that comes as a result of suffering is far greater than any suffering that we will ever experience in this life.

And so, Paul has been laying this out, saying that this is the Christian perspective of what it means to suffer in this world. Today, in verse 23 to 25, he's going to be talking specifically in the context of this "here and not yet." The experience of groaning and suffering in the life of a Christian, and why that may happen.

And he's going to be talking about that, verse 23 to 25. Theologians have phrased this, or the experience that we have as Christians, and "here and not yet." And you probably have heard of this theology before, where you have the kingdom that has been initiated, but it has not been completed.

Our salvation was initiated, but we don't have the final product yet. So, everything that we are experiencing was initiated, but it is not finalized. And so, we're kind of in between this longing that we have for the finalization of our salvation. And that's where we get the term "here and again not yet." Our church, because of the age of our church, we have a lot of weddings.

A lot of weddings. I think just this last month and a half, we've been to about three or four different weddings. And I know some of you guys who are engaged, and you're kind of in that position where you're not quite dating yet, but you're not quite married yet either.

You're in the process of getting married. So, she's not your husband, or she's not your wife, and he's not your husband, obviously. Not yet. But you're kind of in that position where you're waiting, and until the day that that happens, and your wedding, the covenant marriage and blessing actually happens.

So, you're kind of in that in-between position where you're beyond dating, but you're not married yet. Well, that's how our Christian life is described in the Scripture. Where there was this initiation, and it was started, but we haven't found this completion. Now, why this theology is so important is because it gives us perspective of what to expect during our Christian life here.

When we think that everything that is promised in the Scripture is to be actualized during this lifetime, that's where a lot of our frustration comes from, and the wrong perspective of the promises God come from. We have the deliverance of our lives have been initiated, but it has not been completed.

The Kingdom of God is here, but not fully, not yet. Our salvation is past. It is also present. We are being saved. And the Scripture says that we will also be saved. There's a future aspect of the salvation that the Scripture promises. So, every Christian is living in this juxtaposition where we are living in Christ while dead in the world.

We are physically citizens of this country, and yet we are reminded that we only belong as citizens in Heaven. We are called to be heavenly minded. At the same time, we are to strive during this physical life to be a light in this world. So, this juxtaposition of a Christian who is in between these two worlds, one longing for the coming of Christ, and the other part of us that lives in a physical world that's headed in the opposite direction.

So, this morning, just in these three verses, we're going to look at three things that Paul says about, again, about the Christian life, and what it has to say, and hopefully it will give us perspective on the promises and the things and what it means to be saved as a Christian.

So, if you look with me in verse 23, I'm just going to read that real quick again, because all three points are going to be coming from these three verses. "And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." So, the first point I want to make is that Paul says that we have the firstfruits of the Spirit.

Now, I want to distinguish here that he doesn't say you are the firstfruits, he says you have the firstfruits. And I want you to sit and linger for that just for a second. Like, what is the distinction of saying that you are the firstfruit versus you have the firstfruit?

The distinction I want to point out to you is that when we hear the term "you are the firstfruit," it makes it sound like that in the consecutive line of order of people who are coming to Christ, that the first century Christians happened to be the first, and then they bore fruit, and then you had the second, and the third, and the fourth.

But he doesn't say you are the firstfruit. He says you have the firstfruit. Now, what does that mean? And I know some of you guys are in the middle of finals, and you're kind of like, "Yeah, I don't want to think about anything but the finals right now," but you're going to have to pay attention.

What does it mean to have the firstfruit? In order to understand what Paul means here, and again, I think this is very significant in understanding our Christian lives. To have the firstfruit, the concept of firstfruit in the first century Christian or to a Jew, would have had significance in two ways.

One, obviously the word itself when it says "first," meaning that it was the beginning. The firstfruit basically meant when a farmer went out to harvest, the very first fruit that came is called the firstfruit. That's why it's called firstfruit. Now, the distinction is he doesn't say that you are the whole harvest.

You're not the whole harvest. You're just the firstfruit. The first, the initiation. Again, you're going to say, "What does that mean?" When Paul talks about the firstfruit, most likely, Paul is probably referring to the Feast of Weeks that the Jews practiced. And the Feast of Weeks basically was the celebration of the first harvest.

That was the celebration, the feast that they celebrated, the first harvest. And it also had a religious meaning behind it. Just like when we celebrate Thanksgiving, supposedly it was a celebration of the harvest, but it was also a celebration of God's grace in the life of the Puritans. And so the first harvest, the Feast of Weeks, was a celebration of the beginning of the harvest, but it also had the significance of introduction of the inauguration of the first covenant of the law, giving of the Mosaic Law.

Now, the reason why that's significant is the Greek term for that harvest was called the Pentecost. So some of you guys may recognize that term Pentecost because it's mentioned in Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2 was the inauguration of the second covenant, the covenant of the Spirit. So when the Holy Spirit comes upon the church in Acts chapter 2, it was the inauguration of the firstfruit of the Spirit.

It was the inauguration of the second covenant, the covenant of the Holy Spirit, instead of the covenant of the law. Now, I'm going to bring all this together so that we can understand the significance behind this. When he says, when Paul says, "You have the firstfruit of the Spirit," he's basically saying that he initiated the salvation.

It's not complete. The harvest that he's mentioning, he's not talking about the totality of the harvest. He's saying that the very beginning, the first signs that harvest is beginning is the firstfruit. And the Holy Spirit was given to you so that that harvest may be initiated. Again, to bring this point further, in Galatians chapter 5, 22-23, it says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law." I want you to pay attention closely again, and I want you to think this time, when I mention these characteristics, who do you think of?

And it doesn't have to be religious. You don't have to be righteous, because it's going to be only in your own head. When I describe these qualities, who do you think of? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law. Who do you think of?

Don't say it out loud. I just want you to think for a second. You might be thinking of some famous pastor or some missionary. But I have something a little bit more practical, something a lot closer to you. If you, I was, you know, I was going through this past and I was looking at this, and, you know, all of these qualities are qualities that somebody has when they fall in love.

Right? Every one of these qualities, right? If anybody in here recently had a DTR, right, defining their relationship, and you just recently fallen in love or just started this relationship, and you started this love, right, and you have this, this, whatever, endorphins kicking in you right now, and usually when you fall in love, what's the first thing that you have?

Joy. There's plenty of joy. There's a lot of big smiles, right? And then when you have joy, there tends to be peace. And when you have peace, you tend to be a bit more patient, right? Your partner can say dumb things, you know, years later it's going to irritate you like crazy, but when you first fall in love, it's just so funny.

You know, so witty. What initiated all of this? It was love. That person fell in love. When you fall in love, all of these things, if you look at all of these things, it kind of falls in line. And the reason why I mention all of this is that the scripture describes that the Holy Spirit was given, and we have the first fruit of the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit is mentioned in Galatians 5.22.

So if you've ever seen anybody genuinely repent and come to Christ, you will see the first fruits of love. We love because He first loved us. We respond in love because He loved us. We fell in love with Christ. And as a result of that, we have joy and then peace.

And it is when we forget about that, and we drift away from the first love, all these other things are also lost. Isn't that true? You look at it even in our marriage relationship. If you don't love your wife and your wife doesn't love you, most likely there's no joy in that home.

And if there's no love, there's no joy. There's probably no peace either. Everything that they do that you love at one point is irritating you. Right? So if you look at these qualities, all of these things are initiated because the Holy Spirit that has been given to us was a first fruit and it caused us to be changed in this way.

It was His love that He initiated to every single Christian in the Spirit. Now why is this significant? And the point that I want to make is He initiated. That's the first thing when He says it is the first fruit. It is not the totality of the harvest, but He initiated.

The second idea of the first fruit is the idea of dedication. Not only did it signify the beginning of the harvest, but it also signified the dedication where we get the tithing from. We get the first tenth and then we offer it up to God and every New Year's Eve we dedicate the first period of our New Year's and we offer that as dedication.

We give the first of our first harvest and it signified that with this tithe all the rest belongs to Him. It was our act of worship. That's what the meaning of first harvest meant. The tithing meant in the Old Testament. So the scripture says not only is the Holy Spirit the initiation of the salvation, the beginning of the salvation, He says it is a deposit guaranteeing the salvation.

In Ephesians chapter 1, 13-14 it says, "In Him you also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance." So some of you guys who use the NIV, the word for guarantee is deposit.

And the meaning behind this word in Greek, I think deposit is a more closer translation, at least what I've read, the meaning of this word. So whether it's guarantee or deposit, basically what it means is that God put His stamp declaring that we are His. He initiated this and we have the stamp of our belonging to Him.

You know today if you don't have the money to purchase something, you just use your credit card. Right? There was a time, probably not in your lifetime, but at least not most of us, there was a time when even credit cards were not being used. It was very scarce.

So I remember when I was younger and I didn't have enough money, if I wanted to buy a pair of pants that I thought was going to look good on me, and I didn't have the money, we would go to the store and what's called a layaway. Anybody remember what a layaway?

Yeah, okay, a few of you. All right. You would go and lay it away. So basically, you know, you have this pants that you like or a shirt that you like or the shoes that you like. You would put a deposit. And so deposit basically meant that they would tag that pants, put it away in the back, put your name on it and say it was worth $30.

There's $5 deposit on it. So after I put the deposit, that pants can't be sold. That belongs to me because I put that deposit on there. So they're waiting for me to come pay the rest of it so that I can pick that up. That's what they called layaway.

And that's how we used to get stuff. Right? Sometimes it would take years, but it would take, that's how we would get stuff. Like we would lay it away and get it. But we used the term deposit. I think today's equivalent would be if you're purchasing a house, in order for that house to be taken off the market, you have to put a deposit.

And that deposit holds that house so that it can't be sold until the contract period is done and you pay the final bill and then it becomes yours. See, the significance of that deposit is that it is not completely yours yet. You're not there yet. But it is guaranteed that it will be yours.

And so the Holy Spirit is given to us not only as the first fruit, initiation, but as a deposit, as a seal, guaranteeing that we belong to Him. Now why is this so significant? And that's where the theology of here and not yet come from. Because the promise of deliverance is not completely in your life.

Not physical life. The promise of deliverance, the promise of comfort, the ultimate promise of glorification is not in this life. See, the Holy Spirit has been given to us to initiate this salvation. As a deposit guaranteeing our salvation. And the reason why all of this is significant is when we have an understanding of salvation being complete in this world, and when you don't experience completeness, when you don't experience sanctification the way you think it ought to be, when you read the promises of God and it doesn't unfold the way you see it in other people's lives maybe, or maybe what you imagine in your own head, you think something has gone wrong.

Maybe God doesn't fulfill His promise. Either God is wrong or I am wrong. See, but when He says the Holy Spirit, well if He's given me the Holy Spirit, how come I'm not experiencing this, you know, like walking on water and healing people. Why am I not experiencing all of this?

Because the very idea of the Holy Spirit is the initiation. It is a deposit. But the ultimate fulfillment is when He comes. That leads us to the second point that Paul makes. That this initiation, this first fruit of the Holy Spirit causes us to groan inwardly. Look with me in verse 23.

"We ourselves who have the first fruit of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as a son, the redemption of our bodies." This juxtaposition of a Christian who in one sense have experienced this new life. This is initiated. We tasted the goodness of the Holy Spirit.

And yet we're living in a world that is going exactly the opposite direction. And so that causes this tension. So when we, as we studied before, the idea of groaning is a deep-seated desire. Or a deep-seated suffering that we experience where words enough, words not enough. It's not just superficial, "I want this, I desire this." There's a distinction between, you know, today when we say we're hungry, we just mean that we haven't eaten in a while.

Most people who live in the United States don't know what real hunger is. There's a kind of hunger where it actually physically begins to affect you. I mean, most of us don't experience that. The groaning that he's talking about is not just stubbing your toe or you couldn't get the job you wanted.

It's the kind of suffering that, the deep-seated desire that you cannot express with words. And the reason why you can't express it with words is because the satisfaction is not in this world. The answer for that groaning is not in this world. So there's no words that can describe, there's no words, nothing that you can attach this emotion to.

Because it doesn't exist in this world. So the Holy Spirit in us is groaning. It is groaning, and the reason why there is a groaning in us is because the Holy Spirit has been deposited and he initiated, causing us to long for the satisfaction of Jesus Christ to come.

See, the problem that we run into is when we sense that groaning in us, and that groaning leads us to something other than Christ. When we experience that longing, that maybe that frustration, maybe that pain, and that causes us to run to something else in this world. See, he says the Holy Spirit has been given to us to initiate, to make a deposit, a seal, to cause us to come to him.

See, in 2 Corinthians 5, 2-4 it says, "For in this tent," tent meaning this body, "we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling." "If indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked, for while we are still in this tent we groan, being burdened." He's describing a Christian.

A Christian who has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He says, "As long as we are in this tent," in other words, we are not home. Because every single human being is experiencing a level of decay. In the book of Genesis, if you go down the book of Genesis, if you happen to be one of those anal people who's going to count all the numbers, and I'm not one of those people, but one day I decided, I was just curious, because in the book of Genesis it begins by saying that Adam lived for 930 years.

Well, that's a long time. And so I began to see, because many books later, they die like normal people, 70, 60, 50 years old. But I wanted to see the progression, and so just, let me just give you the numbers that I found. Adam lived up to 930 years and he dies.

His son Seth lives 912 years and then he dies. Enosh lives 905 years and he dies. Kenan, 910 years and then he dies. Mahalahel lived 895 years and then he dies. Jared lived 962 years and then he dies. Enoch lives 365 years, he doesn't die, he walks with the Lord and he disappears.

Mithsusila lived 969 years and then he dies. Lamech lived 777 years and then he dies. And I can go on and on and on, right? But the reason why this is mentioned is twofold. One, there is a decaying of mankind. And each progression, it doesn't go straight down like most stock when it crashes.

It doesn't just crash like this, those guys who have money in stock, right? Usually it goes down and then it goes boop, boop, boop. It gives you a little bit of hope, right? When you have hope and then you think boom and then it crashes. That's what you see in the history of mankind.

You see people living and then they're in decay and then one guy comes, he breaks this graph. And then you think oh, okay, and then boom, the next guy lives up to 700 years. And then oh, 800 years and boom, 600 years. And so you see this decay. The second thing that we are supposed to notice in that is at the end, whether you live 930 years or 700 or 60 or 30, everybody dies.

And the reason why that's significant is because God prophesied as a result of man's sin that they were going to die, that judgment is going to come, all of creation has been cursed, that from the ground all the labor that you put in is going to produce thorns and thistles and at the end of it you are going to die.

You and all of creation is going to die. And so the book of Genesis is a record of the curse of mankind unfolding. Now why is that significant to us? Because you and I are part of that creation physically. Average human being in our lifetime, at least in our generation, says that, I remember when I was younger they used to say 70 or 73, but I recently read that the average human life, at least in the United States, is about 78 years.

And women are a little bit higher and men are a little bit lower, so the average is about 78, 79 years. It seems like it's more than that, but just going by the average, 78, 79 years. Physical peak for men they say is about 25, 25. For women it's a little bit younger than that because you had puberty earlier.

So you might be a year or two physical peak earlier than that. Now why that's significant is that that means majority of your life you're decaying. For the first few years of your life you're eagerly expecting to get older, right? Freedom. You want to get to college. You want to experience adulthood.

And then you hit your physical peak and from that moment on you want to step on the brake. So you experience a few years of peakness and then majority of your life, if we live up to 78, 80 years and your physical peak was 25, over 50 years of your life you are decaying.

Hello. Now this is a fact. I'm not depressing you. I'm just telling you facts. When the Bible describes this fall of mankind, that all of creation is under decay and under judgment of God, and then final end of all of this is decay. Physically you and I experience all of this like any other human being.

And life doesn't lead to greater life. You don't live five years and ten years and twenty years and there's more life. So usually when people outside of our church hear how young our church is, you know the first thing that they say? Oh, your church must have a lot of energy.

Because a lot of young people, you know, there's a lot of life in young people. And as soon as you hear that people are older, you know, you get the exact opposite response. Right? Because typically we equate life with less living. We equate energy with less living on this earth.

The more you live on this earth, the more you expect decay. The more you expect less life. Now again, none of this is like something I created. This is just observation. This is just fact. Now why is this so important in our understanding of salvation? Everything it says in creation has been longing, has been groaning for the revealing of the sun.

Like sons of God. Meaning it's in decay. And as Christians, the only place where we experience life is the areas of our life where we are connected to who? To the author of life. And every other part of our lives that are not connected to the author of life is experiencing decay.

And judgment. And at the end, it leads to condemnation and death. And there's a reason why God says that you cannot be friends with the world and friends with God because these two things are headed toward opposite directions. If you're trying to get on an elevator, there's two options.

Either you go up or you go down. You don't open the door and say yes. You can't say I'd like to go up and down. When? At the same time. You can't do that. And that's why they said you cannot be in friendship with the world. It would be enmity toward God because the friendship with the world means that you are going down.

And the only way that you experience life is the areas of your life where you are connected to the author of life. And the Holy Spirit has been initiated and deposited, and that Holy Spirit is causing us to groan. What are we groaning for? For things that are not here.

Things that are not decaying. The Holy Spirit in us is groaning for life. Not for a vacation. The Holy Spirit in us is not groaning for better food. The Holy Spirit in us is not groaning for safety. It is groaning for real life that was lost at the fall of mankind.

And that's why, again, why this is so important for us to recognize is that God deliberately initiated and deposited the Holy Spirit so that this groaning would lead us to Him. A greater and greater longing for Him. The more we experience this life, tell me if this is true or not, the more you experience this life, the more you are eager to go home to Christ.

You tell me if that's true or not. Whether you've experienced life in 20 years or 40 years or 60 years, because this world is in decay, because it is under judgment, and it is increasing in that sense. That's why Romans 8.23, it says, "We wait eagerly for adoption as sons." We are eagerly to go home.

The redemption of our bodies. 2 Corinthians 5.2-5, "For in this tent we groan, longing to put on the heavenly dwelling." When He says, "In this tent we groan, to put on the heavenly body," what is He saying? To go where there is no decay. To go where there is no death.

"If indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked, for while we are still in this tent we groan, being burdened." Isn't that what you experience? Isn't that what life feels like the longer you live? There's nothing to hang your hope on except for Christ. See, that's what the Holy Spirit's primary ministry is.

We think of the power of the Holy Spirit to empower us so that we can evangelize and heal people, but the primary role of the Holy Spirit, remember? He said, "The helper is going to come. I'm not going to leave you as an orphan. He's going to cause you to remember everything that I have said.

He's going to convict the world of sin, that they may repent, that they also may come and be my children." The primary role of the Holy Spirit is to bring us to Him. So He places this groaning inside of us with words that we can't express because our longing is not in this world.

He says that we would be further closed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life, and He who has prepared for us for this very thing is God, who has given us a spirit as a guarantee. That's what it means to be here. Salvation is here, but not yet.

Not yet. We've been given a taste. Typically, you go to a wedding, you know, and there's an in-between wait, and you get hors d'oeuvres. A lot of times you get hors d'oeuvres, and hors d'oeuvres are delicious. And the more delicious the hors d'oeuvres are, it causes you to think, "What's in the main meal that the hors d'oeuvres would be this good?" And you've been given a taste of what may come.

See, the Holy Spirit that is causing us to groan has given us a glimpse of the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And here's what it says in 1 John 3, "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared." Our final salvation has not yet appeared, but we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.

When He says, "We shall see Him as He is," He's saying, "We haven't seen Him as He is." Not fully. Again, in 1 Corinthians 13, 12, "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." He says, "We've been given a taste." The Holy Spirit initiated this salvation.

We were given a deposit to cause us to groan and to hunger to go home, to be with the Father, the Author of life. So we experience life in the areas where we are connected to Him, and we experience decay in the areas that are not connected to Him.

See, the frustration comes when we are desperately seeking to create heaven on earth. This is not heaven. Everything that you and I know is part of the fall, outside of Christ. That frustration comes because you are chasing life in the wrong place. You are seeking satisfaction, the end result of your salvation, in the wrong place.

That groaning can only be satisfied when we are with Him. That's why in Philippians chapter 1, 6, remember that passage? Paul is reminding the Philippians in the context of much suffering. He says, "He who began a good work in you will carry it unto completion until the day of Christ." I remember years hearing that passage thinking, "Oh yeah, God's going to perfect it.

God's going to fulfill all His promises." And I remember one day reading that passage, it's a completely different perspective. And I remember reading that passage one day during quiet time, saying, "He who began a good work in you will carry it unto completion until when? Until the day He comes." And you know what that reminded me?

That this struggle is not going to end in this world. That this struggle is meant to be carried on until He comes. That this wrestling, that this groaning, is not going to be satisfied when you graduate college. It's not going to be satisfied because you get married. It's not going to be satisfied because you have one, two, three, four, five kids.

Because your business does well. That that satisfaction is not going to come. This wrestling and groaning is going to happen until He comes. Because that's what the Holy Spirit was given. It was to initiate. It was to bring us to Him. Again, Philippians 3.20 is reminded, "Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself." If the distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian is that the non-Christian, the God of this age, has blinded the mind of the unbelievers so that they do not see the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

A Christian is somebody whose eyes became open and saw the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And yet the Bible describes whatever glory that we saw was only a glimpse. However glorious His salvation was. However spectacular what we saw on the cross was. He says it was only a glimpse.

And if you and I have been changed because of that momentary opening of our eyes to see the glory, what is the glory waiting for us when that veil is torn completely, and we are no longer seeing Him as a child dimly through a mirror, that we are seeing Him face to face?

That glimpse is what's causing you to come every Sunday, isn't it? Despite the frustration, despite the relational issues, despite the differences of opinions, what causes you to keep coming? The only real answer is because you've tasted life of Christ, and you know and you agree that life is in Christ and Christ alone.

So if this is only a taste, it is only a glimpse, it's only a preview of what is to come, we understand when Paul says it's not even worth mentoring the suffering compared to the glory that is to come when He comes. And that's why he says, number three, for this hope we were saved.

For this hope. Now what does he mean by this hope? What he just mentioned. This initiation, this deposit, this groaning that causes us to long for eternity. It is in this hope that we were saved. Not here, but what is to come. You know, in the passage that we just read in 1 Corinthians 13, 12, it says, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." And here's that famous passage in verse 13. It says, "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love." It almost seems kind of random. I mean, it's a great passage, but when you read the previous text, he's talking about how we only see Him dimly, and then all of a sudden it says, "Faith, hope, and love, and greatest is love." It almost seems it's disconnected, but it's actually, if you look at it carefully, it makes perfect sense.

If we're seeing dimly, what causes us to be able to go and see Him face to face? What connects us to Him is faith. Faith is what initiated our contact with Him. Faith is what initiated justification. Hope is what causes us to continue. Hope of what we believe in faith causes us to continue.

But when we finally arrive, when we finally arrive out of faith, hope, and love, what will remain? Love. Faith and hope is a vehicle that has get us there. And what is the destination? Love. Love is what we will experience. Love is the destination. And that's why the first fruit of the initiation of the Holy Spirit is the taste of what is to come.

The fruit of the Holy Spirit first is love. It's somebody who falls in love is the one who has joy, and he's the one who has patience, and he's the one who has kindness and gentleness. So he has given us a taste of his love to ultimately fulfill the final product of love when he comes in glory.

He said, "In this hope, we have been saved." That's what Jesus meant in front of the grave of Lazarus. And they were weeping because Lazarus died. And Jesus reminds them, whether they understood it or not, even if he comes back to life, he's going to die again because he's still in his tent.

We may be able to extend his life a little bit. You may be able to live a little bit more comfortably. But he will decay again. He will die again. And it is at the front of the grave, he says, "I am the resurrection and the life." I am the resurrection and the life.

And that's exactly what Jesus meant when he said, "I have come to give life and give this life abundantly." That is the Holy Spirit that has been deposited in us. Let me conclude with reading this passage, 2 Peter 3, 8 through 13. "But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be, in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for the hastening of the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn?

But according to his promise, we are waiting for the new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." Let's pray. Again, as we invite our praise team to come up, let's take some time to seek the Lord in prayer. Again, wherever we may be in our walk with God, to recognize that if you've tasted the goodness of God, and the Holy Spirit has been deposited in you, and you have the seal of the Holy Spirit, you know what I'm talking about.

There is a groaning in you that God has placed that can only be satisfied in Christ and Christ alone. Have you been seeking satisfaction somewhere else? Are you frustrated because your hopes have been placed on things that are decaying? Let's take some time to come before the Lord in honest prayer, that in our weakness that we may find strength in him.

So let's take some time to pray as our worship team leads us. you