Future Glory

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Hey, it's good to be here, and we're in the third week of our series, Hope for a Hopeless World. And I think we're in a hopeless time in the United States in a lot of ways. This last week, we've had three mass shootings in the United States, all in one week, Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton, Ohio. And we were praying, we have intercessory prayer at 915 every Sunday morning, and part of our prayers dealt with this idea of hopelessness that we are finding and seeing in our culture. Our culture doesn't know where it's going or why it's here. And there are a lot of youth and a lot of people who are alienated and frustrated that for whatever reason, they're not getting whatever that dream is that they have. They might be misconstruing it, they might not understand it, and then the blame starts being put on those people over here or that system over there or this situation. We have to deal with the underlying issue of hopelessness in our society. And we also have to deal with the ramifications as well. And I'd like to pray for our nation right now. We may disagree. And in fact, I'm sure there's about 20 or 30 different opinions on how to handle these situations here. And I would respect how you see that and why you would see it your way. The one thing I want to pray for is that, like we prayed, come Lord Jesus, come. We need more of Jesus. We need people to find their hope in him. And then the situations in our society, I think it's solved a lot easier that way. So let's pray right now. Lord God, we just lift up to you those who are grieving, those who feel hopeless, those who do not understand the chaos and violence. They don't understand how someone could choose to do what these three have done so deliberately, Lord. And we as a society, we're violent. Lord God, the human heart, we haven't turned to you. We've turned away from you in so many ways. And our self-centered autonomy has gotten in the way and we've used your creation, abused your creation, and we have dehumanized others. And from the racism that we see and the violence that we see and the blaming of others that we see across the entire political spectrum and in so many different ways, Lord God, what we need is more unity, oh Lord, that is found in you. We need your hope. We need you to be our hope, individually and corporately. Forgive us, Lord, for being a society that's turned away in so many ways from you. And we pray, Lord God, that your church would comfort those who are grieving, would challenge those who do not see you yet, and who would serve in all circumstances, Lord, sacrificially for the sake of the love that you have for this world and for every human being in it. So bring your healing, Lord, and bring good discussions out of these acts. And somehow work, Lord, your goodness in our lives and in the lives of others, despite these situations that have occurred. And bless us, Lord, as we look at your word today and get a new framework of how to handle and how to look at difficult times like we live in. All this we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, we, I think appropriately for the next few weeks, are dealing with some tough issues. And we're looking at Romans chapter 8. And I challenged the congregation, and I'm going to challenge you. This is a worthy chapter to memorize, okay? Now I've been doing that, and I better do that if I'm challenging you to do that, right? And I've been doing that during my exercise time. I get on the elliptical in the morning at the clubhouse, you know, and I put out my Romans 8, and I go through it. And let me tell you, it makes the elliptical go a lot faster, and I'm able to memorize, and I've basically memorized a whole chapter just within a couple of weeks by doing that. And it's a lot better than a lot of the other mindless things that I do while I'm on the elliptical. So I might as well actually memorize something that's filled with promises. And today is no exception. We are in chapter 8, verses 18 to 25, where Paul writes, 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. Isn't that a great word right there, 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 firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, you, we, were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees, b...