God is destroying evil in the earth through the church.

Summary

All creation is groaning for salvation so that men often try to save themselves. Seeking heaven on earth, men always deliver hell. Yet God’s solution to the pain of this world’s sin is to raise up His sons and daughters who have grown up in Christ so much that they look like Jesus. The context where this happens is the church.

Outline

All Creation is Groaning looking for salvation.
1. I saw a great picture of this last week when we were reading Livy’s Early History of Rome.
  1. The people were fed up with their form of government because it was unable to deliver anything trouble.
  2. They had high messianic hopes when the overthrew the monarchy.
  3. iii.Define what “messianic hopes are.”
  4. The republic began with a government of counsuls. Tribunes were added because of oppression. Eventually they tried to start over with decemivrs. While it stared well because the first decemvirs where high on their messianic hopes, it landed in the grossest forms of bondage.
  5. Appius had a taste of power and he campaigned and once he got in office he created a terrible tyrannical government.
  6. Livy Writes, “True moderation in the defence of political liberties is indeed a difficult thing: pretending to want fair shares for all, every man raises himself by depressing his neighbour; our anxiety to avoid oppression leads us to practise it ourselves; the injustice we repel, we visit in turn upon others, as if there were no choice except either to do it or to suffer it.”
  7. He did things were shocking. – Things were ripe for change. This was the catalyst for change – the wrong catalyst at the right time.
  8. What kind of change? The reformation and the American Revolution vs. the French and Bolshevik.
  9. The 95 Thesis – all things were ripe for change.
  10. There are catalysts for change for our lives, our church and our nation and the world.
2. All false Christs promise heaven and deliver hell.
3. We are in the campaign season. It makes me think back to Obama. Regardless of what you think of him as a president, he was definitely a wakeup call to the church. HE RODE THE GROANINGS OF CREATION FOR A MESSIANIC KINGDOM RIGHT INTO THE WHITE HOUSE.
4. Donald Trump, regardless of what you think of him as a candidate is another wakeup call to the church. He is showing that people are tired of spineless, convictionless, politically correct wimps, as well as speaking to the masses’ groaning for deliverance from futility.
5. Right now, the main difference between who gets elected as President is difference of how fast our nation will continue to bleed to death.
6. The true root of the problem and the true source of deliverance.
7. Jesus the Messiah is the only savior for a world bound by sin and death.
The revelation of the sons of God.
1. This is a very interesting statement, for it does not say “the Son of God” but the sons of God.
2. Jesus, the Messiah, came in the flesh. The eternal son of God, Himself God almighty took on human form. Yet He birthed something in the earth.
3. Matthew 13:31–32 (ESV) — 31 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
4. John 12:23–24 (ESV) — 23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
5. That Fruit is His life Reproduced in His people.
6. Mike – God wants to do such a work in us that if we were to look in a mirror we would see Jesus.
7. Here is the important truth, the Church is the context where believers grow to maturity and Christ is revealed in His people in the flesh.
8. Christ’s life revealed in us is the ultimate catalyst for change.
The Church, the body of Christ
1. Matthew 16:18 (NKJV) — 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
2. Acts 2:46–47 (ESV) — 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
3. Many say we need to get back to the book of Acts
  1. I agree that we need to live and maintain life in the Holy Spirit and the fruit summarized by love.
  2. But they often blame the organization of the Church (as an institution) as the root problem.
  3. Yet, much of the NT is about how to organize a church.
  4. People often say it is not about religion but about a relationship.
  5. Where they are coming from, but how they are losing the war.
4. 120 in the upper room
5. The world is groaning for a great awakening in the church.
Leaven
1. Matthew 13:33 (NKJV) — 33 Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”
2. The Rabbis regarded hametz as the symbol of the evil inclination. The “yeast in the dough” (the evil impulse that causes a ferment in the heart) prevents human beings from carrying out the will of God (Ber. 17a). Hametz also represents human haughtiness and conceit. Just as leaven puffs up dough, so human arrogance cause us to believe that we, not God, control our destiny. Keeping away from hametz during Passover reminds Jews that they once languished in Egyptian bondage before being redeemed by God “with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm.”^{^[1]}
3. The Book of Revelation – 3 Sections: What was, is and is to come.
  1. Written to the persecuted Church – Jews and Romans.
  2. It was a message that gave hope and encouragement.
  3. The two big sections deal with Christ overcoming the Jews and Christ overcoming Rome. Then it looks to the end of All things when Christ will reign over all and heaven and earth become one.
4. The church faced the greatest totalitarian empire the world has ever know, the religious monopoly of the Jews and the intellectual splendor of the Greeks and the church came out victorious in history.
5. A quick view of history from before Christ, early church to Reformation, to Today.
The power of the New Covenant Church
1. 1 Corinthians 4:19–20 (ESV) — 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.
2. From training to doing
The battle over the institution of the church.
1. In society
  1. Tithing
  2. Truth
  3. The dream of life – the stories and history we hold forth.
2. Over Life Springs
3. Raising the value and dignity of the church.
The call to pass the torch to the next generation.
1. Good kings grew the territory of Israel, Bad kings lost it.
2. The state of society.
We Ourselves groan