PERSEVERING BY FAITH IN FUTURE GRACE
By Dustin Shramek
"For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised" (Hebrews 10:36).
Last night we looked at why we have the need of endurance. Very simply, if we do not endure, we won't be saved. Just as it says in Hebrews 10:38, "But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him."
Earlier today we looked at how we persevere. We saw that when we treasure the promises of God above the promises of sin, we are able to do the will of God.
The last part of our theme verse, "For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised," is what we want to look at tonight. What has God promised to those who persevere till the end? As Christians, what is our hope?
Before we actually talk about our eternal hope, I want to do some quick ground work. I want us to see how anchored our hope is in the eternal mind of God. So turn with me to Romans 8:28-30.
"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified these He also glorified" (Romans 8:28-30).
I'm sure that many of us know these verses well. We treasure them and cling to them when things are rough. These are precious words. They represent a beautiful chain that starts in eternity in the mind and heart of God. "For those whom He foreknew..." Notice the noun that is the object of the this "foreknowledge." It isn't the future, nor is it the actions of anyone, it isn't even the faith of believers. The object is people. God foreknew people, that's why it says "whom." The first step in this beautiful chain is being known by God from all of eternity. We were united with His Son before the beginning of the world, "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him" (Ephesians 1:4). Concerning this phrase, "those whom He foreknew" John Murray says, "whom he knew from eternity with distinguishing affection and delight."[1] From eternity past God has known all who believe with distinguishing affection and delight.
And those whom He foreknew, He also predestined. And what are they predestined to? "To become conformed to the image of His Son." Ephesians 1:5 says, "In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will." God has chosen us for salvation. He has pre-ordained us to become like Christ. From eternity past, those whom God had foreknown, He adopted as sons.
The next part of the chain is the call of God. Everyone who is predestined receives this call for "those whom He predestined, theses He also called." If one is predestined, he is necessarily called. What kind of call is it? It is the effectual call of God to bring about that which it commands. It is analogous to Jesus' call to Lazarus after he had been dead four days. "Lazarus, come forth" (John 11:43). We too were dead, dead in our transgressions and sins (Ephesians 2:1-3) and as dead men, we were unable to respond to the general call of the gospel that goes out to all people. But because God had predestined us, He also called us, effectually. His call created the faith that it commanded. Since all do not believe, we can only assume that all are not called.
How do I know that not all are called? Because not all are justified and Paul says here that all who are called are justified. If God has called you in this way, you will believe.
But all of this has really only been a prelude to the final link in the chain, which is what I really want to talk about tonight. Those whom He foreknew, predestined, called, and justified, "these He also glorified." Everyone who is justified will be glorified. So we see that this great chain stretches back to eternity past and it stretches forward into eternity future. For before the foundation of the world we were known by God and chosen in Christ for adoption and will be glorified with Him for all of eternity future.
Men, if you believe in Jesus Christ and His death on the cross for your sins, you will be glorified. It is certain. But what does it mean to be glorified? After all, Jesus said in Mark 13:13, "the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved." We must endure, that we know. But how can we? We saw a little of how to persevere earlier, but tonight I want to show us our final hope and how that will enable us to joyfully persevere through all things. So that we can say with Paul, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18).
My title tonight is "Persevering By Faith in Future Grace." We have already heard what it means to persevere and why we must. So let us take the rest of this statement and probe into a little further.
By faith
We must persevere by faith. But what is faith? And how do we persevere by it?
We are saved by faith, everyone knows that. But what kind of faith saves us? Is everyone with faith saved? Obviously, we must have faith in Christ and what He did on the cross. We must recognize our depravity and our need for Him. We must see our need of a savior and then cry out for the saving power of Jesus. But is that all? Or is there more to faith?
I believe that there is. One who merely wants to escape from hell and then turns to Christ is still lacking a significant part of saving faith. Many "believers" will stand before Christ on the Judgment Day and hear Christ tell them, "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven...and then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness'" (Matthew 7:21,23).
What is it that these people lack? They lack delight in Christ. Faith that doesn't come to Christ for satisfaction is not saving faith. Being satisfied in all that God promises to be for us in Christ is an essential part of faith. We see this in John 6:35. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst."
Jesus is the bread of life. It is in Him where we find our satisfaction. It is in Christ where our desires are met and we find true joy. Jesus promises here that if we come to Him we will not hunger. Yet, He also says that if we believe in Him we will not thirst. So we see a parallel between coming and believing. Within the idea of believing there also includes the necessity of coming to Jesus for satisfaction. God awakens our taste buds so that we thirst for Christ and then we come to Him, believing that He will satisfy us.
John Piper puts it this way, "Believing that Christ and his promises are true, based on a testimony, is a necessary part of faith. But it is not sufficient to turn faith into saving faith." God "moves the heart to embrace and savor the reality, not just think that it is true."[2]
So saving faith includes cherishing Christ, it entails feasting on Him and being satisfied in God. We must love Christ, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:22, "If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed." If we love Christ we will treasure Him and we will seek our satisfaction in Him. May we be hungry people who come to Christ so that we may hunger no more.
In Future Grace
We have seen that faith is the treasuring of all that God promises to be for us in Jesus. But this faith must be future oriented, for faith that only looks to the grace of the past won't be sufficient. Yes, all of the grace God has blessed me with is wonderful, but if He doesn't give me grace tomorrow I will be done in. If He doesn't keep giving grace, I could have no hope. So our faith must look to the future. Lamentations 3:22-23 says, "The LORD's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness." God has promised to supply me with a whole new set of graces tomorrow morning and the morning after and the one after that, until I die.
So our faith looks to the future, we trust God's promise to continue to supply the grace we need. We believe Romans 8:28, "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who have been called according to His purpose."
But there is more to God's future grace than the grace that He will supply us on earth. It is the grace that lasts for eternity. It is this grace where I want to turn our attention. What has God promised for those who believe in His Son after they die? Is this life on earth all that we have? Or is there more?
We want to be with Jesus. We say with Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:8, "I prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord." "To live is Christ, but to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21). We want to be with Jesus away from sin and death. Our hope in dying is that we can be with Christ. What a glorious hope when our spirits leave our body at death and go to be with Him.
But that isn't all, John Murray says, "Yet, however glorious is the transformation of the people of God at death and however much they may be disposed to say with the apostle that to depart and to be with Christ is far better (Ph 1:23), this is not their glorification. It is not the goal of the believer's hope and expectation."[3]
Is this true, is there something more than what comes after my death as I enter into heaven? Yes, there is much more. And it is this "more" that Paul is referring to in Romans 8:30, "those whom He justified, these He also glorified." This glorification is so great that it enables Paul to say, "for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18).
It is this more that moves Paul to say in 2 Corinthians 5:2-4, "For indeed in the house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven; inasmuch as we, having put it on, shall not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." Paul here is speaking of the resurrection of our bodies. Of course, until that day we do expectantly look forward to death, but there is something better than mere death for "we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed...."
This glory to be revealed is ours because of our relationship with God, from whom the glory comes. What do I mean by this? Simply, when we believe, God doesn't stop with justification. He could have, but from eternity past, He chose not to. The giver of great grace, not only justifies us (acquits us from all guilt and clothes us with the righteousness of Christ), but He also adopts us. He makes us a part of His family. We become sons of God! Do you remember Ephesians 1:5, "In love He predestined us to adoption as sons..." 1 John 3:1 says, "See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God. And such we are."
As sons of God we are entitled to many privileges, but the greatest of these is shown in Romans 8: 16-17, "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him."
Did you hear that? We are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ! As children of the King we have a great inheritance, being glorified with Christ. We have already hinted at what this means, but let us take a fuller look.
First of all, what does Paul mean when he says that we will be glorified with Christ? He says in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first." We will be resurrected when Christ comes back. 1 Corinthians 15:22-24 says, "in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming, then comes the end..." It will be on the last day as Jesus says in John 6:39-40, "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."
So when we die we are immediately taken to be the Lord, but that is not our glorification. For we are glorified with Christ at His coming, when we are united with our resurrected bodies. Imagine all believers receiving their resurrected body at the same time, with Christ's return and exaltation. Wow!
The question then arises, "What will our bodies be like? Do we get new bodies?"
We do not get new bodies, rather our old bodies are transformed. We know that we have the same body because of texts like Romans 8:11 and Philippians 3:21, "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you" (Romans 8:11). He will give life to our mortal bodies. "Christ will transform the body of our humble state..."
For Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, "[Our body] is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
Our bodies are sown perishable, in dishonor, in weakness, and natural. But they are raised imperishable, in glory, in power, and spiritual.
They are imperishable in that they will never grow old or decay.
They are raised in glory in that they will be beautiful, bright and radiant, for "[Christ] will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself" (Philippians 3:21). Jesus says in Matthew 13:43, "Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." I take this to mean that our bodies will be so glorious transformed in the likeness of Christ that if I saw one of you with your resurrected body, my natural tendency would be to want to fall down and worship. We will be glorified with Christ.
Our bodies will be raised in power because we will be in fullness of strength. No longer will we be prone to fatigue and sickness. Our bodies will be full of health and power.
We will be raised spiritual, meaning, we will be spiritual in nature. Our hearts and minds will always be engaged in the things of God. God and His glory will be our only joy and desire.
But there is also another important aspect of our resurrected body. It will be physical. We know this because Christ resurrection was physical (see John 20:24-29) and He is the first born of the dead (Colossians 1:18; Revelation 1:5). Therefore, His resurrection is a model of ours. Also we see that Christ's redemption includes our bodies as Paul says in Romans 8:23, "We ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as son, the redemption of our body." After all, Paul calls it a spiritual body and a body that is not physical is no body at all.
But the most glorious truth of our resurrected body is that it will be conformed to the image of Christ. "And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Corinthians 15:49). This is why God predestined us as we saw in Romans 8:29, "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son." 1 John 3:2 says, We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is." And let me read Philippians 3:20-21 again, "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself."
To be made like Jesus, that is our hope! And this hope is our anchor as it says in Hebrews 6:19, "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast..."
Jesus is our Savior and as such He has saved us from our sin But that isn't all, He has also saved us from its consequences. This doesn't just include the consequences of eternal punishment in hell, but He also saves us from death. 1 Corinthians 15:25-27 says, "For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For He has put all things in subjection under His feet."
By resurrecting our bodies, Christ shows Himself to be the mighty Savior. For if there was no resurrection, then there would be one thing that Christ never overcame and that is death. Paul even says in verses 12-19 that if there is no resurrection from the dead, then even Christ has not been raised and our faith is in vain. But since Christ did rise, Paul is saying that there must be a resurrection.
In verse 28, he goes on, "And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all." If Christ did not triumph over death by resurrecting us, then God could not be all in all. But what does it mean for God to be all in all?
I can't say that I fully know the answer to that question. But I do have some thoughts on it. As God shows Himself to be the all sufficient savior over all things we see that He is all in all. Meaning, He is all we need in all things. Or He is supremely powerful and sufficient in all things. He is all things in all things. O the glories of God. Romans 11:36 says, For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." God reigns, even over death.
Our resurrection is a glorious truth, but I want to tell you that God doesn't even stop there. He also redeems the creation from the consequences of sin and death. Romans 8:19-23 says, "For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, In hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body."
The creation will be renewed just as our bodies will be. John writes about this in Revelation 21:1-4, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and here shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.'"
This is our hope. To have resurrected bodies in the image of Christ and then to live in the new earth with God dwelling among us. This is glorious! Men, take hold of these promises and don't let go! What can sin promise that compares with this? Peter says rightly in 1 Peter 1:13, "Therefore, gird your minds for action, keep sober in sprit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." What amazing grace will be brought to us. Fix your hope completely on it!
Yes, this is glorious, but it gets even better. How? God not only promises these great rewards to those who persevere, but He even promises to make sure that all of His elect do persevere. It is all in God's hands.
Romans 8:30 says, "and whom He justified, these He also glorified." He will do it.
Jesus promises in John 6:37-39, "Al that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out...and this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day."
And in John 10:27-29, He says, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand."
Our inheritance "is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for [us, for we] are protected by the power of God" ( 1 Peter 1:4-5).
God will cause us to persevere. Paul says in Philippians 1:6, "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." And in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, Paul writes, "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass."
We have a great hope in our glorification and we have a great God who promises to bring it about. "God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:9).
Men, let us "fix our hope completely on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:13).
"For Thou art my hope; O Lord God..." (Psalm 71:5).
As we press on in this fight of faith let us keep our eyes firmly fixed on Jesus for He is our hope.
Notes
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, c 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971,1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, by The Lockman Foundation.
1. John Murray, The Epistles to the Romans (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1959), p. 317.
2. John Piper, Future Grace (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Books, 1995), p. 201.
3. John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1955), p. 174.
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