Video Transcript: Already But Not Yet

Today we're going to focus on a particular theme in Romans 8 and throughout the New Testament, the idea of already and not yet, that may sound a little bit strange, but you'll find out what it means as we go on. Some of the hardest things in life, when we're thinking through the Christian faith as well as living it, is, how do we set our expectations? What should we really be looking for in this life? 

We have some hard questions. When it comes to the kingdom of God and the reign of God. Is it true that God is already reigning on the earth? Or is he not yet reigning? Has Satan already been defeated? Is there victory over Satan already now? Or is that victory, something that's only going to come at some point in the future? When it comes to resurrection, we sing on Easter Christ the Lord has risen today. But what does that mean for us? Are we risen? There are certain passages in the Bible that talk about being raised with Christ. But we know that we still have a lot of funerals that we go to. And we know that somehow, the final resurrection is something we're looking forward to what can we expect from resurrection in this life? And then there's the church. 

The church is the glorious bride of Christ, the place of fellowship, that horrible mounts that you can hardly put up with? What in the world is the church? Is it this beautiful, splendid thing that is amazing? Or is it this kind of yucky thing that you can do just as well without and just worship God on your own? What about your own status? Can you have peace with God and complete assurance that you belong to Him and that Jesus has saved you? Or is that something that you'll only find out on Judgement Day? There are some strands of church teachings that have said that you're presuming if you say that, you know, you're already saved, that you're already right with God, you really can't know that for sure, until the final day. So how much assurance? How certain are we sure? How much can we be sure of our status? While we're living in this life? There's a question of holiness. Some Christians have said that you can become completely and perfectly holy in this life, because God promises the great work of His Holy Spirit. And he speaks of his tremendous transformation. And so already in this life, a person can enjoy entire sanctification, the made completely holy. And some other Christians say. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and even Christians are rotters throughout their life. So what can we expect when it comes to holiness? about prayer? That's one that I have struggled with often. 

How much can we really expect from prayer in this life? Should we be able to pray with such confidence that we know we are going to get what we request? Or should we mumble a few requests to God and say, If it be thy will, and get on with our day, not really expecting too much? Because praying, after all, can be very disappointing. If you ask and ask passionately and confidently, and you don't get what you want. So then you just adjust expectations. On healing? You know, that may be one that may be a subset of prayer in some cases, but how much healing? Can we expect in this life? If you struggle with mental illness, or with certain kinds of depression? Should you expect that really all of that should never bug you again? If you've got a serious illness? Should you expect that if you pray in the proper manner, that illness will be taken away? And you will be completely restored again? Or once again? Should you kind of expect the opposite when it comes to healing and say, Well, I'm gonna go to my doctor, maybe and I'll take good care of my body as well as I can. But that's not all you can expect in this whole area of healing. About guidance. How clear is God's guidance? Should we take each step through our lives only when we have a pretty firm and clear leading from God on that particular matter? Or should we wait until we get that clear leading or should we go through life making as sensible choices as we can and hope that God will bless those choices or is the truth somewhere else? there, but what can you really expect from guidance in this life? And how much can you expect to encounter God? According to the scriptures, we're going to see God face to face when Christ comes again.

But how much can we experience and know him now? How much of the reality of God enters into our experience? How much should we see, because if something's not going to be given in this life, you really shouldn't waste too much of your time, and disappoint to many of your expectations, looking for what you already know will not be granted until the proper time. These are the kinds of questions that come up when it comes to this matter of timing, and understanding what era we're living in, and how much or how little, we ought to be expecting. Now, these are questions that I have wrestled with very much in my own life. Because I've wanted to know God better. I've wanted to see more healing happen through the miraculous power of God, I've wanted to see tremendous advances in holiness. I've wanted to live by God's guidance, I've wanted to see the church be pure and splendid. And so as you go through life, as a Christian, if you're not wrestling with these things at all, ever, then I start to wonder whether you've been trying to live the Christian life, whether you've ever heard some of those magnificent promises of the New Testament. And once having heard them ever been disappointed, when you didn't see them carried out to the degree that you were hoping they wouldn't be. These are some of the things both at a at a doctrinal level, you know, different strands of Christianity have argued over entire sanctification, or over how much assurance you can have, or over whether God is already raining. 

Now, whether Jesus is already raining during the 1000 years now, you know, these are some of the theological questions that come up. But the personal questions and kind of thinking through and understanding how to walk the Christian life, in the time between the first coming of Jesus, and the second coming every day you wake up, these can be pressing questions for your Christian life. And so we want to focus again, on a few verses from Romans that, that capture a lot of the New Testament teaching, we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. And we all understand that pregnancy is different from what is ordinarily labeled a disease, even though it has some things in common with it. It involves nausea, and not feeling very good. It involves bodily changes that are not always comfortable to undergo, the swelling can even resemble the growth of a large tumor, the excruciating pain at the end of it and yet, you know that a pregnancy is somehow something much more wonderful than your ordinary garden variety, nasty illness, because of what it produces something marvelous and miraculous. And when it comes to pregnancy, we also have to think about another dimension of it. When does life begin? Well, at one level, we say, well, of course, it begins, when the pregnancy begins, it begins unseen, and almost unnoticed for a while. And yet we still date birthdays, from the time the child emerges from the womb. So there's something about saying, well, the baby's there, but the baby's not here yet. You know, we almost think of it that way. And someone who was very pregnant and thinks really hard that way.

So we have this picture from the Bible that says the creation is kind of like a pregnancy, with all the discomforts and difficulties that go in it. And with some of that ambiguity are two different ways of thinking, the baby's not yet here, and yet the baby is here. So what do we make of that in the meantime, so the creation is groaning in these pains of childbirth. And then it says, Not only so but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies. So here you have the picture, not so much a pregnancy, although the groaning image is still carried over, but a first fruits, the first part of the crop, which tells you that a lot more crop is still coming in. And the Holy Spirit, whom God has given us, is that first fruits of that crop, and we're looking for it says to the redemption of our bodies, even though Romans is already said that you devote your bodies to the Lord, and that your body died with Christ and is raised with Christ. In one sense. It says we've been adopted. And now it says we eagerly await our adoption. So there's something about it that's already adopted. And yet, there's an adoption, a public adoption, still to come in closely related to that, to the idea of First Fruits is a repeated image in the Bible of the Holy Spirit as the downpayment or the earnest payment, the first payment of a lot more to come. And then the downpayment, you give a large amount, initially when you buy a house, but then more and more keeps getting paid. And when the Holy Spirit is given, God gives the Holy Spirit, God anointed us seal this and gave the downpayment of the Spirit in our hearts, as the Bible says, but then there is still more to be given. In the future, the very image of a downpayment tells you that something's already given. And there's more that's coming. So first fruit says, already, and there's more downpayment says already, and there's more. 

Pregnancy says already, and there's more. And so this is an image that runs throughout the Bible. And it helps us also in thinking through, but also in living out the reality of the Christian life and the reality of the Holy Spirit. In the big picture, Jesus has come. In his first coming, He came to earth, He taught, he did his amazing miracles, He died for sin, He rose from the dead, and and that first coming of Jesus, something new into the world, the new age of God's blessing, and rain, and the giving of the Holy Spirit into the degree that had never been given. At the same time, the death blow to an old age. The New Testament speaks of two world ages or eons. And that first world age is the one of sin and death and fallenness. And with the first coming of Jesus, a new age is broken in. And that new age, that coming world age is here, but more of it is still to come when Jesus comes again. So you have the two world ages, but they are not totally separate. In time, the first world age rungs up to the coming of Jesus, but then it kind of muddles along and staggers along until the Second Coming of Jesus so that first world age doesn't have near its power. And its same, a reality that it had until the coming of Christ, but it's still hanging around. And with the coming of Christ, that new age is entered into time. But it's still awaiting certain things that are common. In the meantime, you live in the overlap of two different worlds ages, in that overlap, you need to conform to this world or eon and not be conformed to the that old fading away world age. 

And the Bible speaks of the overlapping time between those ages as the last time for the last days. It's usually an interpretive error to think of the last days as the decade or the five years or the couple of decades, right before Jesus comes again, in the New Testament, the last days, or the last times are almost always described as the entire era, between the two comings of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the in this period between those two comings, there is always an already a big already of Christ's coming, and a big not yet that he has not yet come again. And so we'll see how that works out in various dimensions of Christian reality and belief as well as in the way we live the Christian life. We'll see how it works out in the realm of understanding kingdom, a victory over Satan, of resurrection of church of our status as Christians of our holiness and sanctification, prayer healing, guidance and encounter with God we'll see what the Bible says about the already of that. And the not yet in each of those areas. When it comes to the kingdom. What does the Bible say? Well, Jesus says, If I drive out demons by the finger of God, which he was doing, then the kingdom of God has come to you. Jesus said, The kingdom of God is within you. It's here, it's in you. it's calm. I'm here. The Kingdom has already come. And he teaches us to pray Thy Kingdom Come. Why would you pray Thy kingdom come, if it's already come in its completeness. It has it. 

And Jesus when he gave the Last Supper said, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. Well, there's an until the kingdom of God hasn't come after a while, which isn't, you might say, Has it come or hasn't it? And this is a classic example of already, and not yet, already, the kingdom of God has broken in, and his reign has claimed his own territory, the Earth is rightfully his. And already, he's bringing his rain to bear on it. But the Earth has not yielded its full submission, and its full allegiance to him. And so there's another sense in which the Kingdom hasn't yet fully come to Earth. And so even as we say that God's kingdom has come in the person of Jesus, we pray Thy kingdom come, and that Jesus will come again, about victory over Satan. Jesus states very clearly, that he defeats Satan, he defeated Satan in the temptations in the wilderness. He defeated Satan when he expelled demons. And when his apostles went out, and others were spreading the good news, Jesus said, when they came back, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. And the Apostle Paul writing in Colossians, says that something tremendous happened at the cross. Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Jesus defeated the devil on the cross, the demons and the prince of demons have been defeated. Jesus said, just before he died, now, the prince of this world is driven out victory over Satan. 

And when you read in the epistles, you read the Apostle Paul saying such things as Satan, hindered us. At the end of Romans, he said, The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Well, I thought he already did that. I thought he already fell. And that victory over Satan had already been won. The Apostle Peter warns, the devil goes around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. So there's already victory, and there's not yet victory. One of the most common illustrations of this I think, originally, originating with New Testament theologian Oscar Kulon was what happened in Europe, in World War Two, he compared it to D Day. And the day D Day was when the allied forces invaded Normandy. And once they won that victory, Hitler was, you know, at least in hindsight, Hitler was finished when they, when they won that and got the armies established on the beach at Normandy, and began to move. It was only a matter of time. But that was the decisive blow, and Hitler was not going to win. But if you had been a soldier on the ground, in Europe, you would not have said, Boy, this is it's sir nice to enjoy victory. Life has gotten really easy. The Nastiest and most brutal offensive of the war, the Battle of the Bulge came after Hitler was already defeated, basically, but he was still around, and he still had a lot of troops, and could still do a lot of damage. So the Battle of the balls is a terrible counter offensive, in which many, many people died.

So you have victory at D Day at Normandy. And yet, the real victory doesn't come until the absolute destruction of the German army and the death of Hitler. And in a similar way, in the book of Revelation, it speaks of Satan being defeated. But then it says, you know that, that we should sing for joy over his defeat, and it says, but what on the Earth, because he's been cast down to you, and he knows that his time is short. So the nastiness of the devil during this present age is not a sign that he is winning, but that he has already lost. But in other sense, he has not yet been totally wiped out. He's been limited severely, and wounded terribly. But God has not yet finished him off. And so there's an already to victory, and he not yet to victory. And we should never give in and say oh, Satan is winning and the demons are too dominant. I just can't resist anymore. But we should not be naive and think that the battle is over. Be strong in the Lord name is mighty power, because your battle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world. 

And so we need to be ready to battle because we are victorious, and we're not yet victorious. And we need to carry on in that victory. about resurrection. Well, obviously Jesus has been raised from the dead, and He has one victory. The Bible says justice Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too, may live in your life. So it's not just true that Jesus has been raised in his resurrection, we're linked to him, God raised Him up, raised us up with Christ, in the heavenly realms, in Christ. Jesus says the Bible. And so there's this repeated emphasis that in the resurrection of Christ, new life has come into the world and into the lives of God's people, because we're in union with Christ. Already, we were raised with Christ and seated with Him in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, and not yet. We wait eagerly for our adoption as sons the redemption of our bodies, our bodies aren't yet glorified, and raised. 

And the Bible says Christ was rain till He put all his enemies under His feet, 

and the last enemy to be destroyed, is death itself. So we know from our own experience, that death still has a kind of power, because people still die. And if we take just one side of the equation, then we make the mistake to some people in Corinth did. They have you know, Christ has been raised, we're raised with Him, we can already now live in perfect health and all is good. And the apostles is there's some people who say that the resurrection has already happened. That's not true. The resurrection, the general resurrection of all people has not happened. And yet Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are going to be raised. So resurrection and understanding what its role is, if you just say, Well, I'm gonna go with an either or you're going to miss the fullness of what the Bible teaches the already aspect of resurrection, but also the not yet, when it comes to the church. The church is a marvel. And the church is a model.

The Bible says his intent, God's intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. You can't say much about the church higher than that, that God decided that now through the church, he's going to show off to the angels into all the powers, how smart he is. The church is God's display of how brilliant he is. And of course, the head of the church, Jesus Christ is a perfect display of that. But the way God brings different peoples to gather the way he transforms people in the body of the church, it's a wonderful and glorious thing. And if that's the only thing you gather from the Bible, you will be savagely shocked and disappointed, because there is a not yet there is also the church in its current condition, which is not yet the perfect bride of Christ, the apostle, just to take one example, right to the Galatians, I am astonished that you're turning to a different gospel. And he's writing a lot of things in his epistles to different churches, which indicates those churches have a long way to go. 

If you read Jesus letters to the seven churches early in the book of Revelation, he has some pretty strong words of rebuke, as well as words of encouragement and praise for them, because the church is not yet what he's called it and designed it to be. And if you're going to relate to the church at all, you need to relate in both of these ways. You need to know the glory of the Body of Christ. And you shouldn't go around acting shocked when you find out that it's not quite as glorious as it's going to be. You need to be able to live with the disappointments of the not yet and still understand the glory, and let the church still be a treasure to you as it is to God. Our status? Well, our status is we're right with God. Since we've been justified through faith, we have peace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we've gained access into this grace in which we now stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We have this peace with God already. And yet, there's a not yet to it as well. By faith we eagerly await through the Spirit, the righteousness for which we hope, the righteousness from God has already been revealed. It's been given to people when we're justified, and we're waiting for the righteousness for which we hope. The Apostle says at the very end of his life, when he's sitting in a dungeon awaiting execution, there is in store for me, the crown of righteousness, he's been declared righteous, long time ago by that point, yet he's looking forward to the crown of righteousness. All already we can know what God's verdict on us is. We can already know our status as justified at peace with God, children of God, but yet that's Not quite as clear to us sometimes and certainly not as clear to the world as when Christ comes again, and declares his verdict of not guilty over each person who belongs to Jesus Christ. So there's the already of rejoicing that you're right with God. And there is a longing, that that declaration will be made public, to remove all doubt about it from anybody else, as well as sometimes from your own heart, when the doubts creep in. And we need to be able to live with some of the not yet elements of not yet being crowned with righteousness, and yet knowing that we have peace of God. When it comes to holiness, well, we died to sin, you've been set free from sin, and become slaves to righteousness. With language like that, you can see why some people said, perfection is possible in this life, because the Bible uses such strong words about the liberation that we have for the sin. And the fact that we can't go on sinning of God's seed lives in us. And then you have the not yet statements, I have the desire to do what's right, but not the ability to carry it out. The flesh and the spirit are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want. 

So on this matter of holiness, something tremendous has happened that sets us free from the grip and power of sin. And yet, there's a not yet I want to be better. But I can't seem to do it all the time. Sometimes not even much of the time, but there's birth, there's this inner conflict that continues. And part of the Christian life is realizing both of these things. When you say to yourself, well, you know, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and people are always just going to be sinners and centers and sinners. There is a tremendous danger in taking that kind of approach. And entirely, you might say, an entirely not yet approach, say, Well, we're just got to keep on sinning. And hopefully Jesus will show up and then we'll get forgiven and go to heaven. This is not the full teaching of the Bible at all. If you're all focused on the not yet. What about the tremendous liberation that could already happen? Now, the progress that you can make in the Christian life? It's one thing to say, Well, the Bible does not teach that progress leads to absolute perfection in this life. But does the Bible teach that doesn't lead anywhere? Does the Bible teach that there's no change, that you're not set free from the grip of sin, that the power of the one who was in you is not greater than the power of the wonders in the world that is very, very far from the truth. So it would be a mistake to say that you can become perfect and entirely sanctified in this life. But it is also a dreadful mistake, just live entirely in the not yet. And underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit as the down payment. It's one thing to say the full payment hasn't been made. It's quite another thing to say nothing's been given. So we need to understand that in this realm of holiness much has been given. But not everything.

In prayer is tremendous statements. I take this one, but there are others similar to it, whatever you ask for in prayer, believes that you have received it and it will be yours. tremendous promise of sometimes it's qualified a bit by the other team is to say, if you ask anything in my name, or according to God's will, then you'll have it. And so these kinds of promises have led to many books on prayer. And many teachings on prayer, that say that if you can, by whatever method, the book recommends, have the full confidence that your prayer is going to be answered, then it will be. And there is this whole teaching of prayer entirely set in the all readiness, of prayer. But those kinds of approaches to prayer, neglect, the very clear, not yet, that's also here. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groans. and He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit. So that we don't know how to pray. But the Holy Spirit is somehow sending up unspoken prayers to God and the Father knows what we need. And that seems to be quite different from the name it claim it or you just speak it boldly because you know what God's going to do. So you pray for it, and you know, it's going to be given. And once again, we need to be careful not to go entirely in one direction or the other, even though it's pretty uncomfortable at times to live in the tension between the two. 

But that's the only place to live. To realize that there are these tremendous promises of what can already happen through prayer and to also realize, there is a not yet there is a model of this where we don't always know God's will we don't always know and have the boldness to ask him Christ's name because we don't know if we can attach Christ's name to that request. So prayer has this already not yet dimension to it. Prayers of healing or expectations of miracles. When you read the gospels, when you read the book of Acts, as we're doing now, Jesus healed all the sick. And when you read about the apostles, there are tremendous things happening, crowds gathered, and all of them were healed Acts5: 16, all of them were healed. God did extraordinary miracles through Paul. And these tremendous miracles of healing are something that has already happened. They're not things you say, well, that's only going to happen when Jesus comes again, these things happen the first time he came, these things happen through his apostles, and many of his early followers. 

So we cannot just say, well, that's something way off. In the future, these things have happened. But there was a not yet as well. Paul did many mighty miracles. And when Timothy had chronic stomach problems, what did Paul do? Did he say, The Lord Jesus heals you, Timothy and liberates you to go on with your ministry? He said, Well, I maybe better watch the water a little bit and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses. Or when Paul is talking about some other things have been happening, he says, Well, I left profitless, sick in my latest, how the world can you tropolis your fellow workers sick and my Letus when all you got to do is say be healed? You know, that's pretty simple. But we have this mix going on in the New Testament. And once again, it is a mistake, to dive into one side or the other, just because either of those fills more comfortable. Intellectually, it's more comfortable and release you to live there. You say, Well, if you just have enough faith, it's going to happen. And then if somebody doesn't have it happen, you say, You must not have enough faith. That, you know, that's a pretty easy position. Intellectually, it's very devastating to those who say it. But you know, it's one way to do it. And the opposite is to keep expectations low. Healings don't happen anymore. 

There's been an entire teaching of cessationism, where God doesn't give the same supernatural gifts that he used to give, or do the same supernatural miracles that he used to do in the era of Christ and the apostles. And that, again, is a very intellectually settled way of doing things, and maybe easy way to live with it as well. If you don't expect much, you're never disappointed. You know if you never expect healings, and then they don't happen, well, at least you didn't get your hopes up. And I believe the way to live is still in the tension. To believe that he ask God can and still does do mighty miracles?. And not all the time. And that only when Christ comes again, will the great miracle of full resurrection, bring complete healing to all and everybody. And in the meantime, some of us are going to live with illnesses that we wish were gone, and they don't leave. And even when that happens, do you say and I'm turning that into a theology, I have not been healed, several other people whom I love have not been healed. I believe healings stopped in the area of the era of the apostles. Well, you really shouldn't draw to great conclusions based on your own experience, because sometimes your own experience could mislead you. 

The Lord might have great miracles in store for you too, and you dismiss the possibility too quickly. So when it comes to healing, you've got to live in this tension that God does mighty things. And he doesn't do them always. Or every time that we asked for them. When it comes to guidance, well, overall, we have the mind of Christ as the apostle when you have the Holy Spirit. God gives you this mind of Christ. And He promised to lead you and guide you throughout your life. And sometimes there's very specific particular guidance. The Apostle was prevented by the Holy Spirit from going to one place, then he was prevented any news from the Holy Spirit from going to the next place. And then he had a vision of a man of Macedonia in the night standing and begging him come over to Macedonia and help us and right away he knew this is the Holy Spirit. This is God's guidance, and we're off to Macedonia. Already clear guidance in this life through the Holy Spirit. And not yet because he writes to the Corinthians that he had some plan that he was gonna go Macedonia, he thought, I'll stop it. Corinth on the way and even sent them a message that he was planning to stop on the way it didn't make it.Is that planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia when I planned this. Did I do it lightly? No, it wasn't like he just I 'll I, I planned on it. Couldn't do it. What what happened to the Divine guidance. 

Sometimes God tells you exactly what's coming next and what to do next. And sometimes he doesn't. And you make your plans. And some of those plans come true. And some of them don't. And so whenever you make your plans and planning is a good thing, you say, well, if it's the Lord's will, we're going to do this or that. And once again, you can do, you can live in either of those poles if you want to. And you say, I'm always gonna wait to do anything until I have a strong and clear prompting or direct word from God. Or you can say God doesn't give, he never sends signals like that anymore. He never gives the kind of guidance that he gave to the Apostle Paul, that was the time of the apostles, you need to update a little bit. You know, St. Patrick had a dream, where the Irish voices were saying, come to Ireland and the great missionary went to Ireland, and helped convert the island. So let's not just say, well, we read about discovering the Bible never happens anymore. Well, it can happen. So be open to the possibilities have very clear and specific guidance in your life from the Holy Spirit. And don't put every decision on hold until that kind of guidance comes because there isn't already and not yet to the clarity of the guidance that God gives. Out on this final, and maybe the most important one and and to me, how much can I expect to know God or experience God in this life, God made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Christ. What a tremendous statement, he sent his light in our hearts, and we can see God's glory in the face of Christ already. And the very same apostle writing the very same church can say, now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I am fully known. Which is it? Do you see the glory of God in the face of Christ? Or do you see a poor reflection as in a mirror, and mirrors were not clear back in those days, they were like polished metal. 

So he, which is it? Well, again, it's both there is an already to which God has revealed himself more clearly than then people prior to the time of Christ in the giving the Holy Spirit could ever have known him. And we don't know him nearly as well, as we're going to. And once again, we need to be able to live in that tension to delight in the light that he's already given, but not to settle. Just because we're not going to see everything till we see Him face to face does not mean we're not going to see any more in this life, or experience anymore, or draw closer to Him, or grow greater in love for him and an experience of His love for us. So when we live in, in between the already not yet we need healthy realism. 

First of all, treasure what's already been given in the first coming of Christ, so much has been given forgiveness of sins, life everlasting already coming into our lives now, the giving of the Holy Spirit, and all these other blessings that we realized through God's new covenant. And since the first coming of Jesus. And at the same time, while we treasure what's already been given, we have to accept that during these last days, this overlap of the two ages, there's a mixture of Kingdom glory, with a fallen fading world, there is the glory, and there is the suffering, and they're both here. Another thing about healthy realism is don't be too quick to give up on others, or to give up on yourself due to faults and failures. Because we have not yet arrived, we are not yet in glory. And all has not yet been made perfect. And that's true of me. It's true of every one of you. And so we're not perfectly healthy, we're not perfectly free from sin. 

And we need to deal with each other very graciously, and with a great deal of acceptance in the meantime, because we can recognize what God's already doing in somebody while realizing that there's a not yet sometimes a pretty big and ugly not yet going on. That's true me It's true of you. And so in all of that we should expect and grown, as the Apostle says, grown for Jesus to return and bring heaven to earth fully because until the redemption of our bodies until it comes again. There's that not yet it's pretty big. And so we need the long for that. In the meantime, the apostle gives us the guidance to what to do, keep seeking more each day, keep pressing on. The Apostle says I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing his sufferings becoming like him and his death. And so somehow to attend to the resurrection from the dead, He says that's what I'm aiming for. That's what I'm putting She's worked, that's where I'm straining for every day of my life. And then he has not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect. But I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me, brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have attained it. But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize, for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 

That's how you live in the tension between already and not yet, you say something has begun and something wonderful in all these dimensions of my life, the kingdom is here, but it's not fully here. Well, I'm going to do what I can to help show God's reign in one dimension of this world where God has given me an area of authority. In dealing with Satan, I'm going to claim victory if there is somebody greater in me than the one who's in the world. And I know he's ticked off, I know, he's going around like a roaring lion. I know that he's really mad that his time is short, but I'm going to battle him with all I got, and I'm not just gonna say he's stronger than I am. When it comes to resurrection, yeah, I, my body's not gonna make perfect until then. But in the meantime, I'm going to take good care of my body, and I'm going to offer it as a living sacrifice to God, and I'm going to live in the light of His resurrection. I'm going to love the church with all of its faults, because it is also the display of God's wisdom, I'm going to enjoy peace with God, and enjoy being adopted as His child, even though the public adoption hasn't yet been announced to the whole world. I'm going to strain forward for holiness, and more holiness, I know I'm going to fall far short in this life. But I can be a lot closer than I am now. 

And so by God's grace, with the help of the Holy Spirit, I'm going to pursue holiness. I'm going to pray. And I'm going to pray daringly, I'm going to pray for some things, that if I'm just going to go by not yet, I wouldn't even dare to ask for. But I'm going to ask God to help me grow in prayer, to discern more clearly what he wants to give, and then to be bold and asking for it. When it comes to healing, I'm going to be able to live with God's will, if he chooses to say no, when I asked him to remove a thorn from my life, but I'm not going to assume ahead of time that he's not going to grant any mighty prayers for healing, I'm going to ask, and I'm going to ask boldly on my own behalf and on behalf of others, I'm going to be open to the guidance of God, I'm not going to insist that every decision I make and every step I take be guided by an audible message from God. But I am going to seek his guidance. And I'm going to be open to the possibility that he's going to sometimes give me guidance that I would not have gotten had I not thought it and guidance that I would not have chosen if it had just been left to me thinking through the situation. And when it comes to an encounter with God, I can thank God for the ways in which I've already experienced him and come to know Him. But I am not going to settle. I'm going to be like Moses and say, show me your glory. And God says, well, there's some things I can't show you.

 But here's what I'll do. And he shows him more than Moses had ever seen before. And so when it comes to your encounter with God, don't settle for less than he's willing to give. You're not gonna You're it's always going to be through a glass darkly. Remember, the Apostle Paul was seeing through a glass darkly, when he'd already been to Heaven and back. So that he believed that after you'd been to Heaven and back, he was seeing through a glass darkly. We are likely to be seeing a little more darkly than that yet. But the point is, even if you've come to know God in amazing ways, there's so much of God to know that no matter how well the better people come to know God, those who have known him the best, seem to talk like they know the least. It's kind of like these great master geniuses of physics. You know, you got a high school sophomore, they think they know all there is to know about physics. And then you get the great physicists in the world who think they don't hardly know anything, for sure. Because they know just how amazing and astounding the world they're studying is. And so it is in our walk with God, the better you've come to know him, the more he can say, wow, I've got a long, long way to go. So in your personal life, keep pressing on towards the goal and to do so with his confidence. The Bible says, hope does not disappoint us. 

This expectation is hope because God has poured out His love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has given us you've got the Holy Spirit. That's your tremendous comfort. In this hope we were saved. Hope that seeing Well that's no hope at all, who hopes what he's already got? But if you hope for what you do not yet have you wait for it patiently. So you have the Holy Spirit with you in this hope and in this expectation, and you have these promises He will keep you strong to the end,  in that God between already and not yet he will keep you strong all the way to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. And in the meantime, don't try to get too comfortable. Don't try to settle into can't expect remarks. Not yet, not yet. And don't get into already already already. Where you think everything is going to go just the way you expect and hope because you've looked only at the already dimensions of what the Bible says Be willing to even be torn. Be willing to be, you don't groan unless there's something uncomfortable going on. And the groaning of Romans 8 is the living between the already and the not yet, be willing to put up with a little groaning and a little tension. Because that great tension is pulling you closer and closer to the day when you see him face to face. 

Dear Lord, we thank you for your great work begun on this earth and Christ and launched and accomplished in such wonderful ways. We praise You for the finished work of Christ and the already initiated work of the Holy Spirit. And we look forward to that day, Lord Jesus when you come again, when the Holy Spirit and all its fullness just overflows us and fills us with the reality of God and we pray for that day. We pray, Lord, that and as we struggled sometimes with puzzlement and questions, trying to think things through and maybe even harder to live things through in this time between the times in these last days, between the already and the not yet. We pray, Lord, that you'll give us strength by your Spirit each day that we may live and rejoice in you for Jesus sake. Amen.