Day 2209– What Does God Want? – God is With His Family Forever – Daily Wisdom

Welcome to Day 2209 of Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Wisdom Nuggets – What Does God Want? – God is With His Family Forever – Daily Wisdom
Putnam Church Message – 02/26/2023 

What Does God Want? -  God is With His Family Forever 

Last week, we continued our series with the overall theme, which is to answer the question: What does God want? The answer we discovered over the past five weeks was that God wants you and everyone who will ever live. In other words, God wanted a human family. God wants co-workers to take care of His creation. God wants you to know/ who you are/ and why your life has value to him. /He loves you /and desires that you also love Him. So, in last week’s message, we explored how “God Pursues His Family through the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This week, we will extend that thought and see that “God is With His Family Forever” throughout all eternity. 

I ended last week’s message with a firm grasp of some apparent points. Christ is risen. All those who have put their trust in what he did on the cross and his resurrection as the only means of salvation will have everlasting life. But while we are already members of Christ’s kingdom (Colossians 1:13), that kingdom has not yet come to its fullness and finality. 

The same is true of the defeat and destruction of The Satan (devil) and various fallen sons of God. It is already in progress, but not yet realized. The Satan, the devil, and all the evil ones have no claim— no ownership, no power of...

Welcome to Day 2209 of Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Wisdom Nuggets – What Does God Want? – God is With His Family Forever – Daily Wisdom
Putnam Church Message – 02/26/2023 

What Does God Want? -  God is With His Family Forever 

Last week, we continued our series with the overall theme, which is to answer the question: What does God want? The answer we discovered over the past five weeks was that God wants you and everyone who will ever live. In other words, God wanted a human family. God wants co-workers to take care of His creation. God wants you to know/ who you are/ and why your life has value to him. /He loves you /and desires that you also love Him. So, in last week’s message, we explored how “God Pursues His Family through the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This week, we will extend that thought and see that “God is With His Family Forever” throughout all eternity. 

I ended last week’s message with a firm grasp of some apparent points. Christ is risen. All those who have put their trust in what he did on the cross and his resurrection as the only means of salvation will have everlasting life. But while we are already members of Christ’s kingdom (Colossians 1:13), that kingdom has not yet come to its fullness and finality. 

The same is true of the defeat and destruction of The Satan (devil) and various fallen sons of God. It is already in progress, but not yet realized. The Satan, the devil, and all the evil ones have no claim— no ownership, no power of death—over any member of the kingdom of God. We belong to God through Jesus, and Jesus conquered death so that we might be resurrected to everlasting life with him and God the Father (Rom 6:8-9; Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 6:14;1 Corinthians 15:42-49). 42 It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. 43 Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. 44 They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies. 

45 The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.”[a] But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit. 46 What comes first is the natural body, then the spiritual body comes later. 47 Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven. 48 Earthly people are like the earthly man, and heavenly people are like the heavenly man. 49 Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like[b] the heavenly man. While this is terrific, we must remember that while we are still here on earth, we have evil adversaries influencing those who have not yet become citizens of God’s kingdom. Ephesians 2:2 2 You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. On earth, the evil ones are the entities at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. 

Likewise, the powers of darkness have been dethroned. But they have not surrendered. They resist, fighting a losing battle. Every person who embraces the salvation God offers through Jesus is not under his control. Colossians 1:13-14 13 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. As the kingdom of God grows, the kingdom of darkness diminishes. 

It’s easy to get lost in the still-present evil and suffering of the world instead of looking to the future. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that Jesus has already rescued us from the evil ones, as we are told in Galatians 1:4. 4 Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. 

The Story’s Exclamation Point (Bulletin Insert) 

The Bible doesn’t condemn that we are perplexed and sometimes anxious about the evil and suffering we observe. Instead, it’s honest about it. Romans 8:18-25 18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children,[a] including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope[b] for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently). We will obtain our resurrected bodies when Christ returns to finalize God’s kingdom and restore the global Eden.  

Today is the final portion of our story narrative of this series of messages, and I want to focus on the amazing ending—the finalization of God’s kingdom, the restoration of the Global Eden. Every great epic has a memorable ending, you know. The biblical story is no exception. (If you expect harps and clouds, you will be disappointed). 

We tend to process the final act of the Bible’s story in terms of what we get. So, for example, we’ll have everlasting life, not death. That’s exciting, but “everlasting life” doesn’t say much. It’s just a description of duration, not quality. 

Quality of everlasting life emerges more in our minds when we process the end of the story as life in a new, global Eden. The book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, completes the story with Edenic imagery (Rev 21-22). God is there. Heaven has returned to earth. Jesus is there. The tree of life is there. This Eden is better than the original Eden. Evil has run its course. There is no rebellion waiting to explode into the world. Creation is, therefore, perfectly optimized. There is no disease or death anywhere in the plant, animal, or human experience. There is no killing or violence. It’s like nothing we’ve ever experienced. 

The “Eden angle” gets us closer to what the Bible emphasizes at its story’s climax. The passage from Romans 8 I read above adjusts our thinking to bring the absolute pinnacle of God’s plan: “the revealing of the sons of God.... the glory of the children of God.” Yes, the creation groans to be remade new, but that deliverance is linked to the glorification of God’s human family. 

In other words, we are the end game to what God has been doing. Our status as his children permanently fit for his presence and present with him forever is at the forefront of the Bible’s story. Where we live for eternity is just scenery (no doubt spectacular). The book of Revelation’s final vision of the new Eden makes this point for me when it begins the final scene this way in Revelation 21:1-4: 

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. (been remade) And the sea was also gone. (no more chaos) 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 

3 I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.[a] 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” 

(Globe) 

Everlasting Identity 

The “the revealing of the sons of God. . . . the glory of the children of God” is a way of saying that we will someday be transformed and made like Jesus. As the apostle John said in 1 John 3:2, 2 Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. The same thought is expressed in several other verses. Romans 8:29: 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn[a] among many brothers and sisters. Philippians 3:20-21...