OT Reading: Psalm 65.9-13
NT Reading: Romans 8.1-11
Message: He Will Also Give Life To Your Mortal Bodies

In today’s New Testament Lectionary Reading, we have a glorious declaration of the gospel from the pen of the Apostle Paul.  He lays before us those wonderful words, “therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Paul dwells on this truth for a few verses, then moves to the realities of God’s Spirit in the life of the believer, and it is in these words that Paul strikes the note which this sermon highlights: the physical nature of God’s redemptive and transformative work through his Spirit.  Paul triumphantly declares that just as the Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, so will he also raise us.  “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”  Paul here highlights the great truth that the salvation God has wrought is not merely spiritual.  It is physical as well!  Paul will drive this point home even deeper as he moves further into this chapter, making it  clear that the redemptive work of Christ extends to the physical creation, including our physical bodies.  And so, in a time when our mortality is highlighted by the daily onslaught of COVID-19 news, we find hope in the reminder that life will, one day, be given to our mortal bodies, and the created order will be restored.  The great story of the Bible is profoundly, but simply this: Creation; Fall; Redemption; Restoration. It this hope of Redemption and Restoration that enables us to look with profound hope, beyond the present, to the day of Christ’s return.  “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus”