Eager anticipation

Hebrews 12:1 says, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

Jordan comments, “When it talks about that ‘sin which doth so easily beset us,’ that’s the one that comes along so innocently, looking like it might be so easy. You can’t run with patience with that sin out there, you see. It messes you up. God isn’t mad at you; kick you out of the family. What you’re doing is you’re messing yourself up.

“In your ministry you don’t have to fear poverty, war, the deacon board, the congregation or denominational bosses. You don’t have to fear relatives and in-laws. You don’t have to fear but one thing and that’s sin. You don’t have to fear the government or some businessman getting you locked up on false complaint; somebody betraying you. The only thing you’ve got to fear is sin.

“How are we going to run with patience? Notice: ‘Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.’ If you want to endure the sufferings you do what Christ did. He kept some information in His mind at all times that allowed Him and helped Him and motivated Him and empowered Him to endure.

“Jesus Christ, for the joy of that inheritance, endured the Cross, despising the shame that Satan tried to cause Him there. He kept some information in His mind all the time that made Him endure. That’s exactly what Paul’s telling us.

“He’s saying, ‘You keep that information about your joint-heirship with Him, your participation in His program of total victory and hey, you won’t have any problems in doing down here. You can make it and you won’t be tossed to and fro when problems and difficulties come your way. You’ll just patiently wait them out as you go about serving the Lord Jesus Christ.’ That’s what he’s going to say: ‘We got something coming out there that makes it worth waiting and motivates us to do it.’

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Romans 8:19-21 reads, “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.[20] For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,[21] Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. [22] For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”

Jordan says, “First notice a technical note: you see how he uses that word creature and creation interchangeably? Creature, creature, creature, creation. In your Bible, the word creature, in this passage as in II Cor. 5:17, is a reference to creation. Not just to the little critters running around but to the creation around us.

“People sometimes carp at your Bible, saying it’s a bad translation, but there’s a passage that demonstrates the interchangeableness and the recognition of that interchangeableness on the part of the translators.

“The idea there in verse 19 is it’s like a kid with his head stuck out the window looking for his daddy to come home. He’s eagerly anticipating. The earnest expectation, the eager anticipation of the creature, waits for the manifestation for the Sons of God.

“In other words, creation out here is waiting for the time when we’re put in the heavenly positions up there and the Lord Jesus Christ comes back to earth, sets up the kingdom and then the whole shooting match is brought under the headship of Jesus Christ and is liberated.

“The globe out here, the whole universe, is waiting for the time when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and takes up his inheritance.”