19 Jan The glorious hope of believers

Romans 8:18-30

 

18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

It’s been a busy time over the last couple of months at our place. We moved house and did some renovations as well. It feels like we’re still recovering now from that time. Pretty early on in the renovation, there was a moment where it was all getting a bit too much and we felt like we were ready to call it quits. I don’t know if it was the dust that was everywhere and in everything. Or the fact that all our things were packed away in boxes so it was impossible to find anything. The number of times I ran out of clothes, so that I was wearing trousers on the hottest day of the year. Or the constant banging and drilling throughout the day. Or having tradies come through our house at all hours of the day. Or having to sleep, all six of us, in the one room, which the kids loved, but Kezia and me, not so much. Kezia and I just looked at each other and said, ‘Is this worth it?’ Why go through all this pain, all of this struggle, and all of this hardship? For what? It feels so costly.

And while house renovations don’t compare to the sufferings, afflictions and trials you and I might face, today we’re asking the very same question: Is it worth it? The difficult things. The painful and hard things. Because it feels so costly. And things can feel so hopeless sometimes

Well, the Apostle Paul gives us three Ps today that will be an anchor for us, give us hope, help us to keep going, to know that it is worth it, when the ground feels like it’s falling out from underneath our feet

1. Perspective
2. Presence
3. Purpose

 

And we start with the first one: Perspective.

You probably can’t tell, but I’ve been noticing myself lately that I’m probably past my peak physically. We were in Singapore recently, and my plan was to do what I always do when I’m in Singapore, which is eat my way through all my favourite hawker markets.

Char siew rice

Popiah

Es Kacang

Mango Ice

Satay

But there were a few times where I just couldn’t fit anything else in. My appetite was gone. And this has never happened before. That’s when I began to realise that gone are the days when I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want.

I was talking to a guy from church the other day. He’d recently resigned from his role at work. And he was telling me how he was absolutely loving life. He gets to game all day. He goes on spa days with his mum. He sleeps at 6am and wakes up at 11am. It made me think, I haven’t done an all-nighter since my uni days. These days I do an all-nighter and I’m paying for it the rest of the week. Gone are the days where sleep is an option and a few hours of sleep is enough to get me through the day. All of this to say that my body as it is now, this is probably as good as it’s going to get. But how different it is for Christians. Because life right now isn’t as good as it’s ever going to get. In fact, we have this glorious future to look forward to, even if this isn’t necessarily how it feels right now

Today, the Apostle Paul begins this next section in Romans 8 by describing our current experience as one of groaning. We groan because things aren’t as they should be. We groan because we want things to be better. It’s the reality of living in a post-Genesis 3 world that is ravaged by sin and death. And it’s not just us, but the whole creation is groaning too

See there in

20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Frustration. Decay. Groaning.That sound about right? Is that true of your own experience? But here’s the good news. Things will not always be this way. Paul describes a future glory, a great day of unveiling, when the children of God will be revealed and the pain and suffering we experience now will be no more. It will be a day of liberation for creation, freed from its bondage to decay, when everything is made new, and restored to how it was always meant to be. A day of final adoption to sonship.

Yes, we are children of God already. But there is a sense in which there will be a day when we will experience the fullness of what it means to be children of God, to enjoy relationship with God as our Father, and we actually resemble our Father and share in the family likeness. And finally, it will be a day of redemption. We will have new bodies, not entirely new in the sense of replacement bodies, but new in the sense of transformed, same, same, but different too

All of this to say that Christians have a future that is so great, so glorious, so wonderful, that Paul says,

18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Imagine that. A future so great and glorious that our present sufferings seem small, insignificant, and light. Like comparing oranges and apples. Don’t bother comparing them Paul says.

We have four kids. But for each of them, my wife, Kezia, when we’re in the delivery room, she’s always asking me ‘Why?’ As if I’m the one to blame. Remind me never to do this ever again! But the funny thing is, once baby is out, it’s a completely different story. She’s forgotten the pain of the last 24 hours and she wants to go again, ‘Let’s have another one!’ Why? Because the joy of the child in her arms completely overshadows the pain she feels during childbirth. And this is what having the eternal perspective of the Christian, with our eyes on the future, will do for us. It will help us keep going in the midst of hard times. Because we know that it won’t always be like this. Things will turn one day

Friends, our present sufferings can feel overwhelming at times. I mean, how do we cope with the loss of a family member? How do we get to the other side of grief? How do we respond when we’re given a diagnosis that turns our world upside down? What will keep us going on dark days of deep depression that have us curled up in a ball, and we feel unable to get up? But Romans 8 gives us a new perspective this morning.

As Tolkien writes in The Lord of the Rings,

Everything sad will become untrue

C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce, who writes that some people

… say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.

Or as Dostoevsky wrote

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for … that in the world’s finale … something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”

It’s this eternal perspective that helps sufferers have hope, and us too in the midst of challenging seasons when we’re tempted to give up. Are you suffering today? Are you finding things hard?

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4

16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

There is a future glory so wonderful and so weighty and so glorious that our present sufferings seem light and momentary.

In 1947, the African-American scholar Howard Thurman gave a lecture at Harvard University on how African American slaves were able to endure such horrible treatment at the hands of their slave owners.

He said

… the facts make clear that religion (deepened) the capacity of endurance and the absorption of suffering … It taught people how to ride high to life, to look squarely in the face of those facts (their suffering) that argue most dramatically against all hope and to use those facts as raw material out of which they fashioned a hope that their environment, with all of its cruelty, could not crush … This total experience enabled them to reject annihilation and affirm a terrible right to live.

This is what we have as Christians: an unquenchable, unshakeable hope, that your environment, even with all of its cruelty, cannot crush and nothing and no one can take away from you. Let this hold you when all hope seems lost and it looks like darkness has won. It hasn’t. That’s point one: Perspective.

 

Point two now: Presence.

I’m not sure how you listen to your music, but we Tans use Youtube on a browser to listen to our music. Yes, you heard right. Youtube. But recently, Spotify had a no obligation, three-month free trial which was simply too good to refuse. For three months, it was glorious. But soon enough, we got to the end of the three months, and we were told our subscription was ending unless we started paying for it. Which we did, of course! Because how can you possibly go back now that you’ve tasted ad-free music, which keeps playing even though you might be working on something else. And that’s what the Holy Spirit is for us today

Paul says that while we wait for the glory to be revealed in point one, the liberation from bondage to decay, and the redemption of our bodies when the children of God will be revealed, this is all future. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s now but not-yet. As we wait God gives us the presence of the Holy Spirit, who Paul describes as the firstfruits, the first taste, first instalment, first batch, of what’s to come. He’s the free three month trial before the full paid subscription.

But firstfruits also has another meaning. Just as the firstfruits of a harvest are a glimpse of what’s to come, the firstfruits are also a guarantee, because if the firstfruits are good then you know what’s to come will be good too. And in the same way, the Spirit as firstfruits means that he is the promise, the guarantee, the downpayment of what’s to come, locking in the future glory that’s promised in point one. He gives certainty of what’s to come. He gives us a taste of how it will be later, now. And not only is the Spirit the first fruits of our future glory, but he helps us while we wait for this future, not-yet glory to be revealed

There will be times when in the midst of suffering, we don’t know what we should pray. We’re lost for words. Why is this happening? Why now? What do I do?

Well, Paul says in

26 … the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

Two things here. The first is there is always someone praying for you. A few years ago, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the needs of people. How am I going to meet all these needs? And I didn’t feel like I was doing a particularly good job either.  I mean, what difference can I make in this situation anyway? And so I resolved to pray for every single person in my church, so that, at the very least, everyone could say that someone is praying for them. Who is praying for you? The Holy Spirit is.

The second thing is that the Spirit prays for us when we don’t know what to pray for. I wonder if like me you’ve offered to pray for someone, but you aren’t really sure how to pray for them? Someone asks you, ‘Please pray for my exams’. What do you pray for? Do you pray the person will get a Distinction? Do you pray the person will use their time well? Do you pray that the exam will be cancelled at the last minute and everyone will receive an average based on their results earlier in the semester? Do you see? It’s hard to know what to pray for.  Because we don’t know what’s ultimately good for someone We don’t know what’s best for them.

I love this from Blaise Pascal

I ask you (God) neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death; but that you may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for your glory … You alone know what is expedient for me; you are the sovereign master, do with me according to your will. Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow you, and bad to offend you. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden among the secrets of your providence, which I adore, but do not seek to fathom.

In our weakness, we don’t know what to pray and what God’s secret, specific, hidden will is. This hasn’t been revealed to us. And yet, when we don’t know what to pray, when all we can manage are wordless groans, the Spirit prays for us what God himself would pray, because he and God are one. We don’t know the mind of God. But the Spirit does. And he prays according to God’s will. It’s like having the person who wrote the exam as your tutor and doing the exam for you, that’s what it’s like when the Holy Spirit prays for us. That’s point two: the presence of the Holy Spirit

 

Point three now: Purpose

If you know my story, I wanted to go to Bible College straight after school. But my parents and my pastors at the time said I should go to uni first. And so I did. But then I finished uni and the same thing happened. I wanted to go to Bible College, but my parents and my pastors said I should go find a job. And I remember being so frustrated at the time. Why am I here? What’s the point of this? I saw work as the thing that was getting in the way of me serving Jesus full-time. Of course, this is all part of my own journey. And by the time I left work to go to Bible College, I was deeply thankful for my time at work. And part of what God had shown me is that he doesn’t make mistakes. This is his plan A, not his plan B. God didn’t see work as the thing that got in the way of me doing ministry, but the way God was doing ministry to me, working in me, changing me, and shaping me. And that’s the thing with suffering.

We often wonder what the point of our suffering is, what good it’s doing. We want there to be purpose to our suffering, to know that it’s not for nothing. We interpret suffering as an obstacle to God’s plans and purposes, a mistake, an interruption and an intrusion to our lives. Why would God bring this difficult person to church? Have you ever thought, ‘Man, this would all be so much easier, this would work so much better, if they weren’t in my church’? Why do I have to deal with a water leak in my apartment? Why did I have to miss my bus this morning out of all mornings? Now I’m late for my super important meeting. Well, that one is easy. Please, let me answer that one. You slept in. That’s why. And yet, Paul tells us that our suffering is never nothing. God is working good in all things.

See there in

28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Two things to notice here. The first here is Paul is not saying that your suffering is good, but that God can use suffering. It is his instrument or tool to unleash his grace in our lives. A means of grace, for our good. That’s the first thing.

And the second thing to notice is that we don’t get to define the good that God is working for us, God does that.

See there in

29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

God’s will for us, his purpose for us, is our sanctification and our salvation. His goal for us is that we become more and more like Jesus and resemble him. It’s our holiness, not our happiness. We think that the painful things, the hard things, the difficult things, the uncomfortable things are bad and we should avoid them as much as we can. We’re confused by them. God, why wouldn’t you give me that job? Surely, it’s good for me to be able to provide for my family. God, why would you allow me to get sick? Surely it’s better for me to be healthy, live a long life, and be around for my kids and grandkids. God, why wouldn’t you give us children? Isn’t this what you want for us? We’d make such great parents. But God’s ways are not our ways. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. And God alone knows what is good for us

As John Newton said,

Everything is needful that he sends, nothing can be needful that He withholds.

Your suffering is never for nothing. And if he hasn’t given you what you’ve asked for, it must be because it wouldn’t be good for you, or at least, not yet. God is determined to work for your good. And nothing is going to frustrate his plans.

As Paul says in

30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Five things here that God does for the believer. The first thing he does is he foreknew us. It’s not that he chooses us because he knows beforehand how people will respond to him. No. But he sets his love on us before the beginning of time. He chooses to choose us. And then he predestines us. He pre-decides, before we have done anything good or bad, he determines that we would be his. Then he calls us. He woos us to himself, so that we are unable to resist him. And then he justifies us, makes us acceptable to God by his blood shed on the cross, washes us clean and declares us to be righteous and acceptable in his sight. No more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then he glorifies us. We will be transformed and we will be like him, and we will see him face to face.

And yet, in each instance, isn’t it interesting that Paul uses the past tense

Foreknew

Predestined

Called

Justified

Glorified

Why is this? Because Paul is so sure that it will happen, he writes as if it already has. It’s as good as done, because God always finishes what he starts. The reason they call this chain of events ‘The unbreakable chain of salvation’ is because no one can stop it. One thing happens after another. This happens. Then that happens. Then that happens. Like a domino effect. And Paul is so certain that this is what will happen to believers, that God will fulfil his purposes, that he speaks as if it’s already happened.

Do you see? God wants more for you than you want for yourself. You just want to pass an exam, but God is working out your salvation and your sanctification. He has a purpose for you that is infinitely greater than anything you ever dreamed or imagined for yourself. And nothing will be able to frustrate God’s plans and purposes for you. What God has begun in you, he will bring it to completion.

I love this from C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity.

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage; but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself … and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him – for we can prevent Him, if we choose – He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what he said.

In this life, you will have much trouble. You will suffer unimaginable things. You will cry out to God and wonder where he is, the heaviness of the pain in your heart will seem too heavy to bear. You will face trials that will bring you to your knees, crush your spirit, and leave you brokenhearted. You will experience setbacks, disappointments, failures, discouragements in ministry which could derail you.

What is this all for? Is it worth it? The process will be long and in parts very painful. But do not lose heart. Because if you only knew …Oh, if you only knew… Because where you thought God was building a cottage, he is, in fact, building a palace. And more than you doing many things for God, God is doing many things for you. God is ministering to you, making you the man and woman of God, the masterpiece he intends you to be, doing the master’s work that he intends for you to do.

The only question then at this point is, ‘Are you and God on the same page?’ Do you have the same shared purpose? Do you want to bring God glory in the way that he says will bring him the most glory? Could it be that you’ve been trying to build a cottage all this time, when in fact God has been intending to build a palace? That’s the final point: purpose.

 

 

I’ll finish here. Sometimes, our present sufferings overwhelm us. Why is it that God would allow this to happen? How am I ever going to get through this? Where is God in all of this? Is it worth it? With our own home renovations, we’ve just kind of held onto the hope that, ‘How good it will be when it’s all done. A house that’s good for our family, for church and for the Kingdom of God’. And yet, God gives us something infinitely better than that. Three Ps to help us in the midst of our suffering when we wonder whether it’s really worth it.

He gives us perspective, that in a little while, things will be better, it won’t always be the way it is now. He gives us the presence of the Holy Spirit, our precious Counsellor, who prays for us at all times, and prays the prayers we maybe should’ve prayed, but we can’t always pray. He gives us purpose, the assurance that in all things, he is working good for us. And nothing could ever frustrate his plans and purpose for us.

Let these three things (perspective, presence, purpose) sustain you, so that you might be strong, firm and steadfast in the midst of your trials and suffering today. Let’s pray.

 

 

Discussion questions:

1. What struck you the most from the sermon?
2. How does having the right perspective help you in your trial/suffering?
3. What does it mean for the Spirit to help you pray in your weakness? How does this encourage you?
4. You think you were made into a little cottage, but God is building a palace. Discuss the implication of this truth in your daily life.
5. How does the gospel assure you that God always works his good purposes even when you can’t see it?