Now and Later

Intro

I want to tell you all a story. This was a couple years ago, I was seventeen. And my birthday was coming up. Life was pretty good, I was in my senior year of high school, I had started helping lead in my youth group, and I was working at Chipotle at the time. I was playing in a worship band with my closest friends, and my youth group was preparing for our missions trip to Arizona’s American Indian reservations. And I was making plans to celebrate my 18th birthday in March.

Then, one week before my birthday, California shut down everything and told everyone to stay home because of COVID. Now I don’t know how you would feel if suddenly all your plans, and all of your life really, seemed to be put on pause and you had to stay indoors pretty much the whole day. But for me, it was not fun. I wanted to go out with my friends, I wanted to go back to church and youth group. But when we first shut down, I expected it to only be a short time and soon I would celebrate my birthday with all my friends.

Well, I waited. And waited. And kept waiting. One of my friends teased me that we couldn’t celebrate my birthday in March. Then we waited so long that we couldn’t celebrate his birthday in May. It wasn’t until summer that I was able to see my friends again. Our missions trip had been cancelled, I was now out of the youth group, my birthday was way in the past, and we didn’t have a real high school graduation. That waiting period sucked. It was not fun. And at the end of waiting so long, even though it was great to go back to seeing my friends, I couldn’t help but think of all the fun stuff we’d missed out on over the last several months.

Now overall, this example of how waiting can really suck is not super important in the grand scheme of things. But I’m sure if you think about it, there are situations in which it feels like you’re waiting on God to do something. I shared not too long ago how I waited a long time for God to show up and do something in my parents marriage. There was a time where there was a lot of conflict between them, and it was impacting me almost to the point of depression not knowing whether or not they would stay married. But I’m sure that I am not the only one who has felt like they were waiting on God to do something big.

Maybe you’ve been waiting on healing for a family member. Maybe you’ve been waiting on God to make a way for your family financially. Maybe you have been waiting for reconciliation between family members or friends, and that’s something that you know you can’t force to happen so you’re waiting on God. My point is that there are so many different situations in which you might be waiting. And that waiting is difficult.

Our passage today is going to talk about what Christians are ultimately waiting for. We’re waiting on something bigger even than God healing us physically or relationally. Our passage’s big idea to remember today is that when we suffer, God gives us hope and help.

Romans 8:18

Romans 8:18 “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

First, the passage doesn’t say “If you suffer, don’t compare.” It assumes that there is going to be suffering. There are some people out there that believe that if you become a Christian, you never have to deal with hard things in life. Somehow, God is supposed to keep you from ever suffering again. Sometimes without realizing it, we can slip up and believe that lie too. We might assume that because we worship Jesus and attend church, that He’s going to make sure only good things happen to us. But that is not how it works at all. Actually, because we follow Jesus and believe in the Bible, it is more likely that we will be criticized or made fun of. (talk about grandpa Chris and your dad’s relationship) Look at verse 17, right before our section today. It says that we are co-heirs with Christ if we suffer with Him. Suffering is simply part of life, and specifically the Christian’s life. Its unavoidable.

Now, whenever I used to read this passage, I was always a little bit confused. It sounds here like Paul is saying that our sufferings aren’t actually that big a deal. It sounds like he’s downplaying just how difficult life can be. But the more time that I spent studying this section, the more I’m convinced that that isn’t true. Paul isn’t saying, “Your problems and pain and suffering is so small, that you shouldn’t compare it with the glory that is to be revealed.” Instead, Paul acknowledges our suffering but he wants us to realize that the hope we have in the future is so much bigger than our current suffering. He’s not dismissing or downplaying our suffering, he wants us to realize there’s more to our life as Christians than suffering.

So what is that hope, what are we looking forward to that’s bigger than our suffering? Remember what I mentioned, that when we suffer, God gives us hope and help. Let’s keep going and learn about that hope.

Romans 8:19-22

Romans 8:19–22 “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”

Our hope is not just God saving us, but its the fullness of God’s work, God restoring the whole world. God won’t just save us if we believe in Him, but He will save this world, Earth, creation, and return it to the way that it was in the garden of Eden. It will be perfect and peaceful again.

The last verse tells us that all of creation has been “in the pains of childbirth”. If you have a younger sibling and you remember when your mom was pregnant with that sibling, you probably will remember that your mom was probably not feeling too great when she was pregnant. I remember when my mom was pregnant with my twin sisters, and she really didn’t feel great. I had to literally pull her out of bed. Now my mom was looking forward to having my sisters, but she still had to go through a lot of pain and suffering in the process. But at the end of that process, she was so happy to have my sisters.

That is how creation is. Right now, creation is in that painful stage, everything hurts, there’s suffering and pain and death. But, creation is one day going to be free from all the bad stuff in the world. One day, creation is going to be restored and instead of pain, we will have joy and peace. That’s what creation looks forward to. It will be “set free from its bondage to corruption,” (which means it will be set free from sin and death) and will “obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God,” which is restoration and life.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes, this all feels kind of like, whatever. Like, ok great, there’s this hope and that’s cool, but it doesn’t really do anything for me right now. How is this relevant to me today? And I get that. That feels really far away from us today.

This hope encourages us that no matter how bad things look on earth, God is still working toward a restored creation. Have you ever felt like you’d just blown it? I have. For me, I felt that the most whenever I did poorly on a test. I was really hard on myself in school, so I would think to myself “now what?” if I got a bad grade. It felt like my world was ending. Grades were a big deal to me. Or maybe something difficult happened that was outside your control. Whatever the case may be, God is still in control and His new creation is happening whether we feel like we have our life together or not! That is our hope, no matter if you had a great day or an awful day, God is still in control and if you are a believer in Christ you will one day be a part of that new creation.

Another thing that made me a little bit skeptical about this whole hope thing when I was younger was actually about the new creation. Have you ever gotten bored of a good thing? I know I have. I’ll tell a little story and see if it resonates with you. Have you ever gotten yourself a bowl of ice cream, sat down on the couch to watch TV, and you get that first taste of pure yumminess? Maybe you had a long day at school, and that ice cream just hits the spot. Its just what you needed. And then you follow it up with the next spoonful, and then the next. By the time you get to spoonful twenty, its a bit different. It doesn’t hit the same. Instead of a perfect, refreshing, heavenly spoonful, you realize that you’ve had too much, your tastebuds are overwhelmed with sweetness, and it just leaves your mouth bored, to be honest. You had too much of a good thing and now your tastebuds are bored. We get bored of good things. You can get bored of playing sports, playing video games, hanging out with friends even.

Sometimes, I used to think that I would get bored of this new creation, or heaven. I would get bored of singing worship songs, seeing golden roads and buildings, eating fruit off the special tree, seeing angels flying around with their little golden harps. I used to think I’d get bored kind of quickly.

But have you ever seen a toddler when someone tosses them in the air? They love it, and they never get bored. I actually have done this with my cousin Gabriel. He would laugh every time I picked him up and threw him in the air, and he would never get bored. Every time, he would just say “again, again, again”. When we’re in that new creation, we will have that same attitude. We will never be bored. We will be able to enjoy all the good things God has for us and it will be just as awesome the twentieth time as the first time. There will be no more boredom!

Let’s read the next section

Romans 8:23-25

Romans 8:23–25 “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Not only is creation looking forward to being renewed by God, but we also are looking forward to being renewed ourselves. Now, we are already saved if we believe in God. But, especially as we get older, we’re going to realize that there are parts of our bodies that physically start breaking down. We may have a bad knee, or we have bad eyesight. So not only will we be saved and redeemed spiritually, but we will also be redeemed physically. We will no longer have physical pain and the effects of sin.

Who here likes waiting? Definitely not me. One time, I had to wait 6 hours in an airport, and then my flight got delayed four times. I waited for 8 hours in the airport. I hated it. But Paul here says that we ought to be waiting with patience for God to restore both creation and us. We can look forward to God making all things right, but we have to be ok with His timing, which is different than how we might think it ought to be.

These are the two different parts of hope. Remember, when we suffer, God gives hope and help. We’re going to look at how God gives help next.

Romans 8:26-27

Romans 8:26–27 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

This is how God gives help. Sometimes, we don’t even know how or what to pray. And that is ok. Sometimes, you may be feeling too emotional to properly form your thoughts. I’ve had conversations with people that were difficult because of how upset I was. I could barely form my words together into sentences. Even if you are unsure on how to pray, this passage tells us that the Holy Spirit steps in and prays on our behalf when we are unable to. We might be struggling, but the Holy Spirit prays on our behalf when we are too weak to pray for ourselves.

It’s like having a person translate for you when you are in a different country. When I visited Greece, I couldn’t always communicate with the people around me. But our tour guide would translate for us and help us find directions. In a similar way, even if you can’t get the words right or communicate the way you want, the Holy Spirit is like an interpreter or translator that brings those feelings and thoughts before God.

And that last part of the passage reassures us that God hears those prayers that line up with God’s will. If our prayers align with God’s will, then He hears them. He won’t ignore you. As long as those prayers are not selfish or focused on what you want to happen but are surrendered to Him, He hears that.

Remember, when we suffer, God gives hope and help.

I don’t know what you’re waiting on for God to do. But I am sure that if you think for a moment on all of the stuff that you’re facing in life right now, you can find an area or two where you, a family member, or friend need God’s help. Let’s take advantage of that help that God offers us, the chance to go and pray and bring our needs before Him. I’ll pray for us, and then we’ll break into small groups.