Destined for Glory

ROMANS 8:18–39Unashamed — Romans series

INTRODUCTION

Alistair left us last week right at verse 17 of Romans 8 .

Co-heirs with Christ.

Sharing in his suffering so that we share in his glory. And that word -- glory -- is where I want to start today.

Because I think it's one of those words we sing without really knowing what we mean by it.

We've inherited a picture of glory that is thin and a bit otherworldly -- an ethereal glow, something that belongs to church but has very little to do with Tuesday morning. Maybe it is a thing that’s out there seperate from us. But not really connected to my day to day.

Or we reduce it to an emotion, a feeling of transcendence we chase in worship and then lose once the kids start arguing in the car on the way. But Paul means something specific and extraordinary by it. In Scripture, glory isn't primarily a feeling. It's bound up with calling. With vocation. With honour and status and what a thing is made to do. You can hear it in Genesis 1 -- made in the image of God, crowned with honour, entrusted with the care and rule of creation. That was humanity's glory. It wasn’t a feeling or an emotion. It was a calling. a status.

I think Paul as he talks about Glory throughout Romans is drawing on a couple of things - the Genesis 1 made in the Image of God stuff. And from Psalm 8.

Psalm 8:5–8 “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.”

And Romans 3:23 -- "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" -- we've read that our whole lives and heard "I've done bad things." That's true. But it's deeper than that. We fell short of our calling. We abandoned the vocation we were made for. We traded the glory of being God's image-bearers for lesser things.

What might you have tried Glory of being an image bearer of God for? For me, honestly, it often looks like approval of man. I've traded the calling of an image-bearer for the smaller, exhausting project of seeking the approval of people. Maybe it's achievement -- chasing a version of significance that never quite satisfies, wondering why the next thing doesn't fill it either.

Whatever it is -- you were made for more than that. And somewhere in you, you know it.

What have you exchanged that glory for?

Because here is what Paul is saying in Romans. The Son of God, Jesus, became the new Adam -- the one human being who never abandoned the vocation, who bore the image perfectly, who through suffering and resurrection has been made Lord over all creation. And it was always God's plan that you share in that. Not just to be forgiven. Not just to be morally improved. To be brought into the reign of the Son. To participate in his royal vocation over a creation that is waiting, groaning, desperate for you to step into who you were always made to be.

The teacher stewarding their classroom as a corner of creation.

The nurse caring for a patient as a royal image-bearer.

The parent raising children as a participant in the renewal of the human family.

The artist, the entrepreneur, the activist, the administrator -- all of it is vocation. All of it matters. What you do on Monday is connected to what God is doing in all of history.

And this reframes what discipleship is actually for.

THE ROAD RUNS THROUGH THE DARK Romans 8:17–18

But here is where Paul gets uncomfortably honest. The road to that glory is not a bypass around suffering. It runs directly through it.

"Now if we are children, then we are heirs -- heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." (Romans 8:17–18)

The path Jesus walked is the path you will walk too. Before resurrection, crucifixion. Before the crown, the cross. The way up is the way down.

Some of you are in the middle of something right now that feels like it's dismantling you. A grief that has been sitting on your chest for months. A calling that is costing far more than you signed up for. A diagnosis that has reordered your whole life.

And the temptation -- the ancient, relentless temptation -- is to believe that your suffering means God has abandoned the plan. That you've somehow ended up in the wrong story.

You haven't. The sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is coming. Not because your pain doesn't matter -- it matters enormously. But because what God is working in and through that pain is so vast, so cosmic, so far beyond what you can currently see.

Jesus himself gives us the image for this in John 12. A grain of wheat falls into the ground and disappears. From the outside it looks like death -- like loss, like the end. But it isn't the end. It is the condition for an entirely new kind of life. The grain has to go into the ground and be hidden before anything can grow. What feels like burial is actually planting. What looks like the end of the story is actually the middle of it.

THE WHOLE CREATION IS HOLDING ITS BREATH Romans 8:19–27

"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. 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. 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."

So what do you see when you looks at the world?

Two options. Both very familiar. You've probably visited both this week.

Story one: everything is falling apart. Culture decaying, institutions crumbling, politicians corrupt, society fragmenting. The world-is-falling-apart story. It produces outrage or despair, usually both, often simultaneously. Some of you have been doom-scrolling your way to a 2am existential crisis and can confirm: it does not help. You wake up exhausted, vaguely furious, and somehow both convinced the world is ending and annoyed that it hasn't yet.

Story two: everything is getting better. Science advancing, progress marching forward, each generation more enlightened than the last. The world-is-basically-fine story. Much more comfortable -- until you actually look at the state of things and it quietly stops being convincing. Usually around the time you check the news. Which brings you straight back to story one.

It's a fun little loop. Anxious and exhausted, or comfortable and in denial. Pick your poison.

Paul looks at the same world and offers a completely different story. One that is more honest about the darkness than the progress story, and more hopeful than the doom story.

"The whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." (v.22)

Not decline. Not progress. Childbirth.

Childbirth is not gentle. It is loud and agonising and at points unbearable. But it is not the end. The pain is not evidence something has gone wrong -- it is the mechanism by which new life arrives. Purposeful suffering. Directional suffering. Suffering that is going somewhere.

Now I want to pause here for a moment. Because I know that for some of you, the childbirth image doesn't quite reach you where you are. Labour at least has a visible end point. You know something is coming. But some of you are in the middle of something that doesn't feel like labour -- it just feels like pain. Like loss. Like silence. And the idea that this is somehow purposeful or directional feels like a long way from where you're standing.

I want to name that honestly. Paul isn't offering a formula that makes the pain feel better. He's offering a different frame for what the pain means. And there is a difference. The frame doesn't remove the suffering -- it tells you that the suffering is not the final word. That it is happening inside a story that is going somewhere. That the darkness you're in is not the whole picture.

The world is not fine. It is in labour. And so, perhaps, are you.

Paul says creation is waiting in eager expectation.

The Greek word is almost comic. It literally means craning your neck, straining to see something coming. Like you're at a parade and someone tall is standing right in front of you and you're up on tiptoe trying to catch a glimpse. And what is creation straining to see?

You. The children of God being revealed. Creation is groaning, for the image bearers of God to walking into the maternity ward. The image-bearers showing up to do what image-bearers were always meant to do.

Your kindness, your justice-making, your care for people and place -- the whole creation is waiting for exactly that.

Our role here is not to observe that from a safe distance. Oh, that labour looks a bit complex, that situation in my neighbour looks really tricky - I am not sure if I should get involved, that injustice is too big for me to make difference.

We are called to be placed right inside it. NT Wright writes: "At the very point we find ourselves in pain and sorrow too deep for words, at the heart of creation's wordless pain -- pandemics, climate crisis, wars, violent crime and all the rest -- in all of this, God's own Spirit is there, with powerful groans which, though wordless, form the ultimate language of intercession."

Which is why what Paul says next…

"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. 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." (vv.26–27)

The groaning of creation and the groaning of the Spirit within you -- Paul holds these together deliberately. You have been placed inside the world's labour, and when the weight is so heavy, the confusion so thick, that you don't know what to ask God for -- that is not a failure of your prayer life. That is your prayer life working exactly as it was designed.

This is the vocation. Not eloquent intercession from a comfortable distance. Presence. Solidarity. Feeling what the world feels, groaning what it groans, trusting that the Spirit within you is translating all of it into the language that reaches the heart of God.

Where is the Spirit placing you right now, inside something painful, so that your groan becomes intercession? Where are you being called to stay present rather than look away?

THE CHAIN THAT CANNOT BREAK Romans 8:28–39

"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. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified." (Romans 8:28–30)

The "good" in verse 28 is not a promise that things will turn out comfortable. It is a promise that all things -- including and especially the hard things -- are being worked into the purpose you were called for. The purpose of being conformed to the Son. The purpose of ruling with him over a restored creation. That is the good God is working toward.

And then Paul gives us this extraordinary chain. Five links. Every one of them held by the same hands.

Foreknew -- he knew you before you knew yourself. Before you'd done anything to earn it or deserve it or even choose it. Before you were born. He knew you

Predestined -- he set a direction for your life before your life began. Not a script that removes your freedom, but a purpose that holds your story.

Called -- at some point, his voice reached you. Maybe dramatically, maybe quietly, maybe through another person or a moment or a crisis. But he called, and something in you responded.

Justified -- the verdict has already been given. Not guilty. Welcomed. Received.

Glorified -- and this is the astonishing one. Already glorified. Which, if you're anything like me and had a fairly ordinary week, feels a bit optimistic. But that's the point -- that's God's vantage point, not ours. From outside of time, holding all of history in his hands, your glorification is as certain and as accomplished as the cross itself. It is done.

This is the chain that cannot break. Every link held by the same hands that flung stars into space and breathed life into dust. Not one of his children will be lost along the way.

And then Paul anticipates the question his own argument produces. You've just heard that nothing in your story is wasted, that the whole arc is held in God's hands. And some part of you wants to believe it -- but another part is quietly asking: what if something goes wrong? What if I'm the weak link?

Paul's answer is almost aggressive in its confidence:

"If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all -- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:31–32)

The logic is simple and devastating. If God has already done the hardest thing -- given his Son -- then nothing that comes after is too much for him to handle on your behalf. The cross is the evidence. Not your faithfulness. Not your consistency. His.

And then he lists everything that feels like it might be enough to undo you. And I want you to hear this slowly.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38–39)

Neither death -- the thing you most fear losing, or the thing you fear becoming.

Nor life -- the chaos and confusion and ordinary grinding difficulty of being alive right now.

Neither the present -- the specific thing that is sitting on your chest this morning, the thing you walked in here carrying.

Nor the future -- the thing you lie awake worrying about, the thing you can't control, the thing you don't even know about yet.

Neither height nor depth -- things above you, things beneath you, things that feel too big and things that feel too small.

He's not leaving anything out. Whatever you brought in here today -- the grief, the fear, the doubt, the diagnosis, the thing you haven't told anyone -- it is on that list. And it is not enough to separate you from this.

All the theology of this chapter lands here. The glory, the suffering, the groaning, the unbreakable chain -- it all turns out to be held together by love. Jesus has his grip on you.

CONCLUSION

You were not made to simply be forgiven and be good. You were made to reign -- to bear the image of the Son into every corner of a groaning creation: in your work, your parenting, your neighbourhood, your art, your suffering, your wordless prayers at 3 in the morning.

The groan you feel right now -- in your chest, in your bones, in your prayers x -- that is not the sound of abandonment. That is the sound of labour. Something is being born. In you. Through you. For a world that is holding its breath.

Paul looked at his own suffering -- beatings, shipwrecks, imprisonments, rejection -- and said: not worth comparing. Not because he was minimising it. But because he had seen the glory coming, and it reordered everything.

May you see it too. May it reorder everything for you.

You are held. Whatever is groaning in you right now -- he has not let go. He will not let go. Not in the labour. Not in the dark. Not ever.

That is the story you were made to live inside.

RESPONSE

And I want to give you a moment to respond to that right now.

Maybe you came in today carrying the doom story -- quietly convinced that things are falling apart and God is somewhere absent in the middle of it. Maybe you've been living smaller than you were made for. Maybe you're in the middle of a suffering that has felt like abandonment, and today something has shifted.

Whatever it is -- the Spirit knows. You don't need the words.

So just take a moment. Wherever you are. Eyes closed if that helps. Let what is in you come to the surface -- the grief, the hope, the hunger, the confusion. You don't need to dress it up. The Spirit who intercedes with groanings too deep for words is already at work in you right now, carrying it into the heart of the Father as perfect prayer.

[Space for quiet]

Father, we bring you the groaning. The things too heavy to name and too real to ignore. We bring you our smallness and our fear and our longing to be more than we have been. We receive again today that we are held -- not by our own grip, but by yours. That nothing we face, nothing we feel, nothing in all creation can separate us from your love. Shape us into the image of your Son. Place us where the world is in pain. And let our groaning become intercession. In the name of Jesus. Amen.