All Creation

All Creation | Romans 8:12-25 | Rev. Brandon D. Buchanan

8th Sunday After Pentecost | Year A (2026) | Greenville Methodist Church

Sermon

One of the hardest things about following Christ is that so much of God's work happens where we cannot see it. We live in a world that measures success by what is immediate and visible. We celebrate quick results, dramatic transformations, and overnight success stories. If something is growing, we expect to see it. If something is changing, we expect evidence. But the Kingdom of God rarely grows that way.

The most important work God does is often quiet and patient. It unfolds slowly, unwearyingly, beneath the surface of our lives. By the time we recognize what God has done, the Spirit has often been at work long before we ever noticed. I was reminded of that this week as I thought about my childhood. My kids spend their days with my parents and for as long as I can remember, they’ve grown cherry tomatoes. They’ve mostly always kept a garden.

I, on the other hand, can't tell you much about gardening because, truthfully, I wasn't the one planting or pulling weeds, even though they had me out there, I’ve blacked out from all of my nashing of the teeth days. However, I was mostly the beneficiary of someone else's work. I do remember wandering outside on summer afternoons sitting in our raised bed in the side yard right by the kitchen and picking cherry tomatoes straight from the vine. I'd brush them off on my shirt and eat them right there.

As a child, I never thought about the process and the work it took to cultivate those tomatoes. I simply enjoyed the sweetness. Looking back, I realize every tomato I enjoyed was the result of patient work I never saw. Someone else had prepared the soil. Someone else had planted the seed. Someone else watered, weeded, and waited. Long before I ever tasted the fruit, there had been quiet, faithful labor beneath the surface.

The older I become, the more I realize that's often how God's grace works. Long before we recognize God's presence, the Spirit is already moving. Long before we begin searching for God, God has already come searching for us. Long before we bear the fruit of discipleship, the Spirit has been patiently cultivating our hearts.

As Methodists, we have a beautiful name for this. We call it prevenient grace—the grace that goes before. Before we pray, before we believe, before we understand, before we ever take our first step toward Christ, God has already taken the first step toward us. The Spirit is already at work, preparing the soil of our lives for new creation.

That is a fitting truth for this season of the Church year. We have settled into the long green weeks after Pentecost, what we often call Ordinary Time. Yet some in our Methodist tradition have called these weeks Kingdomtide, because they remind us that God's Kingdom is already taking root among us even as we await its fullness. These are the weeks when disciples are formed—not usually through dramatic moments, but through ordinary faithfulness. Week after week, the Spirit patiently shapes us through worship, prayer, Scripture, Holy Communion, acts of mercy, and lives lived together in Christ.

That brings us to Paul's words in Romans 8. For several weeks now, Paul has been teaching us what God's grace has done for us. We have heard that we are justified by grace. We have learned that grace sanctifies us. Last week, we heard the remarkable promise that God's Spirit now dwells within us.

But this morning Paul invites us to ask another question. What happens where the Spirit dwells?Listen closely to this answer; where the Spirit dwells, new creation begins.

Paul begins with language that would have sounded familiar to the Christians living in Rome. He says, "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God." That may not sound particularly surprising to us. We have heard for most of our lives that we are God's children. But Paul's first hearers would have understood something more than affection. They would have heard belonging.

In the Roman world, adoption was not primarily about providing a home for a child. It was about giving someone a name, a future, and an inheritance. An adopted child became a full member of the family, carrying all the rights and responsibilities of that household. Their past no longer defined them. Their future did. So Paul takes that familiar image and fills it with the gospel. The Spirit does more than forgive our sins. The Spirit welcomes us into God's own family. We are no longer strangers trying to earn God's approval. We are sons and daughters who can cry out with confidence, "Abba! Father!"

That little word, Abba, is deeply personal. It is the same intimate name Jesus used when he prayed to the Father. Through the Spirit, we are invited into the very relationship that the Son shares with the Father. We are not merely spectators of God's love. We are participants in it.

And Paul doesn't stop there. He says that if we are children, then we are also heirs– heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. An heir does not simply receive a gift. An heir receives a future. Paul is reminding these Roman Christians—and us—that God's intention has always been larger than individual salvation. From the beginning, God has been creating a people who bear God's name and reflect God's life into the world. And that is why Paul suddenly turns our attention to creation itself.

You see, Creation is not waiting because it has forgotten its Creator. Creation is waiting because it longs to see the children of God become who they truly are.

Paul paints a remarkable picture. The trees, the rivers, the fields, the birds, even the earth itself stand in eager expectation—because they are longing for God's work of renewal to be revealed. Notice how Paul describes that longing. He says creation is groaning.  Groaning, for Paul, is not the sound of despair; rather, it is the sound of labor. The pain creation experiences is not the pain of a funeral. It is the pain of childbirth. Something new is being born.

Paul has no interest in pretending life is easy. In fact, he is remarkably honest; after speaking about adoption, inheritance, and the hope of new creation, he says something that almost sounds surprising. In verse 22, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves..."

Paul doesn't separate humanity from creation. We groan together. The earth bears the weight of brokenness, and so do we. We know what that feels like. We watch someone we love receive a difficult diagnosis. We pray for healing and continue waiting. We grieve relationships that have fractured. We mourn losses that never seem to leave us. We carry burdens that no one else can see. There are moments when we wonder whether anything is changing at all.

That is precisely the wound Paul is addressing. Because when growth is slow...when healing takes longer than we hoped...when discipleship feels ordinary... when the church doesn't become what we imagined overnight... we begin to wonder if God is still working.

But Paul says something astonishing. The groaning is not evidence that God has abandoned creation. The groaning is evidence that creation is pregnant with God's future. As some of us know in this room, Labor pains are painful. No one would deny that. But labor pains carry hope because they are moving toward birth. Paul deliberately chooses that image because Christians live between the promise and the fulfillment. The now and the not yet.

The Kingdom has already begun. It has not yet come in its fullness. We have already received the Spirit; yet we still await the redemption of our bodies. We are already God's children; yet we still wait for that identity to be fully revealed. That is why hope, for Paul, is not wishful thinking. Hope is trusting what God has already begun.

Paul writes in verse 24, "Hope that is seen is not hope." If we could already see the harvest, we wouldn't need hope. Hope is what allows disciples to remain faithful while the Spirit continues doing hidden work beneath the surface. Perhaps that's why Ordinary Time matters so much. These long green Sundays teach us to resist measuring God's faithfulness by immediate results. Instead, they invite us to notice the quiet work of the Spirit: every prayer whispered. Every act of mercy offered. Every child taught the stories of Scripture. Every meal shared around the Lord's Table. Every person welcomed through our doors.

These may seem small. But the Kingdom has always grown this way: Quietly. Patiently. Faithfully. Because where the Spirit dwells...new creation begins.

Are we trusting the work God is already doing? Sometimes we imagine faithfulness means waiting with our arms folded until Christ returns and makes all things new. But this passage paints a very different picture. The Spirit has already been poured into our hearts. We have already been adopted into God's family. We have already received the firstfruits of what is to come. That means we do not wait passively; we wait faithfully, we become an outpouring of God’s love.

Every act of forgiveness is a glimpse of God's coming Kingdom. Every meal shared with a neighbor is a foretaste of God's heavenly banquet. Every child taught to pray, every song lifted in worship, every hand extended in mercy, every word of hope spoken to someone who has forgotten they are loved—these are not small things. They are signs that new creation has already begun.

Perhaps that changes the way we think about the church. We often ask, "How do we grow?" Paul first asks, "How are we being formed?" Because healthy things grow. The Spirit's first concern is not building bigger churches but forming people who look more like Jesus Christ. As we are shaped into his likeness, our homes begin to look different. Our relationships begin to look different. Our community begins to look different. The world catches a glimpse of the Kingdom that is still coming.

That is why creation waits with eager longing. Not because it is waiting for us to become impressive. Not because creation is waiting for us to become successful.

It waits because it longs to see the children of God fully revealed.

And every time we choose love over fear... Every time we choose mercy over resentment... Every time we choose hope over despair... The veil is pulled back just a little bit further.

Creation catches another glimpse of its future. That may not feel dramatic. Most days it won't. It will probably look like another ordinary Sunday. Another quiet prayer. Another visit to someone who is lonely. Another lesson taught to our children. Another loaf of bread broken at Christ's table. Another act of generosity no one else notices. But perhaps that is exactly how God's Kingdom has always grown: quietly, patiently, faithfully.

I think about those cherry tomatoes again. As a little boy, I thought they simply appeared. I never saw the work beneath the surface. I simply enjoyed the fruit. Now I know better. Long before there was sweetness on the vine, there was patient work in the soil. Maybe that's where some of us find ourselves today. You may not see much growth in your own life. You may wonder if your prayers matter. You may look at the church, or your family, or this world, and wonder if God is still doing anything at all.

Here the gentle answer from Romans: "Yes."

The Spirit is still moving. The Spirit is still forming. The Spirit is still bringing new creation to birth. So do not lose heart because the work seems hidden. Trust the Gardener. Keep praying. Keep worshiping. Keep serving. Keep loving. Because where the Spirit dwells...new creation begins.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let us pray: Gracious God, thank you for the quiet work of your Spirit. Give us patience to trust what we cannot yet see, courage to remain faithful in the ordinary days, and hearts that reveal your coming Kingdom to the world. May your new creation continue to grow within us, until all creation rejoices in your redeeming love. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

[ANNOUNCEMENT, invite the congregation to the Drop-in next Sunday at the passonage from 2-4 p.m. with a house blessing at 3 p.m.]

Benediction

Go in peace, trusting the quiet work of God's Spirit. May your life bear witness to Christ's coming Kingdom, your hope remain steadfast, and your love become a sign of God's new creation for the world. Amen.