From Groans to Glory

Introduction

One of the greatest moments in the life of a couple is whenever a young wife discovers that she is in fact pregnant. A million thoughts can race into the minds of individuals in these situations, however as Christians we know that this is a reason to rejoice and praise God! In the months that follow this initial announcement, though, there are good days and bad days as the baby is growing. Finally, the big day comes and I have heard many a story about the dynamics between husband and wife in the labor and delivery unit. A father not knowing what to do with a deer in the headlights look on his face and a wife screaming directions his way. A father scrambling to call the rest of the family as the wife nears delivery. There are many reactions that take place in this unit of any hospital, however there are several constants: groaning and hope. I was reading an academic journal that had been conducting research on various types of pain while preparing for this sermon and the authors of this study said this about labor: “Labor pain is one of the most severe pains which has ever (been) evaluated.” In ancient times pregnancy was often even more painful and dangerous in that the very life of the woman was severely in danger. In the 15th century, many women made out a will as soon as they discovered that they were pregnant! It was only at the turn of the Renaissance Period that doctors began to help in the labor and delivery process. It is estimated that during ancient times nearly 1 in 4 women passed away during childbirth.

There is groaning associated with childbirth, is there not? The beauty of childbirth, though, is that this process results in the birth of a baby. Life being brought into the world! All of the suffering and groaning associated with this process results in something so wonderful and beautiful that women would go through all the pain again. The picture that we find Paul painting in is a similar story in that we see that there are sufferings in this present time and these sufferings will cause us to groan and cry out, however they cannot compare with the glory that is coming our way! Let’s dive into this wonderful text of Scripture.

Romans 8:18–30 NASB95

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. 26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

Creation Groans (19-22)

Whenever we look at the creation account in Genesis, what do we see God say time after time? “It was good.” Does God only say this after creating man? No! He says this after creating the sun, moon, stars, sea, land, birds, animals and trees. Creation was created and God said that “it was good.” What is the consequence of the “Fall” in ? We see in that God curses the ground because of what Adam and Eve have done. Does God curse Adam and Eve here? No. There are consequences, but the curse of God falls upon the Earth. What season are we beginning to see around us? Spring! What does Spring represent? Life, hope, the end of the cold, dark winter. After Spring comes Summer. Summer brings about growth and crops and brightness. Then comes Fall. Fall brings about the close of the warmth and the preparation for the long, cold season coming up. Then before you know it, Winter is back. This is the cycle that we see each and every year! Even though the ground is cursed, we see each year that the ground gives forth new life. There is pain associated with our world, correct? There is pain also associated with childbirth. This pain and suffering is real and they bring in the possibility of death. Yet the outcome is new life. Creation has hope each and every year, as Paul writes, that it will be set free from its slavery.

Who subjected creation to futility? It was Adam and Eve’s sin, but God is the one who subjected it. What does creation wait eagerly for? The revealing of the sons of God. One scholar put it this way, “The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own.” The full redemptive work of God includes the reversal of this curse. Those of you who farm, you know the futility of working the ground, right? We talked in Sunday School last week about how the weather forecast can say that there is a 0% chance of rain, yet as soon as you are halfway done with your daily chores or balling hay, you can bet that there will be a thunderstorm overhead! You know how sometimes you can put in all the work and effort into the ground and still come up empty whenever harvest time arrives due to a drought or flood. The beauty of what Paul describes in these verses is that creation was not born or created this way! God created the world and said it was “good”. There was not a fault or flaw in creation. The curse on the ground is not permanent! Sure, there is groaning and frustration in our universe, however there is hope. Verse 21 shows us this! Creation itself has hope because it will be set free from bondage and corruption and will share in “the freedom of the glory of the children of God”.

Now, this isn’t directly from this passage of Scripture, but it bears mentioning right now because it is a “debate” among some Christians. Do we have a responsibility to be good stewards of our Earth? Are we supposed to treat it however we want? No. We are called to be over creation. We are to look after the world that God has made. We are stewards of what we are given (we do not “own” it). With that in mind, if the ground is cursed because of the fall and will only be raised to Glory whenever God says so, it follows that we cannot “save” the earth. Does this mean that we trash it and are wasteful? No! Does it mean that our end goal as a species should be to completely eliminate our carbon emissions and to cut all greenhouse gasses? No. Creation will be raised to glory on God’s watch. Our job is to be stewards of what we have until then. We treat the world with respect because we have been given authority over all of creation.

Believers Groan (23-25)

Have you ever heard the expression “Don’t question God”? That is a phrase that I have heard numerous times and it is something that I simply don’t find in Scripture. We see people ask God, “why” time after time. In the story of Job we see God reply by saying essentially, who are you? God says, “Where were you whenever I laid the foundation of the Earth?” God put Job in his place, if you will, whenever he questioned God. God will put us in our place whenever we try and question Him as well! That does not mean that it is a sin or something “bad” to do in the first place. As Christians, we are called to be conformed to the likeness of Christ. One of the ways that this process unfolds is by asking those difficult questions and conforming to the things of God. We see in verse 23 that our inner selves are groaning as we await the final phase of our adoption - the redemption of our bodies (). We groan whenever we suffer. We are in pain and we cry out to our Father and we eagerly await our ultimate resurrection where we believe there will be no more suffering or pain! This is not a bad thing or something that should be “looked down upon” by fellow brothers and sisters in Christ!

We talked about being adopted into God’s family last Sunday and we saw how we are “sealed” with the Holy Spirit. We see this again here in verse 23 as Paul writes that we have the “first fruits of the Spirit”. We have the downpayment of our salvation right now! Even with the Holy Spirit, though, we still groan. We still long for our future glorification in heaven! Whenever we have a health complication, we long for our perfected bodies. Whenever things don’t make sense in our world, we long for the day to come where evil will be judged once and for all. Whenever we see injustice taking place and children starving, we long for justice and nourishment. We long for glory. It is ok to groan. It is ok to doubt. As Augustine said, “Doubt is but another element of faith.” These things are so often shunned and seen as a “lack of faith” but in actuality they verify our legitimate faith. How do we know that oxygen is necessary to our existence? We know that without it, we would not be able to breath and live. How do we know that our faith in God is necessary to our lives? We know that without it, our lives would be without purpose. It is ok to doubt and to question in order to attain a proper perspective of where you would be without God.

As Paul ends this section of , he says that we hope for what we do not see. It can be difficult for us to share our faith with a non-Christian because they like to see things in order to believe in them. Last Sunday night I handed out a paper that talks about different ways that we can “prove” the existence of God. Just because we cannot see God does not mean that He does not exist! We cannot see gravity or oxygen and we know that these things exist. We cannot see love yet we certainly know that it exists. The beauty of faith in God is that we receive something from Him the moment that we become a child of God. We receive the Holy Spirit and are immediately, from that very millisecond, saved for eternity! We will not be able to fully grasp what that means and feels like until we go to glory, though. That is what our bodies long for and we persevere through suffering in order to reach that place. As we saw last week, we can be confident and have hope in this fact because we have been Adopted into the Kingdom. We have been saved, therefore we will be saved!

The Holy Spirit Intercedes (26-27)

Sometimes our weakness overtakes us and has us at the brink. In these moments, should be our rallying cry as we see Paul say that the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Have you ever seen something that shakes you to your very core? For me, as I mentioned a couple of months ago, this was seeing my mother not be able to remember who me and my dad were. This caused me to pray and cry out to God. I did not know what to pray for because I didn’t know what was wrong with her. She was fine one day and suddenly she couldn’t remember who I was? I cried out and praise God that the Spirit is there in those moments. He walks with us and helps us in our times of weakness! The Spirit helps us see things in a proper perspective. Whenever we have a family member suffer from a health complication, the Spirit is with us. Whenever we lose our job, the Spirit is with us. Whenever the world hates us, the Spirit is with us. Just as our bodies groan to enter into glory, we groan and the Spirit groans for us in a way that we cannot understand. This should be a comfort to us, shouldn’t it? The Holy Spirit is with us and He groans with us whenever we experience suffering and whenever we cry out to the Father! Even whenever we don’t know what to say, the Spirit groans on our behalf. Just as the Spirit is with us in our Adoption, He is also at work in our hearts to help us through our weakness.

shows us that Christ says, “I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.” We talked about this verse last Wednesday night regarding the letter to the church of Thyatira. Christ searches hearts and minds. He knows all! Here, Paul writes God knowing the mind of the Spirit of God. God knows what is the mind of the Spirit and the Spirit intercedes for believers in accordance with the will of God.

Might step on some toes here, but this happened to me and I think there is value in looking at this. Whenever we pray, we often pray for something to happen that we desire to happen, right? If it is health, we pray for healing. If there is a relationship problem, we pray for restoration. If there is a job situation, we pray for discernment. This is what we often do and this is natural, I believe! What do we find in the Lord’s Prayer, though? Thy will be done. Not our will, but God’s will. Whenever we are in difficult situations and experience suffering, it is natural to ask God to take the pain away, however I think the more Biblical thing for us to pray in those times is to pray for us to have understanding during the suffering and to be conformed to the image of Christ. That God’s will be done in our lives and that we submit.

God works all things for Good (28-30)

is one of the verses that is taken out of context most often in Scripture. is probably at the top of that list! The reason that this verse is taken out of context so often is because it sounds good, does it not? “God causes all things to work together for good” - that message sounds lovely and wonderful, right? In the words of Robert Mounce, the fact of the matter is this: “ God directs the affairs of life in such a way that, for those who love him, the outcome is always beneficial. The “good” of which Paul spoke is not necessarily what we think is best, but as the following verse implies, the good is conformity to the likeness of Christ. With this in mind it is easier to see how our difficulties are part of God’s total plan for changing us from what we are by nature to what he intends us to be. Moral advance utilizes hardship more often than not.” Good is conformity to the likeness of Christ… Well that message doesn’t sound as good as, “Do whatever you want because God causes all things to work together for your good” does it? The verb for “works” and the phrase “those who love him” are in the present tense in the Greek language. Not only is God continually at work, but those for whom He works are steadfast in their love for Him. The Christian faith is never presented as a static or stagnant relationship! A person’s salvation is not something that took place sometime in the past with little or no impact in the present. By definition, a relationship is a continuing affair. A vital ongoing love for God is the necessary prerequisite for his active intervention in the affairs of our life. From the human side we love God. From God’s side we are called in accordance with his purpose. By calling Paul meant an effectual calling—one in which our response is invariably positive.

God directs the affairs of life in such a way that, for those who love him, the outcome is always beneficial. The “good” of which Paul spoke is not necessarily what we think is best, but as the following verse implies, the good is conformity to the likeness of Christ. With this in mind it is easier to see how our difficulties are part of God’s total plan for changing us from what we are by nature to what he intends us to be. Moral advance utilizes hardship more often than not

A person’s salvation is not something that took place sometime in the past with little or no impact in the present. By definition, a relationship is a continuing affair. A vital ongoing love for God is the necessary prerequisite for his active intervention in the affairs of our life. From the human side we love God. From God’s side we are called in accordance with his purpose. By calling Paul meant an effectual calling—one in which our response is invariably positive

In verses 29 and 30 we get into some words that make us squirm in the pew a little bit. “Predestine “and “foreknew” can stir the pot and create controversy if we let them and refuse to dive into what they mean here. Is God all-knowing? Yes. Is He perfect? Yes. Is Scripture divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit? Yes. Does Scripture contain errors? No. Therefore, if Scripture says the words “predestine” and “foreknew”, we are going to talk about them. We can debate about predestination and if you have “free-will” or not, however this context is not specifically talking about this issue. The context in is talking about God foreordaining that believers are brought into moral conformity to the likeness of His Son. What is Predestined, to Paul, is that we become like Christ. The purpose of this is so that Christ might be first among a vast family of brothers and sisters. Christ is regarded as “firstborn” because that is a designation of supremacy. Praise God that He is the firstborn because that implies that there will be others who will share his sonship and become heirs of God as well! We talked about this last Sunday and saw how our Adoption into the Kingdom makes us co-heirs with Christ. Praise God for this fact!

Mounce, R. H. (1995). Romans (Vol. 27, pp. 187–188). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Mounce, R. H. (1995). Romans (Vol. 27, p. 188). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Finally, notice the words used in verse 30. “predestined”, “called”, “justified”, “glorified”. These are all past tense words, correct? In the Greek language, these are in the “aorist” tense. This means that these things are done. We understand that being predestined, called and justified are all past or present things but we know that glorification is something that will happen one day as it did with Christ. Paul’s point in using the past tense here indicates that if you are justified, you are also glorified. We talked about this last week as well! You cannot lose your adoption/salvation. If you are justified, you are also glorified. You cannot change that because once you are adopted, you will get an inheritance and nothing can take that away from you! Paul is not giving a full scope of the doctrine of predestination in these verses, he is simply showing believers that the Holy Spirit comes to their assistance by his intercession on their behalf and that God works with the Spirit to make all things work for their ultimate good. The good is to be conformed to Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

We covered lots of stuff in these verses of Scripture. What should our takeaway be from looking at our present groans and future glory? 3 points as we wrap up:

Groaning is ok! Remember, though, that present suffering cannot compare to future glory. This means that we should live a joyful life as Christians! We have hope in the midst of suffering and trials that the rest of the world cannot understand.

1st,

God triumphs over evil. If God could turn the cross (the most evil thing in history) into something good then He can certainly turn our evil into good! Not that everything is good, but that he can work all things for good - the likeness of Christ.

If you are justified, you are glorified. This should give us hope in that we can be certain of our eternal destination and followers of Jesus. This is a warning and call to action, though, in that if you are not justified, you are not glorified. We must share this news with others!

Next week we will be in the Gospel of Luke as we see the Easter story. This is a golden opportunity to invite a neighbor, co-worker or family member to church. The 2 most common times that non-Christians attend church are Christmas and Easter. I urge each and every person this morning to prayerfully consider who “your one” is as JD Grear stated. Who is the one person who needs to know Jesus in your sphere of influence? Invite them next Sunday to hear the Resurrection story of Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray