Spirit of Adoption

Fallen Creation

Creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons. Paul is reflecting not only on the fall of man but the resulting fall of creation.

He then clarifies this when he says that creation was subjected to futility. This word translated as futility or in some translations frustration, basically means emptiness or purposelessness. It is like what Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity .” That is the story of all creation whether it be nature, other animals, vegetation, or we as humans. Creation apart from Creator is pointless. Paul says that creation was subjected to futility not willingly, but of him who subjected it. Who subjected it? For all practical purposes this is Adam because the moment he and Eve sinned the fall of creation took place, however in this context what Paul is communicating is that it is the responsibility of all man kind. No this does not mean that the bad things that take place in your life have a direct correlation to your sin, correlation does not always mean causation. Each of us sin and have bad things happen to us yes. But in most instances the bad things are not directly linked to our sin, but those bad things happen because there is such thing as sin and we can expect bad things to happen as long as we are able to sin and that will be the case until those who are in Christ Jesus here, are with God in glory. But for the non believer that suffering is eternal. So all of the disaster that we witness is due to sin. Whether is be Tsunamis, hurricanes/tornados that we are more accustomed to, cops killing people/people killing cops, abortion, men thinking they are women/women thinking they are men, CNN will try convince you the issue is white supremacy and FOX will try convince you the issue is Socialism but the issue is sin. People over cooking steaks (anything past medium rare you need to repent for whatever god you are offering that burnt sacrifice to) that cow did not die for you to kill it again. Over cooked beef is the number one cause for veganism. These things exist because sin exist.

Spirit of Adoption

Then Paul says that creation’s hope is that it will one day be free from the bondage to decay. Contrast to that decay according to this text is glorious freedom of God’s children.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. I do not know much about labor pains but I know they continuously get worse until right before they conclude. What this means is that as bad as things may seem now they are only going to get worse until the return of Christ. When will that be? I am not sure but I know there are a lot of people dead that thought they would not see death but instead would see the return of Jesus in their lifetime. I also know we are as close now as we have ever been. There are too many people in the church thinking the COVID vaccine is the Mark of the Beast and are sitting around waiting to hear the trumpet. When like we heard last Friday for those of us who came to Secret Church, there are people being born, living, and dying having never heard the name of Jesus. Our mission is not over!

Verse 23, “Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the first fruits.” The first fruits of a harvest were both the beginning and the pledge of the full harvest to come. Then Paul says, “We also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” What Paul is communicating here is that the Spirit is not only the gift that began our walk with Christ but also the assurance of the glory that is to come. Throughout this chapter it is easy to get caught up and wonder what Paul is talking about is it assurance or is it the Spirit and what he is trying to get across is the Spirit is our assurance of our salvation. What Paul is illustrating with first fruits is like buying a house in the modern day. When you buy a house you make an initial down payment that is when you move into the house, then you make a mortgage payment for 15-30 years and the house is officially yours. When it comes to salvation Christ is our down payment that is when the Spirit moves into our lives then when we leave this earth we enter glory. That analogy breaks down because all of them do because when we come to know Christ as our Lord and Savior we have as much of the Spirit as we will ever have but progressively throughout our walk with God the Spirit has more and more of us. Through this process is what causes the groaning Paul mentions. Even as we know Christ we grow in our salvation or we workout our salvation with fear and trembling. The first fruits of the Spirit is a constant reminder that our salvation is incomplete not meaning Christ only possesses part of us but incomplete in our experience. Far too often we in the church limit salvation to simply what Caleb mentioned before as our get our of hell free card. There is so much more to salvation than just going to heaven. If that is all there was to salvation the moment we come to know Christ we would go and be with God. Because our view of salvation is so small when we hear something like incomplete salvation we think of losing our salvation because that is directly tied to going to heaven even though that is not what scripture teaches. We will never experience all salvation has to offer here because of sin. Because of that we groan for the day our salvation is complete and perfect when we are with God and sin is no more. John Stott summarizes this well:

"This is our Christian dilemma. Caught in the tension between what God has inaugurated (by giving us his Spirit) and what he will consummate (in our final adoption and redemption), we groan with discomfort and longing. The indwelling Spirit gives us joy, and the coming glory gives us hope (e.g. 5:2), but the interim suspense gives us pain."

Hope in what is not seen

Then in verses 24-25 “Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not Hope, because who hopes for what he sees? Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.” We see this illustrated throughout our lives in negative ways. We constantly look for the next big thing in life. When we are kid we look toward high school, when we get to high school we look forward to being able to drive, them when we can drive we look forward to graduation, then college, then graduation, then we get a job and we cannot wait for retirement. Do you not see this in your daily lives? (Yoda Video) Just like Luke and in Yoda’s reference, Anakin Skywalker, we too are looking to the horizon never paying attention to the need under our nose. This is not what Paul means. Paul is referring to the hope in Christ’s return and eternal glory. However, the earthly and dark side mindset creeps into the church with this as well. Like we talked about earlier waiting for Christ return does not mean getting comfy on the couch waiting for the trumpet to blow while people die never having heard of Jesus, our mission as the church is not yet done.

Our weakness

Verse 26 “In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness,” and I love where Paul goes after weakness, “because we do not know what to pray for as we should.” Paul does not safe if you do not know how to pray he assumes we do not know what to pray and he includes himself in the mix. One of the most common things I heard from believers is that they do not know how to pray. Well join the club! None of us do! Thankfully the verse does not end here, “The Spirit Himself intercedes for us.” How does the Spirit do this? With inexpressible groanings. Then in verse 27 Paul says, “And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” The number one weakness of believers now was the number one weakness when Paul was writing this to the Romans, prayer. And the way the Spirit helps is through intercession with inexpressible groanings. In verse 23 we groan awaiting redemption over our sinful being. In verse 26 Paul tells us the Spirit groans with us. I think this is a great illustration of why we as believers pray.

Why Believers Pray

1. Dependence on God

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. Because we do not know what to pray the Spirit intercedes. In our weakness we cannot even pray we need the Spirit to teach us to pray.

2. Return of Christ.

The Spirit intercedes on our behalf with inexpressible groanings. We groan within ourselves eagerly waiting redemption that takes place when we go to be with Jesus or when He returns. We pray looking forward to the second coming of Christ. In the Old Testament the saints prayed looking to the coming of the Messiah, we pray awaiting the return of our King.

3. Know God’s Will

The end of verse 27 Paul says the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We do not pray in order for our will to be made known to God but for God’s will to be made known to us.

Gospel Invitation

A good place to start is asking God to teach you to pray. That is a prayer, “God help me.” The deeper of a relationship with God that we have the more dependent on God that should make us. Some of you may be in a place where you jut need to learn to slow down because you are constantly busy. Maybe that is you and tonight you are at a place where you are just tired. You are too young to think that way but you are thinking that. You could be tired because you have been spending far too long trying to do what only God can do. If that is you I want you to talk to me or one of the leaders we have let us walk with you and pray with you. You could be tired of trying to be good enough, Christ blood is sufficient for that whether you are a believer or not. Some of you may not have even considered what God wants you to do with your life. Maybe you are like most people and your main concern is finding a good job with good money and good benefits and there is nothing wrong with any of those things in and of themselves, but they will not fulfill you. Have you ever thought that God could be calling you to personally go to one of the 7,000 Unreached people groups? Whether or not you feel allied to preach God could use the profession you desire to be in just in a different geographic lotion for the strategic advancement of the gospel. One of us would love to talk to you about that and help find ways to make it happen. Or if you feel God calling you to repent and follow Him we would love to celebrate that with you. If you need to follow God through believer’s baptism we would love to get that rolling.