There’s no doubt that being a Christian can be a dangerous thing in our world today. I read recently that there have been around 40 million people who have been put to death for being Christians in the past 2000 years and of those something like 60% have died in the last 100 years. Now that mightn’t be the case here in Australia at the moment, but the fact is that for Christians in many other parts of the world being a Christian means sharing in Christ’s suffering in a real and literal way.
Our present reality is that suffering is a part of life
Let me read you a story I read this week in a book by Robyn Claydon, called "Keep Walking" (SPCK Australia).
’A few months ago I had the great privilege of ministering in Moldova which was one of the republics in the old USSR. I stayed with a Christian family who, under communism, had suffered for their faith.
The mother, Olga, had become a Christian in her early teens and when she was fifteen asked to be baptised. ... When Olga grew up she met a young man who was also a Christian and they were married. They and their family suffered persecution in a variety of ways.
While staying in their home, I met her children - now grown up - and her grand children.
I discovered that, not only Olga and her husband, but their children as well had suffered because they were Christian. The children attended the local primary school and were taught by atheist teachers.
On one occasion the children brought a note home from school advertising a meeting which all parents were expected to attend. No reason was given for the meeting. Olga and her husband attended and found themselves part of a very large meeting. All the parents attended and all the staff. The Principal addressed the parents saying that she had called them together to alert them to the fact that there was an enemy in the school.
This news brought an immediate response from parents who called out asking for more details. The Principal said that the enemy were the Christian children! With this news there was uproar as people were shouting out that the children be named.
Olga said that she was shaking with fear, but knew that she had to speak. She came out to the front and said: "The Christian children are my children, but they are not your enemies." Some parents shouted out: "Name them. Whose class are they in?’. While Olga was standing there wondering whether she would name her children, another teacher came out the front. She said: "I will name her children" and then proceeded to do so. Once she had named them she went on to say, "But they are wonderful children. I have taught both of them and have found them to be hardworking, courteous children. If all the children in our school were like them, we would have a wonderful school"!
Olga said that the meeting ended in uproar. Some parents were calling for the expulsion of the children and others, influenced by what the teacher had said, were urging that they be allowed to stay. Olga and her husband went home and no action was taken. The children continued to attend the school although they were very anxious each day wondering whether anything would happen to them. Olga and her husband prayed each morning with the children that God would be with them and give them peace and courage. The teacher who had come to the defence of the children was removed from the school within a few days.
Twelve years later, when communism had fallen in Moldova, there was a knock on Olga’s door. Here was the teacher who had spoken up that night. She said that the quiet witness of the children’s lives at school had impressed her greatly and that, though she had not been free to ask questions then, she was free to do so now. She asked: "Would you tell me how I could become a Christian?"’
Robyn Claydon concludes: ’What a wonderful question and what a consequence of the quiet witness of two children whose lives were lights for Jesus in the darkness of communism and atheism.’
Now the reason I read you that story is because it reminded me of what we read at the end of the passage last week: "we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ -- if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him." The assurance we have that we’ll share Christ’s inheritance is a great encouragement to us, but it doesn’t take away the reality of life in this fallen world. The reality is that the inheritance we look forward to is still in the future. We live in the age of the now but the not yet. Our present life is lived in the shadow of the last day, the Day when Jesus Christ will return in glory. Our ’now’ will always be coloured by the ’not yet’. And part of that ’not yet’ is that life may well involve suffering.
And that’s what Paul now goes on to think about. He says, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed in us." The future hope of glory that we will experience on the last day far outweighs any suffering that this present life might entail.
In fact, he says, the suffering we experience in this world is all part of God’s long term plan for the creation. v20: "the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." This takes us back to that diagram I showed you a couple of months ago. You see, it wasn’t just people who were affected by the fall. Rather the whole of creation was affected. If you remember, when God announced the curses that would arise as a result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion, the curse involved hardship for them, sweat, hard work, pain in childbirth, discord between men and women. But it also involved damage to the creation: "cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you." We look back on that event and think what a terrible thing it was for the creation. We look at the world around us and we think how damaged the world is. And we wonder how God could let the world get like this. But the truth is that God has let the world get like this because he has a greater plan for it.
Suffering in this world creates a greater desire for the world to come
The positive thing about the suffering we experience, whether it’s suffering for our faith, like that family in Moldova, or the suffering that comes just from being in a damaged world, is that it stops us from being too satisfied with our life here. It leads us to long for the world to come, for the glory that God has prepared for his people. It’s been suggested that the greatest problem for the Church in preaching the gospel in the western world is the fact that people are so satisfied with their lives. It’s too easy for people to think that they have life sewn up; that they don’t need God in their lives. Often, it’s only when they realise that life isn’t perfect that some people stop to think that there might be something more to life.
So the imperfection of life has its good points after all. It leads us to long, as the rest of creation does, for the freedom of the glory of the children of God, for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. We’re reminded that the ’now’ we live in is not the glorious future of God’s promise. So we long for the day when we’ll be released from the futility that this world is subjected to.
We long for an assured future that we don’t yet see
And that longing is for a future that’s assured. When we see that word ’hope’ in vs20 & 24, it’s meant to indicate something that’s certain, that’s sure. It’s still in the future, but it’s a certain hope. It’s a hope based on the fact of Jesus’ own resurrection. We know that Jesus has conquered death, that his resurrection body is a real physical body; that he’s promised to return to take us to be with him in his Father’s house forever. So we wait with patience for that future hope to be revealed.
In the meantime the Spirit helps us
And in the meantime the Spirit helps us in the weakness we experience, particularly in our relationship to God. Do you find that there are times when you just don’t know how to pray? When you really don’t know what’s the best or the right thing to pray for? Some things are so complex that you don’t know what’s the right way to go. I find that fairly often in fact. Particularly when it comes to pastoral issues. It can be incredibly hard to know what’s the best thing to do or say. But the Holy Spirit within us is given to help us in that situation. At that moment the best thing we can do is to ask God the Holy Spirit to intercede on our behalf. To turn over our choices, our desires to him. Look at v.26: "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. {27}And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." We saw last week that life in the Spirit means an assurance of our place in God’s family. But it means more than that. It means that not only are we in God’s family but also God is living within us. So that when our minds are set on the things of the Spirit and we pray the Spirit does the interceding for us, shaping our thoughts, our prayers, according to the will of God.
And we can pray like that with confidence, Paul says, because we know that the one who is guiding our prayers has our best interests at heart. He says: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." Even when we don’t know what’s best for us, God does. So we can trust him to watch over us, to guide our prayers, to bring about outcomes that will help us in the end.
Even in the midst of suffering
The trouble with that, of course, is that we still live in a broken world. That story I read at the beginning ended happily for Olga and her children. But I could equally have read you a dozen other stories with not so happy endings. A story from Liz who works in the middle east, of a Christian who was hung in the local marketplace; of Pastor Li who has been imprisoned several times in China for preaching the gospel; of the 400 people who were killed in 2000 in North Korea for owning a Bible; of those Christian women and children in southern Sudan who are regularly kidnapped and taken to the north as slaves; or of Sal, a Pakistani girl who led a school friend to convert from Islam to Christianity and, when the girl’s brother killed her, was arrested on the grounds that if she hadn’t told her friend about Christ her friend would still be alive. She spent some time in prison suffering regular beating and rapes, until in 1999 the charges were dropped and she was released. But even then she had to go into hiding in case the girl’s family tried to kill her.
The reality of life in this world is that things don’t always work out for good to those who love God. In our own congregation we have a number of examples of how things have worked out far from good, in fact tragically, for people who are totally committed to God. So what do we understand v28 to be teaching? Is Paul overstating the case? Has he got it wrong?
Well, let me suggest that v28 has been badly misused by Christians because it’s been taken out of context. It sounds like such a comforting thing to say to someone who’s suffering that it’s hard to resist. Someone has suffered some terrible tragedy and we glibly recite Rom 8:28 to them. This terrible thing has happened, but God promises to work things out for good for you in the end! But the trouble is they’ve memorised v28 without also memorising vs29&30. You see this promise is given in the context of God’s plan for his people. It’s given in the context of this passage, that begins with suffering and ends with glory.
Let’s read all 3 verses together and see what they say: "{28}We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. {29}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 within a large family. {30}And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified." The context of this promise, you see, is the last day, when God’s people will finally be released from the suffering of this present age. Having been justified by Jesus’ death on the cross we’ll finally experience the glorification we’re longing for.
Now God may well bring good out of the evil we encounter from day to day. He cares for us and watches over us. He promises that we won’t be tempted beyond what we can bear. He promises to provide a way of escape for us. He promises to be with us always. But this promise in v28 isn’t a promise, necessarily, for this world. This is a promise that in the end we’ll stand with that host of witnesses around his throne crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lamb; that in the end, if we persevere, he’ll give us a crown of glory. It’s a promise that as we wait in hope, God is at work, bringing us through to the last day when that hope will at last be seen, when hope will no longer be necessary because its fulfillment has come.
Let’s pray that God would strengthen us to persevere in the midst of a suffering world, in confidence that he’s bringing all things to completion in Christ Jesus.
For more sermons from this source go to www.sttheos.org.au
