A pastor received a phone call late at night, it was a phone call from a member of his church who was a leader within the congregation as well as a good friend. His 16 year old daughter was coming home from her part time job when a drunk driver veered off into her lane hitting her head on and she was in critical condition with severe head injuries. The pastor rushed out to the hospital going through his mind what he might say to this desperate family but by the time he got there, the young teenage girl had tragically already passed away. The family was out in the waiting room having just received the news, the father of this young girl sat in a chair with his face buried in his hands as he cried and cried. At that time, everything the pastor had thought of saying on his way there suddenly seemed so insufficient, and the only words he could think of saying to his good friend was, “Bill, one day God’s going to put an end to all this and He is going to make all things right.” The man then looked up from his tear soaked hands and softly said, “I wish it were today. I wish it were today. ”
No doubt you have echoed those same words at some point in your life, when you have seen the pain and suffering in your life or in the life of a person you loved. We say those words when we have turned on the news and have seen stories of little kids being molested, of teen age girls celebrating their graduations murdered, families who are torn apart because of the selfishness of a spouse. We grown as we see innocent men and women who are simply going to work are targeted and blown up by young men and women possessed by an ideology of hate; and we groan. We groan and we cry out to Heaven, “Lord, will it ever end?” “Will the pain ever go away?” “Is there an end to this cycle of suffering?”
As Paul talks about life in this passage, he does not want to candy coat the pain and struggles that we go through or paint a picture of this world we are living in. Instead what he wants to do is to put them into perspective. Look again at what he says in 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
Paul uses language that helps us see life as
an eternal proposition. We live here on earth for a little while, but we live forever. What Paul wants to make sure of is that we don’t get so discouraged with the difficulties of this life that we lose sight of the big picture of eternity. He says, "Don’t forget, there will be a time when there won’t be any more struggles, pain, death or tears. For those who are in Christ, there will be only joy and happiness."
In this world you will have trouble, but never forget the hope we have as Christians. Now if you are here today and you are on the verge of giving up, if you are trapped in a situation that you have deemed hopeless, please listen carefully to this message this morning and perhaps God will give you a glimpse of that hope you need.
Now this hope if vital to our existence because of the fact that this world we live in is a fallen world filled with pain and suffering. One of my favorite Peanuts cartoon strips has Schroeder, garbed in an outsized catcher’s mask and chest protector, striding out to the mound. He hands Charlie Brown the baseball, and laments, "The bases are loaded again, and there’s still nobody out." "So what do you think?" Charlie Brown asks. Schroeder ponders the question for a moment, and replies, "We live in difficult times."
Indeed we do. Someone has said, "If it’s not one thing it’s another, and some days it’s both." The world can be a very difficult place, but it wasn’t always that way.
When God created the world, His evaluation of it was that it was good. It was a perfect world. There was no need for insulin shots, no need for tiny caskets, no divorce papers and broken families, no cancer, no heart disease, it was all good. Yet sin entered the world through the choice of Adam and Eve who deliberately disobeyed God, and as a result the world as it was stopped and the world as we see it today came to be.
This world is not evolving but devolving. The world is not what God originally designed it to be. God is not attempting to run the world properly today and failing in his efforts, instead the world exists in a fallen state. That is what the apostle means when he says that creation is subjected to futility, by God’s will. In other words, the world is under the judgment of God because of sin. And not only is it a fallen world, but it is a world that is falling apart.
It is subject to what physicist call the second law of thermodynamics that states basically that everything in this universe is decaying. What seems fresh and new one day will some day be old and broken down. Something that is growing and vibrant will some day shrivel up and die. To use Paul’s language, this world is in "bondage to decay."
But the world sees hope! Romans 8:19-21 says, “creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
The Phillips translates vs. 19 to say that all of creation is on its tip-toes. And that is what the phrase translated there actually means. ." That phrase "eager expectation" is a picturesque word that means "to stretch the neck in anticipation." Have you ever waited for someone to come home on a plane? As the people come off the ramp you stretch and strain to see them as soon as possible. Paul says creation is in that type of existence, stretching out its neck saying, “when is this going to end?”
And Creation is not alone in its groaning. Even we who have the Spirit living within us, those of us who have given our hearts to Jesus Christ and received Him as Lord and Savior, we cry out as well. Romans 8:23 says, “We ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”
We live in a fallen world and we feel the effects of the living in that world and we feel the effects of the fall in us as well. That 2nd law of Thermodynamics applies not only to creation but to us as well. 2 Cor 4:16 says, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” Outwardly we are wasting away. That’s a rather blunt way of saying it but it’s the truth.
Our bodies are falling apart. A referee in a basketball league was asked of all the age groups, which group was the hardest to referee. He said, “Hands down it’s the over 35 age group, He said that he simply dreaded refereeing those games because they have more trouble with that age group then any other. The reason, he said, was that the guys who used to be able to play think that they still can play, but now they’re getting old and slow and they don’t want to blame themselves, so they blame the referees. Like that Country Western song out now, “I ain’t what I once was, but I once was”
We are not the same as we were ten years ago. Reflexes slow down, elasticity goes, memory fades. People used to say, “It’s good to see you,” but now when they see you they say, “You haven’t aged a bit” and you know it’s a lie! This past week we went to one of my favorite restaurants in Tupelo, Cracker Barrell. Before we went in, Carrie stepped in some gum and I tried to get it off of her and it got all over me. So I went to the restroom to wash my hands and I was really scrubbing, and I noticed that the guy next to me was washing his hands just as long as I was. I looked at him and I was going to say something silly to him, but then I noticed that he wasn’t washing his hands. He had taken out his dentures and was washing them in the sink. I guess that’s one way to get the taste out of your mouth. Yet its evidence that this body is falling apart in need of redemption. Complete Redemption! And as you see your body falling apart it’s a sobering reminder of this fallen world, and so you groan for the day when all things are made right.
Yet as much as we groan because of the brokenness of our bodies, its when we start to experience the fallen nature of this world that we really start groaning. When you see families impacted by lay offs and plant closures; when you see grieving widows standing by the graves of their spouse, when you hear the hateful words of others, or when you speak those hateful words yourself, you groan for that coming day.
Barry Roberts who is a pastor in Kentucky said the hardest thing for him was when his baby girl who was in her thirties came to him crying saying that her husband of over 10 years just told her that he no longer loved her, and Barry said the worst thing was not seeing his baby girl cry, but knowing there was nothing he could do about it. Is it any wonder we are on our tip toes with outstretched necks looking to that coming day when all things are made right.
You see, when we see the reality of this world and its decaying existence and in our own bodies as well, it is a sobering thought. Especially if this life and this world was all that your hope was in. If this world is all you know then it is truly a hopeless situation. And by far hopelessness is the worst thing that can happen to you. When you are without hope then you have no reason to for joy in your life. You have no reason to go on. In an episode of Touched by an Angel, a man had committed suicide and one of his friends asked why he had done it, and the response of the angel named Monica was perhaps the best reason why most folks commit suicide. She explained that we all lost hope at one point in our lives, but some people lose hope for just a second to long.
But Paul reminds us that we have hope. “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. …For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
Paul’s not saying that we should compare what the sufferings in this world are to the glories in the next, but its not worth comparing. That’s how great the disparity is. It’s not even close. And Paul knew quite a bit about suffering. Listen to what Paul wrote in 2 Cor 11:24-28, “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” All that suffering, yet its not even worth comparing to what Paul would receive one day in Christ.
The word glory means something that fills us with awe, and one day, we will stand in awe. We will stand in awe of what God will do with this world as the consequences of the fall are removed. One day we will stand in awe of what God will do in us when we have a glorified body that is absent of pain and disease. Just think of all that we have to look forward to.
For those who know Christ we already have a sneak peek. What Christ had done for us by forgiving us of our sins and giving us a new heart is just a taste of what’s to come. I love it when ever my wife is cooking supper, and I’ll sneak into the kitchen and when she’s not looking I’ll grab a piece of whatever she’s making, and then she’ll usually chase me out with a wooden spoon. But with that one bite, it tasted so good but it left me hungry for more and it gets me excited for what’s fixing to be put on the table. In the same way, we have a glimpse of our salvation now, we have experienced salvation and all the joys that come with it, but what we have experienced is only a taste of that great banquet that God has in store for us.
We may suffer for a time, but one day our joy will make us forget the pain. I think a good analogy is given here when it says that creation is groaning like in birth pains. When a woman is pregnant, she starts off with joy, but as she progresses through the pregnancy she grows and begins to get uncomfortable, miserable. And the longer she goes the more she says, “When is this going to end!” And then after a painful delivery, life is brought forth along with joy and that 9 months of misery is forgotten as she looks into the eyes of her child. I think 9 months is the limit of the threshold of pain for pregnancy and God knows that, and God knows the limits to our suffering, and when the time is right, that day will come when God will make all things right. Just as surely as birth follows pregnancy, glory will follow our suffering in this life time. Until that time we will patiently and anxiously wait that day.
