Sunday Sermons: Hoping for What We Do Not See (Romans 8:22-25)

You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an Old Testament book on Thursday and our Q &A on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series. Here is Pastor Gabe.

Romans 8 and the Promise of Glory

Open in your Bible if you would to Romans chapter 8 as we continue our study in the book of Romans. Bill had shown me this morning that he got a nice little notebook that is a Romans notebook. So you got the text on one side and then a place where you can take notes on the other.

This is brand new so he said I have to go back to the very beginning and start Romans over again so he can fill up his notebook. Well that's the great thing about being able to record these sermons and have them online.

So if there's anything that you feel like you've missed and want to go back and catch you can go to our website and we do have the catalog of sermons there, even stuff that goes back years. So here's some other things that Chris and Alan have preached in the past as we've gone through our different series.

It's all there on the website. This morning as we come to Romans 8 I'm reminded of the Presbyterian minister of the 17th century, Christopher Love, the Puritan, who in his book Christ's Ascension and Second Coming said the following, God oftentimes makes our sufferings to be inlets to our glory.

So we suffer in this life for a little while but we look forward to that glory that is promised us in Christ Jesus, which Paul has been reminding us of as we go through Romans 8. We're looking at a passage that we started last week in verse 20, or sorry, verse 18, and to keep all of that in context I want to read that once again.

So let's start in Romans 8, 18, and read through verse 25. In honor of the word of the King would you please stand. Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 18, hear the word of the Lord. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to our text today, I pray that Your Spirit works in us an understanding of these words that we read.

And in our understanding we are filled with hope. We hardly need to be told that life is hard and that we will suffer through it. Although those who may be too confident in themselves and think of their own bodies as being practically indestructible may need that reminder.

But we need only to look around us and see the futility of the world that all of creation has been subjected to. The curse that God has put upon everything because of man's sin against God. And we recognize and even feel in our own bodies and even through our experiences this groaning that is upon creation.

But not just a groaning in our circumstances, a groaning that anticipates something. Freedom that we will be released from this struggle that we go through now. We struggle for a time, but we look forward with hope to the glory that awaits us in Christ Jesus if we endure to the end.

Lord, may it be Your strength that sustains us even through these times. And again, as we come to Your Word this morning, we desire to see those reminders of the promise of glory that we've been given in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Deliver us from our circumstances on that great day. But while we go through these things, we do so with joy looking forward to the promise that we have in Christ our Lord. It's in His name that we pray and all God's people said, Amen.

The Curse, the Prophets, and Creation's Groaning

When Israel had sinned against God by worshiping the false gods of the pagans around them, and not just worshiping these false gods, but even practicing those wicked things that the pagans practiced, the Lord brought judgment upon Israel and He sent them into exile.

And this is what the books of the major prophets are about. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Isaiah is set apart from those other prophets though, in the sense that Isaiah was written a hundred years before any of these judgments came upon the people of Israel.

And not only do these prophets foresee the destruction of the judgment that comes upon Israel, but even the destruction that will come upon nations around them. And we even find in this judgment, prophetic texts that point to a judgment that will come upon the whole world and all of mankind.

In Isaiah 24, we read the following, Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate, and He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest, as with the slave, so with his master, as with the maid, so with her mistress, as with the buyer, so with the seller, as with the lender, so with the borrower, as with the creditor, so with the debtor.

The earth shall be utterly emptied and utterly plundered, for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and withers. The world languishes. The highest people of the earth fall apart. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants, for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broke the everlasting covenant.

Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt. And yet we have also read from the prophet Isaiah, as we've been going through Romans 8, how God has promised us new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

The creation groans now, as we have read, under the curse of God that has been put on creation because of man's sin against God. When you got up this morning, you felt creation groaning. When you catch up on the news, you see creation groaning.

As you experience the pressures of life, you experience this groaning. Creation groans, longing for some resolve to be set free, anticipating when the children of God are revealed, when God's elect are known, when all whom He has called to Himself through the gospel of Jesus Christ have come into His kingdom, then will the work be completed as He has said that He is making all things new.

In this we hope. We hope not in the world, which itself is groaning, that which is groaning can't deliver us from our groaning, but we hope for the life that is to come. Now as we have been going through this section, we've been reflecting upon the sufferings of this present time.

This present age that we are in. This week we turn to hoping for what we do not see. So we see the groaning. We're hoping for what we do not see, which is part two of this section that we're looking at here in Romans 8, 18 through 25.

Last week we stopped in verse 21, so we're going to pick up there. And I remind you once again of our outline. We have looked so far at the promise of glory, which we read in verse 18. We're still here in the plight of creation.

That's verses 19 to 22. And we will get to this morning, the patience of believers in verses 23 to 25. That we may continue in hope for what we have been given in Christ Jesus. So once again, we have the promise of glory.

We're going to come back to the plight of creation and we hear again of the patience of believers. So still considering the plight of creation, let's begin in verse 22. Look at that again with me. For we know that the whole of creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Now remember, we read previously that all of creation has been subjected to futility.

All of creation.

So there's not a part of creation that is not affected by the curse that God has put upon it. Even angelic beings. For we know that there were some of the angelic forces that fell from heaven when there was a rebellion against God in His holy place.

So from the places here on earth to even the highest heavens, all that is made. God Himself is not affected by this curse. But all that has been made. All of creation subjected to futility. Last week when we read about all of creation having been subjected to futility because of the sin of mankind, I read to you the curse that is placed upon man in Genesis chapter 3.

Now, to the woman, God said, I will surely multiply your pain in what? Childbearing. And all the women of God said?

Amen.

Yes.

I will multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Some of you moms are going, that didn't stop when I delivered that child. The pain continued even beyond that. The pains of childbirth are used throughout the Bible as a metaphor to describe people and lands who are going through a great amount of suffering or especially when it comes to judgment.

When Jeremiah foresees the judgment that will come upon Israel, in Jeremiah 4 .31 he says,. For I heard a sound as of a woman in labor pains, the distress as of one giving birth to her first child, the sound of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hand, saying, Ah, woe is me, for my soul faints before murderers.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5, the apostle Paul talks there about the return of Christ and it's in chapter 5 verse 3 where he says,. While people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape.

When Jesus spoke with His disciples about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, He said,. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places.

There will be famines. And these are but the beginning of birth pains. Now, many have taken this passage, the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 or the way that Mark records it in chapter 13 of his gospel, and they've applied that to the end of the world.

Now, the destruction that came upon Jerusalem and the temple might be a picture of what the end times will certainly look like. But Jesus was directly responding to the disciples' question about when will these things be?

When will be the destruction of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem itself? So they've taken that passage. Many have taken that passage to mean that there's going to be a seven year period of tribulation that would happen between the rapture and the church and the eventual return of Christ.

But that isn't what Jesus is referring to with this particular warning. He is simply telling the disciples, especially with concerns to earthquakes and famines and all these things that will happen in various places, that's not the sign of the end of.

The world.

These things must happen before the end takes place. And we can certainly feel when a major disaster happens, we can think that such a disaster must be a sign of the end of the world. When we were doing our archeology series in Sunday school, I mentioned to you the story of Pompeii, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that happened in A .D. 79 that devastated Pompeii and Herculaneum.

And if you've ever seen the pictures of Pompeii, you know exactly what I'm referring to. It seems like people were frozen in time, encased in ash with this volcanic eruption that happened and swept across these cities.

Now this did not happen in a moment. This eruption actually took place over the span of two or three days. And there were people that survived the eruption and wrote about what devastation it caused. Two of those men were Pliny the Younger and Pliny the Older, who is actually the uncle of Pliny the Younger.

And the Younger of the two said that he had to grab his mother and run quickly when the mountain exploded. And it was like darkness came in the middle of the day, black as night. And the only way you could see anything was because this massive volcanic cloud that was enveloping everything was flashing with lightning.

So it was like a strobe light. And every once in a while, as the lightning would flash, you would be able to see where you were going. Or the volcanic magma that was pouring forth from the mountain was providing a light of fire.

And to everyone who was being affected by this devastation, what was that like? The end of the world. And it was like there was nothing else that was going on in the world beyond this. The whole world must be suffering as we're experiencing this here.

And if you've ever seen devastation from natural disasters, a flood or an earthquake, a tsunami or something to that effect, then you've seen the effects that it can have on a landscape and on a population, devastating a people and their way of life.

When I was working in Christian radio, I used to chase tornadoes. And when I was younger, you didn't have YouTube. I couldn't just watch footage of tornadoes whenever I wanted to. So I had to buy VHS cassettes.

Believe it or not, I'm actually older than the internet. So we can just get on the internet and watch videos. I had to watch tapes so I could learn about tornadoes, how they moved and what others had learned studying them so that I could be a more effective storm chaser.

Now everybody does it like a hobby. You've got thrill seekers out there. You'll have hundreds of videos that will hit the internet every storm season of tornadoes all across Tornado Alley. But it didn't used to be that way back in the 90s when I first started doing this.

But whatever you've seen about a tornado on video, it might be neat to watch. And you're looking at it going, wow, that's scary. I'm telling you, nothing can prepare you for seeing it in person. It is terrifying.

And you're not just looking at the tornado that everybody's filming. And so that's all you see in the videos that you watch. You have this massive thunderhead that is turning and swirling and doing all kinds of stuff over your head.

There's lightning flashes. There might be hail. There's all different kinds of things to worry about than just this spinning funnel cloud that is in front of you, which can turn at any moment and come right toward you, no matter what path you think that it's on.

And not only have I witnessed this incredible force of nature, I've seen its aftermath. I was there in Greensburg, Kansas the day after it happened, which if you remember something about this tornado was over a mile wide and wiped out an entire Kansas town.

And there I was driving through a town that I had driven through many, many times before and was reduced to sticks. And there are people that are scurrying through the rubble trying to pick up what was left of their shattered lives.

If something like that comes upon you, you can feel like. That was the end of the world and it may not even be a natural disaster. It could be some consequence of your sin. It could be a major illness and your sin had nothing to do with.

It just came upon you and you didn't expect it. It could be some other unforeseen difficulty or a traumatic experience. And the effects of this are so weighty, so devastating that you can feel like this is.

It.

I can't do this. It's the end of the world. We're going to celebrate a baptism this evening as our brother Robert Anderson will be baptized as a testimony to the new life that he's been given in Christ.

And you will hear in his testimony that he got to a point where he felt like he had nowhere else to go. He thought it was the end of the world. That life was over for him. And it was right then when he thought he did not even have another moment to look forward to that Jesus showed up and set Rob free from his bondage to his sin and gave him new life.

And hope for the future. And as we celebrate this together as a church, this is a picture of what creation longs for groaning now in the pains of childbirth, waiting for the revealing of the sons of God.

Every time another sinner becomes a saint, an enemy of God is made a friend of God. A child of darkness comes into the kingdom of light through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We see a little bit more of that curse turned backwards.

And we're reminded again that all of creation is waiting for all the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. Because then on that day, all creation will be made new and we will be with our Lord forever in that glorious, perfect place.

We live in imperfection now, as beautiful as you might see the landscape to be. I don't know about you. Some people make fun of Southern Arizona, but I find it beautiful.

It's glorious.

Even now we're seeing flowers blooming already. And I've been told it gets better than this. I've only been here two years. I've not yet had the chance to see the flourishing blooming desert. But even here you find the evidence of the beauty of life that God has made and put us in to enjoy for his glory.

But as beautiful as you might see this world to be, it's groaning for something better. And we have that better promise in Christ. I pray through such testimonies as Rob's or anybody else that shares of, I once was this, but in Christ Jesus, I've been made new.

And in these testimonies, your hope is restored. Yes, we will be delivered from this. Yes, there is a kingdom that awaits where all of this will be no more. And as we read last week, the sufferings of this present time aren't even worth comparing to the glory that awaits us.

It's not just the end of suffering. It's the entrance into a glorified, perfect kingdom where we will be with God, with Christ forever in his holy place. Just hours before Jesus was about to go to the cross and die as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, he met in the upper room with his disciples.

And the apostle John records for us that Jesus said this, truly, truly, I say to you, you will cry and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.

Whenever a woman is in labor, she has sorrow because her hour has come. But when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.

Therefore, you too have sorrow now, but I will see you again. And your heart will rejoice and no one will take your joy away from you. That is the promise and the assurance that we have in Christ. And so having considered again, the plight of creation, we've considered the promise of glory.

We've been reminded of the plight of creation. And so now we come to number three, the patience of believers. So look with me at verse 23, and not only creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Now, two things I want us to consider about this verse alone. First, what are these first fruits that are being mentioned? And second, the kind of adoption that Paul is talking about here. This is the second time that word has come up in Romans 8, but it seems to be slightly different than what we read the first time.

So first of all, creation groans, and as we've also considered, we ourselves groan. And Paul says that we have the first fruits of the spirit. So what are the first fruits? Now, some have argued that this is a reference to the first Christians.

So the first people to hear the gospel of Christ and come to faith and believe, they are the first fruits, the first generation of the church who heard the gospel. The American Presbyterian theologian, Albert Barnes, takes this position.

These were the first people who heard the gospel by the apostles in the first century. Another possible interpretation is there are others that have argued that this was just in relation to the Jews. Remember that Paul said at the beginning of Romans that the gospel has come to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

This was the position that was taken by the great Baptist theologian, John Gill, that first fruits are in reference to even those Jews who were the first to receive the gospel. Now, it is not like me to disagree with Gill, but I do disagree with him here.

This is not about an order of succession. But rather, it is about a level of importance. What are the first fruits? Like that word itself, what does that mean?

What are the first fruits?

They are the first of the harvest. Yes, that is certainly true. But even more so, they are the portion that has been collected and consecrated to God as an offering of gratitude. Now, remember, this is in relation to creation groaning.

And now we're reading here that we ourselves groan. Jesus will deliver us and creation from its groaning. But we are the first fruits. We who have been made in the image of God are the most important, in God's eyes, of all of His creation.

We will be redeemed before creation is redeemed. The Father has given all things to the Son, but especially us, the redeemed. We are His inheritance, as said in Ephesians 1 .18 and in Titus 2 .14. To the Thessalonians, Paul said this, God chose you as the first fruits to be saved.

And the Thessalonians were certainly not the first in order to be saved. But Paul says God has chosen you as the first fruits. That's in 2 Thessalonians 2 .13. And James said, of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

James 1 .18. All of the redeemed are the first fruits. We have all been consecrated for His glory. So again, we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the adoption or the redemption, rather, of our bodies.

So what is this adoption that Paul is talking about here? Is this the same adoption that we read about in verse 15? For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba Father.

Remember that? It's been a couple of sermons. That was a completely different room ago. But you might be able to tell from the context that these two references to adoption are somewhat different. As we considered a couple of weeks ago, yes, by faith in Jesus Christ, we have been adopted into the family of God.

You are His sons and His daughters now, as said in 1 John 3 .1. How great is the love that the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God and so we are. And we also read in Ephesians 1 .5, He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace.

So if in Christ Jesus we have received sonship, why then are we waiting for adoption? Now, this is that already and not yet that we often talk about. When we began our series in eschatology this past Sunday night, I had mentioned that.

We have this already and not yet. There's an already aspect of some of these prophecies that's even been accomplished, but not fully accomplished. We haven't yet come to that full consummation that is promised us in God's Word.

So yes, by faith in Jesus Christ, we've been adopted into the family of God. You are His sons and daughters now, but then there is something else that is yet to come. Something that hasn't happened yet.

We are already seated with Him in the heavenly places, as talked about in Ephesians 1, but you are not yet seated with Him in the heavenly places, right? You're seated in this room, which is a little warm.

And you have halitosis on one side and body odor on the other. That's hardly heavenly. I know some of you are already thinking, wait, am I halitosis or am I body odor? Don't let that distract you. We might also say that we have been saved, but we've not yet been saved.

And scripture even uses the word salvation in different contexts as well. In Philippians 1 .28, Paul says, you have salvation. But then in Philippians 2 .12, he says, work out your salvation.

So which is it?

It's both. You have been justified, but you are still being sanctified, is rather how we would understand that. So the context determines the meaning. You are children of God now, but we have not yet received the full inheritance of the children of God.

This adoption that we already have has yet to be ratified and perfected. And that won't happen until the day of Christ. But even in this, we have hope. Philippians 1 .6, Paul says, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ.

God has not started a work in you that he won't finish. God has adopted you as his children, and he will give to you the inheritance promised.

To his children.

So the adoption in verse 15 is about our position with God. We're no longer children of wrath like the rest of mankind. We are children of God in Christ Jesus. Verse 23 is about our position in God's consummated kingdom.

And we have not yet come to that. We are anticipating that. But we know the promises given to us in Scripture that that is coming. And so we hold on to it with hope. So we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

And I cannot remind you of this passage enough. Philippians 3 .21, he will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. As Christ received a glorious body in his resurrection, so you also receive a glorified body in your resurrection.

Early on in my pastorate, probably when I preached on this for the first time, I had one of the elderly women come to me after service was over and said, you mean I have to come back to this body? I said, yes, but it's a different body.

It will be made new like Christ's body. And she said to me, that's what I want to hear. Tell me that every week. Philippians 3 .21 turns out to be the verse that I will use the most when I write my greeting cards to somebody in the hospital or someone who's just come out of the hospital.

I'll remind them. Yeah, this stinks. This is terrible. The struggle that we have in our bodies, surgery is no fun. Nobody goes, oh boy, surgery, let's go. I took my son to the dentist this past week. He was not looking forward to that.

Though you may receive some kind of healing, it's still not very much fun. So we go through this, we struggle in our bodies for a little while, but hold on to this promise. These lowly bodies, which is hardly qualifying how we sometimes feel about these bodies, but these lowly bodies will be made to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

Hope for What We Do Not See

And so that brings us to verses 24 to 25. For in this hope, we are saved. Now, hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Now, through most of Romans, we've been seeing the word faith rather than hope as the means or the instrument that God has chosen for our salvation. We have seen the word hope. It was used a couple of times in chapters four and five.

But what is the difference between faith and hope? And there has to be a difference. I've heard some people say, well, hope is just faith. Faith is hope. They're interchangeable. But 1 Corinthians 13, 13 says, and now these three remain faith, hope and love.

And the greatest of these is love. So if faith and hope are the same thing, we wouldn't see that distinction. So what would the difference be? Faith is a primary cause for our salvation. We are justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 5, 1. Hope is rather a secondary cause of our salvation. To hope, then, is to vividly set before us something that we would strive to attain. We would strive to attain it. Now, faith, we believe in what was said to us.

Jesus died on the cross for your sins. By faith in Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven. The wrath of God is passed over you, and you have the promise of eternal life. We believe that by faith. But in hope, we look at that aspect of eternal life.

We picture it. We read what Scripture has to say about it, and we strive for it. And so, as the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 12, we put off every sin and every weight that so easily entangles, and we run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Looking where?

To Jesus.

The author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God. We've not seen what eternity looks like.

We've not even heard from anyone who's been on the other side and has come back to tell us about it, contrary to what the heaven tourism books will try to tell you. 90 minutes in heaven, 23 minutes in hell.

I tell you, they're lying. Maybe when they were unconscious, they dreamt something, but they did not go into glory and then come back to tell us about that place. Scripture tells us the one who tells us about that place is Christ.

He who came from heaven to tell us about heaven and to warn us of hell, that we would not go there. But in Christ Jesus, our sins are forgiven, and the promise that is laid up for us now is in that glorious place with him.

And just as Paul is said here in Romans chapter 8, that the glory that awaits us is not even worth comparing with the suffering that we go through now. So it is so very difficult for us to have described for us what that place is going to look like.

Remember back in the 90s when I was a kid, a song from New Song, a Christian, contemporary Christian band that sang this song, they said, not the half has been told, a small part, but not the whole. So whatever even we can find in scripture about what that glorious place is going to be like, and scripture certainly tells us about it, but how do we as finite creatures living in this suffering now wrap our minds around the perfection that awaits us in eternity?

Have you ever been so sick that you forgot what being well felt like? Have you ever felt so well, you forgot what being sick felt like? That's a good feeling. If you can get to that level of health. And so it is with us in these mortal bodies, it's like we're struggling through those ailments now, looking for the day of perfection.

How do we wrap our minds around that? We trust in, we hope in what we do not see, what we've even not yet experienced. But yet the promise is there for us in Christ Jesus, the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells.

And so in conclusion, let me come back to what I was reading in Isaiah chapter 24. We read in chapter 24, all of this judgment that God is going to pour out on the wicked of man. But in verse 14, it says, they lift up their voices and sing for joy.

Over the majesty of the Lord, they shout from the West. Therefore in the East, give glory to the Lord. In the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. From the ends of the earth, we shall hear songs of praise, of glory to the righteous one.

But I say, the prophet says, I waste away, I waste away, woe is me. For the traitors have betrayed, and with betrayal, the traitors have betrayed. Don't let the struggles of this life cause you to take your eyes off of Christ.