Sunday Sermon: The Sufferings of this Present Time (Romans 8:18-21)

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 Sufferings of This Present Time

Well good morning.

Good morning.

Pleasure to see you this morning. If you would open your Bible please to Romans chapter 8. There was a question I saw, it was actually a poll question posted on social media this past week. The question was, do you still use a physical page turning Bible when you read, not just turning on your phone?

So I'm used now to saying turn in your Bible or turn on your phone to your Bible. But I do still love hearing the pages rustle and I have a Bible open in front of me as.

Well.

Always a great thing to hold the Word of God in our hands. It was John Calvin who said, true wisdom consists of two things, knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. And we've been learning about both as we've been going through Romans.

In some ways very glorious to see how beautiful and gracious God has been to us, but I think you can relate with me that there's been times even through this study it's been a little bit painful as we see ourselves even in the words that we read.

Today we read in Romans chapter 8 verses 18 to 25. Now we're not going to get all the way through that today, but to keep things in context, that's the passage I'm going to be reading. In honor of the Word of the King would you please stand.

This is Romans chapter 8. I will begin reading in verse 18. The Apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome, 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, we come in our Bibles today to this passage as we've been reading through Romans and we've been seeing who you are and even coming to an understanding of who we are that we might seek the God who saves.

We desire today to see and understand that glory that is to be revealed to us. And we can barely comprehend this concept, especially as we live in these corruptible bodies in a finite space, pondering the infinite.

How can we possibly ascend there, ascend to that place? But as we read here in Romans, as we will even get to here in Romans 8, the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that are too deep for words.

When we struggle in our weakness to even know what to pray, the Spirit intercedes on our behalf. So as we struggle even to perceive those things that are beyond our comprehension, may your Holy Spirit minister to us.

As we read in your Word, our hearts are comforted. We know that in Christ Jesus our sins are forgiven. And what awaits us beyond this suffering, this little bit of suffering that we go through now is an incomprehensible glory that will be our reality on the day of Christ.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray, Amen. When Adam and Eve had sinned against God, they were banished from paradise. In the curse that God gave upon Adam, He said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and eaten of the tree which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it.

Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field rather than the fruit of the trees of paradise Adam and Eve had previously enjoyed.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, God said, until you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. God's curse was not just on the serpent when He gave it.

It was not just on Adam and Eve, but even upon the earth itself. Cursed is the ground because of you. Thorns and thistles it will bring forth for you. No matter the work that you put into the ground, the ground will not yield for you what you want it to yield easily.

Genesis 3 doesn't explicitly say that every created thing was put under a curse because of the sin of Adam, but that's the implication. Even in this mention of the ground, cursed is the ground because of you.

Cursed is the earth, is the way it may literally be read. Genesis 1 says that God created man to fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Even in realms upon which man will not stand, in the sea itself and in the sky, man has dominion. God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit.

He brought the animals to Adam to see what he would name them. And this man of dust whom God had made in His image to have dominion over all of His creation into whom God breathed His very breath to give this man life, that man took that breath and glorified himself instead of God and did all with a thankless heart.

Man desecrated the image of God with his sin. And so everything God had given to the man to rule over would instead be against the man as a result of this curse. Our sin is such an offense against the holy God who made us that it resulted in all of creation being sent into upheaval from the smallest atom to the smallest planet on the far reaches of our solar system and even beyond to the very end of the universe.

All of creation, we read here in Romans 8 .19, waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God for the creation itself was subjected to futility. And so understand, my friends, it is for us while we are in this life to suffer.

As we heard in Romans 5, none of us can blame Adam for this for we have all sinned as he has sinned, deserving of worse than even what we've received thus far. But as we have also heard in Romans, we are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus to be received by faith.

Therefore the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is ours in Christ Jesus. And as we look at this passage this morning, we'll hear about the promise and hope of glory that far outweighs our present suffering.

That's what Paul states in verse 18, the promise of glory. Second, we're going to be reminded of the plight of creation in verses 19 to 22. And third, the patience of believers in verses 23 to 25. Now that's a section that we're going to get into next week.

I'm going to cut this off today at verse 21. So we're going to conclude in the middle of a thought that we'll pick up again next week. But again, our outline today is first of all, hearing of the promise of glory.

Secondly, the plight of creation. And third, which we get to next week, the patience of believers. For now we reflect upon the sufferings of this present time that we may long all the more for the glory that awaits those who are in Christ Jesus.

The Promise of Glory Beyond Present Suffering

So number one, we have the promise of glory. And this is verse 18. Look at it with me again. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Now it would do us well to recap a little bit. Remember that last week we heard that we are fellow heirs with Christ. We started the chapter hearing that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

All the sin that we've heard about that we are guilty of starting from chapter 1. Sharing with Adam in his sin in chapter 5. Hearing about the struggle that we continue to go through battling against sin in chapter 7.

And then we get to the start of chapter 8 with this assurance, you are not condemned. God does not condemn you. For Christ was so great a sacrifice on our behalf that even by faith in Him, you're forgiven and reconciled to God.

And there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Now as we went on reading from there, we heard that how we in our flesh, we can't even do the law properly. If it was left to ourselves to be obedient to God and earn His favor, we could not do it.

But God by His grace to us has given us His Spirit so that in the Spirit of God we are now able to obey God in a way that is glorious and pleasing to Him. You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Paul has said, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is alive because of righteousness. The very thing that God demands of us is the thing that He gives.

He demands righteousness and He has given righteousness by Christ and through His Spirit that dwells within us. And so Paul says, we're not debtors to the flesh. We don't obey the flesh and its passions anymore.

God has even given us the power to conquer over the desires of our flesh by His Spirit that dwells in us. So we must no longer walk in those things of the flesh. But by the Spirit of adoption that we read about last week, we cry to God, Abba Father.

That's His name in both Aramaic and in Greek translated for us in English comes out Abba Father. Remember that at the beginning of Romans it is said that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe to who first?

The Jew and then also the Greek, the Gentile. So we, by the adoption we've received in that Spirit, Jew or Gentile, we can call upon God as our Father. And our Father has loved us and as we concluded with last week has promised for us a beautiful inheritance.

It's not just the forgiveness of sins. It's not just that we won't suffer anymore. It's that we become fellow heirs with Christ. It's so much more. And so knowing that then it's so much more. Paul says, I consider the sufferings of this present time.

It's not even worth comparing to the glory that awaits us. We do suffer. Yes, you came to church this morning to hear me tell you something obvious. We do suffer. I think that goes without saying. And we will be delivered from that suffering.

But we will be more than delivered. And for that reason, Paul says, it's not even worth comparing the two. The glory that awaits us is so vastly beyond our suffering that we cannot grasp it simply by saying, today we suffer and tomorrow we won't.

What we will receive is far greater than simply telling you, we won't suffer anymore. Though for some of you, that promise would be enough, right? Your body is in pain. Your heart is in grief. Your mind is in confusion.

And who knows what it will be like from one day to the next. Somebody may ask you today, how are you today? And your answer is, today is a good day. And today being a good day is because you're not in as much pain as you were yesterday.

So that makes today a pretty good day. For you, the promise of no suffering would be enough. Even to weep for heaven and long for heaven, just for some relief from the hardships of this life. But my friends, I have never stood here in this pulpit, which has now been two years that we've been in Casa Grande, and merely assured you of a day when you won't suffer anymore.

If that's all my message was, I would be unqualified as a herald of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I would not be aiming high enough in my assurance to you. We will not merely not suffer. We will be glorified with Christ, with the Son of God, Jesus our Lord.

Remember that I said to you last week that as adopted children of God, we've been made fellow heirs with Christ. We're not just going to heaven. We gain heaven and earth. We will sit with him on his throne.

Revelation 3 .21. As we've heard from 1 John 3 .2 last week, beloved, we are God's children now. And what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.

And from Philippians 3 .21, he will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself. And this he will do for us. This he will give to us.

This we will share with him for all who believe in and glorify his name. We love to hear the promise of Revelation 21 .4. He will wipe every tear from their eyes and death will be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.

What a beautiful promise. And that would be enough for you to believe in Jesus and long for heaven. You may come as a beggar to his door and say, my God, just let me sit here. Let me curl up on your doormat if it means I don't have to suffer anymore.

I know I deserve worse.

I deserve to be tossed into that place where they'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth forever. That's what I deserve because of my rebellion against you. But you would be so gracious to me to let me live just right here on heaven's stoop and people can step over me as they go into dine with you, which I am unworthy to receive.

But God gives us so, so much more than that. He picks us up. He cleans us off. He clothes us in new robes. He gives you a certificate of promise that when you get to that door, you don't have to curl up at his doormat.

You will be seated at the best seat at the table, eating the best foods with the best king of all time forever. Yes, death will be no more. Yes, there will not be mourning and crying or pain anymore.

Why?

Because of what said in the verse right before it, Revelation 21, three, I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people.

And God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes and death will be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away because he loves you and he will bring you into his.

Glory.

It's because we will dwell with the holy God forever in his presence. That's the great thing about heaven. Not just that there will be no suffering, but because God is there and we have been reconciled to our creator through the precious blood of Jesus who died on the cross for our sins and all who believe in him will not perish under the judgment that we deserve.

But we have been made fellow heirs with Christ. So then, do you see what Paul means now when he says, it's not even worth comparing our present sufferings with the glory that is to be revealed to us. In 2nd Corinthians 5, 1 -5 we read,.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.

If indeed, by putting it on, we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

He who has prepared for us this very thing is God, who has given us his spirit as our guarantee. So the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God is that guarantee for us, that we've been forgiven our sins and we've been promised an inheritance with Christ forever.

My dad taught me when I was very, very young, I would come to find later on that this was actually a Jonathan Edwards quote, not a my dad quote, but I still think of it as being wisdom that comes from my father.

He said to me, Gabe, this life, if you're a Christian, is the only hell you will ever know. But for the unbeliever, this life, no matter how suffering it may be, is the only heaven they will ever know.

And I hope that that would motivate us to realize there's more people that need the gospel, and we would share this good news that we have heard, this news of the promise that we have received with others, so that they would turn to Jesus Christ, be forgiven their sin, reconciled to God, and likewise receive the promise of eternal life.

When you get out on social media and you hear a lot of the political chatter that's going on, it doesn't matter whether it's coming from the right or the left, just kind of seems like everybody's objective is to obliterate their enemies.

But we as Christians must love our enemies so much that we would love if our enemy became our brother, our brother and sister in Christ. Can you think of any greater victory over your enemies than that?

That through the beautiful gospel, we who were once enemies of God have been made His sons and daughters. And so we should desire, even for the most problematic person in your life, that they would know Christ and become a fellow heir with you.

The Plight of Creation Under Futility

So we have read here, first of all, of the promise that has been given to us. We consider now the plight of creation. This is verses 19 to 22. So look again at this section. I'll read those verses again, starting in verse 19.

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. That line there where it says, the creation itself will be set free from its bondage. The creation is longing eagerly, verse 19, for the revealing of the sons of God.

I remember a quote. I believe this comes from John MacArthur, where he said that the moment, the very moment that the last person that God had elected from before the foundation of the world comes into the kingdom through the hearing of the gospel and puts faith in Jesus Christ.

The moment that happens, we're done. We're out of here and we're with Christ forever in glory. And Jesus returns and judgment comes on the earth and those who believe in Him will be gathered to Himself.

So this is kind of the personification of creation that Paul is giving here. The creation waits with eager longing for that day, for the revealing of all the sons.

Of God.

Now, I've mentioned this passage long before we ever got to it. And you can probably feel creation groaning together every time you stand up from sitting too long. As have any of you ever gotten up after that long sit and you stand up and it's just oh, and you can feel all creation groaning with you when you let out that groan standing up because you made your joints and your muscles do something that they didn't want to do right.

Then.

We feel it in our bodies. I've been taking my students at the Christian school through the book of Philippians. We just did a test over Philippians 3 and 4 this past Thursday. And I've been trying to teach teenagers about suffering and that they're not invincible and things will get harder for them.

How do you communicate that to teenagers? I remember when I was stubborn to even understand it when I was a teenager. None of this stuff's ever going to touch me. But one day I went to class. I went straight from visiting Dave and Kathy.

For those of you who know Dave and Kathy. I went straight from visiting them, didn't have time to stop back over here at the church again and get my jacket and look professional and put it on. I just had to go straight to the school.

And I got there and still thinking about the things that I prayed about with Dave and Kathy visiting them at home. And we were talking about Philippians chapter 3 and we were talking about that passage about Christ will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body.

And I said to them, you may not understand this or suffer in this way now, but I just visited with this wonderful couple. Kathy's mind is going away from her. Dave hasn't had his legs for decades. And yet the joy on their faces when we sit together and pray for heaven.

They know Christ has forgiven their sins and what is in store for them. They long for it with such eagerness. They still love the people in their lives now and they give glory to God for every moment that they have.

But when you get to that point in your life, I pray that it fills you with longing for the stuff of the kingdom of God and not with bitterness for the stuff that's on this earth. That's a real easy thing to fall into.

We don't glorify God because of our circumstances. We rather complain and we get bitter. I shared with them this quote from Johnny Erickson Tada, a woman who has been paralyzed from the time that she was a teenager.

And she said, the first thing that I plan to do on resurrected legs is to drop on grateful, glorified knees. The picture in Revelation of the 24 elders that sit around the throne. They have something on their heads.

What is it?

It's a crown. What do they do with those crowns? They cast them down before the throne. God has given glory and treasure to us that we might use it to worship him and glorify him. We sing about it in our songs, holy, holy, holy, casting down their crowns, their golden crowns beyond the glassy sea.

Even when we see the bitterness and rage that happens in the world, whether it's wars or conflicts and whether those conflicts are in your own home or it's something that's happening between nations. Even in all of this, there is a testimony of creations groaning and a longing for deliverance to be delivered from this curse that has come down on all that has been made.

There are many, many people that try to relieve themselves of the effects of this curse. They turn to substances, they turn to addictions, they turn to that, you know, whatever chemical rush it might be in their head or in their body.

Just to get some sort of satisfaction, some sort of pleasure, something that's away from all of the suffering that I'm going through now. Something to numb the effects of the curse that is upon creation.

As Paul said in Ephesians chapter 5, don't get drunk on wine. It's got some effects, but they're temporary. And then you need more of it to feel the effect that you felt before. But be filled with the Spirit, Paul says.

Which assures us of these promises that we have been reading about. And it's something eternal, not limited in the comforts that we receive from the Spirit of God. You see, even in the politics that exists in our country today, just kind of try to relieve people of their suffering and you're going to side with whatever political party that you believe is promising more relief from this suffering that I'm going through or that others are going through.

And the whole climate change stuff that we see going on and on. We have to change the climate because otherwise we're all going to drown. They missed the promise that was given in Genesis chapter 9. God won't flood the world again, destroy it in a flood.

But no, mankind is destroying creation, so we have to try to turn back its effects. They're trying to undo the curse that God has put upon creation. Even when a skeptic asks, why is there so much evil in the world?

Why would a good and loving God allow people to suffer so much? The very question itself reveals an understanding, even an eager longing for perfection. They may be responding to that longing in a wrong way.

But the very nature of the question itself reveals that creation is longing for something better than this. The skeptics do believe that there is a moral right and there is a moral wrong. They know the universe cannot function without such laws.

And if they were being consistently logical, there can't be a moral right and wrong. If they and their thinking, we're just all a cosmic accident, then there can't be a right.

And wrong.

Nothing is really right. Nothing is really wrong. It's all just relative. It's all just what a group of people decide at any particular moment, but it doesn't have any ultimate meaning or purpose. Everything is meaningless.

We're just cosmic stardust, farting brain gas whenever we think. When the skeptic questions why God allows evil, his own logic self-destructs. And by the way, I will come back to this question in a moment of why God allows evil before the end of the sermon.

So hang with me. So we read here that the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons.

Of God.

We have even talked about this morning in our confessional reading, that we await a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Creation for now has been subjected to futility. It's been subjected to a curse, not willingly.

It's not like creation woke up one day and said, you know, this is all too good. Let me make it a lot worse for myself today. Who willingly thinks that? But because of him who subjected it, God is the one who has put creation under a curse.

Even when we see massive storms that occur the way that they do and wreak such destruction, there are people that want to blame, you know, Satan or some other force. They can't possibly, God would never allow this to happen to somebody.

God is the one who cursed creation that causes the chaos that happens in our world. It's the result of sin. And we deserve far worse than even what we have encountered or what we have endured thus.

Far.

But we have this promise 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. Remember, as we've read, as we've been going through this, those who have faith in Jesus Christ, we are the children of God.

And we who are in Christ Jesus on the day when it is revealed and we see how God's perfect plan has come to completion and fruition through the cross of Christ, it will be on that day that even creation itself will be renewed and we will dwell in the new heavens and the new earth that reaches its culmination, its perfection on the day of Christ.

So, so far today we've read of the promise and we've been reminded of the plight. And we're going to come back to the plight next week so that we may be reminded again of the promise and long with patience for the award that awaits us in Christ Jesus.

God's Sovereignty, Human Evil, and the Call to Repentance

Let me conclude with this exchange. On social media, a cleric posted the following haiku. Those of you who love haikus. Now for the Christian, nothing is coincidence, all is providence. A skeptic from Canada named Mr. Smith responded and said, all would include heinous crimes.

The cleric said, it would, wouldn't it? But Romans 8 .28 says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

Mr. Smith retorted, could God have created a world without heinous crimes and still have accomplished what He wanted? The cleric said, that depends on what He wanted. If what He wanted was to show His wrath and to make known His power through vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory.

By the way, that's in Romans 9. Then is that what God wanted to accomplish? And doesn't it seem to you like He's doing that through both the good and the bad? Mr. Smith responded, so God is limited in power as He could not produce a universe that didn't involve rape.

He could not show His wrath to lesser crimes, but had to make sure to include rape as He is powerless to change the rules. The cleric said, how did you logically derive that this means God is limited in power?

God is God. He can do whatever He wants. And He's always just in doing it. We are not good as your very question acknowledges. Yet with more foolishness than Job, you see yourself fit to put God on trial for it and you marvel in your wit.

That you even thought this thought is so utterly blasphemous, you should be amazed that you even get another breath. So be thankful and tremble that He gives you anything at all. And then that cleric referenced Psalm 115, one through three, which says, not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name, give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.

Why should the nation say, where is their God? Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. Mr. Smith was not done. He said, I am simply mirroring back to you what you are saying. You are saying God cannot change the rules that He needed to include rape to carry out His will.

If God is limited in not being able to change the rules, then He is limited in power. It logically follows. The cleric, attempting to open dialogue, said, did God include rape to carry out His will for you?

And Mr. Smith said, answer my question first. The cleric patiently said, you did not ask a question. I've asked the last two questions. If you're talking about the question you asked previously, I did answer it.

So if it suits you, let me recap for you. You asked, could God have created a world without heinous crimes and still accomplish what He wanted? My response to you was, that depends on what He wanted. And then I showed you the scripture as to what He wanted to do.

He wanted to show the full range of His glory through vessels of wrath. These persons whom you acknowledge commit these heinous crimes and will receive God's judgment so that He may show the riches of His glory to vessels of mercy, who themselves are not good, but God has chosen to show His mercy to them anyway and to grant them eternal.

Joy.

And all of this is part of the plan that God had foreordained from before the creation.

Of the world.

So if that's what God wanted, then He is not limited by anything. He is accomplishing exactly what He wanted to demonstrate. The full range of His glory to us pitiful creatures who are undeserving to receive anything from Him at all.

Somehow that logically translates to you as God is limited in power, which, if you were humble, should instead expose to you the futility of your own thinking. You couldn't even recognize that you didn't ask a question.

The cleric then added, Sir, I have much to do. And you seem unwilling to answer my question. So I will simply put forward to you to repent of your pride and humble yourself before God. Turn to Jesus Christ, God's only Son, whom He gave as an atoning sacrifice to die for the sins that we deserve to die for.

He rose from the dead that we might live. Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3 .16. Christ is such a perfect offering, and God is such a loving and merciful God, that if you will only put your faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, God will not only take His wrath away from you, which you deserve for your impudence alone, setting aside any other sins you are surely guilty of, and He will make you new and grant you to live with Him forever in His eternal, perfect kingdom, though you, nor I, have done nothing to deserve it.