Sunday, December 1, 2024,
Romans 8:18-27 by David Cecil
Eagle Mountain Baptist Church
Hope's Groanings
Our message this morning is predominantly going to be out of Romans, chapter 8, verses 18 through 27, as we consider this idea of hope, of what does it mean to hope in the Lord or to have hope, but also how does that affect our lives and how does it live out in our lives? And so we're looking today specifically from Romans, chapter 8, you're going to see that there are many groanings with hope in the passage that we're going to look at. But before we get there, I wanted to start us with a reflection from the Gospels. And so this is something we're going to do throughout Advent this year. We're going to have a gospel reading and then the passage of the sermon. And this is kind of an interesting one because it actually happens after Jesus was born. But just the idea of hope, in Luke chapter 2, after Jesus has been born, he is presented at the temple and there is a man there who has been told that he would not die until he saw the Lord's Messiah and his name is Simeon. And so he comes into the temple and he actually sees Jesus and he prophesies about Jesus. But there's a second person who sees them and interacts with Mary and Joseph and Jesus that day. And we're going to read about her. Her name is Anna and we are going to find her in Luke chapter 2 verses 36 through 38. Luke 2, 36 tells us, "And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Fanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage. And then as a widow to the age of 84. She never left the temple serving night and day with fastings and prayers. At that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God and continued to speak of him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Israel. And especially that last bit is what I'd like us to focus on. Here you have a woman who is 84 years old who was married and most likely when you got married back then you were getting married in your teens. She was only married for seven years before her husband died. And she has lived after that never remarrying to the age of 84 and she has devoted herself to the worship of God. She lives at the temple. She never leaves it. She is offering fastings and prayers and she just happens at that moment to come up and start giving thanks to God as she looks at a baby. And that's what's so amazing about this is Simeon and Anna, both of them were elderly. Simeon was, I hate to put it this way, but he was kind of waiting to die. He may have been past his time of death. He may have been, people might have been wondering, we don't know what Simeon's secret is. And he might have been tired of life. He might have been just anxious to lay down and not get up again. And yet, he or he was being told by the Spirit, you're not going to die until you see the salvation from the Lord. And so when he sees Jesus, he's ecstatic and he proclaims praise and he actually says, "Lord, now you're releasing your servant. I am ready to go now because I have seen your salvation." But Jesus was just a baby. And Simeon was never going to see him become a man and go to the cross and resurrect it again. Neither was Anna. In fact, both of them, that's one of the things that's so great about their stories is both of them are looking at this child and looking forward in hope and in faith to what they believe he will do. And Anna actually, notice she continued to speak of him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Israel, those who, and that word looking is going to, the word itself isn't going to come up in Romans, but the idea of it. Looking is the idea of waiting and expecting something. So those who are looking for the redemption of Jerusalem, they are waiting and anticipating God acting. These are not the people who are saying, "Hey, we're going to throw off the Romans on our own." These are the people who are hungry for God to act, and they are looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. In fact, most of the people that are trying to throw off the Romans don't think they need to be redeemed. The idea of redemption there is to have a ransom paid on your behalf. To be bought out of slavery is the Old Testament idea of redemption. These are people who are looking for God to redeem Jerusalem, to take it and give it its freedom back, and they are waiting with hope. And she is definitely the picture of a person looking for hope. And the first thing I would say is, as I'm saying here, they're looking for redemption. When you're looking for redemption, you're looking for somebody else to save you. You're not able to redeem yourself, but another has to redeem you. Another has to purchase you out of your slavery. And that is true of our hope, and the whole idea of hope is hope is looking for something or someone out of ourselves, in hope we look for a savior outside of ourselves. We can't do it on our own. We cannot save ourselves. We need somebody else to. We can't redeem ourselves. We need someone else to. And I would even argue that all hope that we have is outside of ourselves. Even if you're hoping to do well on a test, and I'll show you why in a little bit, that hope is really outside of who you are and where you are today. In hope we look for a savior outside of ourselves. And it is easy for us to focus on our faith with Jesus as a personal matter, but we need to remember it's not just us as a congregation, but it is all of creation. As was pointed out to me years ago, when Adam and Eve sinned, when Adam ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and disobeyed God, he not only brought himself into sin, he brought Eve into that, their eyes were both opened when he sinned, but not only that, he brought the entire world down. The animals that used to get along together and everything used to eat, just the plants, God said, I give you the plants for you and all the animals, well now animals ate other animals. And in time, humans would even eat animals. In fact, one of the first things God tells Adam in his curse is that the ground is cursed because of you. It used to provide everything he needed, but now it was just going to provide thorns. And weeds, and Adam was going to have to fight the ground to get food. I think it's easy for us, especially if you're not a gardener or farmer and all your groceries show up neatly packaged, it can be easy to forget. We have to fight the very ground for our food. It doesn't just show up for us. And that's what Paul says in Romans 8 as well, that in hope not only do we look for a Savior outside of ourselves, but all of creation and nature looks for a Savior outside of itself. In Romans 8, we're going to begin. Paul says, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us, that we are going through a time of struggle and suffering, and the world itself suffers, but that all that we are experiencing in this present moment, and for Paul at his time, but us in our time as well, he says it's not even worthy to be compared. It's not even worth mentioning how bad it is when you compare it to how great and how glorious the revelation of Jesus will be in the end times, what is going to be the glory that is going to be revealed to us." He says, "For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, to futility, that the whole creation was made to be like a vanity and to be futile. It doesn't operate the way it was supposed to. All of creation has been brought down because of our sin and the introduction of sin in the world." And as he says, it wasn't subjected willingly, it wasn't like their earth and the creation and the animals chose this, but it happened to them because of him who subjected it, because God and His judgment of us in the world made these changes happen. He says, "But the very end of that, notice in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God." So he's focusing on that need for not just us as humans, but all of creation to be redeemed. And he concludes it with verse 22, "For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now." All of creation, the picture that Paul is creating for us is that all of creation is groaning and suffering what he describes as childbirth, waiting and longing for that joy that will come, that there is pain right now, there is suffering and struggle right now, but at the end there will be joy. But it's not just us, it's not just those that are believing in Jesus and hoping in Him, but all of creation. My dad, we got to visit my wife this week and my dad said, "You know, isn't it great?" I mean, you've got to understand, he's a hiker, he's an outdoorsy guy, he just likes to be outside if he can be. And he was talking about how beautiful the world is and how beautiful nature is. And yet, nature is corrupt, that nature is fallen and kept, as Paul says, in the state of futility. And yet, in that state, how beautiful and how glorious it is, and so his mind was how awesome should nature truly be, how awesome was it meant to be, how awesome was it originally, but also how fantastic is it going to be someday in the future. We have no concept, we go out and we see the stars and we think, "Oh, they're brilliant." It's far enough away from the city, obviously. And we see trees, I've mentioned it before, I'm something of a cloud guy myself, I really like staring at clouds, don't judge me. Just imagine how we're not even seeing it the way God intended it to be. It is a fallen state, and yet it is so glorious. And that's what Paul's talking about, that all of creation is subjected to futility and it's sitting in hope, waiting and hoping to be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. In other words, that Jesus, because it's not our glory, we don't have glory, do we? When we talk about our glory, what are we talking about? We're talking about God and Jesus Christ and what He is bringing. All of creation is waiting in hope, groaning in childbirth. And not just all of the animals and the plants and the world, but everybody in it, we might need to remind ourselves, "We're part of creation." And so when I see that, what I think of is all the people, all those people in the world who say, "I don't need a God," inwardly, secretly they are groaning. They might not even recognize it, but they recognize that the world's a mess. The problem is that oftentimes they're looking at themselves to fix it. They're looking towards themselves to be their own Savior. But the truth is that we look for a Savior outside of ourselves. That creation, it's been subjected to slavery, it's looking for freedom, it's waiting and anxiously and eagerly anticipating the revealing of the sons of God. It's looking outside of itself for salvation, for a Savior. It's looking towards someone else, and we do the same thing. We look outside of ourselves for a Savior. We should look outside of ourselves even for our hope. In fact, hope, and one of the things I love about this chapter is what we're about to get into here. Our hope looks forward to God's work still. Our hope is not in the present, it's not in the past, although our faith is rooted in something that happened in the past, but our hope looks forward. Creation is looking forward. This is why I say even if you're hoping to do well in something, like if you're saying, "Oh, I really hope I do well in this test," your hope is outside of yourself because even if you're hoping that you'll do well, you're hoping in a future self, what you'll do in a different time. That is still, to a certain extent, outside of ourselves. Because hope, our hope looks forward. It's something that's outside of our reach, it's something that's outside of our time, and specifically we are looking forward in hope to God's work still to come. Paul has talked about all of creation, hoping and groaning, and in verse 23 he says, "Not only this, but also we ourselves." Now, remember, I said that all humanity was part of the creation, but what does he talk about specifically? Now, he's talking about we ourselves believers, having the first fruits of the Spirit. First fruits was the phrase, it literally means the first crop of the year, the earliest crop. It was what you would separate and save for God and devote to Him as a sacrifice. And he is saying not only this, but we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit. Seeing those people who are part of the first fruit in faith, to receive the Holy Spirit because they believed in Jesus Christ. So we are saved, in other words, is what he is saying. Those who have the Holy Spirit and are saved, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves. Even those who are believers are groaning, and that word to grown, I didn't mention it earlier when we were looking at creation, and we have to sigh, or to express grief. Jesus groans a few times in the Gospels. It can be even a happy idea. It's the idea that you are longing or burdened for something. The word comes from the idea of being narrowed and stressed and pressured that you would groan about what you're experiencing, and he says even those of us who have the Holy Spirit, who have believed in Jesus Christ, and we have this hope in Him, and we've got our salvation down deep. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves. There is that that sigh, that grief, that desire for something more in the world and sometimes maybe even in us as well. As we groan within ourselves, the second part of the verse, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. Now he's saying we're already saved, but we're waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons. We're waiting to be made fully what God intends us to be. We're saved, and we're sanctified, and yet we are being changed over time. We are still growing in Him, and that's the focus, that we are not there yet completely, but that we are waiting eagerly, remember I said that those that were looking for the redemption of Israel, that word had that idea of to expect and to wait. Here he says we are waiting eagerly, and that's the idea of expectation, that something is going to happen. And that's a big part of hope, hope, true hope, expect something. It expects it to happen. So he says we are eagerly waiting for our adoption of sons, the redemption of our body. He says in verse 24, "For in hope we have been saved." So that is something that has happened past tense. We have been saved. He says, "But the scene is not hope." If you've already received your salvation, you're no longer hoping for salvation. In hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he already sees? He says instead in verse 25, "But if we hope what we do not see with perseverance, we wait," there it is again, "we wait eagerly for it." And with perseverance means to bear up, to be under the pressure, and so the idea here is the groaning is like a narrowing, you're feeling the pressure of something. And he says and we feel it, we are persevering under it, and yet waiting eagerly for Jesus to come. Because we have salvation, but we don't have the resurrection yet. Paul talks often about it, it doesn't matter what Jesus did on the cross if there is no resurrection. And it's the hope of the resurrection that we live with. And so even though you have salvation, and even though you can say, "I feel the Holy Spirit guiding me, I feel His presence within me," yet we still hope. Because we have not yet received everything that we expect. We haven't received all of God's good works in our lives. We may have received salvation, but there might be some sins that still trip us up, and we hope for the future when God will complete that work in our lives. There are things we might even disagree with God on, like Paul did with his thorn in the flesh when he said, "Why aren't you taking this away from me? I don't want it." And God says, "My strength is perfected in your weakness. I'm going to allow you to continue to have that thorn in your flesh for your good and my glory, but not forever." When we meet Paul in the new heavens and the new earth, there will be no thorn in the flesh. It was just for this journey. And so he continued to hope in the future and hope for what God would do. We are looking forward to God's work still to come. We're looking outside of ourselves for that Savior, and we're looking outside of ourselves for that work to be done. Our hope is in him. What I love about what Paul does here though is the third part, that as we are looking for a Savior outside of ourselves with all of nature and creation, and as we look forward to God's work still to come in our lives and still to come in the world. So before I get to the third point there, real quick, just think that means that we can hope in God's salvation for our loved ones that don't know Jesus. That work that is still ahead, still in the future as far as we are going to go, there is still reason to hope that God's work is not done, that his Holy Spirit can open up the hearts of those that are as much close-minded to him as possible. Because he is the one who opens doors and closes them. We can hope in him for that salvation. We are not able to convince people to believe in Jesus, but he is. We can share the truth, but he is the one that must open their hearts and convince them. But through it all, the beauty is that God does not leave us alone in this. God sustains us in our hope. Because we have this expectation that we are waiting for and hoping in. He says to us in verses 26 and 27. In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we should. Now you might know how to pray. You might do a good job of praying, but Paul says, you know what, we really don't know how to pray as we should. We pray for what we think we need and we pray for what we want. And I know God wants to hear our prayers, but we oftentimes don't know how to pray as we should. It's kind of like, you know, our family does a gift exchange for the grandkids, the nieces and nephews I should say, so that no, you don't have to buy gifts for every single kid out there because exponential growth is a thing, you know, humanly speaking. And so, and then we've even, you know, the world today, we have apps and so we've got this app that you can just go on there and see what everybody wants for Christmas or for their birthdays. It's fabulous. But you go on there on to some kid, you know, a niece or nephews wish list and it's, it's, you got to be kidding me. That's what they want. That's what they want. That's what they want that. And here there's nothing here, you know, they don't know how to ask for what to ask for. They need to ask for things that are within a certain dollar amount, right? They need to ask for things that I think is actually going to be worthwhile and not just broken by the end of the day. They don't know how to ask. They don't, you know, now granted they're putting what they want on there just like we put what we want in our prayers. But trust me, if I can look at an app and say that kid doesn't know, they're asking for the wrong things. They don't understand. They don't know within, you know, $30, not a hundred, I don't love you that much. Because if I treat you that well, I got to treat everybody else the same way, you know. They don't know how to ask, just like we don't know how to pray as we should. We fill our prayers up with our desires and our hopes and our dreams and God's not angry with us. They're angry at the nieces and nephews. It's kind of fun to see what they're interested in. It just doesn't help me, you know, make it through Christmas under a budget. But in the same way, we don't know how to ask. We don't know how to pray as we should. We don't know really the right things to pray, but that's okay. Because he tells us in verse 26 there, "But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings, with groanings too deep for words." So nature groans together, we, the first fruits of the Holy Spirit, groan through this life. If there was somebody who shouldn't have to groan, don't you think it would be God? And yet what does the Holy Spirit do? He intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. The pressures of the world and life and eternity and salvation, the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf and joins us, sustains us in our groanings and in our hope. He joins us with that feeling. It reminds me of when Jesus, looking at Mary and Mary, the wept, he knew what he was going to do. He knew there was going to be no need for tears in just a few minutes. And yet he wept because they wept. He joined them in their sorrow. He even felt, I mean, it wasn't just a fake thing. He felt the sorrow of his friend's death. And though he knew he was going to resurrect him, he still wept. He joins us in our suffering. He joins us in our struggles. He joins us and sustains us in our hope. Verse 27 says, "And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is." In other words, the Heavenly Father who searches our hearts, he knows what the mind of the Spirit is because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So even that groaning of the Holy Spirit on our behalf, God, the Father knows what he's saying because what he is saying is in keeping with the will of God. So God himself is joining with us through his Spirit and will sustain us through our hope because hope is something when we hope for something, we don't have it yet. When you hope for something, you don't have it yet. It is still in the future. It is still outside of you. And there might be things in this life that we hope for for the rest of our lives and we won't see its fulfillment until Jesus returns. And that can be a long time. It takes faith to continue to believe in God, hope in him and he doesn't fulfill it. That is the picture of faith that we have a conviction of him, that he is going to bless us and he is going to provide even as we wait, as we wait, as we wait. But God sustains us through that, through his Holy Spirit, groaning on our behalf, praying on our behalf and interceding on our behalf. I want to encourage us today. The whole world, you might know some people that don't seem like they're really worried or upset or living out in futility. They may have their lives. They may be acting like their lives are perfect and they've got everything together at some point in their lives and in some level they are groaning inside. Because life is not perfect and it is not going the way they want it to. And they are in one area, they are major mess in another area. All of creation groans in hope for salvation, even if they don't have those words. Even us as believers, we groan, not for salvation, we have salvation, but we're under the pressure of the world and of trying to live out a righteous life and of seeing it going on and hoping in God's work and we groan waiting for Him to act. We groan, to a certain extent, hoping that we can continue to be faithful, not quit, not give up. But fortunately, the Holy Spirit, He sustains us. He partners with us and joins with us in our struggle and in our suffering. He groans with us. I would say the idea of groaning itself is a good indication of hope. When you think about those things that make you, that you desire so badly that you would groan over it, that you will want it, you desire it, you hunger, you thirst for it. That means you still have hope. If there is no groaning, is there any hope, maybe you've given up on something. You no longer groan and desire and feel the pressure of wanting. You've given up on it. You've let it go. Maybe it's just not yours. Maybe it's not your time. Maybe it's not your life. You've given up on it. This is why it's such a great thing that we actually do groan, that we struggle and sigh and deal with this distress at times, because it means that we still have a hope. We still have that desire. It's still unmet and we're still a looking God to fulfill it. What we will look at as we go through the next three weeks through love, joy and peace is how God does fulfill our hope, how He is the source of our hope, the object of our hope and the fulfillment of our hope. So I encourage you, let's continue to groan, let's continue to seek that which we don't have and look expectantly for our Savior to provide. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You that You join with us in our sufferings and in our struggles. Lord, that You don't just leave us to our sin, but that You have sent Your Son to die in the cross for our salvation, that He has paid the penalty for our sins and through His resurrection has given us victory over death. We pray, Lord, that our hope would be in You and in Your Son. And there are things that we can look back on and we don't have to hope for them anymore. It may be our salvation, it may be victory over certain things that tripped us up. So we pray that we would continue to look to You in hope for the completion of Your work in our lives, for the redemption of all of creation, for the restoration of Your Kingdom. Father, help us to focus our hearts and our minds on You and to wait upon You, Lord, that we would not give up, that continue to seek You, Lord, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.