All creation groans

All creation groans…  Romans 8:16-39  

Present Suffering

Future Glory

Present Comfort

Introduction

            I had a student the last three years who was from Myanmar. He was a very quiet fellow.  One day just before he graduated he told me a story.

            "Professor", he said, "We went out to do evangelism in the neighboring village.  We were arrested.  We were told we were not allowed to evangelize in a Buddhist village.  They held us for ten days and made us build the local pagoda.  They hardly fed us.  After ten days they beat us and told us we were not allowed to evangelize in this village ever again.  So, we went to the next village."

            My student and his church members showed true commitment, a commitment that made them ready to suffer for their faith.

I.              Present Suffering Romans 8: 16 – 22

A.   Why do we suffer?

                        According to this passage we suffer for two reasons:

                                    (They are not the only possible reasons, but two are given):

1.    The “world” hates us and Christ, and persecutes us. 2 Cor. 1:5-7-9

a.    Sometimes we suffer because we are out there witnessing for the Gospel and people don’t like it

b.    Paul in 2 Cor. 1:8, 9 says that he and his companions were afraid that they would die. Ephesus riot Acts 19:23ff

2.    The world is subject to sin, death and decay Rom 8:19-22

a.    All creation groans…

Genesis 3:17-19  Adam & Eve messed up!

¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.
¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.”

b.    We groan…

                                                                                  i.    Our bodies are breaking down vs 23

                                                                                ii.    We are of “flesh” 8:1-15

1.    We have a sinful human nature, a bent towards sin Rom. 1:28

a.    God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.

2.    Our minds are darkened Romans 1:21

a.    “their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

Pascal on humankind’s glory and shame

There are in faith two equally constant truths. One is that man in the state of his creation, or in the state of grace, is exalted above the whole of nature, made like unto God and sharing in His divinity. The other is that in the state of corruption and sin he has fallen from that first state and has become like the beasts… (131)

II.            Future Glory Romans 8:23-27

a.    The Holy Spirit is a down payment of our sonship vs 23

                                          i.    Paul expresses this same idea in 2 Cor. 1:21

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, ²² set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

b.    The Holy Spirit helps us to pray vss 26, 27

                                          i.    Not only does the Holy Spirit indwell us and give us power to do as Christ commands, he also prays for us when we cannot pray ourselves

1.    Charismatic tongues? Maybe

2.    He knows what we need and want to say and says it for us

a.    the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans

c.    God is at work in us; He has a plan, a purpose

                                          i.    Whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of the Christ vs 29

1.    Predestination is not some strange thing

2.    We are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ

a.    Christ is a human!

b.    Christ is sinless!

3.    Firstborn among many brothers

a.    Raised from the dead incorruptible!

b.    1 John 3:2
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

                                        ii.    Whom he predestined, he called

1.    Earlier reference to being children of God and heirs & co-heirs with Christ

2.    ^8:17 Heirs (no connection between kleronomoi and ekalesen)

3.    8:31  Called

                                       iii.    Whom he called, he justified

                                       iv.    Whom he justified, he glorified

1.    Glorified (Past tense Already done? Now and not yet?)

III.           Present Comfort             Romans 8:23-25 & 31-39

a.    Hope of the redemption of our bodies 8:23-25

                                          i.    We are the first fruits of the Spirit

1.    Paul and his companions were among the first saved

                                        ii.    We await adoption to sonship

1.    Though we have already been adopted the completion of that process is getting a new glorified body (Now and not yet)

                                       iii.    This equals the redemption of our bodies

1.    We will not be fully redeemed until this body of sin and death (subject to death and decay) is replaced with an immortal, incorruptible one.

a.    1 Cor 15:42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; ⁴³ it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; ⁴⁴ it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

b.    God has already given us his best, paid the price of our sin vss 31- 32

                                          i.    If God is the judge and he is already on our side, who can bring a successful case against us?  Who would try? Satan?! Vs 31

                                        ii.    If God has already given us the most precious thing he had, would he withhold smaller things vs 32

1.    8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all— how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

a.    Penal substitutionary atonement – St. Anselm, Cur deus homo? Why the God man?

b.    This is a singularly unwelcome doctrine today, but it is essential to any theology of “love”

2.    God isn’t stingy!

c.    Jesus is our intercessor, defense lawyer 8:33, 34

                                          i.    Jesus is the only one who has any right to condemn us

1.    He died in our place vs 33

                                        ii.    However, he is our intercessor, defense lawyer vs 34

1.    This is like passages in the prophets, like Isaiah , where God calls his people to the bench and calls on nature all around to witness his proceedings

2.    However, the only person with a right to call for prosecution has been our sacrifice, our payment and is now our attorney for the defense!

d.    Christ’s love for us 8:35ff

                                          i.    Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 

1.    Shall trouble or

2.    hardship or

3.    persecution or (stoned)

4.    famine or (Habakkuk 3:16ff.)

¹⁶ I heard and my heart pounded,
    my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones,
    and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
    to come on the nation invading us.
¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

¹⁹ The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights.

5.    nakedness or

6.    danger or (a night and day in the deep)

7.    sword = death (μάχαιρα [machaira]= double-edged sword of execution)

                                        ii.    Sheep to be slaughtered = we’re not worth much in the  eyes of our persecutors; human life is cheap

Illustration – One of my students is an Anglican priest in Rwanda. He lived through the Genocide.  He is still struggling to know how so-called Christians could hack each other to death with machetes.  Many courageous Christians, though, stood with those being persecuted and died with them.  Though life was cheap to the persecutors, it was still dear to God and the faithful who defended them.

Illustration – We lived in Novi Sad, in Serbia during the Bosnian War from 1992-94 school years. Lawlessness was rampant. People came from the front hardened to death and war.  Life was cheap.

We stopped in Belgrade for a night on our way out of Serbia.  Our car was broken into and many things were stolen.

The next day I saw thieves walking away from a car with a "Slim Jim" (a device to open a locked car) in their hands.  I was angry that no one seemed to care.  The car alarm was going off, but no one did anything or responded. I wrote down their license number. One of my students said, "It's better they didn’t see you or that you didn't confront them.  They would have killed you. Life is cheap to them since they have been on the front.  They have seen people killed and wouldn't hesitate to kill."

                                       iii.    Hypernikon! More than conquerors! 8:37-39    Paul’s conclusion

Illustration - There was a preaching professor, Dr. Lloyd Perry at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where I studied in the US.  He preached in chapel once on this passage.  He was a short, rather round person.  He had pretty severe arthritis, as I recall.  He sort of looked like Alfred Hitchcock; he wore his trousers up above his paunch.

There he was this short, white haired, round figure behind the large wooden pulpit.  Then he started to bang the pulpit and shout, "Hypernikon! More than Conquerors!  Hypernikon! More than Conquerors!"  He was preaching from this passage in Romans where Paul says we overcome all of these obstacles or enemies by the death of Christ and his love for us.

1.    We are more than conquerors through him who loved us

2.    Nothing shall separate from Christ

3.    Paul works in reverse order:

a.    Not Death (or life – pain)

b.    Not Spiritual forces: angels or “demons” arche

c.    Not the present (current circumstance) nor the future (worries)

d.    No powers (spiritual? Earthly? Procurators, Governors, Emperors)

                                                                                          i.    Paul was under attack in Ephesus since he opposed worship of demons (Artemis of the Ephesians)

                                                                                        ii.    Paul was dragged before Festus and Agrippa, and finally before Cesar

e.    Neither height nor depth (No physical thing?)

                                                                                          i.    Ps 139:7-10

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.

f.     Nothing else in all creation (No other created thing: man or animal, plant or mineral)

We are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us!

Hypernikon!