When the Present and Future Meet

I'm not a very good saver. I'm not a very good saver. In some ways I am. I can look after myself financially. I can live within my means.

But in one particular area I am particularly bad, and that's exemplified in my relationship with snack food. I live by the philosophy, Michael, that if you have them, you gotta eat them. Eat them if you got them. Now my brother, on the other hand, lives by the motto, "Save it for a good moment. Save it for a good moment." Now obviously, two bachelors living together, it just causes huge strife when it comes to this precious commodity of snack foods.

But this was most poignantly displayed when we were kids. My brother would actually save his morning tea lollies that mum would send in the lunch box and bring them home and put them in a container where he would save them over weeks for that great moment, that special moment where he would celebrate with a few lollies. I, on the other hand, would eat my lollies every single day at morning tea and then would very often beg my brother to crack open his stash so we could have some more lollies together. Now clearly, his delayed gratification stood in very stark contrast to my sense of immediate gratification: eat them if you got them.

For my brother, it was the excitement and the anticipation of enjoying these fine fruits of his waiting at a moment that would give him the greatest pleasure. But it was also more than simply the pleasure of having these lollies. It was the pleasure of these lollies plus the moment. That moment, however, was an unknown. There was no guarantee of it coming. There was no way to measure that moment ahead of time, nor exactly the joy of what the combination of the lollies and the moment would bring.

But my pleasure was simply here today, gone tomorrow. It was tied up in the lollies themselves. But for my brother, it was a greater pleasure because it was the lollies plus the moment. In a similar way, that is how the Christian life is. It's a life of holding onto promises that we enjoy in part now, but will only really, completely, fully understand and enjoy in a future moment.

This morning we're going to look at a passage in Romans 8 that deals with the tension of Christianity in the here and the not yet, in the present and the future. So if you do have your Bibles with you, and I'm sure we'll chuck it on the screen as well, turn with me to Romans 8, and we're going to read from verse 18 to 27. Paul writes this: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought back into the glorious freedom of the children of God."

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." Now there's a lot happening here in this passage. So hopefully we can pull it apart a little bit and get to the understanding or the meaning behind it.

But let's have a look at the wider context of what is happening here. The entire chapter 8 in this great, great book on the gospel, Romans, the entire chapter 8 is an explanation or really a turning point in the entire argument for the book. Everything has been leading up to this chapter. In the first chapter or the first two chapters, we get an understanding of who God is. Paul explains who He is.

He goes on to point out our position as human beings before a holy God, the law of God, and the measurement that this God will use in establishing or defining our relationship with Him. Romans 3 and 4 goes on and states that we have failed horribly to reach that ultimate destination that God destined for us. But then Romans 5 and 6, we hear the promise that Jesus came for us, to us, and that by His death and resurrection, which we again celebrated last week, that through that, our shortcomings and our failures have been dealt with, have been paid for by His sacrifice. And then we come to Romans chapter 8. And Paul starts talking about the implications of this truth.

A week after Easter, what does the Easter message mean? What does it mean to be saved by Jesus? In chapter 8 specifically, we see in verses 9 to 11, he says that we are no longer controlled by our old nature, the sinful corrupted nature, but our spirits, our essence has been made alive. And we have been made alive to live not only as strangers to God, but as His children, adopted into His family. We were once street kids, orphans, but now we have been swept up powerfully and joyfully into the arms of a loving Father.

But then Paul goes on in these verses that we had a look at this morning, verses 18 to 21, the first sort of paragraph there. Paul goes on and he fleshes out further what it means to be a child of God, what it means to have this relationship with Him, to be alive in His words. He goes deeper and he looks at our current situation, and he asks, what does salvation really mean? What does the cross of Christ really mean for our life now? Especially where we might still be stuck in the muck and the mire and the disappointment and the crumbling walls of our life.

How does the cross of Christ affect the suffering we experience even today? In verse 18, Paul starts with the application point right at the front. He starts it right up the front. He says, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." In other words, what does the salvation and redemption of Christ mean for us while we're still experiencing pain, while we're still grieving the loss of a loved one, of a husband or a wife, while we still feel overwhelmed and hopeless by doubt, while we still feel inadequate, unworthy in life?

What does redemption of that look like? Well, Paul says, there's no need to mourn too long. There is no need to despair too much, to be depressed too deeply, because our present sufferings are peanuts to what is waiting ahead for us. Paul goes on and he sets up beautifully a series of comparative statements that flesh this out. He compares the different states of our existence.

In verse 18, Paul begins by comparing suffering with glory. Verse 20, he compares frustration with hope. Verse 21, he compares slavery or bondage with freedom. Suffering versus glory. Frustration versus hope.

Slavery versus freedom. And Paul makes this one point very clear: that God is in the process. God is in the business of moving you from suffering, frustration, and slavery to glory, hope, and freedom. That is what God is about. That is what He is doing in this world.

All of creation, up until this time, has been subjected to a sense of frustration, to a restlessness that it cannot shake. And it's been subjected to this not by its own choice. Paul says, but by God allowing it to happen. Creation is frustrated. It is restless.

It is looking for a time to be released of these things where its thirst will be quenched, where its heart will be healed, a time where injustice will find perfect justice, a time where there will be glory, hope, and freedom. Let me explain this for a minute. Because as Christians, it might be difficult, especially when we are on that side of suffering, of frustration, and slavery, to understand how we can have glory and hope and freedom and what that does to our lives. Let me explain it in this way. If you're a mum or a dad and you've witnessed that process of your child learning to read for the first time.

Perhaps you're in that situation right now. That moment where your son and daughter realises for the first time what it means to be able to read is a really profound moment. Think about it. Learning to read is hard. I don't know how many of us here can put up our hands, can remember all the way back to learning to read.

But there's a lot of practice that goes into it. And many of us would not say that we started that process learning the ABCs, learning constructions of words and syllables, that we did it with a lot of joy. No one will say we did it with a lot of joy. We did it because the teacher told us to. We were there.

We had to be there. And we did it at home because Mum and Dad made us do it. We had no idea what it was to form those images on the page into a coherent sound that would then make sense as a concept that we could understand. We had no idea of having our imagination wakened by stringing together sentences into getting a conceptual picture in our minds that evokes within us power. Reading dead black and white things on a page and being brought to tears.

Who could explain that to a child? Who of us, when we were at that age, could have understood the power of that? No one. We had no frame of reference. And the Christian life is a little bit like that.

We live with a mindset that holds out something we are told will be fantastic. I hope beyond our own. A future glory. But we don't have a real frame of reference for it. At first, we simply hold on to that concept through obedience, just like a child learning their ABCs.

We hold on to it because there's a promise given to us and we say, "Okay. We obediently hold on to it." But like reading, the more we live with that concept, the more we work on that, the more we practise it and rehearse it in our minds, the more we grow in our relationship with the God who makes this promise, the more we start catching glimpses of the reality of this. Like a child who finishes reading their first sentence, recognising that the vowels and the syllables form a message that is understandable. A Christian comes to certain points in their life where they recognise a certain glimpse of a joy that is supernatural, that is beyond what is here and now.

It's like a bright, warm light streaming through cracks of a broken wall. It is like that nostalgic feeling that is so familiar to us, but you can't quite put your finger on it. The smell of a crayon, the smell of chalk, the smell of a certain type of soap that just triggers a memory, that triggers something of primary school, that triggers something of a friend's house. That's the glimpse of supernatural joy coming into our life, of a world beyond our own. It's what Christian writers like C.S. Lewis described as home.

And he said that Christians are homesick for a place that they've never been to. Christians are homesick for a place that they've never been to. And it is this place of glory, hope, and freedom. So Paul begins with saying, if that is our hope, then it is not worth comparing with our present struggles and sufferings. Paul then further explains this concept in verses 22 to 25.

He says that the whole of creation is groaning as a woman in childbirth for the renewal of this world to come, for something great to happen. He mentions that currently the entire created order is waiting in anticipation for a day where God fixes everything that is broken, everything that is imperfect. But then he says the pinnacle of this renewal of the entire known universe, the pinnacle of this renewal, centres on the renewal of us. That the fish of the sea, the animals of the earth, the flowers of the field are waiting with bated breath as God is in the process of bringing renewal to humanity. The renewal of the children of God, he says.

And so it's like that image of the most precious biggest jewel in a crown that draws everyone's attention to it. Humanity is the centre of God's redemptive plan, and that is the aim. That is the pinnacle of His restoration. The next question, however, is what is this restoration? What does it look like?

What do we mean when we talk about being redeemed? Not only to be saved from God's wrath, but to be redeemed. And C.S. Lewis again writes on this in one of my favourite essays of his, which was actually a sermon called "The Weight of Glory." And he says that in his understanding and his reading of scripture, there are five facets to the promise of redemption. Five promises found in scripture.

And he says, firstly, that scripture promises we will be with Christ. Secondly, that redemption will mean that we will be like Jesus. Thirdly, that we will have glory with Him. Fourthly, that in some way, we will feast or we will celebrate with Him. And finally, that we will rule with Him, that we will have some sort of official position over this restored world that He has made.

Now redemption is all of this summed up. All of these span across many, many chapters and many, many different books of the Bible. All of this is the summary of redemption: being with Him, being like Him, having glory with Him, celebrating with Him, ruling with Him. But there is a common thread through all of this. Can you see it?

With Him. It is ultimately relational. It is built around Jesus. It is built around our relationship with Him. And scripture indicates that the person who has Jesus Christ and has everything else in the world has no more than the person in Syria who has nothing but Christ.

You can have all things and Christ, or you can have nothing and Christ, and you are just as blessed. And so in that sense, number one is almost the be all and the end all of these promises: to be with Him. To be with Him. To have this relationship with Him. Having Him with us is to lack nothing.

Having Christ with us is to have ultimate bliss. But this is the interesting thing. Whereas now living on this side of glory, we may have quick glimpses of this pleasure and this hope that seeps through that broken wall like warm light. While we might have this in tidbits, these hopes, these glimpses come from the inside out. They're in our hearts.

They are stored up somewhere in us, in our souls. But there is a time coming where redemption comes and these great glorious hopes will come from the outside in. There will be no famine, and so we will have this beautiful celebration and feast. There will be no wars, so there will be uninterrupted joy and relationship with Christ. The redemption comes when Jesus returns from the outside in.

Our circumstances will have changed, and they will have changed forever. But how do we then know that this will be the case? That's an amazing picture. That's an amazing understanding to have this celebration, to have this feast, to have circumstances around us that are whole and peaceful and healed. How do we know that this is the case?

How can this affect the way we live now in the muck and in the mire? How can we trust that this promise is true? Verses 24 and 25 explain this to us. And this is an amazing understanding, and I hope that you understand this. Paul says, "For in this hope, we are saved."

Into this hope, we are saved. But he says, "But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Now, Paul very cleverly plays on words here.

But in summary, this is what he's saying. How do we know that this time of redemption is coming? Paul says, because we have hope. How do we know that this is coming? Because we have hope.

Friends, in those moments where we doubt the goodness of God, in those moments where we fail to see His light shining in us, where doubt exists, remember this. It is in the sensing that things are not right that we know a time is coming when things will be right. It is in the hoping for the perfect that we know we will one day find perfection. Think about that. Paul says, why do people hope for these good things now if they have already come?

Or to put it another way, if life on earth is all you see around you, if life on earth is what you take at face value, if we are only carbon-based organisms living in a Goldilocks pocket of the universe, not too hot, not too cold, that by chance was able to support life, then what you have and what you experience right now is as good as it will ever get. You shouldn't have any expectation of anything being any better because this existence is at best a neutral state of being, and if not neutral, chaotic and full of chance. Random. But in our life around us, in the people we meet, whether they are Christians or non-Christians, we don't see that, do we?

We see people everywhere wanting a fair go. We see people everywhere dreaming of a better tomorrow. We see people talking about justice, talking about freedom, striving for a good life. But why hope when this is as good as it will ever get? Why hope and strive when all that you have worked for will die with you?

Why strive for justice for yourself or for others? Well, I put it to you because there is something more than us. There's something beyond us. And I put it to you that not even non-Christians, people who aren't completely convinced of the gospel or the message of Jesus, still cling to a supernatural hope beyond themselves. They still have a hope and a power greater than themselves that will one day set things straight.

And whether they call that luck, that it will all work out in the wash, whether they call that the universe that is looking after me, or whether they call that Allah, we hope for something we don't yet have. And that proves that there is something worth having. And this is a logical argument that Paul makes. But then he goes even one step further, and he highlights this, and this is the most amazing thing, verses 26 and 27. He says, because the hope of redemption is not just a logical argument, it is not something you can simply maintain in your head.

This truth is something that goes to the heart. It is something personal. Verses 26 and 27 speak about the Spirit of God that is at work in this process. And he calls this Spirit an intercessor, which means a mediator. It is like that translator that speaks on behalf of two prime ministers, one from Australia and one from China, that translates what is being said to one another.

It is like that business associate that works in South Africa or Thailand or whatever on behalf of your company to do business on your behalf with the people there. They are a middleman, and that is who the Holy Spirit is. Verse 26 here is a really well-known verse, and we dealt with it actually in our series on the Holy Spirit. It speaks of the work that this Holy Spirit does on behalf of us Christians in prayer. Paul says that the Spirit intercedes for us in groans that words cannot express.

He speaks to God the Father on our behalf, on things that we cannot even fully comprehend. He makes it understandable to God, and God is able to react to these prayers on our behalf. But that is an amazing comfort. We should not forget this. But don't forget this next verse, verse 27, because it's a two-way street. Take notice of this last clause here.

It is the Spirit that intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. It is a two-way street. The Spirit indeed speaks to God on our behalf, but God the Father, through the Spirit, speaks into our hearts and minds as well. The Spirit reveals God's will to us. In John 16, verse 13, Jesus says it this way: "When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.

He will not speak on His own. He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you of what is yet to come." That is why Paul in verse 23 calls the Holy Spirit a first fruit. A first fruit. Now you may not be familiar with that term.

The first fruit on a farm is the first little harvest that you collect, and the first fruit is an indicator of how good that harvest is going to be. Bad first fruit indicates a poor harvest. Good first fruit indicates a great harvest. Why can we hold onto the hope of an earthly joy that is supremely better than our earthly joy? Of a time where everything will be right, where our present sufferings will not be worth comparing to the glory that awaits us.

We can confidently say that this is the case because the very essence of God is living in you and me and is speaking those words of affirmation over us all the time. And He promises to us the hope of this glory. And He gives us joy that does not make sense in our circumstances. The first fruit, which is the Spirit, is telling us that the coming harvest will be a great one. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for Your word. Thank you, Lord, that we can investigate it, that we can wrestle with it, that it wrestles with us and changes and confronts our shortcomings in our thinking and our thoughts. But Father, thank you for the great hope that it brings. Lord, we are so acutely aware that there is a hope beyond our own. And Lord, that we are homesick for a place that we have never been to.

Lord, I pray in whatever situations we find ourselves that our mourning will not be too deep, that our longing will not continue for too long, that our depressions and our anxieties will not exist for too much more. Father, give us the hope and the understanding and the peace and the comfort of knowing that there is an existence, there is a reality of freedom, of hope, of glory. Lord, and let us strain towards that goal, forsaking and leaving behind everything that is behind us and reaching towards that finish line. Father, pray for every single one of us here. And I pray, Lord, that the reality of this future hope will never leave us in the busyness of our lives, in the here and now of work, of relationships, of arguments, of strife. Father, that we will keep at the forefront of our minds this hope that the entire created order is groaning for.

Thank you, Spirit, that you are affirming these truths in our hearts. Thank you for this sensation in our souls that we know, Lord, You are working in us. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Spirit, that you are giving us this hope and this joy when humanly speaking, it shouldn't exist. And Father, let us live in response to this with joyful lives.

Let us live in response to this by not holding onto things too tightly, but giving all things over to You, Lord, into Your care, into Your control. Lord, You have our future in the palm of Your hand. And we thank you, Lord, that it is a trustworthy hand. Thank you, Lord, for this truth. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.