Romans chapter 8. And you might remember we turned to this chapter. We didn't deal with as much as we're going to deal with this morning. We turned to this chapter after Harvey. But we had morning and evening worship that week. And since we don't have morning and evening worship this week, you're getting two sermons this morning. You're in for it. And so we're taking it from verse 18 all the way to the end of the chapter. 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. 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 vanity, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it 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. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope, We have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes and what he already sees. But if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, we wait eagerly for it. In the same way, the spirit also helps our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know. that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who or what is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died. Yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, just as it is written, for your sake, we are being put to death all day long. We were considered a sheep to be slaughtered, but in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Our Lord. The grass withers and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Life is hard. And then you die. Those not so encouraging words came from my Hebrew professor, Dr. Shaw, as he summarized the book of Ecclesiastes for us. It's a fantastic work through. He's actually got a commentary out. I'm not up here plugging books, but get it and read it. But life is hard. And then you die. And as stark as that may sound, and as stark as it may seem, it is a reality that we must not forget. And yet, we have this set before our eyes, and we must not view it as the world views it. We're in the second of two 1,000-year floods within two years. There are terrible things that are happening all throughout the world that if we're not careful, we will sink into our own little pocket and corner of the world and not see those things that are happening as well. There is hardship throughout the world. And when we look at the world with realistic eyes, disaster and death and disease is all around us. And for the world, they can't answer why life is hard. And then you die. They can't have hope. in it. Their only hope is that then you die. And that's all there is. And that's no hope for anyone. That just leads you to the philosophers. It leads you to Camus and others who said the only question in life is suicide. That's no hope. That's not an answer for what's built deep within us. Everything is meaningless is not an answer. That's just confusion. That's just people who don't have an answer and so they say there is no answer. But we do not view our circumstances as the world does. We have hope. We have We have reality and the truth, right? For them, life is hard and then you die. It's only the beginning, it gets worse. But for Christians, we have the truth. We know that life is hard for a reason. Because Adam sinned in the garden. And so for us, life is hard and then you die is because we live in a broken world. We live in a world under a curse. And for us, life is hard and then you die pushes Christians not to despair, but it pushes us upon Christ Himself. It pushes us upon hope itself, reality itself, that this life is hard, but we don't live in despair, but in glorious hope that all the wrongs that are in this world now will come to an end. And they will find their culmination in that great hope when Christ returns and every tear will be done away with. And every sorrow will be fulfilled in Christ because one look at his glorious face, one look at the one who did not hold back himself, but he came. It will make 10 million sorrows as a drop in the bucket. Life is hard now. There is glory to come in Christ. And it will be undone to an unimaginable extent. And so we're not in Acts this morning, we're in Romans, the second half. of what Derek Thomas, if you read anything by him or you've heard anything by him, you know again and again and again he refers to Romans 8 as the greatest chapter in the Bible. And we're in the second half of that. And chapter 8 of Romans, in our half, is talking about creation and suffering. And here, as we come, we begin at verse 18, but it's not in a vacuum that we read these verses. He says, for I consider, he's linking it to what came before in verse 17, where verse 17, we are told that if we are children, we are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him. so that we may also be glorified with Him." Even the Christian life, that life linked to Jesus, that life linked to the One who gave Himself, that united life, that union with Christ that we have, it doesn't link us to freedom and ease now. It links us, verse 18 says, to suffering. Now that link, that link is adoption, that we are heirs and joint heirs with Christ. But it's a link that will bring us suffering now. And only after suffering, He will bring us to glory. And that's always been the way. That's always been the way that God works. You read it throughout scripture. That's always the way it's been. That's the way it is with Christ. Christ came suffering. Before the glory of his resurrection. And so that link between suffering and glorification, suffering and glory is what Paul is expanding on in these verses. And as we take a look at Romans 8, in these verses from 18 to the end of the chapter, the Holy Spirit would teach us this, that Christians, we do not despair. Because we are guided in our present reality by an anxious longing, into present help. Christians do not despair in our present reality because we are guided by an anxious longing into present help. We're going to take it up in three points this morning. We're going to look at our present reality. Oh, it's not rosy. It's not beautiful sunshine, kittens and rainbows. No Christians are the only ones able to deal with a stark reality. And so we look at our present reality. Then we're going to take a look at our anxious longing. We groan. We weep. We cry because we know there is something better for us. And then we're going to look at the help that we have that gets us through. Our present reality, our anxious longing, our Our present health. So what's the present reality? Well, listen to the words that Paul uses to describe the reality which we face, to describe the life which we live, right? For I consider that the sufferings of the present time, present sufferings, Not just one suffering, right? It's not a one and done deal. We think of life in big events, but no. No, our life is more than big events. Our life is filled with sufferings. The present sufferings. And then he uses groaning. Twice the word groaning appears here. Futility, right? That is life in the world in which we live. That is life in a world after the fall. That's the life in which we find ourselves. Sufferings, groaning, futility. And so the reality is stark. We consider our present sufferings. Paul, again, he doesn't say our present suffering. You may be here this morning and you're suffering from more than one thing. Your life has not turned out like you expected it. You have a diagnosis. You have bills. You have things that you cannot meet. Our present sufferings. Our sufferings will be like Christ. That's the link. That's why verse 17 comes before, because we are united to Christ and Christ's entire existence in his time upon this earth was an existence of suffering. We think in big events, but don't miss the reality. Christ's suffering wasn't just the cross. No, listen to our shorter catechism when it speaks of Christ's humiliation. What does it say of Christ's humiliation? Christ's humiliation consisted in His being born. Have you thought about that? His very incarnation for the Lord of glory. The sinless One. The One who existed from eternity past. The One who has created. The One who is over all things sovereign and blessed in His being born. And that in a low condition. No pomp. No circumstance. In a manger. In a cattle stall. Made under the law. The one who gives the law. The one who lives perfectly by the law. The one who is the perfect summation of the love that the law encompasses is subjected to it. Undergoing the miseries of this life. You see it, don't you, in John 4. He's tired. He's sick at times. He is undergoing those things. The wrath of God and the curse of death. of the cross in being buried and continuing under the power of death for a time. You see, you're united to Christ in that suffering. What suffering? Not just the cross, but His entire time upon the earth He was suffering. And so you are linked to that. And so Paul doesn't just say suffering, he tells us we can expect sufferings. In this life we suffer. Some suffer more than others. Some lots more than others. But there is no life that is not touched by some sort of suffering. Which is why our suffering, well, it's laid out for us as an anxious longing, as a groaning. under creation, twice groaning in the next verses. It is that, well, it's that which has been subjected to futility. The world has been subjected to futility, to the curse because of sin, to futility, to vanity. You do something and it's done away. You complete one aspect of accomplishment in this life, and it's gone with the wind. It's gone with the rain. Subjected to futility. It's the same word that the Septuagint uses. The Septuagint's the Greek translation of the Hebrew. The Septuagint uses every time. Vanity of vanities, as uttered in Ecclesiastes. That's our present reality. That's our present reality, which is why I gave you that summary. Life is hard. And then you die. And so what does that drive to us in our present reality? How should we live? We should live in lots of ways. We'll get to more of it. But we live with an utter hatred. You know, children, your parents tell you not to hate things. There is one thing that it is okay for you to hate. It is the one thing that you can hate with a godly hatred. It ought to cause you to hate sin and the ravages of sin and the effects of sin. It ought to cause you to curse sin. You're not allowed to curse, children, but adults, the one thing you are allowed to curse is sin. You ought to hate it because of the futility that was brought to us. leads us to hate sin. Listen to these words from Derek Thomas. God has cursed the ground. You toil and labor, but thistles and thorns frustrate your labor. God has subjected it to futility. He has entered into a judicial curse, a judicial punishment. That is the world in which we live. Don't over-personalize the sufferings that you have to endure in this world. Don't assume, as a matter of course, that every suffering is some kind of direct punishment on you. Yes, search your heart. Yes, let suffering humble you. But don't add to the pain. The whole creation groans. It's part of God's decree. And Christians, even the godliest Christians, suffer along with it. And so it produces in us a life of groaning. A life of groaning. The rain started and didn't stop, and no doubt, you didn't have words. And so you groaned. You thought of friends, those who you knew were affected, and immediately you groaned. You thought, oh, here we go again, and you groaned. You receive the phone call, and it is that diagnosis, and your spirit groans. You receive the news of a friend going through hardships, a marriage on the rocks because of sin, because of the futility of this world, and you groan. And that's your present reality, suffering, futility, groaning. Let it make you hate sin, but not press you down into despair. Let it produce within you a longing, an anxious longing. That's what Paul says, right? He says it in verse 18. The present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Long for that. Yes. Yes. Have your moments of crying out. Have your moments of groaning and looking up and thinking again. Have your time of weeping for your friends and groaning, but then long. For the glory that is to be revealed, the same longing that creation has, it waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. Consider. and groan with suffering, see futility and frustration and struggle and turmoil and hurt and near despair and real despair around you, and consider and view them with the eye of faith and long for Christ, for the glory that is to be revealed, for the eye that knows that God sees you. For the eye that knows God and allows you to see with another point of view, with the eye that allows you to see the sovereignty of God and the hand of God and the glorious working out of His plan that though you don't understand it now, it's the same plan that beautifully brought in Christ in the fullness of time to redeem you from your sins, to buy back your soul from His own wrath that sent Christ. See that beauty, the glory of the perfect Creator being brought into misery for you. And long for the rest of his promises to be fulfilled, that he will not leave you as orphans. He will give you his spirit, that he will return. Let it produce within you an anxious longing. in the beautiful plan of God. And that's why we have this anxious longing. In hope, right? It says in hope twice. In hope that creation itself will be set free from this corruption. In hope that we have been saved. And though you don't see it now, right? Hope that is seen is not hope. Let it build within you this longing. Listen to Calvin, there is no element and no part of the world which is being touched, as it were, with a sense of present misery, does not intensely hope for a resurrection. Creation groans for it. Your soul groans for it, for an end to those things. He indeed lays down two things, this is Calvin still, that all creatures are in distress and yet that they are sustained by hope. And so creation and hope of its own regeneration, restoration and rebirth grows. And it longs for and we believers haven't have an anxious longing that we hope for in the redemption of our bodies, which which we have the first fruits of the spirit, the promise that we will receive a body which is like Christ's. And so what's the nature of the hope that is to produce in us this longing? Well, it literally means a stretching of the neck. What kind of hope is that? Well, J.B. Phillips in his paraphrase says it beautifully. He says it's creation standing on tiptoe. It's creation, we would say, then standing on tiptoe, trying to peer over the fence like children who can't see what's beyond it, though their parents can see it, and telling them that it's great and glorious and the plan of God is something that is more beautiful than they can imagine, standing on tiptoe, trying to see over the futility, trying to see past the groaning, trying to see over the suffering, That kind of hope that God has promised. Let it produce in you a stretching of the neck until you see it face to face in Christ. Until you see Him either when your eyes close in death after a long life of hardship, and they open in glory, And you say, oh, it was all worth it. Or He returns and you see Him as He is. Stretch out on those tiptoes. Look past futility. Look past suffering. Let your groaning drive you to stand even further, looking for Him. But how do you do that on weak knees? On knees that are ready to give way. On legs that are ready to collapse. When he gives you help. Your father is good and he gives you help. As you suffer and groan and as you long, you're not left to yourself. You don't have to figure it out on your own. You have help. You have help, and that help is not out there, it's here for you now. Look at verse 26. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. He's interceding for you even now. One of our greatest helps in this life is the means of grace of prayer. But the reality for us is that even now, prayer is hard. Yes, I say that as a pastor. Prayer is hard. And so the Lord gives help. Oh, it's a blessing, it's a privilege, but it's hard. And so the Lord gives help. He gives His Spirit to pray for us, to intercede for us when our groanings are too deep for words. Right? The Spirit isn't the one who's groaning with groanings too deep for words. He's God. He prays in beautiful, one man called it, divine eloquence. But the reality is for us, now, when you don't know what to pray, when you only can look up and shake your head, when you can only look down and you have no other way, the Spirit helps you. He is praying for you. When your words won't come, He's here to help. Real help. One man illustrated it this way. The way that the Spirit helps us is like a piano that was given to him. He couldn't move it on his own. He said he couldn't move it at all. And so he called some young, strong, strapping men to come and move the piano for him. But he couldn't let them know. He couldn't do it. And so he stood in the middle and pretended that he was lifting as they carried the piano in the house and positioned it just the way that he wanted it. He was lifting, but he wasn't really lifting. So it is with us. When you're trying to pray but you can't really pray, the Spirit comes along and He lifts your prayers, and He perfects your prayers, and He does it for you. And so we have the help of the Spirit. Paul is saying it this way. Sometimes prayer is like that. Sometimes you think it's all you and it's actually all the Holy Spirit through you. He helps you when you're in the depths of despair, when you're in the depths of despondency, when all you can do is groan. He helps. He takes our groanings, our sighs, and our tears, and He makes them understandable. He says what you never could. Sometimes there's more of a prayer from you in a tear than you ever realize. And so He helps. And so we're helped by the Spirit of God, but we're also helped by the purpose of God. Right? We see the Spirit in verse 26 and 27, the purpose in verses 28 through 30. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. You need to help. You need to cast yourself on this promise. That he promised you he would give you his spirit, he would never leave you or forsake you. And he does that now in your time of need. When you have no, no praying left, he prays for you. And now when you say, I don't understand it, cast yourself on this promise. And He's working out His divine, sovereign, glorious, beautiful decree. And your suffering in this life is not meaningless. And though even now you cannot see it, He is beautifully weaving together the threads of all your pain, so that in the end you will look back and you will say, That is a glorious picture I could have never imagined. And you will understand his purpose for you in every hardship, in every trial, in every difficulty, in every struggle, in every ache, in every pain, in every disease, in every loss, in every death, in every single one of those. It was for your good. And so it works out then, doesn't it? It works out that all of it is forming you into the image of Christ. And that is how it brings glory out of your suffering. Cast yourself on His purpose. And then you see that it's not as if He hasn't been through this. He knows pain. He knows loss. He knows grief. He knows hardship. He knows struggle. He knows trial. He knows the ache of it all, because He gave His Son. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all. When He delivered Him over, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? When you wrestle with the purpose of God, when you say, yes, I know that's the promise, but even now I don't see it, I don't know, then you say with Spurgeon, when I can't trace the hand of God, I can trust His heart because He gave His Son for me. What provision has he made? What provision has he given in Christ? He's given you all things. You are an heir. With the son who was never adopted, you're adopted. You are an heir. Just as Christ is an heir of all things. And then you thrust yourself on one more promise of God. What is that promise? Who will separate us from the love of God? Shall death shall destruction, shall principalities, shall things present, shall things to come, shall powers, shall height, shall depth, shall any other created thing be able to separate you? No. The answer is no. that even in your struggle, you should look out with the eye of faith. Because with the eye of faith, you see all of these things. Then you're thrust upon God's promise. But it's not just a promise. It is His love to you. And He brings you through these things. And so you have a very present help. You have His Spirit. You have his purpose. This is not meaningless. You have the provision of his son and you have the promise. He gives you his love. And so even though life is hard, that's our present reality. Don't let it push you to despair. Let it let you let it make you stand on the tiptoes of faith, looking over the vanity, looking over the futility and whatever glimpses you get. They may not be many, they may not be much. I don't trust you on the promise of God because he gives you his spirit and he promises you his love through it all. Let's go to the Lord.