The Hope of Glory | Romans 8:18-27
Brian Hedges | September 4, 2016
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans the eighth chapter. While you’re turning there, let me tell you the story of one of the greatest American athletes of the 20th century. Her name was Florence Chadwick. She was born in 1918 and became well known for her long distance open water swimming. Chadwick was, for example, the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions. She swam from France to England in 1950 when she was just 31 years old, completing the swim in 13 hours and 20 minutes. And then the next year she swam the opposite direction from England to France in 16 hours and 22 minutes. Both times, she was breaking a record.
Two years later, Florence attempts the 26 mile swim from Catalina Island to the coast of California. And on the morning of the swim, the air was cool and brisk, she steps into the cold water, flanked on both sides by small boats. The people in the boats will watch for sharks and will help her if she is injured or becomes too exhaustive to continue swimming. She starts strong and she swims hard for 15 long hours, and then a thick fog rolls in. She is weary. She is tired. She doubts her ability to finish, and she tells her mother in one of the boats beside her that she can’t make it. Yet she keeps swimming for another hour. And then finally after 16 hours of swimming, with fog so thick that she can barely see, she asks to be pulled into the boat. What she didn’t realize until after being pulled into the boat, was that she was only one mile from shore! And she said in a press conference the next day, “All I could see was the fog. I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.”
I think as believers sometimes we feel much like Florence Chadwick. We’ve been living by faith and living by hope for a long time, and then life gets hard, and we grow weary. And like Florence Chadwick, we can’t see the shore. The fog of suffering sets in and obstructs our vision so that we no longer clearly see, and we get discouraged, and we begin to feel hopeless. And that fog, of course, can come in many different forms. For some of us, it’s very physical. It’s the trial of declining health or chronic medical problems. For others, it’s more vocational or financial. You lose a job, or you’re always struggling to make ends meet. Sometimes the suffering is more relational in nature. Maybe you go through a very painful breakup. Or, if you are married, maybe you go through a very painful divorce, or you have a wayward child. Or maybe if you are a single person it is the unmitigated loneliness, year after year.
There are endless varieties to our trials. But we all face them, don’t we? Life is hard, and sometimes you just feel like giving up. You maybe even feel like your faith isn’t helping that much. Or that trying to follow Jesus seems to make things harder.
Well, what we need in times like that is hope. We need hope. And that’s what our passage this morning is about. So we are continuing in our study of Romans chapter 8. And this morning we come to Romans 8:18-27. And it’s a paragraph that’s all about the hope in which we are saved.
So let’s read the passage. Romans 8:18-27:
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 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. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 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. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because[g] the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
This is God’s Word.
So this passage shows us three crucial things about hope that I want us to look at this morning. It shows us, first of all, the Object of our Hope; secondly, the Life of Hope, and then thirdly, the Source of Hope. So let’s look at each one of those things.
I. The Object of Hope
What is the object of our hope? What is it that we’re hoping for? Well, this passage answers that question in several different ways. Maybe the best way to get at it is to look at several key words in the passage.
(1) And the first key word is the word “glory.” We hope for glory. And we see this especially in verses 18-21. Paul says that: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." And then he goes on to talk about how the creation itself is waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, in order to obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. So we are waiting for glory, and the creation itself is waiting for glory, and Paul says that our sufferings in this present time are not worth comparing with this future glory—this glory that is to be revealed to us.
Now “glory” is one of those words that we find often in the Bible and we hear fairly often in church. But it‘s kind of hard to define. So what do we mean by “glory?” And it really carries a couple of connotations. On the one hand, “glory” carries the idea of splendor and brightness and radiance. So we might think, for example, of the glory of the sun—the glorious light of the sun. And oftentimes in scripture, when we are reading about the glory of God, it’s that physical manifestation of the glory of God, the brightness of the glory of God, the splendor or radiance of God’s presence.
On the other hand, “glory” also carries the ideas of approval and honor and fame. So we use the word glory in this way when we talk about the glory of a great athlete or any other kind of famous person, who is honored by others for their achievements. In this second sense, glory is the opposite of shame. So, for a very simple illustration, you might think of a little child who paints a picture, and then brings this picture with great excitement to her mom or dad and the parent then expresses approval, “Oh, you did a wonderful job!” Well, in that moment the parent is conferring glory on the child.
Perhaps nobody has captured the essential meaning of glory better than C.S. Lewis in his famous essay, The Weight of Glory. We have already heard a quotation from Lewis this morning. Here is another also from this essay.
Lewis reminds us that: "In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain."
Now, that’s a wonderful description of glory: to be approved by God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness. That’s glory. That’s what we are waiting for.
Paul has already said in verse 17 that we’re “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer with him, in order that we may be glorified together with Him.” So we share in his glory. We receive this divine approval from God. And so what Paul is saying here, is that this glory is so great, that our present suffering is not even worth comparing with it.
But it’s not only that the glory outweighs the suffering. The Bible also teaches that the suffering somehow, in some mysterious way, is preparing us for this glory, or is preparing the glory for us. We see this in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, a passage that closely parallels our passage here in Romans 8. Let me read it to you: "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
Do you see there how Paul says the light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory? Do you see the contrast there? The afflictions are light; the glory is eternal. The afflictions are momentary. The glory is eternal, and it has weight.
Paul says that this present affliction somehow brings about the future glory. Lewis, once more, says it well. “They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”
Friends, do you know what this means? It means that your suffering in Christ is never wasted. The agonies are turned into glories. The suffering is working for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory. That’s what we’re hoping for. That’s what we’re longing for—the hope of glory.
(2) Well, the second object of our hope is freedom. Not only glory but freedom. And you see this in verses 20 and 21: "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."
So freedom. This freedom is really an aspect of glory, isn’t it? The freedom of the glory of the children of God. So what is this freedom? What is this freedom from? Well verse 21 tells us. It’s freedom from bondage to corruption. Or as the NIV says, freedom from the bondage to decay.
What is decay? Decay is the deterioration of something, the dying of something—the slow, progressive death of something. And I have a new appreciation for this because I recently experienced tooth decay. A few months ago I went to the dentist. I’ve never had a cavity in my life. And I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning. But I had a tooth that had been bothering me just a little bit. And sure enough, it not only had tooth decay, but the decay had gone so deep that it was getting close to the nerve, and the dentist said I needed a root canal. Well, I put it off for as long as I could. Occasional discomfort, but I was getting along pretty well until about three weeks ago, and I’m driving on 31 coming off of the bypass onto Highway 12, and my tongue just barely touched the tooth, and all of a sudden I felt the sharpest pain I’ve ever felt in my life just radiating through my skull. And within ten minutes I was on the phone scheduling a root canal for the first available opening. And then lived on Ibuprofen for two days until I was finally able to get that. So I have a new appreciation for decay.
And Paul is saying that the world, the creation itself, is subject to decay. It’s in bondage to this decay, to this deterioration. The world is deteriorating. It’s dying, it’s falling apart at the seams. The second law of thermodynamics, right? The law of entropy. And this decay is true both physically and morally. Physically, all of us will die. Our bodies will deteriorate, our bodies will run down, the heart will eventually stop beating, our lungs will stop breathing the air, our bones will become more brittle with age. That’s the physical decay. But there is also the moral decay as the world is just careening towards death because of sin—the problem of sin that leads to death.
But Paul is telling us that it will not always be so. The creation is subject to this bondage to decay in hope, and its hope is the hope of the freedom of the glory of the children of God. In other words, there is a future liberation coming. There is a future emancipation coming, and it’s an emancipation, a liberation from the corruption and the decay. So that’s what we’re hoping for. It’s the hope of glory. It’s the hope of freedom.
(3) And then the third thing to notice here, the third key word is the word “redemption.” That’s the third object of hope in this passage. And you see that in v 23: "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."
Now it’s interesting that Paul calls this our adoption as sons. Because, if you remember last week, Paul has just described our adoption as sons. We’ve received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.” And now, he is describing our future liberation in terms of adoption, the freedom of the glory of the children of God, and then our redemption of our bodies, as the adoption of sons. And the reason he is doing that is to remind us that all of this is part of our inheritance. It’s part of our inheritance. If we belong to Jesus, if we are indwelt by the Spirit, then we are children of God; if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ in the inheritance. The inheritance that we have not received yet, but we will receive in the future, is the hope of glory and the hope of freedom and the hope of redemption.
And he defines this redemption, this adoption as sons, as the redemption of our bodies. The redemption of our bodies. And it reminds us just how physical and how material the Christian hope is. Listen, folks, our hope is not that we will someday be freed from the prison house of the body and float off into an immaterial heaven somewhere. That’s not the Christian hope. The Christian hope, rather, is the hope that was sealed on that third day when Jesus came bodily, physically, out of the tomb. The hope is that our bodies will be redeemed, and not only our bodies but the world itself will be redeemed. Our hope is that our bodies will be renewed and restored and resurrected from the grave and made like the body of Jesus.
Paul says it in Philippians chapter 3:20-21. He says: "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself."
So this redemption is very physical. It’s the redemption of the body. But it’s cosmic in its scope. Because Paul says the creation itself is groaning and waiting for this redemption.
N.T. Wright says it well in his commentary on Romans. He says: "The reason why present suffering cannot compare with the coming glory is because the whole creation is on tiptoe with excitement, waiting for God’s children to be revealed as who they really are. Suddenly we have turned a corner. Whereas, up until now, it might have been possible to think that Paul was simply talking about God’s salvation in relation to human beings, from here on it is clear that the entire cosmos is in view."
It's a cosmic redemption. Glory, freedom, and redemption. That’s what we’re hoping for. This is the object of our hope. This is our inheritance: the freedom of the glory of the children of God, as those who are adopted into God’s family, are transformed, not only in soul, but in body, and made like the Lord Jesus Christ.
So if this is the object of our hope, what kind of life does it inspire? If this is what we’re hoping for, what kind of life do we live as a result? And that’s the second point.
II. The Life of Hope
What should our lives look like if we have this hope within us? And I want you to see two things that Paul says about the life of hope in this passage.
(1) First of all, it’s a life of groaning. It’s a life of groaning. This is a very vivid word. Paul uses it three times in this passage. In verse 22, he says that the whole creation groans. Then, when you get down to verse 26, he says that the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. But in verse 23, he talks about our groaning.
Look at verse 23: "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."
It’s a very vivid word. We groan inwardly. The word means “to sigh.” It’s a word that carries the idea of an audible sigh or groan that someone makes when they’re suffering or when they are longing. It’s the word that was used of a woman in labor, about to deliver a child. And that picture, the picture of a woman going into labor, the travail of childbirth, that’s very instructive. It shows us that this kind of groaning, this suffering, is intense. Remember that Paul wrote this before epidurals. So women screamed through childbirth. Or they groaned deeply through childbirth. A very painful experience. And so our suffering, our groanings are also intense. The sufferings that we experience as Christians, can be very difficult. But they’re not only intense, they’re temporary. Just as a woman in labor, her suffering is very temporary. It’s very intense, but it’s short lived and it’s leading to something. It’s leading to the delivery. The labor pains don’t last, they come to an end, and they end in joy when the child is born.
In fact, this is exactly what Jesus said in John chapter 16. He says in verse 21: "When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also," he says "you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you."
So this groaning tells us something about our suffering. It’s intense suffering, but it’s temporary, limited suffering, and it’s suffering that ends in joy.
So one of the things this is teaching us, is that the life of hope, the life of the Christian, is not a life exempt from suffering. Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean you are exempt from suffering. In fact, sometimes becoming a Christian, becoming a follower of Jesus, invites even more suffering, doesn’t it? Because if you follow Jesus, you embrace the call to obey him, to go where he goes, to do what he says, and that often means suffering. You take up your cross to follow him. You do hard things for the sake of Jesus. You love difficult people for the sake of Jesus. You will go to hard places sometimes for the sake of Jesus. And sometimes if you follow Jesus you’re going to be misunderstood. You might even be persecuted. You remember that Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:12 that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” So to be a Christian doesn’t mean that you’re exempt from suffering. If anything it means more suffering. So the life of hope is a life of suffering, It’s a life of groaning. And that means, contrary to Joel Olsteen, your best life is not now! It’s not now. The life now is marked by pain, it’s marked by suffering. So don’t be surprised when you suffer. You should expect to suffer and realize that groaning is a part of the life of hope. But it’s not only groaning.
(2) It’s not only groaning. Because the other thing Paul says we do in the life of hope is wait. It’s a groaning matched with waiting. Waiting. You see that in verses in 23, and 25. "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." Verse 25: "But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
So waiting. That’s part of the life of hope. Paul says a couple of things about the waiting. He says that we wait eagerly. We wait with eagerness.
That’s really important because this eagerness is implied in the very word he uses. And that’s important because there is a kind of waiting that is not eager waiting.
You don’t wait eagerly, usually, when you’re standing in line at the bank. You don’t wait eagerly for something that you dread. What do you wait eagerly for? Well you think of a child who’s waiting for Christmas morning. They’re waiting eagerly. Or you think of a couple in love who are waiting eagerly for their wedding day. Or maybe you think of a pregnant mother who is waiting for the birth of her child. That’s the idea here. There’s an anticipation. There is an eagerness as we’re looking forward to something. There’s a hope, there’s an enthusiasm to it. That should be characteristic of every Christian. We see this over and again in scripture as the writers of scripture use this word or similar words to describe how we wait, and how we hope.
In Galatians 5:5: "For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness." Or in Hebrews 9:28 the author says: "so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him." Or the passage that I read a few minutes ago in Philippians 3, and again, it talks about waiting for the savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our bodies. So we’re waiting with eagerness and with anticipation.
But notice also that we wait with endurance. Or the word in the English Standard Version, here, is the word “patience,” verse 25: "But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." It’s the word hupomoné. A very familiar word to students of scripture. It’s a word that carries the idea of endurance or fortitude or perseverance. It means to bear up under a trial for a long period of time. One lexicon defines it as "the capacity to hold out or bear up in the face of difficulty." A good way to define it is to call it “staying power.” It’s the ability to stick to a difficult post or a difficult task or a difficult station in life. It’s especially the endurance of the Christian who continues to follow Jesus even when the trials come. Even in the face of persecution. Even when health fails. It’s endurance.
And Paul says our waiting is to be characterized by both eagerness and by endurance or patience. Now Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his sermon on this, points out the balance of this in the Christian life. There’s a real balance here. There’s eagerness and patience. So we are to be eager—not passive, lazy, apathetic, unconcerned Christians. We are to be eager Christians. We wait eagerly. But it’s not impulsive. It’s not an impulsive kind of waiting. It’s patient, enduring waiting. There’s a steadiness here. There’s a steadfastness, a constancy. But it’s a constancy or an endurance that’s characterized by eagerness. It’s not morose, it’s not gloomy, it’s not dour, it’s not despondent. You see the balance there. We are to be enthusiastic in our waiting for Jesus, but we’re not flighty. There is a seriousness to it. There is a weightiness to it. There is a gravitas to the Christian life, as we wait for patience. But the patience is not morose. We are sorrowful yet always rejoicing. There’s a joy to the Christian life.
And I think that hymn we sang just a few minutes ago by the Anglican pastor and poet Henry Lyte, captures the idea so well. This is my favorite verse from the hymn, where he says (notice how he’s exhorting himself here. He’s speaking to himself),
Soul, then know thy full salvation
Rise o’er sin and fear and care
Joy to find in every station,
Something still to do or bear.
Think what Spirit dwells within thee,
Think what Father’s smiles are thine,
Think that Jesus died to win thee,
Child of heaven, canst thou repine?
In other words, “Don’t be discouraged. Soul, be encouraged as you think about the Father’s smiles. And you think about the indwelling Spirit. As you think about what Jesus has done to save you. There is something to do, there is something to bear, there is joy in every station of life."
We are to wait eagerly and patiently for the object of our hope. So that’s the life of hope. It’s a life of groaning and it’s a life of waiting with eagerness and with patience for the hope set before us.
So where then does this hope come from? What’ s the source of our hope?
III. The Source of our Hope
We could also say “The Guarantee of Hope.” And the source of our hope, the guarantee of our hope is the Holy Spirit. Paul’s writing here about the ministry of the Holy Spirit securing the believer, so that he’s never lost. This whole passage, Romans 8, is about the security of the believer who is united to Christ through the Holy Spirit. And Paul is really picking up on themes that he first stated in Romans chapter 5.
You see this in Romans 5:3-5: "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
So you can see how Romans 8 picks up on these themes of suffering and endurance and hope, and the role of the Holy Spirit. Now Paul tells us once again, that the Holy Spirit is the source and the guarantee of our hope. And he tells us two specific things about the Spirit.
(1) First of all, he describes the firstfruits of the Spirit. Again, verse 23: "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."
That word firstfruits is an agricultural word. It gets its significance from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, worshippers, when the harvest was just beginning, they would take the very first sheaf of the harvest, and they would bring it and offer it to God. And it was a guarantee, it was a pledge of what was to come. It was the first part of the harvest. And Paul is telling us that we’ve been given the first fruits of the Spirit.
So the Spirit is the first sheaf of the harvest to come. The Spirit is, as Paul uses this language in another passage, the Spirit is the downpayment of our inheritance. He’s the first installment. He’s the guarantee of our inheritance. The Holy Spirit. The ministry of the Spirit, it shows us just how important the Spirit’s role is in our lives in the present age. The Spirit is the one who connects our life in the present with our hope in the future.
Listen to how New Testament scholar Douglas Moo describes this. He says: “while the Spirit is not mentioned nearly as often in vv. 18-30 as in vv. 1-17, it is just in bridging this gap between our present status and our future deliverance that the Spirit plays the crucial role. For the Spirit is the "first fruits" — the pledge, or first installment, of God's gifts to us that both anticipates and guarantees the gift of glory yet to come (v. 23). The Spirit connects our "already" with our "not yet," making "the hope of glory," though unseen, as certain as if it were already ours — which, in a sense, it is…” It is!
This inheritance is ours, the proof of it is the Holy Spirit. That’s why Paul says this. We’ve received the firstfruits of the Spirit, and that’s why we’re eagerly waiting for the adoption of sons, we’ve already received the spirit of adoption. We’ve received the spirit of adoption. We are children of God, but we haven’t received our inheritance yet. We’ve only received the first installment of the inheritance, the firstfruits of the Spirit. So the Spirit in our lives proves that we are children, is the source of our hope, and is the guarantee for the future inheritance. Our future hope.
(2) And then in v 26-27, Paul adds another thought, as he describes the intercession of the Spirit.
"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."
Here you have the Spirit groaning. This is so helpful. This is so encouraging. Paul is saying here that there is objective help coming from outside, I mean it’s the Spirit internally, the Spirit within us, but the Spirit coming from outside of ourselves, given to us by God. And he is helping us, he’s assisting us. We are not left by ourselves, he’s helping us in our weakness. How does he do that? He does it by interceding. What does that mean? It means that he prays. It means that he’s our advocate. It means he pleads on our behalf, like an advocate pleading on behalf of a client. So the Spirit pleads on our behalf.
And notice how Paul describes this. He says the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words? What does Paul mean by that?
With each one of my children there has always come a point where they were old enough to start talking, to become very verbal, but without being able to clearly express themselves. Okay? So they would say words, but they were not easily understandable words. Sometimes they did not know the right words to say. Sometimes I would notice that they would be talking, we’d be in some kind of social setting, and one of the kids would be talking, and a friend would say, “What is she saying?” And you know who knew what she was saying? It was Holly. Holly would know. The mom knows what the child is trying to express. She could perfectly articulate—like, you know, “She wants a glass of water,” or “she’s thirsty,” or whatever. Well that’s sort of what the Spirit’s role in interceding for us is like. The Spirit takes our prayers. He takes our groanings. He takes the deep desires of our hearts that we can’t fully articulate. We don’t know how to pray as we should, Paul says. We don’t know how to pray for it. We don’t have the words. But the Spirit, with groanings too deep for words, intercedes for us.
And notice, not only does he do this, but he intercedes for us according to the will of God in verse 27. He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Do you know what that means? It means that the Spirit prays for us perfectly. He prays for us perfectly. He prays God’s will for us. In fact, he prays what you would pray if you had the wisdom that God has and all the goodness that God has. If you knew everything that God knew, you would pray exactly what the Spirit prays for you. He prays the perfect prayer. Now this is wonderful because he’s praying it within our own hearts. He’s interceding for us in our own hearts, bringing these groanings too deep for words to the Father.
All too often we fail to pray for the right thigs. Our prayers are sinful, or shortsighted or self-centered. The Spirit weeds through all of those prayers and he lifts up to the Father those groanings too deep for words, he prays exactly what we need. The strength, the grace, the hope, the faith, the assistance, the endurance to continue waiting - he prays for it. And so he secures us in this life of faith, this life of hope, He’s the source of our hope; he’s the guarantee of our hope. He’s the one who births hope within our hearts. He’s the one who keeps hope burning brightly in our hearts. And He’s the one who guarantees that the things we hope for will surely come to pass.
So as we draw to a close here, let me summarize what we’ve seen from this wonderful passage. The object of hope is the glory, freedom, and redemption that belongs to us as children and heirs of God. The life of hope is a life marked by groaning (as we suffer) and waiting (with eagerness and endurance) as we anticipate our Savior’s return. And the source (and guarantee) of hope is the Holy Spirit, whom we have received as the firstfruits of our inheritance, and who helps us by interceding for us.
Now, I began this sermon with the story of Florence Chadwick and how discouragement caused her to quit swimming just a mile from the shore. But there is another part of that story. Two months after that event, Florence Chadwick tried it again. And she faced the same obstacles. It was a hard swim. Once more she found herself enveloped in fog. But this time she kept swimming, and she didn’t quit. And she reached the shore. And she went on to swim the Catalina Channel two more times. And you might wonder, “How did she do it?” And here is how. She said that she kept in her mind a mental image of the shore. And that’s how she did it. You know what that is called? It’s called hope. It’s called hope.
And that’s what you and I are called to do. We have to keep our hope alive. We don’t see the shore with these eyes. We see with the eyes of faith. We walk by faith and not by sight. And so we keep our hope alive. The Spirit keeps our hope alive in our hearts. That’s what Paul is saying here: "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" (vv. 24-25).
We keep that hope alive. How do we do that? We do that through everything we’re doing here. We keep hope alive as we dive into the word. We keep that hope alive as we come to the table, remembering our Lord’s death until he comes, looking ahead to the second coming. We keep our hope alive as we sing these hymns and these songs, that are pushing the truth of the gospel deep into our hearts. We keep the hope alive as we exhort one another, and encourage one another, and lock arms together to walk this life of faith. We keep this hope alive as we pray in the power of the Spirit who prays within us, interceding for us according to God’s will. Is your hope alive this morning? Look to Christ and look to his Spirit. He will keep that hope burning in your hearts.
Let’s pray.
Our gracious Father, how we thank you for your smiles that are upon us. We thank you that the Holy Spirit lives within us, and that Christ died to win us. We thank you that in the Christian life pain will be made pleasure, and loss is turned to gain. That our agonies will someday become glories. Lord, we thank you for the hope that is set before us. And I pray this morning for anyone right now who is discouraged. The person or the persons in this room who feel ready to quit, to throw in the towel, to quit swimming, to quit running, to quit walking—maybe even on the verge of giving up their faith in Christ. I pray that you will give them hope this morning. I pray that you give them encouragement. I pray that your Spirit will draw near. That you will help all of us in our infirmities, in our weakness, that the Spirit interceding for us would give us exactly what we need to continue in the journey. Help us not to be discouraged by our suffering, help us to remember that our light, momentary afflictions are preparing for us an eternal weight of glory. That the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us. Thank you for the hope of the gospel this morning. May it continue to burn brightly in our hearts. And we pray that you will accomplish that in us this morning. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Brian G. Hedges
