17. “Saved to Hope” (Romans 8, Part 2)

At the very heart of the gospel is an extraordinary truth. The God of the universe loves us. Before we did anything to deserve any kind of praise; while we were enemies with God, God loved us. Not just an imaginary being we think of to give us comfort, but the living God who is mysterious and beyond us, who made everything, who is bursting with creativity and greatness and glory and power—this God loved us, you and me. He loved us, not just with fond thoughts, but with costly action. His Son came into the world and endured death for us to save us, so that as we heard last week, there is no condemnation for us. We now stand in God’s grace; he has brought us close to him so that his Spirit dwells within us, teaching our hearts that we are loved. If you have placed your faith in Jesus, you are wonderfully, securely, eternally loved by the God of the universe. Do you realize just how crazy that is? How extraordinary? How inexplicable?  

Now even as we seek to savor this, as we seek to live into this reality, it raises a question—a question so significant that until we are able to answer it, we’ll never really be able to trust in that love. If this is really true—if I’m deeply loved by the person who is in control of all things…why is life so hard?

We’re all in different places in our lives right now: some of us are in the middle of really challenging stuff, while others of us are in a time of relative ease. But we all know, even at the best of times, that the hard things of life are bound to come. Just to illustrate, here are just a few of the things I’ve been personally praying about in the last few months.

• Good friends of mine that I have known for years, who have sought to be as faithful and loving as possible in raising their children in the knowledge of Jesus, and now they’re dealing with the ongoing heartbreak of being alienated from one of their adult kids who does not know Christ. 
• Two different friends of Jennifer and mine, who are roughly our age, have recently had mastectomies as they seek to shield themselves from the cancer’s assault upon their bodies.
• I know of local, faithful pastor whose family now is being brought through tremendous grief because their 17 year old son was just taken in a car accident.

These are all faithful Christians who earnestly seek to follow Jesus. These are all people that, according to Scripture, God deeply loves. And each of you could add to this list from your own lives or from the lives of friends, countless examples of followers of Jesus who are going through really painful things.  

If God has forgiven us and loves us so deeply, shouldn’t life be easier than this? If God loves us so deeply, why are things still so hard? 

It is this question that Paul spends the remainder of chapter 8 addressing. His answer is so significant and so profound that we’ll be spending 4 weeks considering what he writes here. To summarize, Paul tells us that to answer the question of why, we need to pay attention to the question of when. We need to know what time it is. In the great story in which we find ourselves, we’re not yet at the happily ever after. We’re at the “hope” part of the story.

Hope

As we began our series in January, you might remember that in chapter 1 orients Christians to the fact that, as small as our lives feel, we are part of a much bigger, cosmic, eternally significant story. Like Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings who once had a small understanding of their world, as simple Hobbits in the Shire, until they are caught up into the massive conflict between good and evil in Middle Earth, Christians have been introduced by the gospel into an extraordinary adventure. The evil of this world is being conquered and all of the universe is being set right, and we actually play a role in this because of our connection to the story’s hero, Jesus.

Now in the best, most epic stories, the ones we love most, the ending is always a happy one, and that’s how it is for the truest of stories. But in these classic tales, before you get to that final joyful conclusion, there is also always a time when things feel impossibly hard. When the conflict seems most intense, and if you didn’t know better, you would be sure that it’s not going to end well. I don’t know how many times I’ve reread the Lord of the Rings, but there’s always for me a moment in the third book when part of me feels like this time maybe the good guys won’t succeed. Gandalf and Aragorn and their army are engaging in a battle they can’t possibly win, and Frodo and Sam are so exhausted as they take one step after another, it’s almost painful to read and be in this moment with them. And yet I keep reading, because despite how it feels, I know how it ends. I’m carried forward by the anticipation of the glorious conclusion: when the ring is destroyed, Sauron is conquered, Frodo and Sam are rescued, and the world is made right. Before the happily ever after comes, there is first a time of struggle.

And Paul says, “The struggle before the end is the part of the story we’re in right now.” The story has been written, and we already know the glorious conclusion; we know the happily ever after, but we’re not there yet. We’re in the time of struggle. We’re in the time of hope. 

That’s the point of verse 24 when Paul says, “in this hope we were saved.” He’s telling us what stage of salvation we’re in. We’re not yet at the end part—we’re in the hope stage.  And the thing about hope, is that it’s not yet about what we see: “hope that is seen is not hope.” 

That is the calling for Christians right now: We are called to live by hope. We are in the part of the story when we are called to order our lives around a reality we can’t yet see. We are in a time when we are called persevere, to remain faithful in suffering as we await a “happily ever after” that has been promised to us.  

Glory

What is that happily ever after? Paul summarizes it in one word: glory. Verse 18 tells us, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory” and the ESV goes on to translate it “that is to be revealed to us,” but the idea is more—“to be revealed for us,” or even “in us.” Glory is our future; glory is our happily ever after. Likewise, at the very end of our passage, after telling us that God is working all things for our good, he tells us what that good is that God is bringing about. Those of us he called and justified, we are told, he glorifies. Paul says here is the object of our hope: glory is in store for us: you and I will be glorious, and that glory will change the world. 

What does that even mean? While glory is not a word we use much in our culture, I can think of at least one exception: every February there’s a moment of glory that our whole nation stops to witness. Following a grueling struggle of strength and endurance, victors are declared to be Superbowl champions. A cloud of confetti fills the stadium as adoring throngs shout in adulation and the winners in the sight of all the nations watching on TV, hoist the sacred symbol of their greatness, the Lombardi Trophy. They have fought victoriously—they have achieved greatness, and all the world sees it, and this honor can never be taken away. That’s a picture of glory.

If you are in Jesus, you are destined for a glory that is far more significant than this. You will be great, for in every way you will become like the risen Jesus. Last week’s passage already began to hint at this: Paul said in verse 11, Paul that “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” In the way that Jesus was given a new eternal and whole body in his resurrection, so also the Holy Spirit will do the same for us. Verse 29 in our passage describes more specifically God’s plan for us: “we will be conformed to the image of God’s Son.” In every way we will become like the risen Jesus.  

• One day in the future, when the power of the resurrection has finished its work upon us, you and I will be fully alive. We will no longer ever get sick; our bodies won’t fall apart; we won’t have to worry about that strange pain and wonder what it might mean. We will be healthy and strong and filled with everlasting life.
• One day in the future, when the power of the resurrection has finished its work upon us, you and I will no longer be pulled down by the power of sin and temptation. We won’t feel crushed by the weight of hopelessness or fear or doubt, because we will know we are loved by our God; we will not lose control in anger or be stuck in unwise patterns. We won’t be callous to the needs of others, suspicious, self-absorbed. Instead, we will be joyfully filled by the Spirit of Christ, overflowing with love toward God and others and delight in the world God gives to us.  
• One day in the future, when the power of the resurrection has finished its work upon us, you and I will no longer be subject to shame. We won’t feel embarrassed at who we are or guilty for what we have done, we won’t feel the need to hide ourselves from others or God. For we will be beautiful in the eyes of others and God himself, and we will know this.

Because in every way we will be like the risen Jesus. We will be glorious.

And the glory we will be given will change the world. Verse 19 tells us that creation is longing for us to be glorious, because, as it says in verse 21, when that happens, “Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”   

When God made the world, he designed it in such a way that its wholeness depended on us fulfilling our calling to be God’s images. Humanity was given the task of ruling the world on God’s behalf. Like sons and daughters taking up the family business, we were told to expand beyond Eden and care for the world in such a way that every part of creation would experience God’s loving authority through us. 

Returning for a minute to the Lord of the Rings, I kind of imagine that we had fulfilled our calling, our world would have looked a bit like Lothlorien. In the elvish land of Lothlorien, we are told there is not yet a stain of the shadow. At its center is a glorious city of rooms and houses in trees, massive trees. It’s a picture of perfect harmony. The elves who rule over the land with love and wisdom enable the trees and land to flourish in beauty, and their flourishing enables the city to prosper and delight. I imagine something like that is what God intended for us.  

In our failure, we lost the capacity and authority we once had, and creation, stained by the shadow of our sin in many ways has been set at odds against us. It’s become corrupted because of our sin with thorns, and earthquakes and death. 

But one day, when we are made glorious, we in our relationship to this world will become again more like elves, and so the creation itself will be set free from its corruption.  One day we will have authority and capacity to rule over this land in the way God intended, in a way that reflects God’s glory. 

Creation is waiting for us to take up our God given calling once again. Some of us perhaps will be gardeners; some of us scientists, seeking to name and understand this world further; some explorers, perhaps spanning the universe. But we will once again enjoy harmony with this world, and the world will rejoice. 

This, Paul says, is our future, our happily ever after. Not just fans in a stadium cheering a short-lived victory, but something far more extraordinary. Angels will honor us and bow down before us; God will smile on us, everyone around us will delight in us; the creation itself will rejoice as we care for it. We will in every way be like the risen Jesus. We will experience glory.   

Groan

But not yet. 

I don’t need to tell you what is already plain: we are not yet at the “happily ever after” part of the story. Christ has risen, and the future is certain. But the power of the resurrection has not yet finished its work on us. We, Paul says in verse 17, are currently in the time when, even as we await glory, we are suffering with Christ. That’s not a pretty word, suffering. But it’s honest. We’re in a time before the end when we still can expect to suffer. And so, as it says, in verses 22 and 23, we groan.

• Christ’s Spirit dwells in us, making us alive, but our bodies are still subject to death, subject to the ravages of cancer and heart attacks and car crashes. And so we groan. 
• Temptations still pull at us; creation and society still is at odds with us. We still face internal struggle, alienation from people we love, persecution. And so we groan. This is not yet the happily ever after. This is the time of experiencing temptation and persecution; the time of cancer, and painful family relationships, and death. We groan.
• Even creation itself groans.

We are not in the happily ever after time. We are in the time of groaning. But notice what kind of groaning it is: it’s not a groaning of despair. It’s groaning Paul says, in the pains of childbirth. That is, the pain is intense, and for how long we do not know. But it’s pain we endure in the knowledge that something glorious is happening, and the outcome will be deep joy. It’s the groaning of hope.

That is the Christian calling: to be sustained in this difficult part of our story, hope.

Now, if you can understand this—and not just understand it, but allow this reality to get inside of you, then you will have a strength to face hardship that is different from anything the world has to offer.

I don’t care who you are, when you come up against suffering, there is one thing that will get you through it, and that’s hope. You need to have some sense that even if things are hard right now, they will get better—that going through the pain will be worth it. 

For quite a while, Americans have sought to navigate difficult times with a hope in our own capacity. Yes, it’s bad now, but we are strong enough to get through this. Yes, our nation might be having a hard time, but medicines are improving; technology is solving our worst problems; we’re making advances in psychology that will help us become a more healthy society; education will strengthen us, and so on. Keep going, because you can hope in human capacity. We can get through this, and things will get better.

Around a week ago the New York Times published a column entitled “The Case for Hope,” written by Nicholas Kristof.  It begins, “More than three-quarters of Americans say the United States is headed in the wrong direction…We are a bitterly divided nation, quick to point fingers and denounce one another, and the recriminations feed the gloom. Instead of a City on a Hill, we feel like a nation in despair — maybe even a planet in despair. Yet,” he continues, “that’s not how I feel at all.” And for the rest of the column, he seeks to convince us that we should feel hopeful: “Look at medical progress,” he writes. “Look at the human courage we saw at Tiananmen square.”

As he concludes, he describes the kind of hope he thinks we should have. Not, he says “a naïve faith that things will somehow end up OK. No, it is a somewhat battered hope that improvements are possible if we push hard enough.” This, I think, is generally how people speak of hope. We gotta have hope! We can get through this. Let’s try hard and be optimistic that if we persevere, we might be able to make things better. 

At the risk of being unfair to the columnist, it seems to me that the hope he was talking about is essentially to cross your fingers, try hard, always look on the bright side, and hope for the best. And that’s not enough. That’s not enough to give us strength when a loved one is facing terminal cancer, or in the wake of a school shooting of innocent kids. As we groan, it’s not enough simply to say “improvements are possible if we push hard enough.” 

But see what we’re talking about here is far, far stronger than that. Scripture tells us that we actually can have a confident faith, that things will be ok, a faith that isn’t in any way naïve. It’s not pretending—it’s real, because that confidence has nothing to do with us “pushing hard enough.” It’s because of God. Our Trinitarian God at every level is working to ensure that this is our future, and that makes it certain. This is what we will talk more about in the coming weeks, but let me briefly mention them now.

We can hope confidently, because we have the Spirit. God is not just rooting for us on the sidelines, “I’ve done my part, now it’s up to you, come on, you can do it.” No, God has drawn intimately close to us, so that at the very heart of who we are, he is there. He speaks to our heart, “Yes, you are a child of God,” and he helps us to keep going as we seek to live into that reality. As we groan, he groans with us and guides our prayers. God is with us.

We can hope confidently because we are sons in the Son. If our hope were a matter of us “pushing hard enough,” we would be doomed. But that’s not it. Our hope is in Christ—who has bound himself to us, perfectly obedient unto death, rising for us in glory and authority. And he declares that all he has received he gives to us: what he is now he promises we one day will be, sons of God in glory through Jesus. Of this we can be certain.

And we can hope confidently, because God the Father is for us. God has demonstrated his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Do we need any other evidence? There is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus—nothing of our past separates us from God’s love. God is for us. And, as Paul will later say, if God is for us, who can be against us? God never changes his mind, and he is never, ever defeated. If he has chosen to give us good things, and he has, we don’t just “hope” with crossed fingers. We can be certain that the happily ever after, the future of glory described here, will be our future.

This is the only hope I know that is strong enough to enable us to fiercely, resiliently persevere no matter what we face.

Right now we are in the part of the story where we are trudging up Mount Doom. Right now we are in the part of the story when we experience the pain of turning away from temptation, of remaining faithful in the midst of resistance, of groaning in prayer to God in hardship. But listen. We know how the story ends. This is not how it will always be. One day, evil will be no more and all will be made beautiful; one day we will be glorious and creation will rejoice; one day our faith will turn to sight and we will see God face to face, and we will know that these present sufferings are not comparable to the glory we enjoy. 

As we in the mean time seek to persevere, let us turn to our God now, acknowledging our sin, and seeking forgiveness and strength from him.