The Yearning
The Yearning
Romans 8:18-25
Introduction
It’s finally December.
There are only few more weeks left until we finally turn the page on
2017. As we look forward to a new year,
we will also look back and reflect on what happened during the past twelve
months. News programs will begin running
spots on what happened in politics, the weather, sports, violence and other
tragedies. A few may even run positive
stories, but they don’t seem to be as newsworthy as all the bad stuff that
happened to us on this planet.
Simply put, this world is broken. The little things that bother us and make us
cranky are nothing compared what goes on in the rest of the world. Typhoons, tsunamis and earthquakes kill
thousands of innocent people every year.
Defenseless men, women, and children are murdered every year so that
powerful people can satisfy their lust for even more power. According to World Vision’s latest
statistics, over 21 million children and adults are trapped in forced labor or
sex slavery around the world. We may
want to think that such thing only happens in far-off places like Southeast
Asia, but human trafficking happens in every state in our nation, including
Illinois.
Every person in this room has felt the brokenness of this
world. Whether it was injustice,
illness, accidents or flat-out evil that you have known, we have all
experienced heartache. It shouldn’t be
that way and we know it. The child’s cry
of “that’s not fair” lies deep within all of us. That is, until the jaded cynicism of the
parent’s reply of “life’s not supposed to be fair” suppresses the hunger for
righteousness and justice that God put into every soul. Deep within us, we all know the world is not
as it should be. From the beginning of
time until this present day, every person who has walked on this earth yearns for this world to be made right. The Apostle Paul redirects our universal
longing from despair to hope.
The Word – Romans
8:18-25
I
consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory
that will be revealed in us. For the
creation waits in eager expectation for the children 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 into
the freedom and glory 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 firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our
adoption to sonship, 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 they already have? But
if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8 Context
If all of the Apostle Paul’s letters in the New Testament
were considered as the mountain ranges of the world, then the Book of Romans
would be the mighty Himalayas. And if
the epistle to the Romans is the Himalayas, then the context of chapter eight
is majestic Everest. After spilling a
lot of ink about the depth and bondage of sin in the opening chapters, Paul
comes to the glorious conclusion that “There is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus” in the first verse of the chapter. We are co-heirs with Christ and his Spirit
dwells within us “bearing witness with our spirit” that we are the children of
God, destined for glory if we endure suffering as Jesus did. With this eternal destiny sharply in focus,
the Apostle writes the opening lines of our text…
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth
comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (vs. 18) I actually like the KJV of this
text. (It confirms my suspicions that
Paul may have been somewhat of a cowboy and probably liked Country-Western
music.) For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to
be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Actually,
“reckon” is a better word than “consider.”
It carries the idea of rational calculation – almost as if it was an
accounting device. Greek scholar,
Kenneth Wuest translates it, “I have come to a reasoned conclusion.” Paul has contemplated the magnitude of
suffering that he has endured (a lot more than any of us!) and has determined
by faith and hope that they are nothing compared to the glory that will one day
be revealed in him. Indeed, to the
church in Corinth he wrote,
No eye has seen, nor ear heard,
Nor the heart of man imagined,
What God has prepared for those who
love him.
I
Corinthians 2:9
Out of this consideration of his eternal destiny, the Apostle
Paul looks outward to the whole cosmos…
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 into the freedom and glory 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. (Vss. 19-22)
The “revealing of the sons of God”
will be at the culmination of this age and inaugurate the New Heaven and the
New Earth spoken of in the closing chapters of the Book of Revelation. The picture of the anguish of childbirth is
powerful. I was privileged to witness
the birth of both of my children and my first grandchild. It’s in that setting that the Orthodox Jewish
prayer took on particular significance for me, “Blessed are You, Lord our God,
ruler of the universe, who has not created me a woman.” The intense pain and
the work that a woman experiences in childbirth are impossible for a man to
comprehend. And pity the fool who crosses
a woman in “transition.”
The storms, the earthquakes, disease and destruction are the
pains of the entire cosmos striving to rid itself of the ancient curse and
bring forth the birth of a promised tomorrow.
The Scripture says that creation was unwillingly subjected to
futility. How is that?
Many of you know who Tony Dungy is. He was the coach of the Indianapolis Colts
when they won the Super Bowl a few years ago.
He is also a committed Christian who is respected universally by
everyone. He has three sons. Tragically, the oldest one took his own life just
before Christmas in 2006. His middle son
is competitive like his father, almost to obsession. His youngest son, Jordan, has a rare
congenital disease that does not allow him to feel pain. On the surface that might seem like a great
thing. Not really. Not when you don’t feel the pain of a serious
burn when you take a cookie off the baking sheet in the oven. Not when you break a bone and don’t stop your
activity, leading to even more complications.
Pain is a blessing. It tells us
that something is wrong.
God didn’t bring sin and rebellion into this world. Adam and Eve did and we have dutifully
followed their lead. And sin brought its
consequence of death into this world.
Sin has broken everything. You
can read the story in Genesis 3. God cursed
the ground so that we would feel the pain and know that the world is
broken. It is the lesson that Tony Dungy
learned through his son when he said, "Sometimes, pain
is the only way that will turn us…back to the Father." The pain of this world is a signpost pointing
us back to God.
The Apostle continues his thought…
Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of
the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the
redemption of our bodies. (Vs. 23)
Anyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ - who has been
born-again - knows this deep yearning. And
the longer we walk with God, the deeper that yearning grows. The more earnestly we press in to know God,
the more eternity draws us and the world’s grip on us weakens. We yearn because, as Paul says, we “have the
firstfruits of the Spirit.” The Spirit
who resides within us was given to us as “the deposit [the idea of a down payment] of our inheritance until
we acquire possession of it” (Ephesians 1:14).
Because of the Spirit’s presence in our lives, we know that we are
destined for glory. C.S. Lewis put it
this way, “"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world
can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another
world.” (Mere Christianity) We have an eternal destiny beyond this mortal
life. In his letter to the Philippians,
Paul explained, “…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.” (Phil. 3:20-21)
The Nature of Hope
Our text says, “…in this hope we were saved.” Friends, this is God’s plan for the ages – that
everything would be reconciled to him through Christ. We do not yet see with our eyes. We do not touch it with our hands nor hear it
with our ears. From time to time, we get
a small glimpse of the glory that we will share and his Spirit within us bears
witness with ours that a day is coming when all will be put right. This is the Blessed Hope that all Christians
share. This is the yearning that
passionately burns within our hearts.
For the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and
worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the
present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great
God and Savior Jesus Christ.
Titus 2:11-13
Hope views our present circumstances through the promise of
tomorrow, based on the faithfulness of God in the past. One of my favorite Advent hymns expressed
hope this way:
View
the present through the promise, Christ will come again.
Trust
despite the deepening darkness, Christ will come again.
Lift
the world above its grieving through your watching and believing
in
the hope past hope's conceiving: Christ will come again.
Probe
the present with the promise, Christ will come again.
Let
your daily actions witness, Christ will come again.
Let
your loving and your giving and your justice and forgiving
be
a sign to all the living: Christ will come again.
Match
the present to the promise, Christ will come again.
Make
this hope your guiding premise, Christ will come again.
Pattern
all your calculating and the world you are creating
to
the advent you are waiting: Christ will come again.
By Thomas H.
Troeger, © 1994 Oxford University Press, Inc.
Stoke the Fires of
Yearning
We are now diving headlong into the Christmas season. If they are not already, the decorations will
soon be up. I even have some lights on
at my home. But even in the warmth of
this sentimental December season, we all know that things are not as they should
be. Certainly, the world has plenty of
problems, as does our beloved country. A
lot of families have problems that particularly manifest themselves during this
time of the year and I am certain that there are many in this room that carry
deep personal pain-even as I speak. The
world is not as it should be. We all
know that. We yearn for the day when
everything will be made right. That’s
what this first Sunday in Advent is all about.
Its overriding theme is hope
because the Savior who once visited this earth will one day come again. And our hope is true because it’s foundation
is based on God’s faithful actions to you and me, and all of his people in the
past. The promise of Advent is that righteousness,
justice and wholeness will fill the entire cosmos in the overwhelming flood of
God’s promise.
So stoke those fires of yearning during this Advent Season. Live in the light of the future, knowing that
when Christ returns this world will be put right. With the Spirit living within us, we are a
vanguard of that Day. We are co-heirs
with Christ in his Kingdom which is now and but not yet. “Since [eternity] has already begun in the
Now, hope reshapes the present.”[1] We are his ambassadors of the Kingdom. Should we not represent him in all that we
do, proclaiming to the world that Jesus is indeed the Lord of All who is coming
soon to set things right?
There is a yearning: a yearning deep within our soul to be
with God without the limitation of sin and our mortal bodies. There is a
yearning that will be fulfilled: to know
him fully as Emmanuel, “God with us.”
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