Let me describe the world where you live. The world where you live is a world of suffering. Unless Jesus comes back soon, if it is not the terrible cataclysm or sudden catastrophe that chops down you and your loved ones, you will be brought to the dust by being slowly ground down. Through the abrasiveness of life’s troubles and difficulties, your life will eventually be worn down, like a white eaten house, that collapses under its own weight. You and I will be reduced to a little pile of granules. The waves of life that pound you day by day, year by year, will pound you into powder and wash you away, like the Southern Ocean did to ‘London Bridge’ on the Victorian coast. And one day, unless Jesus comes back soon, you and I will be swept away, almost without a trace.
I wonder if you saw that clip from Charlotte Dawson’s funeral? Charlotte Dawson was the famous New Zealand model and celebrity. She was beautiful and funny. But her marriage failed, she suffered depression since her abortion. She had been bullied online. She had attempted suicide a number of times, and finally she was successful a couple of weeks ago. At her memorial celebration, her sister took the plastic container that contained Charlotte’s ashes, put it on the lecturn and said with mock bravado, "And here she is with us," And the guests in the pub laughed. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2569690/Revealed-Charlotte-Dawson-mourned-private-funeral-small-group-family.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2569734/Charlotte-Dawsons-memorial-service-Sydney.html http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/02/28/11/11/friends-gather-to-remember-charlotte
It was a coarse, bizarre, even grotesque, display. It shocked me, and I have received ashes in the post, and store them in my study. But it had one element of educational value. The reality is we end up as ashes: ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
My dear friends, what happens to us is that this wonderful beautiful amazing world that God had made for us to inhabit, this same magnificent good world rises up and attacks us, and wins, no matter how rich or smart or clever or religious or beautiful we are. The earth, so beautiful and homely, consumes us, and we become dirt again. And the earth has heaps of ways of gobbling us down. The surfer gets taken by the Great White. Steve Irwin is stung by the sting rays he loves. I love a sunburnt country a land of sweeping plains… Except it burns our pale skin and gives us Melanoma. McDonalds, ‘You’ll love it’. And we do. That’s why we’re so fat. Those who chop logs might be injured by them.
The part of the world we know best and love most love rises up and bites us. If we escape the world’s worst bite, we die the death of a thousand cuts as it grinds us into the dust. And the fire of the crematorium or the worms and bugs of the earth consume us in the end.
And friends, our passage says today, this meaningless frustration in our world, God has built it into our world. Our purpose driven life has a purposelessness about it for the present. But there is a purpose to the purposelessness we experience. For all of our frustrations, we are not finally frustrated. The futility of our lives is not futile for those of faith. God has built this nasty bite into our world so that we don’t get too comfortable here, but hope in another one, the new heaven and the new earth.
Our world is full of suffering. Do not believe the peddlers of the prosperity gospel. Jesus does not promise you health and wealth with no sickness and sadness. You do not get sick or suffer because you’ve necessarily sinned in some way. That was the folly of Job’s comforters. What you need to know is this. The Spirit filled life, the normal Christian life, involves struggle and suffering. Look with me at verse 18:
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us… (NIV)
Suffering is part and parcel of our world. Suffering is normal Christian existence. But we are to think differently about our sufferings. They are our present reality. But they are not our future destiny. And they are not worthy of being compared with our future destiny.
I have said, as is my melancholy want, that your life is full of suffering. [Or if it isn’t yet, it will be, if you live long enough] But suffering is bigger than just you and me. Suffering is bigger than merely the human world. It is the whole created order that is in upheaval and turmoil. Everything is suffering. Everything is broken. Everything is in frustration. Human society, the environment, the animal kingdom, the seas, the wilderness, the earth’s crust, the solar system, and the billions of stars and galaxies, all of it is groaning. None of creation should be the way it is. And God has done this on purpose. God has permitted it to exist in this frustrated, futile way. Verse 20:
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it…
You and the whole created order get frustrated because of God.
You know when you try and finish your assignment on your laptop, and just as you are about to finish it, the file corrupts and you lose 2/3rds of it? That’s God. He has injected frustration into our world.
You know how your church is trying to get a DA for the new church building, and the council seems to get in your way, and the diocese loses 25% of your money. That’s God. He’s built frustration into our world. Even when we are doing his work!
You know how it is always one step forward and two steps back. Many are our plans, but our plans are not necessarily God’s plans. God builds frustration into our world. You cannot do what you want to do. The earth will produce thorns and thistles for you… By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the dust from whence you came.
We saw in Romans 7 verses 14 to 25, that when I go to do good, evil is right there with me. I have a war to fight for as long as I live in this body of death. I must put to death the misdeeds of the body by the Spirit. And the Spirit enables me to fight it against the world, the flesh, and the devil. This is suffering and frustration.
Well, a parallel suffering and frustration exists in our created order. God placed it there. God subjected the created order to this frustration, and not because God is mean or unkind. God did it so that we don’t set our hearts on this world, but we set our hearts on the world to come. So the proper image for us of our suffering is of the pains of childbirth. Verse 22:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time….
It is very risky for me, a male, to start talking about birth pains. Given I have only ever experienced birth pains as an interested and slightly anxious observer, I will not venture a comment about them except these two things. Birth pains are painful. And birth pains result in a birth. That’s all I wish to say.
In other words, the pain is not purposeless. The pain and suffering and agony of giving birth issues in new life, a much loved and much wanted baby, welcomed into a human family.
And that is the nature of the pain we experience as a Christian. The frustration a Christian experiences will not be finally frustrated. The vanity will not be in vain. The purposelessness has a purpose. God is going to raise you from the dead, give you a new resurrection body, and grant you an inheritance in his new heaven and earth forever. Jesus said, "I’m going there to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, so you can always be where I am" (John 14). Death is not the end. For Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Jesus will live even though he dies, and the one who lives and believes in Jesus will never die (John 11:25-26).
So I say this to you, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Your pain and mine is temporary. It is a brief reminder for but a moment. Our sufferings, our discomfort, our cancer, our bankruptcy, our physical and financial disasters, even our death, whether being chopped down in the prime of life or being mercilessly ground back into the dirt, that is merely a momentary inconvenience. The earth gobbles us up only to give birth to us again, when the Lord Jesus will call to the graves. Our bodies will be redeemed. Jesus bought them with his blood. So he will again form us from the dust, and we will be with him forever, together with those who’ve died in Christ.
For the Christian, their groans are actually the Spirit’s prayers. Your groaning now is actually praying. The Spirit is interceding for you. Verses 26 and 27:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
You know sometimes when you face your life as a Christian, and it just gets too much. You don’t know what to pray for. Life gets difficult and overwhelming. So what God does, is God’s Spirit dwelling in us steps in. And the Spirit articulates our prayer. We groan. "Oh God, what should I do? I don’t know. Arggh."
And that is the Spirit praying on our behalf. There is the Holy Spirit, living in us, talking to God the Father on our behalf, in the wordless groan and sigh. God knows what we need before we ask. And even when we can’t express our hearts desire, or pray as we ought, the Spirit intercedes for us with groans according to the will of God.
So it is all for the best. It’s all good news, from now on. This sermon from now on is all happy, all good, all positive, no more painful home truths, no more reminding you of your suffering. From verses 28 to 39, the news is all good. If you love God, everything you go through from now on in your life is meant for your good, predestined and purposed by your loving heavenly Father to make you like Jesus Christ, his beloved Son. Nothing can or will ever separate you from the love of God. Can’t happen. Everything God sends will make you more like God’s son, Jesus Christ. The world, the flesh, and the devil can’t do anything anymore to stop God’s purposes and God’s love. It’s all good. Verses 28-29:
It’s all good from here on, even the bad stuff. For the pressure God sends and allows us to endure, is squeezing us into a mold. God is squeezing us into the shape of Jesus Christ, so that we will be just like him, and he will be just like us. The cuts that we endure, is God cutting us into the shape of his only beloved Son, so that we might be exactly like him. Jesus is our pattern, our mold. And we are being conformed to his image and likeness. And everything we go through has been carefully planned by God. He will not test us beyond what we can bear. He will give us just the right amount of suffering and difficulty and frustration so that we will be recreated and reformed into the right shape, the shape of Jesus Christ. A panel beater has to beat panels. A dentist has to drill and fill. A surgeon has to slice and stitch. And our God has to reshape and remold. And the shape we are being pressed and cut into is Christ, our big brother.
And on God’s sausage machine, on God’s cookie cutter, there is no wastage. Hydrologists who plan great waterways have to plan for losses along the way. There is seepage along the way. But in God’s order of salvation, in God’s process of salvation, there is no wastage, seepage, or slippage. The exact number he starts with and intends to bring to perfection is the very number he ends with, brothers to our Lord Jesus Christ. Verses 29 to 30:
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called, those he called he also justified. Those he justified he also glorified.
'Foreknow' in verse 29 doesn’t just mean foresee something in advance. It means foreknow in the sense that God foreknew Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20). Before the world was created, God foreknew Christ. It doesn’t mean that God knew something about Christ. It means God foreknew the Christ, the eternal Son of God. God the Father knew God the Son like I know my wife and children. Before the creation of the world, God loved the Son, had a relationship with the Son, enjoyed and rejoiced in his Son, and gloried in that eternal relationship. And so it is with those God foreknew. Before God created them or the world, he loved them, and chose them, and rejoiced in them. And having foreknown them, not something about them, but them, he predestined them. He marked them out with a boundary. He said, these are mine, to be given to my Son forever as his inheritance, as his brothers. And in history, he called them. They heard the gospel of Jesus, their redeemer, who is their big brother, and they came to him, and he gave them rest. And those who God effectively called to his son, he justified. He imputed the righteousness of Christ to them. He forgave their many sins. So now, God doesn’t see their sins, but he sees Jesus’ righteousness, because Jesus bore their sins on the cross. And those he justified, he glorified. He will reshape them to be just like his beloved sin. He will hammer out the dings and damage that this fallen world and sin has marked them with. And he will recreate them in the image of his Son. And they will be with him forever.
No wastage, no slippage, no seepage. Those foreknown and predestined are surely and certainly justified and glorified. Not one is lost along the way, because none can snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
So given that this is the case, if you love God, your future is secure. If you are in Christ by faith, nothing can separate you from Christ. The ones justified will certainly be glorified. Your future is "no condemnation". Your present is "peace with God". And all of this is show by what God did in the past in Christ. Verses 31 to 34:
What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (NIV)
If you don’t know whether God is for you, look back at what he did. God gave his own Son to demonstrate his love. This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and God presented him as a propitiation for our sins. When we were at our worst, God gave us his best, to take the punishment for our sins. And by his blood we have been justified.
So who is going to condemn you? The judge of all the world is Jesus Christ. And he is the one who died for you. Sure, the devil might accuse you. And your own conscience might smart you when you remember your sins. But Satan has nothing to say anymore. And soon he will be cast into the silence of hell forever. Because God took away our charge sheet, nailing it to the cross. Your judge is your brother, who is also your lawyer, your advocate, your mediator, your redeemer, who loved you and gave himself for you. Jesus Christ your judge, not only did he die for you, but because he is risen, even now he pleads his own blood for you. He continually pleads on your behalf. Just as the Spirit continually prays to the Father from earth to heaven, so also you have an intercessor in heaven itself – Jesus Christ, the great God-Man. Jesus your Brother sits ever at the right hand of God the Father, to show him those scarred hands and feet that demonstrate how much Father and Son love us.
So nothing can ever separate you from God. That is how Paul finishes. You are so loved that nothing in all creation, not even your own stupidity and stubbornness, can separate you from the love of God in Christ. Verses 38 to 39:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God won't. Jesus won't. The devil can’t. His demons can’t. Suffering can’t. Frustration can’t. Even you can’t. You are a thing in creation. What makes you think your own stupid and sinful heart can overpower God. Because for the elect, for the foreknown, for those whom God set his love upon before the foundation of the world, they will never be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. God might discipline them, and send hardship and difficulty and suffering. But that is God just doing a bit of panel beating, pounding out the dings. That’s just God the soul surgeon doing a bit of cosmetic surgery, a nip here, a tuck there. "My, you are really looking like Jesus Christ now!" But all of it is good, for our good, proceeding from the love of God, our great skillful surgeon. As the tradies say, “It’s all good.”
Don’t be fooled by the peddlers of the prosperity gospel into thinking God doesn’t love you simply because he’s doing a bit of panel beating or cosmetic surgery.
God’s love is seen in the past, present and future. In the past, God gave his Son for us, to take the punishment for our sins. In the present, the Spirit intercedes for us from earth with groans. And the Son intercedes for us from heaven, showing his hands and feet. In the future, Jesus is your Brother. God is your Father. You will be raised from the dead. Your brother who died for you and endured hell for you, won’t send you there. He will share his inheritance with you.
Do you see how much God loves you? Do you see what great encouragements we have to keep trusting Jesus Christ. Do not give up on your hope. Do not throw away your hope in Christ. Your hope in Christ will be richly rewarded. Just as birth pains fade away when the new baby is held in your arms, so these light and momentary trials will issue in eternal glory that will never fade away.
Let’s pray.