Romans 8:18–23
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Richard Wurmbrand was a Romanian pastor who spent a total of 14 years of his adult life in communist prisons for his Christian faith. And for three of those years, he was kept in solitary confinement 30 feet underground. And in the cell that he was in, there was no light, there was no sound, there were no books to read, no paper to write on, there were no people to talk to. The only thing he heard for three years was probably the sound of his own breath and maybe the occasional footsteps of a guard walking by 30 feet above him.
And to keep himself from losing his mind, he would preach a sermon to himself every night and then he would pace his cell back and forth, imagining that he was dancing for joy at the beauty of Jesus. The guards would eventually take him out of that silence only to torture him. He was beaten on the soles of his feet until the flesh was completely gone. He was burned with red hot irons all over his body until the pain would have been completely unbearable. They told him that his wife was dead.
They told him that his son was dead. And they told him that God had completely forgotten about him. Well, he was finally released in a prisoner exchange years later. And he testified before the United States Senate about his experience during this time in the early to mid-20th century. And people asked him, how did you survive that darkness without breaking? How did you survive that struggle without it completely tearing you apart? And you know what he said?
He said, it was in the hole that I learned that the presence of God is more real than the pain of the whip. Now, what do you think about that? Is Richard Wurmbrand just a crazy person? or see on to something. Well, that's what I want to explore with you today, what we ought to hold on to whenever everything else seems to fall apart around us or in us, even. Let me invite you to take a Bible and turn over to Romans chapter 8.
We're going to be looking at Romans chapter 8, verses 18 through 23, a staggering six verses, which is probably the longest ever for an evening service devotional. Thanks, Greg. Romans chapter 8, verse 18. Starting in verse 18, Paul writes, God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies. This is what I want
to convince you of today. As a Christian, remember that your struggle has an expiration date. Your glory does not. Again, as a Christian, remember that your struggle, whether it's internal, whether it's financial, whether it's something that you can't control, it has an expiration date. And your glory as someone who is united to Jesus does not have an expiration date. Within that, I want to talk to you about three things tonight. I want to draw three things out of that. The first thing is the outweighed struggle. The outweighed struggle.
The second thing is the expiring curse. The expiring curse, looking at that middle section. And then lastly, the eternal homecoming. Looking at that last verse there, the eternal homecoming. So let's take a look at the first thing, the outweighed struggle. So Paul has just finished explaining that we are heirs with Christ. And if you look at verse 17, the verse right before this, that's what he says. But, he says, heirs who share in his sufferings, so that we may also share in his glory. So the four here in verse 18, if you look at the beginning of verse 18, it answers why such a path is not only tolerable, no, he doesn't stop there, but why it's absolutely glorious.
The text says in verse 18, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. You know, it's striking to me that Paul assumes the reality of suffering. He doesn't say if we suffer. He could have said that, right? But he doesn't. He speaks of the sufferings of this present time as a settled fact. In other words, this is not a theology for the fantasy world. It's a theology for the ICU waiting room, for the funeral procession, for the moment the doctor says to you or someone you love, there's nothing more we can do for you.
Paul gives us a counting word here as well. He says consider. Look at that word consider. That word that he uses right there is a mathematical term. It's an accounting term. What Paul does here is he puts betrayal, martyrdom, things that he would have known intimately in the slow decay of old age on one side of the scale. He puts it right over here, and he doesn't call them nothing, right? He doesn't say that these things are just completely pointless, just don't worry about it, right? He doesn't say that. He knows the weight of those things, but then the text turns our eyes to the other side of the scale, and it is absolutely glorious. Friends, the magnitude of what God has prepared is so radiant and so infinitely satisfying that the scale doesn't just tip, it completely shatters.
You want to know why? You want to know why that is? Why the scale shatters and doesn't just tip a little bit one way? It's because the gospel reveals a God who is so beautiful that 10 trillion years into his presence, the darkest day on earth for you will be remembered as a brief and distant whisper. If you're a Christian, your suffering is not the biggest thing in the room. I wonder if you've ever thought about it like this. We will suffer in this life, yes. but we will never, ever suffer like Jesus did for us.
When the things of this world and the things of this life scream that darkness is all there is, we can still rejoice as Christians knowing that there isn't a single drop of God's wrath in our pain or in our suffering. Jesus drank the cup of his father's wrath so that we don't have to. You know, there's a hymn we love to sing here, O Love Divine, And one of those verses says, Thus he who gave that curse was torn to end that curse for all.
That brings us to the second thing I want to talk to you about, the expiring curse. The passage, what Paul does here is he kind of widens the land. In verse 18, he's talking about more personal suffering on a more singular level. And then he kind of zooms out a little bit to the entire cosmos. Look at verse 19. He tells us that the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. Now, why does Paul include that verse? On paper, it doesn't seem like putting our suffering in a global context is what we need.
And it's probably not what we want to hear either, if we're honest with ourselves. So why does he do it? Why does Paul do that? Well, I think he's trying to help us not feel singled out or picked on when we suffer. You know, there's a profound explanation here for why the world feels so out of joint. Why the earthquakes, why the famines in the world, why the cancer. And it's right here in the text too. Look at verse 20. Paul says the creation was subjected to futility.
In other words, creation is the ruined masterpiece. We look at the beauty of the world and we see the genius of the creator. We see the brush strokes of beauty in a sunset or in a mountain range. But we also see the bloody stain of the fall, don't we? We see the sickness. Just earlier today, eight children between the ages of 1 and 14 were killed in a school shooting in Louisiana. The world is a sick, sick, ruined place. The world is spinning its wheels in the mud of decay like a truck stuck in mud.
It's unable to reach the perfection for which it was designed. Which takes us to the end of verse 20. look at the last two words of verse 20, in hope. That's a really interesting phrase, in hope. So who subjected the world to futility in hope? Who did it? Adam certainly did not subject the world to futility in hope when he ate the fruit that he wasn't supposed to. Satan definitely did not subject the world to futility in hope when he tempted the humans to sin against their creator who loves them.
So who subjected the world to futility and hope? It was God. God allowed the futility so that he could demonstrate a far greater redemption. You see, the frustration of the cosmos, the suffering of this life and the suffering of this world is God's megaphone shouting to Christians, my child, this world that is broken is not your permanent home. And every earthquake and every birth defect in the world is just a pointer toward that day of liberation.
Look at verse 21. The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. What a glorious, glorious day that will be. And look at verse 22 also. Paul describes the world as groaning together in the pains of childbirth. That's a really interesting phrase. And this, I think, changes everything about how we view a dying world. These aren't the death throes of a universe coming to an end.
If that's all there was, if that's all the sufferings of this world was, that would be a pity, wouldn't it? But no, these are the birth pains of a new creation being born, a better creation being born. And the curse is real. The curse is absolutely real. But because of who God is, the curse is not final. it has been given a deadline and it will expire one day friends which brings us to the third thing I want to talk to you about the eternal homecoming the eternal homecoming Paul refuses to offer a fake Christianity that just plugs its ears and ignores the pain of the world right Christians are not delusional people we might be weird but we're not delusional instead verse 23 what verse 23 does here is it shows us the heart of the believer. Look at verse 23. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, Christians, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies. So what is Paul saying here
exactly? Well, he's saying that the Christian is not someone who ignores the ache. The Christian is someone who understands it. To have the spirit is to have a first fruit, a taste of the harvest of heaven. And once the soul has tasted the air of a better country, the smog and pollution of this world becomes almost unbearable, doesn't it? If you aren't a Christian here tonight, I want to talk to you for a moment because I love you and because I'm glad that you're here.
Do you ever wonder why this life can feel so frustrating or why it maybe sometimes doesn't feel like that you fit somewhere in it all or why you can't sleep a night or ever wonder who you really are. Well, let me tell you exactly who you are. You are a glorious reality of being a person made in the image of God, made to live for God. And this inward groaning your feelings is actually just a mark of God's grace in your life.
It's the sound of a soul that knows deep down that it was made for another world. friends don't suppress that truth turn from your sins and put your trust in jesus the one who will satisfy your groanings and if you are a christian i want you to embrace that groaning it i want you to embrace that groaning like like it's the confident groan of a prisoner who hears the key turning in the lock the text here points us toward a final physical homecoming look at the end of verse 23 those last few words, the redemption of our bodies. You know, when Charles Spurgeon spoke of the completeness of Christ's work, which he did a lot, by the way, he said, the shepherd will not be content to say, I have brought ninety and nine home. No, he must have the hundredth one. He will look for the one that was most ready to halt, the one that was most likely to be lost. He will say, where is that poor
trembling, crippled sheep. And he will not be satisfied until he can say all, of all which thou gavest me, have I lost nothing. Friends, God's plan is so thorough that he does not stop until every cell, every nerve ending, every tear duct, and every weak sheep is redeemed and brought home to be with him. We see here two ways to groan in this world. One can groan like an orphan who fears that the darkness is all there is.
Or one can groan like a child, an heir who knows that the dawn is coming, who knows that their father is going to bring them home to be with his son Jesus forever. The gospel presents us with a Jesus who took the full weight of suffering and sin upon himself, who swallowed the sting of death so that our groaning, our groanings of this life, could be transformed into praise for his son Jesus. Jesus entered the grave and walked back out to ensure that our struggle would, in fact, one day have an expiration date. And for the weary in here, for the sick and the lonely, and for everyone else, too, the present trials are not worth comparing.
We are not merely surviving a curse, friends. We are awaiting a coronation as sons and daughters of the king. Friends, the futility is almost over. The freedom is almost here. Richard Wurmbrand, the guy we talked about earlier, he doesn't sound all that crazy now, does he? Brothers and sisters, the presence of God, the promises of God, the treasures of God are more real than the pain of any whip of this world.
Let's pray. Father, we are so thankful that you brought us to this place to read your word, to read about that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. We pray that you will help us be a people who suffer well, that we won't scream like an orphan who fears that the dark is all there is, but we will rejoice knowing that our King Jesus has bought us with his own blood and that one day, hopefully soon, that he will bring us home to be with him forever.
We pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen.