GROWN…GROAN…GONE
Several years ago, Rabbi Harold Kushner asked a very important question, a question that is very personal for all of us: Why do bad things happen to good people?
This is the title of the book Kushner wrote as a response to the suffering and pain he and his wife experienced when they lost a child to a terrible disease. The book became very popular because it spoke to our common cry, “Why me, Lord?” His answer was not completely satisfying but Kushner’s journey was one we all face.
Every person who lives on this planet will eventually face a situation or crisis that will be difficult to explain theologically. Some ask from a philosophical point of view why there is suffering in the world. If God is good why does he allow his people to endure sickness, hardship, loss and sorrow? Others ask from a more personal perspective as they themselves are the ones suffering. “Why me, God?” For some, “Why always me God?”
When I began preaching here I spoke one time on suffering and confessed that I had not known suffering personally. Terrible mistake. Shortly after that and since then I have experienced suffering in a variety of ways. Not, perhaps, in the manner you have suffered, for we all struggle with different issues.
It is from my own suffering and from my understanding of Scripture, specifically Romans 8:18-27, that I propose to you that our suffering is really growing pains. As an adolescent or pre-teen I recall the pain in my legs before a growth spurt. In the same way Paul infers that the pain of this life is to be expected if we are to have a share in the life of Jesus Christ.
The blanket statement, “Nothing worth having comes easy,” is not far off the mark. What we will discover in this study is that suffering is normal for the children of God and that God has not abandoned us but is with us in our suffering.
1. There is no comparison between suffering and glory
If we step back to v. 17 for a moment we will remember that to be children of God, adopted as sons and daughters, makes us heirs and co-heirs with Christ. And if want to share in Christ’s glory, the prerequisite is to share in his sufferings.
That does not resonate well with everyone. Popular preachers today are telling their congregants that becoming a Christian is going to solve all their problems. They will be healthy, they will be wealthy and they will be blessed beyond all measure if they grow in faith. At Whitney Houston’s funeral, Rev. T. D. Jakes promoted the Prosperity Gospel and asked for people to raise their hands if they wanted to be broke. Being broke, he proclaimed, is not God’s plan for man.
But Jesus suffered poverty, indignity, rejection, loneliness, hunger, ridicule, persecution, betrayal, abandonment, torture, false accusations, temptation, mockery, weakness and death. And he calls us to share in that suffering for his name’s sake. Then we will share in his glory.
I would encourage you to think of suffering in the broadest terms. That is, not only as persecution for being a Christian, but simply living in a fallen world where there is disease and hardship and pain and enduring it as a follower of Christ would.
Then include yourself when Paul says, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (8:18). For as Paul says elsewhere, “…our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all…” (2 Cor 4:17). So it seems that it is not the kind of suffering you face that is at issue but the manner with which you endure the suffering.
Four observations are worth noting about this verse (18): 1) Suffering and glory belong together and cannot be divorced; 2) the sufferings and the glory represent two ages. We suffer in this present age because of our human weakness, moral corruption, and all that is due to our flesh. The glory is the age to come where we will experience the unspeakable splendor of God who is immortal and incorruptible; 3) the sufferings and the glory cannot be compared. In other words, the glory of God will be so tremendous it will wipe away any remembrance of the pain you endured in this life; 4) the sufferings and the glory concern both God’s creation and God’s children.[i]
2. All Creation suffers in its present state
We are not alone in our suffering. Part of our human weakness is to “navel-gaze” when we hurt and forget the bigger picture. Everyone hurts at some point, yes, but creation, the entire world system is presently suffering. Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and countless other calamities indicate a world that is hurting. All of nature, even the wild animals, are not what they were meant to be.
Four times ‘creation’ is mentioned and in each sentence we are given a glimpse of how creation suffers.
a) Creation waits in eager expectation (19) – Waiting is at times excruciating in itself. If you have friends who are chronically late and you agree to meet them somewhere, the waiting can be agony. After a long wait you even wonder if they forgot about the plan to meet.
Creation waits in eager expectation. The idea here is waiting with head raised and your eyes fixed on that point of the horizon from which the expected object is to come. It’s like staring at the airport gate waiting for your loved one to arrive. It is the picture of standing tiptoe, stretching the neck or craning forward to see if the person is coming.
What is creation waiting for? For the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. Creation cannot wait until God’s children are finally and completely set free from sin through the coming of Jesus. Once that happens then the earth will also be set free.
b) Creation was subjected to frustration (20) – What does creation need to be set free from? Who caused its frustration?
Adam’s disobedience had far reaching consequences. With his sin all of creation was cursed because of him. Creation’s frustration and curse was to experience emptiness, futility, purposelessness or vanity. George Mallory was asked once why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. He replied, “Because it’s there.” Does the world’s tallest mountain exist for that purpose alone? How meaningless if it is.
Though it was Adam’s sin that led to this frustration it was God who imposed this judgment on creation. God’s intention was not to destroy creation, though it seems to be wasting away, but to deliver it. Creation’s suffering is not the final throes of death but birth-pangs. Just as a mother experiences great pain before delivering, earth is writhing in the agony before God’s glorious delivery. Creation is waiting for us. And when that happens you will know why Mount Everest was created and why all things exist.
c) Creation will be liberated (21) – Paul wrote that creation will be liberated from the bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
At this moment it appears just the opposite. Entropy is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law states that in any closed system, energy always moves from complexity to randomness. Creation then, is moving from order to disorder. Anything left to itself will just run down, like a watch that is wound and then left to itself. It is the same law that explains your daughter’s messy bedroom or why you have to replace your shingles every fifteen to twenty years. We live in a world that is running down.
But God has promised that he will deliver it, that this time of suffering will not last forever. After all, what sense can there be in saying that creation suffers from not fulfilling its purpose, unless creation with all its intricate marvels which glorify God’s creativity is being cheated of its purpose so long as humankind is stifled by sin? Once we are liberated, creation will find its purpose yet again.
d) Creation groans in the meantime (22) – Groaning is a deep, inward response to suffering. It is both personal and intense, an agony so deep it cannot be put into words.[ii]
Creation groans in it expectation, in its waiting for redemption. Creation was an innocent casualty of Adam’s sin but it suffers nonetheless. It is decaying, dying, and wallowing in futility. Who wouldn’t groan? And yet the groaning points to a hope that relief will come. It shows that creation has not given up but waits for the emergence of something new and good. We come again to imagery of giving birth – the world is experiencing some wicked contractions. But God is faithful; he will not let the creation pass away.
3. Suffering is a normal part of the Christian life
As creation suffers, so does humankind. Like creation we suffer under the effects of sin and a fallen world. In a fallen world we experience difficulty in our workplaces, we feel our bodies slowing down, we discover new aches and pains, and we know the heartaches of being misunderstood. Our suffering knows many forms.
As followers of Christ you would think we would have exemptions from common suffering, but we don’t. We might wonder what advantage a Christian has over the unbeliever. Are there any?
Paul does not teach that there are exemptions but he does affirm the status of the believer. If suffering is a normal part of the Christian life, what does that tell us?
First, Paul tells us we have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Firstfruits are the token of the coming harvest, a guarantee that the crop is good. Having the Holy Spirit live in us is like this in that the Spirit is a taste of what is to come. We are not yet fully adopted as children of God but the Spirit of sonship is at work in us making us fit for the kingdom (8:15-17).
Second, as a result of having the Spirit live in us we have spiritual growing pains. “…as we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (23).
Certainly we groan because of our human frailty, our physical pains, and the reality of our imminent death. But we also groan spiritually because we know we are not doing or being what we should do or be.
Some would say we groan despite the fact that we have the Spirit. But it actually makes better sense to say we groan because we have the Spirit. As the Spirit moves into our lives he demands holiness and we sense what God wants us to be. Consequently, the Spirit increases our frustration at not meeting God’s standard and our yearning to be what he wants us to be.[iii]
Likely due to the Charismatic Movement we are prone to think of the presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit as bringing ecstatic joy, speaking in tongues and miracles. But here in v. 23 we see that suffering and groaning is normal for the Christian life. When the Spirit reveals God’s truth to us we cannot help but groan at the sin we see around us. We see that we are not yet living in the kingdom of God. In fact, Jesus taught this in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, “Blessed are those who mourn…Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” (Matt 5:4-6). They are mourning sin and hungering for a world without sin. The Spirit makes us aware that something is wrong with our world and we groan.
It is because we are Christians that we are not exempt from suffering and groaning. It is because we have the Holy Spirit that suffering is even intensified. We are not satisfied with this life, nor should we be. We should not be comfortable in this temporary existence. No we wait eagerly for our adoption as children of God.
Or do we? I am afraid that this generation, that we who have gathered here today, are trying to be comfortable with this world. We are ignoring the Spirit’s work to make us aware of our fragility. Our schedules make us run, keeping busy, so busy we ignore or put off the Spirit’s call to make much of God. In our busy pace, our quest for meaning, we are trying to dull the pain of being. We have no time to stop and listen and be alone with God. We have no time for his Word or for true fellowship with other spiritual sojourners. This makes me groan.
We should all groan for the things of God. Our priorities are messed up; our schedules scream how important we are. But it’s just rags. The Holy Spirit is wrestling with us, trying to show us what we ought to groan for. (Read 2 Cor 5:1-10). This is what we groan for; this is what’s important: Pleasing God.
Our suffering produces hope. We groan in our mortal existence because we hope for something better. Paul taught us about this hope in 5:3-5. We rejoice in our sufferings because suffering ultimately produces hope. Where is your hope? In what do you hope? I hope for the new world that Christ is bringing…
4. The Holy Spirit ministers to us in our suffering
While we suffer and groan about life’s imperfections we are not alone. There are times when these trials get so heavy we cannot pray. The words will not come. Maybe you have simply hit a dry spell in your prayer life and you don’t know what to say. It can be spiritual agony to be on your knees and not know what to say to God. We feel powerless.
Paul tells us a wonderful truth, one that we easily forget. “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (8:26).
The Holy Spirit groans for us. These are “sighs too deep for words.” They are actually wordless prayers. It is not that they cannot be put into words but that they are not actually words at all. They are unexpressed rather than inexpressible. Just like Creation and the groans of God’s people these prayers are “agonized longings.”[iv]
In your time of distress when all you can pray is “Oh God…” and fall silent for lack of words, the Spirit is with you saying, “I know, I know.” Amazing…God is with us in our pain. He does not take it away but works with us to wrestle with it and find hope. It’s like he weeps with us over those things that make us weep.
God is not so transcendent (so above us in heavenly distance) that he feels nothing. No, he is so close that he gathers us in his arms rocking us through the pain, like Mom did when we had an earache or flu.
Our will is that the pain goes away. Sometimes that is God’s will too. God knows the Spirit, it says in v. 27, and he knows us, and he knows what his will is. What we have to understand is that God’s will involves our refinement, our sanctification. In plain words, we have to go through the fire to be made pure. Suffering makes us pure and holy.
Are you groaning? What good is this suffering and groaning? What is it producing in you? Does your groaning give you a hunger for heaven? Does it make you discontent with this life and the way things are? Does it make you focus your hope on the things of God which at this point we cannot see?
Does it? Good! That is the work of the Holy Spirit in you giving you a heart for God. That is what the Spirit does. If you are not satisfied with this life then know this: God is preparing you for glory. God is getting you ready to be his eternal son or daughter to reign with him forever. When Christ returns somehow we will see a new creation emerge from this worn out old one.
In this life you cannot possibly be what you were meant to be. But this is not the only life we have to live. This world is not what it was meant to be either. So the world groans, we groan and the Holy Spirit groans for that Day when we will all be what we were created to be. And then we’ll be gone…gone to glory.
AMEN
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