The Spirit of Hope
Title: The Spirit of Hope
Part: 16 of 27 Romans Series
Reading: Romans 8:16-25
If you've got your Bible with you this morning, we're going to read some verses from Romans chapter 8. I'm going to read from Romans 8:16-25. Paul writes, "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we're God's children. Now, if we're children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation itself waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected in 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 glorious freedom 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 first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we are saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."
The whole of those verses are oriented around the future looking forward. Something is going to happen. The glory is going to be revealed. We share in his sufferings that we may share in his glory, and the key word that re-occurs a number of times is the word "hope." Let me read Romans 8:24 again, where it comes particularly, "In this hope, we are saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."
I want to talk to you this morning about this issue of hope. Now, the word "hope" comes across to us as a rather weak word. If I were to say to you this morning, "Are you a Christian?" and you say to me, "I hope so," I will probably feel you are not too confident about it. If I say to you, "Does your wife love you?" and you say, "I hope so," I probably will feel a little bit dubious about your marriage. If I say to you, "Are you healthy today?" and you say, "Well, I hope so," I will probably conclude you are a bit of a hypochondriac because the word "hope" sounds uncertain, ambiguous, tentative, a little vague, and therefore, we don't think of hope as being a particular virtue you in any way, but actually, it is.
In 1 Corinthians:13:13, that's that great chapter on love, Paul concludes it by saying this, "Now, these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." We understand Paul, why the greatest is love because we know that God is love and so on. We understand why faith is in that list. If you've been with us in the earlier chapters of Romans, faith is a primary ingredient in our relationship with God. We are justified by faith, we are saved by faith, we live by faith, and so on. But he throws into this trio of virtues the one we hardly ever talk about, hope. It doesn't sound as though it has the same force or importance as love and faith. Yet, it may well be that this is one of the most important ingredients that some of us here this morning need in your life.
I want to encourage you today in what I'm going to share with you. I'm not going to challenge you very much today. I'm not going to try and correct you today. I don't anyway, do I? But I want to encourage you because some of you here this morning may need that because you may feel wounded. I don't know what kind of week you've had. I don't know if you had a fight with your wife this week or your husband. You may be discouraged. You may have been hurt in some way. You might have fallen into sin this week and you feel the regret and the effects of that in your life. Maybe you're simply looking out on the world. You're discouraged with the tension that exists in our world today with the conflicts that are around us, with the corruption that we see all over the place. Maybe you need to understand what Paul has to say about hope, and he may encourage you and help us to orientate outside of the present into a future, not as a form of escapism as we will see, but as an expression of realism.
Now, let me define the word "hope" first of all because it has two kinds of meanings. There's a subjective meaning. For instance, if you say, "I hope to live until I'm 110," well, that may be your hope, but it's probably unrelated to reality. It's what we would call wishful thinking, and that's one category of hope, but there's another category of hope. It's a more objective hope. You may say, "I hope to have dinner at 7:00 PM tonight." Now, you say that because you've already bought the ingredients, you're planning the menu, you've invited a guest, and you say, "I'm hoping to have dinner at 7:00 tonight." It's a confident expectation.
The kind of hope that Paul is talking about here in Romans chapter 8 that we'll talk about this morning is not this wishful thinking, "Well, I'm hoping for something that is probably totally unlikely," but a hope based on confidence, a hope that's related to realism, and it's a kind of hope that Paul is writing about here. Now, the context in which he writes about this is very interesting because the context is he's writing about suffering. He talks about universal suffering. For instance, in Romans 8:22, when he says, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." Now, he talks about the whole of creation, which he describes as groaning as in the pains of childbirths. In other words, childbirth, the pains of childbirth, awful as they are because I've witnessed them three times, and I'm grateful that's all I've had to do is just witness them. I was there when our three children were born, but for a mother, those pains are worth it for the joy that follows it.
Now, he talks about creation as in it's groaning in pain, in suffering, and so it is. Everything around us decays. Everything around us disintegrates. Everything around us dies eventually. I mean, just look in the mirror. Somebody said to me yesterday I looked five years older than I looked in the summer. Well, that's really encouraging, but it's probably true. That was six months ago. There's a song, "Change and decay in all around I see," and so we do. We see it all around us. Did you know, by the way, that last week, the New Scientist magazine carried an article indicating that bananas may be extinct in the next 10 years? Did you read that report?
Bananas, as we know them, are rare mutants of the wild banana, which is a hard seed that is inedible, but several thousand years ago, apparently it mutated. In fact, the banana is described as a genetically decrepit, sterile mutant. I met some people who had fit that description, but I didn't know bananas did. Genetically decrepit, sterile mutant. All bananas, as we know them, are sterile. Effectively, they're clones of the first plant unable to fight off new diseases, and there's a new disease out right now called the black sigatoka, and it's a global epidemic amongst bananas. They're all getting sick.
In Uganda, 40% of the crop has been destroyed with black sigatoka, and they don't have a resistance to it. Now, the cynic in me says that this kind of news is a justification for genetic modifications, which I'm sure they're going to tell us is the only solution to this so we don't lose the banana, but everything is decaying. The creation is decaying, and the creation... Sorry. "The decay is not the fault of the creation," says Paul. He says, "It's subjected to frustration not by its own choice." It was actually cursed by God as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve when God said, "Cursed is the ground because of you."
You see, you look at our creation, and sometimes it's not very impressive. We see famine. We see earthquakes. We see mass fires. We see floods, and we wonder if there was a design fault behind it, but there was no design fault. God did everything well. It was good, good, good. Six times he said that, very good. But when human beings sinned, God cursed the earth. "This is not something that is the responsibility of the creation," says Paul. It was subjected because of our failure, and one day, it's going to be liberated. One day, it's going to be liberated.
We're told that there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth where in dwells righteousness, it's going to come. But if there's universal suffering, the creation is suffering, in verse 22. There is personal suffering, in verse 23. Not only so, "but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we await eagerly the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Now, he said the creation is groaning, and now he says that we ourselves, even though we have the first fruits of the spirit. He's talking about Christians. "The creation is groaning, but Christians are groaning," he says.
Now, that doesn't mean moaning, by the way. Moaning is simply winging and whining, and some of us do that maybe, but groaning, according to my dictionary, means to be expressing pain or grief. As Christians, there are reasons to express pain and grief with our own dilemma as well as our world around us. There's a verse in Genesis at the time of the flood, and the New International Bible translates this verse speaking of God. "His heart was filled with pain when he saw that the intent of man's heart was evil continually." God's heart was full pain. Pain is legitimate in our hearts as we groan over the world. And it's against this background of suffering, Paul talks about hope.
Now, let me tell you why hope is so important and why hopelessness is so destructive. I've become interested in the last few years in the writings of a man called Viktor Frankl. He may not be known to some of you. He was an Austrian doctor who specialized in psychiatry. I knew nothing about Viktor Frankl until he died, and he died the day after Diana, the Princess of Wales, was killed in a road accident in a tunnel in Paris. We were living in Britain at the time, and Britain came to a standstill. The newspapers were full of nothing else, but Diana, and I knew the story, so I was looking for some non-Diana news, and I came across a half page obituary to Viktor Frankl.
I don't normally just read the obituary columns, but I did and was fascinated about what I read about this man and on the strength of it I went out and bought two of his books. One was his best seller, Man's Search for Meaning, and I've learned a lot from Viktor Frankl. Let me tell you a little bit about him. Viktor Frankl was, as I say, an Austrian Jew born in Vienna. In the 1930s, he trained as a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry, which was fairly new and young at that stage. His first job was in a practice where he was given the responsibility of seeking to help patients who had been suicidal. Some of them had attempted suicide and obviously failed, and others who were suicidal.
As he talked to them about why they wanted to commit suicide, they all talked about events in their past as the reason why they wanted to end their lives. But Frankl thought to himself, "I know people with worse paths than this, with harder issues to face than this, with bigger hurts than this, with bigger disappointments than this, but they're not suicidal. Why not?" He came to the conclusion that their past was not the issue at all even though every patient he dealt with talked about their past. Frankl concluded the issue was really their future. Those who are suicidal did not have a sense of future, and he came to the conclusion that a person can live with any past if he has a sense of future.
Now, during the 1930s, of course, Austria had become annexed by Adolph Hitler, and it became very dangerous for the Jewish community there. He had begun to write some papers on this theme and was offered a scholarship in the United States, enabling him to escape the tense situation in Europe at that stage. He was contemplating this and came home one day, and the synagogue that his family had attended had been smashed to smithereens. His father had gone to the ruins and brought back a piece of marble that was a fragment taken from the war in the front of the synagogue on which it'd been written the 10 commandments. This fragment had just a couple letters on it that came from the fifth commandment, "You'll honor your father and mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." He took that as a sign he should stay in Austria and not emigrate to the United States, which he did.
But very shortly, he was arrested, placed in a concentration camp along with many other Jews at the time. His father and mother both died in the gas chambers in Auschwitz. His only brother died in the concentration camp. His wife that he'd newly married was killed in the gas ovens. Frankl himself was not sentenced to death because he had skills and strengths that they could use, and his book, in fact, Man's Search for Meaning, the first half of this book, which was written in 1945, was the story of his experiences in both Auschwitz and Dachau, two of the worst of the concentration camps.
During that time, he had lost every possession. Those closest to him had been killed. He did have a sister who survived the war. Though he didn't know she'd survived at this stage. He suffered hunger every day, cold every night, faced brutality day after day. He hourly expected his own extermination, and he says that there were a number of people who were not put in the gas ovens for various reasons, and some of them died anyway, and others of them survived. He said those who survived, he observed, had a common ingredient that those who died naturally didn't have, and that common ingredient was hope.
They began to orientate themselves around the future. He tells how they would sit around at night or at some occasion when they had the freedom to do that, and they'd discuss what they would do when the war was over. They'd describe the kind of home they wanted to build and live in. Meanwhile, they were on shells of hard cots, layer after layer, hardly any clothes, appalling conditions. They'd describe the comforts and luxury of the homes they'd live in. They'd describe the kind of meals they would eat. They'd say, "You must come to my house for dinner when the war is over," and they would discuss the menu, what they would eat. Meanwhile, they're living on this watery bean soup and half a piece of bread a day. He says the spirit of hope within them kept them alive. They'd talk about their wives back at home, their children, and how their children would run to meet them when they got back home again if they got back home again, and they would live these thoughts together and share these thoughts together.
Now, I'm going to read you something he says as an example he gives in his book. He says, "The prisoner who lost faith in the future, his own personal future was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay." Usually, this happened quite suddenly in the form of a crisis. The symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced campmate, and we all feared that moment for ourselves. Then, over the page, he says, "I once had a dramatic demonstration of the close link between the loss of faith in the future and this dangerous giving up.
F, he doesn't give his full name, just his initial, "F, who was my senior block warden and a fairly well-known composer and librettist confided in me one day. 'I'd like to tell you something, doctor. I've had a strange dream. A voice in my dream told me that I could wish for anything and that I should only say what I wanted to know, and all my questions will be answered. What do you think I asked for? I asked that I would like to know when the war would be over for me. You know what I mean, doctor? For me. I want to know when we, when our camp would be liberated, when I would go home, when our suffering would come to an end.' 'When did you have this dream?' I asked him. 'In February 1945,' he answered. It was then the beginning of March 1945."
"'What did your dream voice answer?' I asked him. Furtively, he whispered to me, 'March the 30th.' When F told me about his dream, he was full of hope, full of confidence, had new strength, convinced the voice of his dream would be right. But as the promised day grew nearer, the war news that reached our camp made it appear very unlikely that we would be free on the promised date. On March the 29th, F suddenly became ill and ran a high temperature. On March the 30th, the day his prophecy had told him that the war and suffering will be over for him, he became delirious. He lost consciousness. On March the 31st, he was dead. To all outward appearances, he died of typhus, but actually, he died of no hope."
He says later his faith in the future and his will to live had become paralyzed, and his body fell victim to the illness. He tells later that more inmates in the concentration camps died between December 26th and December 31st each year than any other period in the camps, and he worked out why. Because they told themselves, "I'll be home for Christmas." When they weren't, their bodies gave in, and they died.
Now, what Frankl tells us there, and Frankl, when he... Later, after the war, he developed a branch of psychiatry known as logotherapy. "Logo" taken from the Greek word "logos." Now, that's a word in our Bible. It translates as the word "word." He applies it to mean "meaning," logotherapy being meaning therapy. That is to survive hardship, to live in the present that is decaying and painful, we need to be oriented to the future.
Now, the tragedy with Frankl, I've read several of his books, is he never found a satisfactory answer. He always, it seems to me, had to create his own meaning or encourage his patients to create their own meaning, find something that is your purpose in life. Whereas Paul talks here about some objective realities in which we can hope. When he talks about the groaning creation because that's one aspect of this passage here, the object reality in which we hope is liberation from this bondage of decay when a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness, is going to become real. When he talks about the Christian groaning, which I mentioned just now, that he's characterized by hope because he describes there that we ourselves, it's Romans 8:23, who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly, as we eagerly await our adoption as sons the redemption of our bodies.
Now, he says we have the Holy Spirit. The earlier part of this chapter tells us the person without the spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ. It's the presence of the Holy Spirit that makes a person a genuine Christian, but it is, he says, only the first fruits of the Spirit. In other words, this is, well, what Paul calls in Ephesians, the deposit, the down payment because in Ephesians 1:13, he says that we've been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. This is the down payment, not the full payment.
Sometimes you see the realities of our present circumstances appear to us as standing in contradiction with things that God has promised. We ask ourselves, "Why is it that I still sin and fail? Isn't the provision of Christ sufficient to deal with all my sin that I might be liberated from sin and not sin?" We might ask that question sometimes. "Did not Jesus conquer death? Then, why in the world do we die?" We might ask the question. You see, the Kingdom of God has both a present and a future dimension, what we may call the now and the not yet aspects of Christian experience. It is very important we don't confuse these two dimensions and start confusing what is promised for the future as being something for the present or not enjoying what is in the present because we've delayed it to the future.
Let me point out to you just briefly five areas of Christian experience where there is both the now present experience and the not yet, still to come aspects. I am greatly indebted to John Stott for stimulating my thoughts on this. Many of you are familiar with John Stott, but I heard him giving an address on one occasion on this very theme I found extremely helpful. Let me point out five areas where there's both a now and a not-yet. First of all, in the area of knowledge. Intellectually, there are certain things that are now, we're told in scripture. Take the book of Romans itself. It tells us Christ... God has revealed himself in creation. He's revealed himself in conscience. He's revealed himself in Christ, and we know he's revealed himself in scripture.
So much so, Romans chapter 1 says we are without excuse, men are without excuse. We don't need to flounder in darkness. God has revealed to us enough of what we need to know, but what is not yet our experiences? We're told in scripture we do not know him as he knows us. Paul writes, "Now, we see in a mirror darkly," and in a darkened mirror, the image is distorted and unclear. That's how we see at present. John writes in his epistle, "We do not yet know what we're going to be." There are certain things we don't know, and it's a mark of maturity, by the way, to know what we don't know as well as to know what we should know.
In fact, John Stott says we need more confidence about what has been revealed and more humility about what has not been revealed. I get dozens and dozens of letters every week, and every week, there's one, or two, or three, or 10, or 15 sometimes of people being dogmatic about issues about which the Bible is ambiguous. It is a mark of maturity to say of those things, we don't actually know. We will one day. We're going to know one day. So in the area of knowledge, intellectually, there's a now. Let's rejoice in what we know. Let's get wrapped up in what this book reveals to us, and it doesn't tell us everything. I have an Encyclopedia Britannica at home, which is 32 volumes. Each one is bigger than this book. It's not a lot of information in this book, but it's enough. There's a lot more outside of it, but one day, we will know with certainty.
So in the area of knowledge; second in the area of behavior, morally, there are certain things that are now - we are in dwelt by the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are wonderful qualities that have been produced in our lives. Christ-likeness is growing in our lives as Christians. We are being changed, we're told, from one degree of glory to another. That's the now, but the not yet aspect is that our fallen nature is not yet eradicated.
John writes in his epistle, "If anyone says he has no sin, he deceives himself," because no sin is not yet an option. That's not yet, but we know one day we're going to completely conform to the image of his son. We know there'll be no sin. There'll be no tears. There'll be no shame one day. We know that. We don't yet love God with all our hearts, and all our souls, and all our strength, and we don't yet love our neighbor as ourselves. We're on process, but one day, we will. That's coming.
Thirdly, socially, in the area of society and our relationship to other people, there are things that are now. We are declared by Jesus to be the salt of the earth. We're declared to be the light of the world. We have an influence that permeates through society, which is good. We are to care. We're to love. We are to evangelize. That is to reach people and introduce them to Christ. All that is in the present, but there's a not-yet aspect to our social structures too. The book of Revelation says the kingdoms of the world has become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever, but that's going to take place in the future.
Revelation 11:15, "The kingdoms of the world will become the kingdoms of God." The book of Micah says they will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation nor will they train for war anymore. Have you visited the United Nations in New York City as I have done? You go into the entrance hall, and there on the wall is this text from the book of Micah, "Nation will not take up sword against nation nor will they train for war anymore." That's the text on the wall of the UN, and what do they spend their time doing? Talking about war, talking about conflicts, trying to resolve disputes. It's a noble idea, but in this present tense, we're not going to experience that.
Physically, in the area of our health and physical wellbeing, there are certain things that are now. We're told in Isaiah 53, he took our infirmities. He carried our diseases. By his stripes, we are healed. In Matthew chapter 8, Matthew, when he speaks of the healing ministry of Jesus, says, "This fulfills what the prophet said," and he quotes that very verse and says that Jesus is the fulfillment of God healing our diseases and carrying our infirmities, but there's a not-yet aspect as well because we change, and we decay, and we age, and we die. He says in these verses, "we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Our bodies are not redeemed in this life. It's true God intervenes and God may intervene and heal somebody. It is not part of what is promised to us as Christians. I wish it was, but one day, it's going to be so.
Lastly, spiritually, in the area of the perfection of the church, in the present tense. Now, we're baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ. We're part of his body. Paul speaks of the church in First Timothy as being the church of the living God, the pillar and the foundation of the truth. All of that is true, but there's a not-yet aspect that Revelation speaks about regarding the church when it speaks of the wedding of the lamb has come, his bride has made herself ready. Four times in Revelation, it speaks of the bride, the church as being a bride without blemish. That is not yet true. This is not a church without blemish because I'm in it. If I wasn't in it, it wouldn't be because you're in it. But one day, it's going to be a bride without blemish.
We need to be confident of what is now, but the same time, realize there's a not-yet, and we need to be characterized by the sense of hope. John Stott says in relation to this that there are three kinds of Christian. He calls them the optimist, the pessimist, and the realist. The optimist, he says, is the one who wants everything now. They not only rejoice in all that is available in Christ, but they look for everything he's promised to be in the now. So he says they're in danger of looking for no sin, they're looking for no suffering, they're looking for no sickness, for no diseases. That's the optimist. They're going to get frustrated because it's not going to work that way.
Then there's the pessimist. The pessimist is the Christian who is simply into the not yet. Life is simply grin and bear it, and one day, in the sweet by and by, we can start enjoying things. That's the pessimist, but there's the realist, says John Stott, and the realist lives in the tension of the now and the not yet. He gets hold of all that's available to him now, lives in the good of what's available now, but he knows there is more to come. This is the deposit. This is the down payment. This is the first fruits of the Spirit. This is not yet the whole picture.
We need to be encouraged by that because we do fail. When we do, we come, and we seek forgiveness where we have disobeyed, and we seek his strength and enabling to live victoriously in that area. That is true, but we're never going to be free from the contamination of our fallenness in this life. That's why dying when it comes to you will be a good thing. It's a liberating thing. So if the primary theme of Romans is living by faith, Paul says the greatest is love. The forgotten ingredient in many of our lives is hope that we begin to look in the future.
Let me go back as I finish to Viktor Frankl. Sometimes when a patient came to him with a multitude of torments, some of them great, some small, he would often ask them this question. He'd say to them, "Why don't you commit suicide?" That's not the most encouraging question to hear from your doctor. Little disarming, but he said it was an important question because the answer they gave... He said, "No, I'm serious. Why don't you commit suicide?" and they'd say, "Because..." And the reason they gave, said Frankl, helped me to understand the person. This is the reason for which they live. 'I don't commit suicide because I love my children.' Okay. That's the reason that keeps them alive. 'I don't commit suicide because I've got ability and a gift I want to use.' That's the reason they don't commit suicide. 'I don't commit suicide because I have memories I want to preserve or because there are things I still want to achieve,' and Frankl said, "Asking that question gave me the key to their hope."
Now, as I said to you I think earlier, I'm disappointed that Viktor Frankl seemingly never found the objective reality in which we can place our hope. He would encourage people to create their own purpose and reason for living, but we have reason to live because the final chapter of the story tells us the best is yet to be. The final destiny of the children of God tells us the best is yet to be. Let me tell you something. If you're suffering from a lack of peace and you seem to lack joy in your life, it may be because you don't have hope because hope, I'm going to read you a verse that will tell us this, is a cause of joy and a cause of peace.
Romans 15:13 says, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Wonderful description there. "May the God of hope fill you with joy" because I can live with any burden now when I know there's a future coming "and peace." This is not the end of the road, though it may feel like it sometimes. More than that, he says, "You may overflow with hope." Actually, hope is contagious. You overflow with hope. There are some things that are better caught than taught and hope catches. Once again, we withdraw from all the pressures that we live with, and we fix our eyes again on God and say, "Lord, you, are my hope. You are my security. The outworking of your plan is where I place my trust."
Romans 8, I explained last time, is really about the work of the Holy Spirit, and this is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit himself, he says in verse 16, "Testifies with our spirit we are children of God. If we're children, then we're heirs, heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ. If we share in his sufferings in order we may share in his glory" He says the Spirit makes us children of God. He makes us heirs, if heirs we've got something to inherit. Part of the Spirit's ministry is to turn our focus away from the past and the present, and be oriented again to the future, and know that no matter what happens to us, what's happening in our creation as it groans and as we groan and put our heads on the pillow at night and say, "It's tough. It hurts," that there's an end that's coming, that's good, that's perfect, that will last forever.
Are you characterized by hope? Fix your eyes on what is still yet to come. Let's pray together. Father, we're grateful this morning, and we rejoice in being children of God. We also know that all around us, our creation is groaning in pain. We too who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan. We experience the grief and the pain, but thank you that the down payment, the deposit guarantees our inheritance. The first fruits of the Spirit guarantees what is still to come. Lord we want to live in the present with joy and confidence, and with all the resources that you give to us, we want to be future people too. Help us in this, we pray. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Title: The Spirit of Hope
Part: 16 of 27 Romans Series
Reading: Romans 8:16-25
If you've got your Bible with you this morning, we're going to read some verses from Romans chapter 8. I'm going to read from Romans 8:16-25. Paul writes, "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we're God's children. Now, if we're children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation itself waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected in 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 glorious freedom 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 first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we are saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."
The whole of those verses are oriented around the future looking forward. Something is going to happen. The glory is going to be revealed. We share in his sufferings that we may share in his glory, and the key word that re-occurs a number of times is the word "hope." Let me read Romans 8:24 again, where it comes particularly, "In this hope, we are saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."
I want to talk to you this morning about this issue of hope. Now, the word "hope" comes across to us as a rather weak word. If I were to say to you this morning, "Are you a Christian?" and you say to me, "I hope so," I will probably feel you are not too confident about it. If I say to you, "Does your wife love you?" and you say, "I hope so," I probably will feel a little bit dubious about your marriage. If I say to you, "Are you healthy today?" and you say, "Well, I hope so," I will probably conclude you are a bit of a hypochondriac because the word "hope" sounds uncertain, ambiguous, tentative, a little vague, and therefore, we don't think of hope as being a particular virtue you in any way, but actually, it is.
In 1 Corinthians:13:13, that's that great chapter on love, Paul concludes it by saying this, "Now, these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." We understand Paul, why the greatest is love because we know that God is love and so on. We understand why faith is in that list. If you've been with us in the earlier chapters of Romans, faith is a primary ingredient in our relationship with God. We are justified by faith, we are saved by faith, we live by faith, and so on. But he throws into this trio of virtues the one we hardly ever talk about, hope. It doesn't sound as though it has the same force or importance as love and faith. Yet, it may well be that this is one of the most important ingredients that some of us here this morning need in your life.
I want to encourage you today in what I'm going to share with you. I'm not going to challenge you very much today. I'm not going to try and correct you today. I don't anyway, do I? But I want to encourage you because some of you here this morning may need that because you may feel wounded. I don't know what kind of week you've had. I don't know if you had a fight with your wife this week or your husband. You may be discouraged. You may have been hurt in some way. You might have fallen into sin this week and you feel the regret and the effects of that in your life. Maybe you're simply looking out on the world. You're discouraged with the tension that exists in our world today with the conflicts that are around us, with the corruption that we see all over the place. Maybe you need to understand what Paul has to say about hope, and he may encourage you and help us to orientate outside of the present into a future, not as a form of escapism as we will see, but as an expression of realism.
Now, let me define the word "hope" first of all because it has two kinds of meanings. There's a subjective meaning. For instance, if you say, "I hope to live until I'm 110," well, that may be your hope, but it's probably unrelated to reality. It's what we would call wishful thinking, and that's one category of hope, but there's another category of hope. It's a more objective hope. You may say, "I hope to have dinner at 7:00 PM tonight." Now, you say that because you've already bought the ingredients, you're planning the menu, you've invited a guest, and you say, "I'm hoping to have dinner at 7:00 tonight." It's a confident expectation.
The kind of hope that Paul is talking about here in Romans chapter 8 that we'll talk about this morning is not this wishful thinking, "Well, I'm hoping for something that is probably totally unlikely," but a hope based on confidence, a hope that's related to realism, and it's a kind of hope that Paul is writing about here. Now, the context in which he writes about this is very interesting because the context is he's writing about suffering. He talks about universal suffering. For instance, in Romans 8:22, when he says, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." Now, he talks about the whole of creation, which he describes as groaning as in the pains of childbirths. In other words, childbirth, the pains of childbirth, awful as they are because I've witnessed them three times, and I'm grateful that's all I've had to do is just witness them. I was there when our three children were born, but for a mother, those pains are worth it for the joy that follows it.
Now, he talks about creation as in it's groaning in pain, in suffering, and so it is. Everything around us decays. Everything around us disintegrates. Everything around us dies eventually. I mean, just look in the mirror. Somebody said to me yesterday I looked five years older than I looked in the summer. Well, that's really encouraging, but it's probably true. That was six months ago. There's a song, "Change and decay in all around I see," and so we do. We see it all around us. Did you know, by the way, that last week, the New Scientist magazine carried an article indicating that bananas may be extinct in the next 10 years? Did you read that report?
Bananas, as we know them, are rare mutants of the wild banana, which is a hard seed that is inedible, but several thousand years ago, apparently it mutated. In fact, the banana is described as a genetically decrepit, sterile mutant. I met some people who had fit that description, but I didn't know bananas did. Genetically decrepit, sterile mutant. All bananas, as we know them, are sterile. Effectively, they're clones of the first plant unable to fight off new diseases, and there's a new disease out right now called the black sigatoka, and it's a global epidemic amongst bananas. They're all getting sick.
In Uganda, 40% of the crop has been destroyed with black sigatoka, and they don't have a resistance to it. Now, the cynic in me says that this kind of news is a justification for genetic modifications, which I'm sure they're going to tell us is the only solution to this so we don't lose the banana, but everything is decaying. The creation is decaying, and the creation... Sorry. "The decay is not the fault of the creation," says Paul. He says, "It's subjected to frustration not by its own choice." It was actually cursed by God as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve when God said, "Cursed is the ground because of you."
You see, you look at our creation, and sometimes it's not very impressive. We see famine. We see earthquakes. We see mass fires. We see floods, and we wonder if there was a design fault behind it, but there was no design fault. God did everything well. It was good, good, good. Six times he said that, very good. But when human beings sinned, God cursed the earth. "This is not something that is the responsibility of the creation," says Paul. It was subjected because of our failure, and one day, it's going to be liberated. One day, it's going to be liberated.
We're told that there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth where in dwells righteousness, it's going to come. But if there's universal suffering, the creation is suffering, in verse 22. There is personal suffering, in verse 23. Not only so, "but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we await eagerly the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Now, he said the creation is groaning, and now he says that we ourselves, even though we have the first fruits of the spirit. He's talking about Christians. "The creation is groaning, but Christians are groaning," he says.
Now, that doesn't mean moaning, by the way. Moaning is simply winging and whining, and some of us do that maybe, but groaning, according to my dictionary, means to be expressing pain or grief. As Christians, there are reasons to express pain and grief with our own dilemma as well as our world around us. There's a verse in Genesis at the time of the flood, and the New International Bible translates this verse speaking of God. "His heart was filled with pain when he saw that the intent of man's heart was evil continually." God's heart was full pain. Pain is legitimate in our hearts as we groan over the world. And it's against this background of suffering, Paul talks about hope.
Now, let me tell you why hope is so important and why hopelessness is so destructive. I've become interested in the last few years in the writings of a man called Viktor Frankl. He may not be known to some of you. He was an Austrian doctor who specialized in psychiatry. I knew nothing about Viktor Frankl until he died, and he died the day after Diana, the Princess of Wales, was killed in a road accident in a tunnel in Paris. We were living in Britain at the time, and Britain came to a standstill. The newspapers were full of nothing else, but Diana, and I knew the story, so I was looking for some non-Diana news, and I came across a half page obituary to Viktor Frankl.
I don't normally just read the obituary columns, but I did and was fascinated about what I read about this man and on the strength of it I went out and bought two of his books. One was his best seller, Man's Search for Meaning, and I've learned a lot from Viktor Frankl. Let me tell you a little bit about him. Viktor Frankl was, as I say, an Austrian Jew born in Vienna. In the 1930s, he trained as a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry, which was fairly new and young at that stage. His first job was in a practice where he was given the responsibility of seeking to help patients who had been suicidal. Some of them had attempted suicide and obviously failed, and others who were suicidal.
As he talked to them about why they wanted to commit suicide, they all talked about events in their past as the reason why they wanted to end their lives. But Frankl thought to himself, "I know people with worse paths than this, with harder issues to face than this, with bigger hurts than this, with bigger disappointments than this, but they're not suicidal. Why not?" He came to the conclusion that their past was not the issue at all even though every patient he dealt with talked about their past. Frankl concluded the issue was really their future. Those who are suicidal did not have a sense of future, and he came to the conclusion that a person can live with any past if he has a sense of future.
Now, during the 1930s, of course, Austria had become annexed by Adolph Hitler, and it became very dangerous for the Jewish community there. He had begun to write some papers on this theme and was offered a scholarship in the United States, enabling him to escape the tense situation in Europe at that stage. He was contemplating this and came home one day, and the synagogue that his family had attended had been smashed to smithereens. His father had gone to the ruins and brought back a piece of marble that was a fragment taken from the war in the front of the synagogue on which it'd been written the 10 commandments. This fragment had just a couple letters on it that came from the fifth commandment, "You'll honor your father and mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." He took that as a sign he should stay in Austria and not emigrate to the United States, which he did.
But very shortly, he was arrested, placed in a concentration camp along with many other Jews at the time. His father and mother both died in the gas chambers in Auschwitz. His only brother died in the concentration camp. His wife that he'd newly married was killed in the gas ovens. Frankl himself was not sentenced to death because he had skills and strengths that they could use, and his book, in fact, Man's Search for Meaning, the first half of this book, which was written in 1945, was the story of his experiences in both Auschwitz and Dachau, two of the worst of the concentration camps.
During that time, he had lost every possession. Those closest to him had been killed. He did have a sister who survived the war. Though he didn't know she'd survived at this stage. He suffered hunger every day, cold every night, faced brutality day after day. He hourly expected his own extermination, and he says that there were a number of people who were not put in the gas ovens for various reasons, and some of them died anyway, and others of them survived. He said those who survived, he observed, had a common ingredient that those who died naturally didn't have, and that common ingredient was hope.
They began to orientate themselves around the future. He tells how they would sit around at night or at some occasion when they had the freedom to do that, and they'd discuss what they would do when the war was over. They'd describe the kind of home they wanted to build and live in. Meanwhile, they were on shells of hard cots, layer after layer, hardly any clothes, appalling conditions. They'd describe the comforts and luxury of the homes they'd live in. They'd describe the kind of meals they would eat. They'd say, "You must come to my house for dinner when the war is over," and they would discuss the menu, what they would eat. Meanwhile, they're living on this watery bean soup and half a piece of bread a day. He says the spirit of hope within them kept them alive. They'd talk about their wives back at home, their children, and how their children would run to meet them when they got back home again if they got back home again, and they would live these thoughts together and share these thoughts together.
Now, I'm going to read you something he says as an example he gives in his book. He says, "The prisoner who lost faith in the future, his own personal future was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay." Usually, this happened quite suddenly in the form of a crisis. The symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced campmate, and we all feared that moment for ourselves. Then, over the page, he says, "I once had a dramatic demonstration of the close link between the loss of faith in the future and this dangerous giving up.
F, he doesn't give his full name, just his initial, "F, who was my senior block warden and a fairly well-known composer and librettist confided in me one day. 'I'd like to tell you something, doctor. I've had a strange dream. A voice in my dream told me that I could wish for anything and that I should only say what I wanted to know, and all my questions will be answered. What do you think I asked for? I asked that I would like to know when the war would be over for me. You know what I mean, doctor? For me. I want to know when we, when our camp would be liberated, when I would go home, when our suffering would come to an end.' 'When did you have this dream?' I asked him. 'In February 1945,' he answered. It was then the beginning of March 1945."
"'What did your dream voice answer?' I asked him. Furtively, he whispered to me, 'March the 30th.' When F told me about his dream, he was full of hope, full of confidence, had new strength, convinced the voice of his dream would be right. But as the promised day grew nearer, the war news that reached our camp made it appear very unlikely that we would be free on the promised date. On March the 29th, F suddenly became ill and ran a high temperature. On March the 30th, the day his prophecy had told him that the war and suffering will be over for him, he became delirious. He lost consciousness. On March the 31st, he was dead. To all outward appearances, he died of typhus, but actually, he died of no hope."
He says later his faith in the future and his will to live had become paralyzed, and his body fell victim to the illness. He tells later that more inmates in the concentration camps died between December 26th and December 31st each year than any other period in the camps, and he worked out why. Because they told themselves, "I'll be home for Christmas." When they weren't, their bodies gave in, and they died.
Now, what Frankl tells us there, and Frankl, when he... Later, after the war, he developed a branch of psychiatry known as logotherapy. "Logo" taken from the Greek word "logos." Now, that's a word in our Bible. It translates as the word "word." He applies it to mean "meaning," logotherapy being meaning therapy. That is to survive hardship, to live in the present that is decaying and painful, we need to be oriented to the future.
Now, the tragedy with Frankl, I've read several of his books, is he never found a satisfactory answer. He always, it seems to me, had to create his own meaning or encourage his patients to create their own meaning, find something that is your purpose in life. Whereas Paul talks here about some objective realities in which we can hope. When he talks about the groaning creation because that's one aspect of this passage here, the object reality in which we hope is liberation from this bondage of decay when a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness, is going to become real. When he talks about the Christian groaning, which I mentioned just now, that he's characterized by hope because he describes there that we ourselves, it's Romans 8:23, who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly, as we eagerly await our adoption as sons the redemption of our bodies.
Now, he says we have the Holy Spirit. The earlier part of this chapter tells us the person without the spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ. It's the presence of the Holy Spirit that makes a person a genuine Christian, but it is, he says, only the first fruits of the Spirit. In other words, this is, well, what Paul calls in Ephesians, the deposit, the down payment because in Ephesians 1:13, he says that we've been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. This is the down payment, not the full payment.
Sometimes you see the realities of our present circumstances appear to us as standing in contradiction with things that God has promised. We ask ourselves, "Why is it that I still sin and fail? Isn't the provision of Christ sufficient to deal with all my sin that I might be liberated from sin and not sin?" We might ask that question sometimes. "Did not Jesus conquer death? Then, why in the world do we die?" We might ask the question. You see, the Kingdom of God has both a present and a future dimension, what we may call the now and the not yet aspects of Christian experience. It is very important we don't confuse these two dimensions and start confusing what is promised for the future as being something for the present or not enjoying what is in the present because we've delayed it to the future.
Let me point out to you just briefly five areas of Christian experience where there is both the now present experience and the not yet, still to come aspects. I am greatly indebted to John Stott for stimulating my thoughts on this. Many of you are familiar with John Stott, but I heard him giving an address on one occasion on this very theme I found extremely helpful. Let me point out five areas where there's both a now and a not-yet. First of all, in the area of knowledge. Intellectually, there are certain things that are now, we're told in scripture. Take the book of Romans itself. It tells us Christ... God has revealed himself in creation. He's revealed himself in conscience. He's revealed himself in Christ, and we know he's revealed himself in scripture.
So much so, Romans chapter 1 says we are without excuse, men are without excuse. We don't need to flounder in darkness. God has revealed to us enough of what we need to know, but what is not yet our experiences? We're told in scripture we do not know him as he knows us. Paul writes, "Now, we see in a mirror darkly," and in a darkened mirror, the image is distorted and unclear. That's how we see at present. John writes in his epistle, "We do not yet know what we're going to be." There are certain things we don't know, and it's a mark of maturity, by the way, to know what we don't know as well as to know what we should know.
In fact, John Stott says we need more confidence about what has been revealed and more humility about what has not been revealed. I get dozens and dozens of letters every week, and every week, there's one, or two, or three, or 10, or 15 sometimes of people being dogmatic about issues about which the Bible is ambiguous. It is a mark of maturity to say of those things, we don't actually know. We will one day. We're going to know one day. So in the area of knowledge, intellectually, there's a now. Let's rejoice in what we know. Let's get wrapped up in what this book reveals to us, and it doesn't tell us everything. I have an Encyclopedia Britannica at home, which is 32 volumes. Each one is bigger than this book. It's not a lot of information in this book, but it's enough. There's a lot more outside of it, but one day, we will know with certainty.
So in the area of knowledge; second in the area of behavior, morally, there are certain things that are now - we are in dwelt by the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are wonderful qualities that have been produced in our lives. Christ-likeness is growing in our lives as Christians. We are being changed, we're told, from one degree of glory to another. That's the now, but the not yet aspect is that our fallen nature is not yet eradicated.
John writes in his epistle, "If anyone says he has no sin, he deceives himself," because no sin is not yet an option. That's not yet, but we know one day we're going to completely conform to the image of his son. We know there'll be no sin. There'll be no tears. There'll be no shame one day. We know that. We don't yet love God with all our hearts, and all our souls, and all our strength, and we don't yet love our neighbor as ourselves. We're on process, but one day, we will. That's coming.
Thirdly, socially, in the area of society and our relationship to other people, there are things that are now. We are declared by Jesus to be the salt of the earth. We're declared to be the light of the world. We have an influence that permeates through society, which is good. We are to care. We're to love. We are to evangelize. That is to reach people and introduce them to Christ. All that is in the present, but there's a not-yet aspect to our social structures too. The book of Revelation says the kingdoms of the world has become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever, but that's going to take place in the future.
Revelation 11:15, "The kingdoms of the world will become the kingdoms of God." The book of Micah says they will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation nor will they train for war anymore. Have you visited the United Nations in New York City as I have done? You go into the entrance hall, and there on the wall is this text from the book of Micah, "Nation will not take up sword against nation nor will they train for war anymore." That's the text on the wall of the UN, and what do they spend their time doing? Talking about war, talking about conflicts, trying to resolve disputes. It's a noble idea, but in this present tense, we're not going to experience that.
Physically, in the area of our health and physical wellbeing, there are certain things that are now. We're told in Isaiah 53, he took our infirmities. He carried our diseases. By his stripes, we are healed. In Matthew chapter 8, Matthew, when he speaks of the healing ministry of Jesus, says, "This fulfills what the prophet said," and he quotes that very verse and says that Jesus is the fulfillment of God healing our diseases and carrying our infirmities, but there's a not-yet aspect as well because we change, and we decay, and we age, and we die. He says in these verses, "we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Our bodies are not redeemed in this life. It's true God intervenes and God may intervene and heal somebody. It is not part of what is promised to us as Christians. I wish it was, but one day, it's going to be so.
Lastly, spiritually, in the area of the perfection of the church, in the present tense. Now, we're baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ. We're part of his body. Paul speaks of the church in First Timothy as being the church of the living God, the pillar and the foundation of the truth. All of that is true, but there's a not-yet aspect that Revelation speaks about regarding the church when it speaks of the wedding of the lamb has come, his bride has made herself ready. Four times in Revelation, it speaks of the bride, the church as being a bride without blemish. That is not yet true. This is not a church without blemish because I'm in it. If I wasn't in it, it wouldn't be because you're in it. But one day, it's going to be a bride without blemish.
We need to be confident of what is now, but the same time, realize there's a not-yet, and we need to be characterized by the sense of hope. John Stott says in relation to this that there are three kinds of Christian. He calls them the optimist, the pessimist, and the realist. The optimist, he says, is the one who wants everything now. They not only rejoice in all that is available in Christ, but they look for everything he's promised to be in the now. So he says they're in danger of looking for no sin, they're looking for no suffering, they're looking for no sickness, for no diseases. That's the optimist. They're going to get frustrated because it's not going to work that way.
Then there's the pessimist. The pessimist is the Christian who is simply into the not yet. Life is simply grin and bear it, and one day, in the sweet by and by, we can start enjoying things. That's the pessimist, but there's the realist, says John Stott, and the realist lives in the tension of the now and the not yet. He gets hold of all that's available to him now, lives in the good of what's available now, but he knows there is more to come. This is the deposit. This is the down payment. This is the first fruits of the Spirit. This is not yet the whole picture.
We need to be encouraged by that because we do fail. When we do, we come, and we seek forgiveness where we have disobeyed, and we seek his strength and enabling to live victoriously in that area. That is true, but we're never going to be free from the contamination of our fallenness in this life. That's why dying when it comes to you will be a good thing. It's a liberating thing. So if the primary theme of Romans is living by faith, Paul says the greatest is love. The forgotten ingredient in many of our lives is hope that we begin to look in the future.
Let me go back as I finish to Viktor Frankl. Sometimes when a patient came to him with a multitude of torments, some of them great, some small, he would often ask them this question. He'd say to them, "Why don't you commit suicide?" That's not the most encouraging question to hear from your doctor. Little disarming, but he said it was an important question because the answer they gave... He said, "No, I'm serious. Why don't you commit suicide?" and they'd say, "Because..." And the reason they gave, said Frankl, helped me to understand the person. This is the reason for which they live. 'I don't commit suicide because I love my children.' Okay. That's the reason that keeps them alive. 'I don't commit suicide because I've got ability and a gift I want to use.' That's the reason they don't commit suicide. 'I don't commit suicide because I have memories I want to preserve or because there are things I still want to achieve,' and Frankl said, "Asking that question gave me the key to their hope."
Now, as I said to you I think earlier, I'm disappointed that Viktor Frankl seemingly never found the objective reality in which we can place our hope. He would encourage people to create their own purpose and reason for living, but we have reason to live because the final chapter of the story tells us the best is yet to be. The final destiny of the children of God tells us the best is yet to be. Let me tell you something. If you're suffering from a lack of peace and you seem to lack joy in your life, it may be because you don't have hope because hope, I'm going to read you a verse that will tell us this, is a cause of joy and a cause of peace.
Romans 15:13 says, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Wonderful description there. "May the God of hope fill you with joy" because I can live with any burden now when I know there's a future coming "and peace." This is not the end of the road, though it may feel like it sometimes. More than that, he says, "You may overflow with hope." Actually, hope is contagious. You overflow with hope. There are some things that are better caught than taught and hope catches. Once again, we withdraw from all the pressures that we live with, and we fix our eyes again on God and say, "Lord, you, are my hope. You are my security. The outworking of your plan is where I place my trust."
Romans 8, I explained last time, is really about the work of the Holy Spirit, and this is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit himself, he says in verse 16, "Testifies with our spirit we are children of God. If we're children, then we're heirs, heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ. If we share in his sufferings in order we may share in his glory" He says the Spirit makes us children of God. He makes us heirs, if heirs we've got something to inherit. Part of the Spirit's ministry is to turn our focus away from the past and the present, and be oriented again to the future, and know that no matter what happens to us, what's happening in our creation as it groans and as we groan and put our heads on the pillow at night and say, "It's tough. It hurts," that there's an end that's coming, that's good, that's perfect, that will last forever.
Are you characterized by hope? Fix your eyes on what is still yet to come. Let's pray together. Father, we're grateful this morning, and we rejoice in being children of God. We also know that all around us, our creation is groaning in pain. We too who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan. We experience the grief and the pain, but thank you that the down payment, the deposit guarantees our inheritance. The first fruits of the Spirit guarantees what is still to come. Lord we want to live in the present with joy and confidence, and with all the resources that you give to us, we want to be future people too. Help us in this, we pray. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.