We Ourselves Groan Within Ourselves
Romans 8:23-25 · Roger Henderson · Apr 14, 2024
Romans (2022-25), No. 069
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261934514367

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. So we're gonna finish up one section here, and next week we'll start into a new section. And I get to do both. And then Mike's gonna get to do the all-time favorite verse, Romans 8.28, so stay tuned for those, they're coming attractions. So today, I'm gonna finish up this section, verses 23 through 25, called We Ourselves Grown Within Ourselves.

So you notice that actually just by the title, even though we talk about groaning and we kind of groan, J. Vernon McGee has a story about he coming down the stairs in his house and he would be groaning and his wife would say, why are you groaning? He says, well, groaning's scriptural. So. So I can groan, so I've used that too. So when I groan, I use the same thing.

But actually I'm gonna learn from this verse, it's actually a little bit more than that. So we'll see here. So I wanted to kind of go back and look at this section, 18 through 25. I use Chester McCauley a lot and so does Mike. And he said this section, which I agree with, talks about the believer's glorification. But it also really, as was read, if you'll notice, it's contrasting the believer and creation. So I'm gonna go back through and look at that just in brief form, and then kind of move on to the new section here.

So we start off with, so in verse 18 if you look carefully it talks about the future state of the believer. It says the glory that is to be revealed in us. So we're looking forward to this future state of the believer, the glory which is to be revealed in us. Then verse 19 talks about the present condition. So we're gonna see, it's gonna talk about the believer, creation, creation, creation, believer. It's gonna kind of intermingle them and give us information about both. So now we talk about the present condition of creation.

Creation, and this is sort of part one of what Paul's gonna tell us. The creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. And you know, the connection between creation and the sons of God was established at the fall, right? Because God cursed the ground, man fell, God cursed the ground, so the creation was connected to man's fall. And Paul's kind of reviewing that in this section.

So then we go on, so he has a present, then he jumps to the past, the judgment, he says, well, creation was subjected to futility at the fall, it was judged, and then he goes to the future. The future restoration of creation in verse 21, creation itself also will be set free from enslavery into glory. So when we're set free from our sins, when believers are set free from our sin nature and with the Lord, creation will be set free as well at the same time. So we're linked inseparably with creation here. And then he goes back to another point about creation. present condition and we talked about this last week creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth and we're going to review that a little bit today and then the new section is these two new 23 through 25 is that they talks about the present condition of the believer and then the hope of the believer those two are kind of new pieces of information Paul is going to tell us today okay so So let's just review verse 22.

So I'm gonna do it in block diagram form. I like to, you know, I've kind of gotten used to doing this. I like it, hopefully you like it too. So here we go. So you start off four, so he's gonna talk about the present condition of creation, we know, Is this worth oida in the Greek?

To know intuitively, and we know it because we've read God's word, and God, you know, it's God's inspired word. We know it, we know. And Macaulay likes to say, this is what, People who have been taught in the scriptures know, so when Paul says we know, he's speaking to us who have been taught. If I say to somebody who's not a believer, who's never read scripture, I couldn't have that same connection. I can say we know, I can say that we know to you folks here, because we're together, we've read the scriptures.

We know that the whole creation, and it means all, none's excluded, so it's not one part of creation that wasn't affected, groans and the word is actually has that word soon that prefix soon with it is it could be translated groans together it groans together and it suffers the pains of childbirth together and both have that little soon prefix so it groans together and suffers the pain of childbirth together up until now up until the present time so we can say some things about that All creation is in harmony, in a negative sense if you will, in groaning and suffering. I'm going to give some examples of that from J. Vernon McGee here in a bit. All is the strange, this comes from Newell, all is the strange, consequently groaning and travailing is everywhere. But travailing, though painful, looks toward a birth. And I think of the birth of our children, and there is pain. Bonnie said, Roger, I won't tell you how bad this is. I was with her, this was with Mark, our first child. I won't tell you how bad this is. So we travailed through that. But the wonderful thing, there was a birth. There was a new life. And we rejoiced in that. And that's what we're looking forward to, this travailing of creation is looking forward to that to be relieved.

Okay, so now let's, here's some observations about groaning. And there's a verse, if you do a search in your computer, Bible computer, and you look for groan, in the Old Testament, there's not too many cases, we have the verses we're talking about today, but in the Old Testament there's a verse that where Joel's talking about God's judgment when He judged a nation of Israel in Galilee. There was no rain for a while. So this verse comes up at the end of chapter 18, toward the end of chapter 18. How the beasts groan and the herds of the cattle wander aimlessly. There's no pasture for them. Even the flocks of the sheep suffer.

So groans talked about there. And then I liked what J. Verne McGee had to say. He had some observations. And this is not just to him. I've heard these other places. Nature sings in a minor key. I'm not too musical, because I don't know what that exactly means, but Vahdi tells me that's not a happy note. That's a sad note, okay? This is from J. Ver McGee. The winds blow through the pines on the mountainside, and the breaking of the surf have the same sob. I haven't exactly heard that one.

The music of the trees that have been recorded are mournful or doleful. And then the startle cry, I've heard this, I've heard coyotes out in our back, the cry of frightened animals or birds, it's kind of a bone chilling, it sounds like a baby's crying, it kind of chills your bones. And I think of one thing, people here from New Mexico, there's something called the Taos Hum, I've actually never heard it, but we've traveled to Taos many times, and people talk about this Taos hum, it's some kind of hum, they can't explain why it's there. And then also we had a chance to visit in California, I think it's San Onofre, there's rocks there, it's a surfing place, and we didn't go surfing, but we were there, and when the waves come in, they come across the rocks, and the rocks cry out, and we thought, wow, scripture's right, the rocks cry out, so the rocks made noises. So the whole thing of this is to say creation is groaning and we see it in many different ways. Very interesting.

So today's verses. All right. So I'm just not gonna, I'm not gonna, let me reread part of this today. Okay, so the first verse is really kind of the key to this whole section. It says, not only this, but we ourselves, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. And then it goes on in 24 and 25, and it talks about hope, the hope that we have as a believer, and it makes some statements, and we'll talk about those. So we have kind of a section about our groaning, and all the aspects of that in 23, and then we have this hope that every believer has in the Lord Jesus. Okay. So let's start in 23. And not only this. So that's referring back, I believe, to what was just previously said in 22, referring back to the groaning and suffering of creation. And we're going to see a contrast between that groaning and the believers groaning or the sons of God's groaning.

It says, we ourselves, and Chafer points out, this is basically, it's not saying a particular class of believers, but it's basically, it reaches to all, we all, we all, we ourselves, it includes all of us, all believers. Having, and having is this word echo, to possess, in its present tense, continuous action, so we're having, And not only this, we also are having, and having actually shows up in a couple of places. Echo shows up, and the one I think here is kind of interesting is the one in John 3, 36, where it says, he who believes in the Son has, or Echo, has eternal life. So you can see, is having, in the present tense, so that's talking about the present tense of salvation, they're having eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son does not see life. So this is the idea of having, so we're continually having, and so what follows now is gonna be the possession, we have this as a believer, the first fruits of the Spirit. And so let's just kind of think about that for a second. We've looked at this maybe a couple times since we've been teaching this section.

So if we go back to Exodus, we'll see that there was a feast that was celebrated about the firstfruits. And in Exodus 23 it says, you shall observe the feast of the harvest of firstfruits of your labors from what you sow in your fields. So they celebrate this harvest feast called the firstfruits. you shall bring the choice fruits of your soil into the house of the Lord, your God.

So, and actually I didn't, it continues on, it talks about this was an offering to the Lord. They called it a wave offering. They would wave their first fruits, if they will, if they were grains or stalks of grains, they will wave that before the Lord. And that looked forward to the rest of the harvest coming in.

So now if you look to our situation, We have this firstfruits, we have an earnest, a foretaste of that which awaits the child of God in glory. And the firstfruits is described by Chafer here, the blessing which we are now realized by the believer because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in his heart constitutes the firstfruits. For the Holy Spirit being resident in the believer's life is our firstfruits. That's a foretaste of what our complete glorification will be. So just like they had the firstfruits in Israel for the harvest, we have the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit.

Okay. Even we ourselves, I'll just kind of be reading back, not only this, but we ourselves having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves. Even we ourselves, again expressing for all believers. So here we have our word grown.

It's the idea of to groan, to sigh, distress. And in this context, you're gonna see, and he's gonna emphasize, it's an inward groaning. That's why I say it's not as precise to say when I walk down the stairs or whatever I do, say I'm groaning and it's scriptural. It is in a sense, but this verse is teaching this is an inward groaning. And here's kind of a parallel verse.

For indeed, in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. And that's kind of the essence of the groaning. It's this longing to have things right, to have things made right. Not so much, I don't think, you know, we always kind of joke about having our heavenly body, having all our aches and pains taken care of, but this is more a groaning for things to be right, I think to be correct, for sin to be dealt with.

Even we ourselves groan within ourselves. That's where he kind of narrows it down, this within ourselves. The focus here is in internal groaning versus the external groaning of creation. We groan, so like Merriman, I thought that did well here, we groan for our glorified body, kind of connects up with that verse in Corinthians. We groan for this glorified body, and I'm thinking of a body that's free of sin, free of the temptations of sin, free of all the ramifications of sin in ourselves. We have the first fruits, the Holy Spirit, and long for the completion of our salvation.

So that's what the groaning is here about. It's more this internal groaning for things to be made right. And I think we all can identify with that. We see things within ourselves, within the world, and we lament, we groan over that. And so I think that's what's going on here.

Okay, but there's a waiting aspect that comes up in the last part of the verse here. Waiting eagerly, or you could say eagerly expecting. So it's kind of, it's almost like an oxymoron, you know, if you're you're gonna go and gonna wait, it sounds like the opposite, right? But this is, we're eagerly, we haven't actually taken off, but we're ready to go, right? Waiting eagerly, right?

That's like your kids waiting to go to, you know, someplace cool, like our grandchildren like to go to Kids Wonder, it's a place on the west side of town, and we take them there, and every time they come to our house, Nana, Papa, are we gonna go to Kids wonder today? They're all excited. So they're eagerly waiting to go to Kids Wonder. So that's kind of the idea. Okay, so actually this is from Zodiates.

He says this idea of waiting eagerly or eager expectation is what he calls the Christian hope because it combines those two aspects, the eagerly expecting aspects, The Christian hope includes two elements, and here are the two elements together, hope and patience. That's what the Lord is about in our life. He wants us to have hope, and that's an absolute certainty, along with patience. Those two he wants us to see together in our lives, and we're gonna see that more in 25.

And we're eagerly awaiting the adoption of sons. I know that Newell, if he could have it, he would have changed that translation. He complains about that translation. It's literally, you know, it's two words, huios and thesis. It's a placing, it's a son placing.

We're eagerly awaiting the son placing, us to be placed in our rightful spot with the Lord in glory, if you will. We're eagerly awaiting that. So our groaning is described as eagerly expecting sun-shipped or sun-placing. We're eagerly wanting to be in that final place with the Lord, with everything, with sin taken care of. That's what we're eagerly expecting. And this is what's called the final stage of salvation. Some call it stage three. Many call it glorification. Both are good.

And here's kind of a verse that kind of parallels that and one thing you notice when you look at scripture Words that talk about our salvation just like we know we're good Holly Hill students here. We know there's a The the past aspect of salvation the present aspect of salvation the future aspect well you see that kind of the same kind of idea Played out in other other words in scripture, and one of the ones is righteousness Because we already have writes it when we come to know the Lord Jesus We already have his righteousness this verse tells us.

We're hoping for righteousness, so what's how can that be if we already got it? It seems like it is that a What's the problem here? It's actually not a problem. It says that the complete righteousness is not complete yet. For we through the Spirit by faith are waiting for the hope of righteousness. It kind of parallels what we're waiting for the things to be complete, righteousness to be complete.

Okay, and the very last part, the redemption of our body. So this is kind of some further details The redemption of our body, the idea is, redemption is this word, apolutrosis, a releasing on payment of ransom. You know, just a beautiful word, and you look through that, and there's several other words that go along with that. You know, it's a view of the marketplace and how Christ bought us out of the marketplace of sin. Just a beautiful picture in the word. So here we're looking forward to the redemption of our bodies. And here you can find, just like I said with salvation, you can find redemption spoken of in three ways.

Deliverance from the penalty of sin, and way back in chapter three it said, Romans 3.24, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ. So we have, when we trust Christ as our Savior, the gift of His grace through redemption, which is in Jesus Christ. That's the past, so that's for the penalty of sin, the past aspect.

Then deliverance from the power of sin, the sin nature, we see that in Ephesians 1.7.

In Him, we continually have redemption through His blood. So in this case, we're looking to the ongoing, continual aspect in our Christian life. His blood is continually cleansing us. We're continually redeemed through His blood. And then lastly in the verse we're talking about here, looking forward to the redemption of our bodies, the final completion from the presence of sin.

So like I said, you can trace through scripture and look at various words and they all have this aspect of the past, present, and future. Okay, so now we move on to 24. So now he kind of switches gears and he's gonna look at the hope that we have. So this starts off, this is cool, for in hope, or actually, I like what Wiest has to say here, for in the sphere of hope, for in the sphere of hope, we have been saved. As sozo, it's a salvation granted by God to those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have it as possession of ours, for in hope we have been saved.

And it's Aorist tense, and I like to think of Aorist. And Macaulay helped me here with the idea that it's, you know, you look more at the, what's the action that's going on here? The action is, it's an event. Yes, it's a past fact, but it's also better an event. It's an event that's happened in the believer's life. It's factual, indicative mood, factual reality.

And God, passive voice, God has acted upon us when we believe. So it puts everything, I love this, it puts everything in God's camp. And our part is to believe. God takes total responsibility for our salvation. So it says, for in hope we have been saved. And this verse really kind of helps here. It kind of helps define this idea of the hope of salvation. It says, but since we are the day, let's be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet, the hope of salvation. So if you look at that last part carefully, it says, you know, this sphere of hope is pictured as a helmet, which is called the hope of salvation.

So we have a hope of salvation, and this hope is not a hope-so hope. Because God has said it, and God stands behind it, and God has done it in every believer's life, it's an absolute certainty. He's accomplished that in every believer's life, and we have agreed with him, we have trusted him that he will do it. So that's the hope that the believer has, this hope, the hope of salvation.

Just a few more thoughts on the hope of salvation. If you think about it, we just covered in 23 this idea of waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons. Well, that's a hope. That's a hope of salvation, the completion of salvation, if you think about it. And that's the final phase of salvation. And waiting eagerly, I believe, expresses this hope. And hope always, Merriman pointed this out, hope always has to do with the future, the unseen future. That's what the future is about. Hello. That's what hope is about. And we're gonna see, he's gonna make this argument, if you've seen what things have happened, then no hope is required.

But hope always has to do with the unseen future. And scripture tells us where hope fits in. And we kind of have it in the previous verse a little bit, but this verse really kind of puts it in perspective. In Corinthians it says, but now faith, hope, Faith, hope, love, abide these three, but the greatest of these is love.

If you think about it, when we get to glory, we won't need to hope anymore, right? We'll be there. We won't need faith anymore, because we'll be with our Savior. We'll just have His wonderful love. Just a beautiful thought, you know. Faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. Marvelous thought. The two things that we depend most upon now, and that's where God wants us in the faith and hope camp. That's where He wants us to be. but someday we won't need those. Okay, let's go on. So now he kind of starts in, and I kind of labeled him one, two, three. This little argument about hope, and he's gonna convince you that hope, hope is a good thing.

But if you don't have hope, if you already see it, then you don't need hope, right? First statement is, but hope that is seen is not hope. Okay, if I see it, if it's before me, if I wanted a Bronco vehicle and I got it, then I don't need to hope for it anymore, it's right there, I have it before my eyes. Okay, so if we see the outcome, then hope is not required. But scripture says not seeing is the key to understanding faith or hope, if you will.

And this verse in Peter is kind of really good in that respect. It talks about the fact that we don't see the Lord, we can't see him. And though you have not seen him, that's in the past, you love him. And though you do not see him now, present, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible, full of glory. So not seeing him creates in us this desire to know God. desire to be with him. And so then I actually have some comments here. And I was thinking, this is God's way.

God's way is Romans 10, 17. We haven't got to it yet. So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ, or the word of God. So that's God's way. God does not allow us to see where we'll be. He asks us to hear him, hear his word, hear his word that he has given us, and to the Spirit enlightening our minds, and that's how, that will build our faith. That's how we come to faith. That's how we'll walk by faith. We'll come to know it by hearing or reading or listening to his word, but we can't, we won't see it, and that's kind of important.

For who hopes what he already sees? Kind of a restatement of the first one, kind of the same idea. There would be no hope if all were realized. We wouldn't need hope, but we do need hope. It gets down to the third point. But if we hope, now he's gonna get to his point here.

But if we hope for what we do not see, let's talk about that first. And it's assumed to be true, or you say sense, possibly. So since we hope for what we do not see, it's God's plan that we exercise faith for what we cannot see. So he wants us to exercise faith. And if we see it, we don't have to hope for it. Now hope is expecting something better.

The very fact we have not seen it, seen it realized yet, begets within us the grace which is so precious to him, patience. So we're back to this patience again, hope and patience. So the rest of the verse says, but if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, and this is a word that Mike mentioned a couple of times ago, this is one of Macaulay's favorite word, hupomenone, to abide under. So if we abide under, if we hope for what we do not see, with patience, with perseverance, we eagerly expect it.

It's not patience in the abstract that is set forth here, but patient waiting for the coming liberty of the glory of the children of God. So we're waiting, as we kind of talked about this whole lesson, we're waiting eagerly, patiently, for things to be put right, for our glorification with our Savior, things to be put right. So faith and hope are key in that whole exercise.

All right. So I'd say if there's any questions, but this isn't Sunday school. So now, that actually wraps up this section. So let's just look at a little preview here where we're gonna go. And I realize I left out one little word or two I should have put in here. I'll tell you what it is shortly here. So okay, so here we go.

So next week we're gonna come to a new section in Romans. And Macaulay calls it the Believer's Provision. And it's gonna be Romans 26 through 30. And that first section is just a wonderful section about the power of the Holy Spirit toward us. And it's the power of the Holy Spirit toward us in our prayer life. So it's gonna talk about the wonderful ministry.

So here's just kind of a few one-liners from 26 and 27. So the key ideas. We do not know how to pray as we should. That's an interesting one. Actually, we're gonna learn that next week. We're ignorant. You think, well, wait a minute, Roger. Courtney put the list up here. How can I be ignorant? You just gave me the list. He says we're ignorant. We don't know how to pray. Come next week and I'll tell you more about that.

Number two, the spirit also helps our weakness. The Spirit Himself intercedes for us. He, the Holy Spirit, intercedes us according to the will of God. Well, what I left out here was the Spirit, besides interceding for us, the Spirit, on top of that, He groans for us. So we got, if you think about it, we have creation groaning, we're groaning, and the Holy Spirit of God is groaning. Well, man, how can that be? But it's a good groaning. He's doing that on our behalf, and it's wonderful. So all these wonderful things.

We don't know how to pray as we should. We're basically ignorant. The Spirit also helps our weakness. And what's our weakness? Here's a little homework for you. What weakness is he talking about here? That's the homework. What's the weakness that every believer has? It ought to be easy for Holly Hillites. You all know that, just like that, boom, I got it. I'm joking here with you a little bit.

Anyway, the Spirit and the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. The Holy Spirit intercedes according to the will of God. And then Mike's going to get to do, like I mentioned, 828 and the rest of that whole section about the sovereignty of God, just a marvelous section. That's kind of a real neat section on God's provision, what God has done for us, the Holy Spirit. It's incredible.

You know, God just doesn't, if you think about this, He asks us to pray without ceasing, and then He provides a Holy Spirit for us. Prayer is so important to Him, He gives us a Holy Spirit to make sure that our prayers are heard. But then you're gonna ask me, how come my prayer's not being answered, Roger? And I can't answer that. Only the Lord can answer that. All right, let's close in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You so much, Lord. We thank You for the blessings that we have. We thank You for just the marvelous ministry of the Holy Spirit. His ministry all throughout Romans we've been seeing, Lord, and thank You for Your Word. In Christ's name, Amen.