Introduction
Good morning, everyone, it’s so good to see you all. I praise the Lord for His goodness to us. The last few days have been so nice outside, with sunshine, and not so cold. It makes me look forward to spring. I really enjoyed all the songs this morning.
If you would, please turn to Romans chapter 8, and I am going to pick up reading there. We have been in the 8th chapter for a few weeks now, and I think we still have another two or three lessons here before we move to the next chapter. This is a very important chapter of the Bible, and it contains a lot of things in it. Honestly, even if I spent two or three months’ worth of Sundays on this chapter, we would not have come close to exhausting everything we could learn from this chapter.
But I am doing my best to make sure I cover at least what I see as the main points. Let’s pick up and read verses 24 and 25.
24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
Prayer
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for grace, thank you for Your love, and thank you for hope. We thank You for having given it all to us by Christ Jesus. As we approach the scripture this morning, I pray You open our understanding. Our hearts are humble, and we desire to understand the things written in the Bible so that we might better know You, so that we might be encouraged and uplifted and assured of all that You have for us. We thank You for this opportunity to spend a few minutes together to look in the holy scriptures. May the Holy Spirit help our understanding. In Jesus’ name, we ask it, amen.
As we begin to examine these two verses, I think Paul’s focus here is clear to us. Paul is speaking of hope—hope in something we do not yet have.
And as we come to look at this hope Paul is speaking of, let me remind us all again of the context of what Paul is saying. In this eighth chapter, Paul is looking at the state of men and women, children of God who have been saved from their sin and who are yet in this world of sin. He is looking at a state we are all living in today, where we have received Christ, where we have received salvation, but we are still living here in this fallen world with all of its conditions, and with all of its issues, and even with our own issues—still living in these weak and frail bodies, subject to different weaknesses and in the end even death, having not yet received the fullness of everything God has for His children.
In the preceding verses of this chapter, Paul is examining and elaborating on certain facts that are true concerning our present condition as children of God in this world. One thing that is true is that we are no longer under condemnation—there is no judgment hanging over our heads because we are in Christ Jesus. That is how he opened in verse 1. He has told us God is changing our lives. He has told us that there is a glory that is coming, that we have a right to expect and look forward to. He has explained to us that we are heirs, and there is an inheritance coming to us, of which we have just a small sample today. And all of these things are true because we are in Christ Jesus—because we are justified by His blood, because we are trusting by faith that what He did on Calvary has saved us. It is because of that, we are children of God and have a right to this promise of an inheritance.
And you think about all the and ifs and buts. Or you think maybe of all the asterisks we might be inclined to put next to these verses. Paul really has not done any of that here. Paul has not given some long list of rules you have to keep or some long list of mysteries you need to unravel. He has kept it as simple as this: Have the Spirit, and be led by the Spirit, and all of these things are yours to look forward to—glory, life eternal, freedom from condemnation, and an inheritance waiting for you. All these things are yours because you are a child of God, because you have believed in Christ and are following Him. That is enough to get you these promises, according to Paul’s explanation here.
He even told us how we can know we are in Christ Jesus and how we can know we are children of God—because we cry, “Abba, Father.” Crying “Abba, Father” is proof that the spirit of adoption is in us.
Paul’s aim, I believe, as we come through this chapter, is to paint a picture for us to let us know we are assured of our salvation. It is guaranteed. His aim here is, in one sense, to show us just how simple it is—the simplicity of the gospel.
When we are in Christ Jesus, it is a done deal in the eyes of God. No, we are not living in glorified bodies yet. No, we are not living in heaven on earth yet. No, there are things we have not yet attained to. But it is guaranteed to us that when we are in Christ Jesus, there will come a day where we will experience the fullness of every promise of God. We have assurance. We have a promise.
Paul is making that point as we go through here that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing can derail us when we are in Christ Jesus. When we are in Christ Jesus, we are predestined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. And in the meantime, come what may, all things work together for good to them that love the Lord. In the meantime, there is no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus.
These are the kinds of things Paul is telling us in this chapter—things to build our confidence, and to build our confidence specifically as it relates to assurance of our salvation and ultimate glorification in the world to come. Paul is saying things to help us understand that we can confidently trust and know that when it is all said and done, and when the roll is called up yonder, we will be there. And on that day, we will be a finished work, and nothing can prevent God from finishing that work in us.
We sing the song, “He’s still working on me, to make me what I ought to be.” That is where we are today as children of God. He is still working on us, and God finishes what He starts. We are guaranteed to be there with Christ on that bright tomorrow. I will be with Christ on that bright tomorrow because I am in Christ today.
Amen, that is a happy thought.
As we come to these two verses we are examining this morning, Paul is talking about hope. This fits into the bigger picture of this chapter because today, as we are in this in-between state, we are still a work in progress. We have hope. We have patience. We have assurance that even though we are not yet in full experience of the fullness of our inheritance, even though He is still working on us and we are not finished yet, one day, He will be finished. One day we will have our full inheritance.
Let me read these two verses again:
24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
Paul is pointing to our lives in the here and now. Let’s just take a few minutes to break down these verses and understand them.
Paul started out there saying we are saved by hope. Paul elsewhere told us that the hope of the gospel is Jesus Christ, and we know He is the one who saves us. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that faith in Christ is what saves us. In one sense, we could look at Paul’s statement in verse 24 as a euphemism that points to Jesus Christ, who is our hope, and who is our salvation—and that is true.
Jesus Christ is our hope of salvation, and our faith in Christ has saved us. But the way Paul uses the words “saved by hope,” rather than “saved by faith,” lets us know Paul is looking at something a little different here. I am already saved by faith from the penalty for my sin, but there is something else where I am saved by hope.
My faith looks back to the cross, but hope is something that is forward-looking, and that lets us know that my hope in Christ and my faith in Christ are a little bit different things.
There is a manner in which we are already saved by faith, but there yet remains something which we are hoping to be saved from. We just have to go back a couple of verses to understand what that is. Paul has been talking about the state of the world, and even the state of our natural bodies. There is a groaning in mankind, a groaning in creation, and even a groaning in those who have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Those who are born again even have this groaning, and it is a groaning that comes as a result of living in a fallen world. It is a groaning as a result of living in these mortal bodies. It’s a groaning from the effects of sin that are still in the world.
Because, even though we are saved, even though the Holy Spirit is dwelling within, there is still something wrong with the world. There is still something about life that is just not perfect. There is something about living in these mortal bodies that just isn’t always that great. We bump into those problems from time to time, and
some more than others. It will make us groan.
I don’t know about you, but when I had Covid, the Flu, and RSV, I did some groaning. I am not all that old, but I have a little arthritis, and it sometimes makes me do some groaning. Sometimes I turn on the news and hear a story about a little child that was murdered by some sick-minded killer, and it makes me groan. There are times I have sat by the bedside of someone who was dying, as they passed away, and it made me groan.