Romans 8:18-25 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Sunday, August 30, 2026 “Worth Waiting For”
“Get behind me, Satan!” Can you imagine how Peter felt to hear that from Jesus? Peter certainly wasn’t trying to do the work of Satan. He wasn’t trying to undermine God’s plan or to stand in the way of God’s promises. What he had said made sense from a perspective we can probably all understand. Jesus was a good man. About that his disciples had no doubts. Yet, here was this good man speaking about suffering and death. He clearly didn’t deserve that. Suffering is bad. Death is bad. These are things people want to avoid—pretty much universally. Peter was trying to help. He was trying to encourage. “Let’s not think like that, Jesus. This won’t happen to you.” Do you see what I mean, that what Peter said makes a certain sense? It’s a natural way of thinking. It’s kind of ingrained in us. There are lots of examples around in which if we do the right things, we get good things as a result. The faithful student gets good grades. The hardworking employee gets the promotion. The well-behaved child gets the admiration and praise of parents and other adults. The kind friend enjoys positive relationships. Many Christians and even many churches try to take roughly this logic and extend it to an individual’s relationship with God. If you do the right things, God will reward you. That’s true even if the right thing is simply having faith in God and his goodness, trusting him. If you are truly a believer, you will see how God loves you by how he blesses you. Your life will be prosperous and peaceful, healthy and happy. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Shall we take a survey and see how our gathered congregation is doing? How many of us are prosperous and happy? How many of us are avoiding all the unpleasant stuff that other people have to deal with? How many have no cares or concerns, no suffering or sorrow, no trouble or trauma? How many Christians through history could have claimed that? When God had Paul write his letter to the Romans, he had him speak about sufferings. That was what the Romans were experiencing. It was what prophets like Jeremiah experienced, suffering. It’s what Peter and the other disciples would experience as Jesus warned. It was what every generation of believers could expect. And the sorts of suffering that Paul speaks about in our verses, and the sorts of suffering that Jesus would call crosses, certainly include those things that we suffer not in spite of the fact that we are Christians, but because of the fact that we are Christians. So we can’t simply assess our lives and discover our standing with God. In fact, if we were to try, if we were to suppose that truths really are self-evident, we might suppose that God does not love us. We face trouble. We face uncertainty. In fact, how Paul describes it here is that all creation groans around us, and we join in that same sort of groaning. So what does that mean? It means that when sin entered our world, when people first sinned, God placed the world under a curse. We know from Genesis that this was the reason for pain in childbirth and the difficulty of work. It is the reason thorns and thistles and weeds intrude and frustrate. Creation itself was frustrated. It no longer operated the way God had originally designed it to operate. And we don’t need to look far to find examples of that. While some places are dry and aching for water, other places are overwhelmed with flooding and powerful and destructive waves. Earthquakes shake the ground that usually seems so firm beneath our feet. Fires ignite in a lightning storm and rage out of control. Diseases attack, sometimes in devastating ways. And it is almost as though the world is crying out around us that things are not as they ought to be. In fact, Paul reminds us, that is what has been happening. Creation has been subjected to futility, it has been enslaved to corruption. But that has happened with a goal in sight. It has been in connection with hope, hope for a future that changes all of this. In fact, Paul compares the groaning of creation with birth pains. The pain and suffering gives way to something beautiful and new and good. Creation waits for,
groans for, the sons of God to be revealed. It longs for the moment when everything will be set right and when it will be clear to all who has believed in Jesus as Savior and lived in his love. In the present time, we can’t tell by looking or observing. Right now believers and unbelievers alike deal with painful issues and frustrations. But the time will come when all is made clear and no one is left to wonder. Creation waits for this time. It groans for it. The time of its release is when Jesus returns to judge and the painful effects of sin are no longer reflected in creation. It is set free and enjoys the glorious freedom of the children of God. Speaking of the children of God, Paul also reminds the Romans that it is not just creation around them groaning for things to change. No, And not only creation, but also we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we eagerly await our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. We groan, too. This is not a mere complaint. This is not frustration with the situation or an overlyemotional reaction. This is our assertion along with creation that things are not as they were made to be. We are not the perfect crown of creation gloriously reflecting the image of God. We live in a world that is not in the harmony of God’s very good creation. Our groaning is a longing for something better. Our groaning aligns with God’s appraisal of the situation. We long for the glory he has promised. We long for the fulfilment of his promises. We long for the resurrection and our bodies being set free from their own bondage to decay and frustration. We have the Spirit-worked faith in our hearts that guarantees that God will give us the fulness of what he has promised. Paul is not belittling the suffering that anyone faces. This is not encouragement to just get over something or to look on the bright side. Paul is talking about real issues, real pain, real suffering, real sadness. And he would have us recognize that our own sin is a contributing factor. We suffer as sinners in a world of sin. But he also points us to the Savior. The redemption of our bodies has been accomplished by the one who gave his body to death and raised it to life again. The spirit has connected us to Jesus so that just as we follow him through suffering we will also follow him to glory. So here’s the reality with which we struggle right now. We don’t see the blessed results for which we hope. It seems obvious to say. The reason we call it hope is that it speaks of the future. It tells us about something yet to come. Our current situation is not our final situation. If all we had to celebrate were the world as it is right now, we would have precious little to celebrate. Paul’s words focus our eyes on a different future. We do have a hope far different and far better than what we have now. That future hope, that future glory, is so amazing that it is not even worth comparing to the situation in which we find ourselves now. In other words, it is worth waiting for. It is worth enduring the cross because the cross leads to the crown. It is worth facing the worst possible outcomes here and now, it is worth the ridicule and the shame and the pain. It is worth it because the glory is so much more than we can even imagine. So we wait. We endure. We exercise patience and endurance. God has given us a promise. It is worth holding onto. But that’s not always easy, is it? There’s a reason that Paul needed to write such encouragement to the Romans. This was a challenge. There is a reason God has preserved this encouragement for us. We face the same challenge, even if the specifics are a bit different. We need the Word. We need to hear about Jesus and what he has done. We need to be built up to look beyond what we can see to what we cannot. God tells us that the cross is worth enduring because the crown he has won for us is worth taking hold of. Jesus didn’t stop when he called Peter Satan and told him to get behind. Jesus explained that the problem was Peter seeing things from an earthly perspective and not a heavenly one. That is what our worship series invites us to change. It is easy and sometimes obvious to see the world as the world sees itself. Unexpected truths tell us how God sees things, how they really are. A Christian can’t expect glory in this life. The cross comes before the crown. But the crown, the glory, is absolutely worth waiting for. Thanks be to God.
The Text: Romans 8:18–25 (EHV) 18For I conclude that our sufferings at the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that
is going to be revealed to us. 19In fact, creation is waiting with eager longing for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in the hope 21that even creation itself will be set free from slavery to corruption, in order to share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22For we know that all of creation is groaning with birth pains right up to the present time. 23And
not only creation, but also we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we eagerly await our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 24Indeed, it was for this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he already sees? 25But if we hope for something we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patient endurance.