Video of the Divine Service is here. The sermon begins around the 24:05 mark.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What are you waiting for? What are you looking forward to? Doesn’t it sometimes seem like all we’re doing is waiting for some next thing, the next vacation, the next event, whatever is coming next in our lives? It’s easy to get into the habit of always looking forward to something else, something new, something different. But always looking forward can be destructive. It can be destructive to our relationships, to our families. It can be destructive to our contentment, and even to our faith, because we’re not receiving from the Lord what He is giving us right now. We’re dissatisfied, always looking forward to something else.

St. Paul tells us here in Romans 8 to look forward to something, to eagerly wait for what is coming. Because He says that God has subjected this creation, and everything in it, to futility. This is why all our plans, all our works, all our expectations seem to come to nothing. All the things we’re waiting for, they can never quite fulfill our expectations. We’re never satisfied. Even if what happens to us is good, we’re never satisfied for long. Soon it’s on to the next thing. It’s futility. It’s empty. It’s what Solomon noticed, looking around at the world, and recognizing that everything is subject to death and decay: vanity of vanity! Everything is vanity! It’s empty. It’s like a breath, like trying to catch the wind.

But futility is not the goal. God just doesn’t want us trying to find our satisfaction and fulfillment in this creation, which is subject to death and decay, enslaved to it. He doesn’t want a creation that is full of sin and death. It’s not good. He wants to rid His creation of all sin and death. So He subjected the creation to futility in the hope that it will be set free from its bondage to corruption, from its slavery to decay, when the sons of God are revealed in the glory that is coming because of the resurrection of Jesus. We are tied to the creation. We are not just people, living in an “environment.” From the beginning, when Adam was made out of the dust of the earth and God breathed into him His Spirit, and he became a living being, human beings are tied to the creation. So when sin enters the creation via Adam, then the whole creation is subject to futility. And the creation is groaning, longing to be set free, eagerly awaiting our revelation as the resurrected sons of God.

We are groaning too, waiting for our bodies to be set free from the sin and death that weigh us down. We are eagerly awaiting the revelation of our sonship in Christ, the redemption of our bodies in resurrection, just as Christ’s was revealed in His resurrection. This is the hope in which we were saved! All we see is the futility, the death, the corruption, the decay. But if we saw the promise, then it wouldn’t be hope. And the futility of this age drives continually drives us back to the promise, to the hope, to Christ. We do not hope what we see, we hope what we do not see. And that is Christ.

When it comes to our merely human hopes—as when we say, “I hope this or that will happen”—it can be destructive to our present situation, taking us out of what the Lord gives us here and now. But when we are eagerly awaiting what God has promised in Christ, it is not destructive, but constructive. The difference is between what we hope, what we desire, what we expect, on the one hand, and what God is doing and promising and giving, on the other. Because Christian hope is tied to God’s promise in Christ, and the redemption of our bodies and the freedom of His whole creation, and not to our wishing or wanting, it means that our future is assured. Christ, by His resurrection, has secured your future. There is nothing that can undo Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is already done, so your baptismal future, your resurrection, is as good as done. Which means you are free to wait patiently in hope where God has put you now. You are free to serve your neighbor. You are free to carry out your vocation. You are free in joy, hope, peace, and patience, because you do not have to worry about what is or is not coming. You already know.

So your eager expectation, your waiting will not be disappointed. You have the Holy Spirit now. And when you are weak, when doubts try to creep in, when uncertainty shakes your hope, the Holy Spirit knows. And not only does the creation groan, and not only do we groan, but the Spirit groans—not because the Spirit is subject to the same things to which we and the creation are subject, but because the Spirit groans for you, on your behalf, interceding for you. The Holy Spirit has been given to you to keep you until the day when your hope is satisfied in Christ, when you see what you now only believe. The Spirit intercedes for you, and as Paul says a little after this, Jesus intercedes for you. If the Spirit and Jesus are both interceding for you, then you are in good hands, the best hands. The Spirit will keep you in these futile days, and until that day. Through the Spirit, by faith, you wait eagerly for thehope of righteousness (Galatians 5:5). In the Spirit, you do not lack any gracious gift, as you eagerly expect the revelation of our Lord, Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:7). Our citizenship is with God in heaven, kept safe for us; and from there we are eagerly awaiting a Savior, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body (Philippians 3:20).

And when that happens, when we see our resurrected and glorified Lord, then all creation will be transformed and be set free forever. Jesus promises that on that day, He will remove from His kingdom—which will cover the whole earth—any- and everything that might cause us to stumble and fall away from Him, as well as every doer of lawlessness. Then all those who are righteous in Christ will shine like the stars. Set free from the futility of this creation, we will love God perfectly, and we will love one another perfectly, in our renewed bodies, in a renewed creation. Our future is secure in Christ, so we can practice freely our love for one another; we can wait patiently; we can live in joy and peace for as many days as the Lord gives us.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

— Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 7/21/23