Any serious traveller needs a copy of the Lonely Planet Travel Guide. Whether you plan to visit Austria, Bor­neo or China; Paris, Dublin or Prague; you will need a guidebook to help you, otherwise you will get lost or miss the really important things.

We’re going to visit Planet Earth to investigate life there. We need a guidebook, otherwise we will not un­derstand this world that we live in nor will we understand the purpose of our ‘three score years and ten’ that we spend here.

Our guidebook is the Bible; and this specific section is in Romans 8:18-27.

Our personal guide today is the apos­tle Paul, who will answer many of the basic questions of life: e.g. ‘What is the purpose of this world?’ Why is there so much suffering in the world?’ ‘Is there any point to suffering?’ Is there life after death?’ Is there any hope for the planet?’ Where has it come from; where is it going and why’?

The apostle will help us find our bear­ings and give us direction especially when we might be feeling lost, over­whelmed or confused. He will help us understand the tension between the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet;’ between the paradox of suffering now and the glory that will follow.

Almost daily we hear about global warming and climate change. I want to suggest that there is another phe­nomenon in the world which has been present for much longer. It’s not something that you hear in the news, or read about in the newspapers. We read about it in our passage. It is what we might call ‘global groaning’.

We start our study with groans ­three groans, in fact! Three times Paul talks about ‘groaning.’ He says, ‘The whole creation has been groaning’ (v.22). ‘We ourselves groan inwardly’ (v. 23). And, ‘the Spirit Himself groans’ (v. 26).

Let us then tune into this ‘symphony of sighs’.

1. Creation Groans (vs.19-22)⤒🔗

There are three things, says Paul, that cause the created order to groan: ‘frustration’ (v.20); ‘bondage to decay’ (v. 21) and ‘the pains of childbirth’ (v. 22). ‘Frustration’ speaks of futility and purposelessness. Frustration so operates in the world that it’s like trying to play a game of football without the goalposts: it might be great fun, but there’s no real pur­pose. Frustration operates like a door broken off its hinges — we can think of doors like that! Frustration operates like a car running on three cylinders. Frustration operates like a wheelbarrow with a flat tyre. Frustration operates like an orches­tra trying to play Beethoven’s fa­mous Piano Concerto #5 without a pianist. Frustration so operates that it’s like trying to wear a pair of shoes that are a size too small. This world is not what it was de­signed to be. Even though creation still reveals something of the glory of God (Ps. 19:1-3), what we see is a spoiled, fallen, frustrated creation.

‘Bondage to decay’ would seem to refer to the fact that the world suf­fers from the same condition as our human bodies: it is ageing and creak­ing, destined for death and destruc­tion. The relationship between our­selves and the world we live in is no accident. By God’s design, we were made for one another. We share the same Creator. We are bound to­gether in the same bundle of life. Our lives are intertwined. We share the same past, the same present and as we shall see, the same future.

In the past we were once perfect peo­ple living in a perfect world (Gen. chapters 1-2). There was harmony, peace and fruitfulness. Man was in step with God and the world was ‘very good.’ However when Adam sinned, that harmony was shattered and the world that was once very good be­came very bad. God said to Adam, ‘because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree ... cursed is the ground because of you ... it will pro­duce thorns and thistles, etc.’

The abundance and fruitfulness that was originally created in the garden was lost and replaced by a world with weeds and stinging nettles, mosqui­toes, floods. famine and drought, earthquakes and tsunamis. The curse on creation, just like the curse on man and woman, was God’s right­eous and inevitable response to the fall.

Paul says, ‘the creation was sub­jected to frustration, not by its own choice but by the will of the one who subjected it’ (v.20). One writer states; ‘The sickness of the world is plain to all. What the scientist knows as the law of entropy — the universal tendency of ordered systems to disin­tegrate into chaos which drives every­thing to its death — the Bible reveals to be just not a brute fact of nature, but an imposition by God’ (Seccombe: Romans: 141).

In other words frustration and decay were not inherent in creation itself, but have been imposed upon it by God. God decided that the world as we know it should not last forever; that we should not feel completely at home here; and that it should not ulti­mately satisfy us. The curse upon creation is only intended to be tem­porary. Failure is not the final word. Paul states, ‘The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed’ (v. 20). ‘The creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay’ (v. 21). ‘The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth...’ (v. 22).

This groaning is not the cries of an old man. It’s not the groans of death or despair. It’s the cries of a young woman. It’s the pains of childbirth. It’s pain with a purpose. It’s the groans of hope, anticipation and ex­pectation. The groans demonstrate that the present order will not go on forever, but that something better is going to be born.

‘The creation waits in eager expec­tation for the sons of God to be revealed’ (v. 19). This ‘eager expec­tation’ is indicative of stretching the head forward or craning the neck: like someone standing tiptoe in a crowd.

What is it that creation is craning its neck desirous to see? Answer: ‘the sons of God to be revealed.’ In other words, it’s awaiting Christ’s glorious return when the resurrection of the redeemed will take place. As W. J. Grier put it: ‘All nature, now groaning under the curse pronounced at the fall, awaits a deliverance and renovation corresponding to the deliverance of the redeemed.’ It means this earth will be reborn and renewed; renovated and restored; redeemed and remade — so that there will be glorious freedom for the children of God. That’s what I mean when I say that we (i.e. creation and the redeemed) will share the same glorious future.

Planet Earth will be liberated into levels of wonder and glory that are currently only hinted at. Who knows but there may also be an outbreak of life and fruitfulness in the rest of the universe, to be explored by the saints in glory. After all, the Bible talks about the ‘the new heavens and the new earth’. We can only but dream and speculate!

C. S. Lewis put it like this:

You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among the mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite the win­dow there may have been a looking glass ... And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if you ever get there you will know what I mean. It was the unicorn who summed up what eve­ryone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried: ‘I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.'The Last Battle: p. 171

No wonder creation waits ‘in eager longing.’ Do you?

2. The People of God Groan (vs.23- 25)←⤒🔗

Paul says, we groan — not moan! Paul mentions here three things that cause us to groan — though there are many others besides: ‘the incom­pleteness of our salvation’; our bodies (v.23); and our weakness (v.26).

Our salvation is, of course, complete. Christ’s saving work is done, our sins are forgiven; we are children of God; and nothing can separate us from the love of God. But as yet here on earth we do not experience the complete­ness of our salvation. The world, the flesh and the devil still seem to have a hold on us. The old nature continually wants to drag us down. There is the frustration of knowing what we want to do and not doing it; and ending up doing what we hate doing (Rom.7:15). We are like a dog that hears its mas­ter’s commands but chooses instead to run in the opposite direction.

Our body causes us to groan — with all its physical and mental disorders: its aches and pains; cramps and toothache, migraine and ingrown toe­nails; Alzheimer’s and depression, paranoia and schizophrenia, etc. This is part of the normal human experi­ence from which Christians are not exempt. Who does not long for the new body? Then there are trials that Christians suffer uniquely. Jesus said, ‘In this world you will have trou­ble.’ Paul had more than his share! Yet his assessment is startling, ‘I consider that our present suffer­ings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.’ (Rom.8:18). Five minutes in heaven will more than compensate for a life of suffering for Christ’s sake.

Paul states, ‘We who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait for ... the redemption of our bodies’ (v. 23). The hope of the Christian is not merely that when we die we ‘go to heaven.’ That’s only the beginning. It is true that ‘the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory’. But it is equally true that ‘their bodies being still united to Christ do rest in their graves till the resurrection.’

Our hope includes the redemption of our bodies. When we die and our souls go to be with the Lord we are only half saved! It’s only the ‘intermediate state’ — it’s only a ‘half way house.’ It’s not the final state.

Paul says, ‘Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling’ (2 Cor. 5:1­2). Paul’s ultimate longing is not to be ‘naked’; or ‘unclothed’: referring to what theologians call the ‘intermediate state’. His hope is not some kind of disembodied ‘spiritual’ state. He’s looking forward to a new resurrection body! He says, ‘We eagerly await a Saviour — the Lord Jesus Christ — who will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body’ (Phil. 3:19). Our future then lies not in the clouds, but in a fully renewed world, in a fully renewed universe with a new resurrection body. We await the ‘final new creation, resurrection-shaped, never-to-sin-or-decay body.’ This is the hope we have — not some kind of ‘pie in the sky, by and by, when you die’ kind of hope!

3. The Spirit Groans (vs. 26-27)←⤒🔗

‘The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express’ (v.26). This is another case of some things better ‘felt than tell’t.’ Who doesn’t have problems praying? Who is ‘good’ at praying? Who is a ‘prayer warrior’? Not you, I suspect ­and certainly not me! Prayer is our Achilles’ heel. We never seem to graduate from kinder. We never feel weaker then when we try to pray. Paul tells us that help is at hand. The Spirit is given to help us in our weak­ness. ‘He intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.’ This means that we not only have an intercessor in Heaven at the right hand of God (v. 34); we also have the Holy Spirit interceding in our hearts. We don’t know the ‘what’ or the ‘how’ to pray. We don’t know what is best for us, still less how it might be achieved. e.g. Here is a godly man. His wife has cancer; he has been un­fairly passed over for promotion; his teenage daughter has just announced that she is pregnant. What does this poor man do? Should he pray for healing for his wife, or for a quick end to her suffering? Should he pray for justice at work? Would it be right to pray for a miscarriage for his daughter? The poor fellow is confused and distraught. But God knows where he is and through the Spirit shares in his pain and groan­ing.

Paul describes his personal di­lemma, ‘What shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ ... but it is more neces­sary for you that I remain in the body’ (Phil. 1:23). Should he pray for a speedy death or for release or for patience to endure? But, ‘the Spirit himself intercedes for us...’ He causes us to groan wordless prayers.

John Murray explains it this way:

As God searches the hearts of the children of God He finds unuttered and unutterable groanings. Though they are thus inarticulate, there is a meaning and intent that cannot es­cape the omniscient eye of God ­they are wholly intelligible to Him ... Furthermore they are found to be in accordance with His will ... because they are indicted (prompted) by the Holy Spirit and are the ways in which His intercessions come to expression in our consciousness.

Do we not know something of this in our consciousness? Do we not long for personal revival; for per­sonal growth and holiness; for the salvation of our children; for revival in the church; for the glory of God to be revealed? Often these desires are not verbalised — but are ex­pressed by sighs and groans.

Opinions are divided where global warming and climate change is heading. We are in no doubt how­ever what the outcome of global groaning will be. It has radical and exciting implications for our planet, our physical bodies, and our prayers. It will be glory! ‘For in this hope we are saved.’