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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text this morning comes from the Epistle reading, Paul’s letter to the Romans. You may be seated.
Being in the dog days of summer, as we are finding ourselves to be, there’s only one worse thing to be in the dog days of summer, or so I am told. What? The only worst thing to be in the dog days of summer is to be pregnant in the dog days of summer. Now the women are laughing because they get it. The guys are going, I don’t know. But this text talks about creation and it applies to us. You and I are pregnant. And we live in a world where we’re the wheat and all of the world is the weeds sown in among us. And we do not live in a perfect environment in this world. And we’re pregnant, waiting for what we’ve been given, our salvation and the glory that will be revealed on the last day. We wait for the delivery.
In the same way, from the moment of conception, all mothers have a child within them. And the only difference from the moment of conception to the birthday is that on the birthday they get to see the child. For the previous nine months, they’re waiting. You and I in our baptism have been given the glory of God for which we await. We have it now within us. We don’t get to enjoy it until we’re finally delivered by the divine physician, our Lord Jesus Christ, when He comes back to redeem the world and to give us glorified bodies in a new heaven and a new earth. But until that time, we’re pregnant. Uncomfortable, burdensome being this, but we’re pregnant.
And every day as we are pregnant, as I am told by ladies, their bodies change. Their figure is not the same. Water retention becomes a normal day, a part of their life. Tiredness. There’s a whole host of other things that can be expounded upon by our brides who have been pregnant. And that’s your and my struggle too. That’s why Paul said, I do not compare this present suffering with the glory that’s going to be revealed. But that we have to experience this time of being pregnant? Yes. And it doesn’t last nine months. It lasts our lifetime.
But this is interesting that Paul is making this point in this text. He’s tying us together and our situation, our condition, that’s pregnant with the glory of God, to the same thing that is happening to this world of creation around us. It too is in this state of groaning, waiting to be delivered. It is not the fault of creation to have problems. It’s the fault of Adam that the creation has problems. The reason that there are floods and famines is because of Adam’s sin. The reason that there are earthquakes and that there are fires and hurricanes is because of Adam’s sin and not creation’s sin.
That’s what Paul is putting together here, that the two are tied in together. And as we look around us and see this world groan, and as we reflect upon our own person and look at ourself, we know that this world is not all that there is. Through this, being pregnant, is God giving you a different, recalibrated worldview. A worldview that sees this world as being temporary, as being a tent life, and our home is awaiting us. But in the meantime, we do struggle and suffer because we have something clinging to us that’s always complaining, our flesh.
No different, not that it’s necessarily complaining, but no different than a woman who is pregnant has to experience all of those things of being pregnant before the joy of delivery and the cessation of all of that. So it is to all of us who are pregnant with the glory of God to be revealed in us in Christ Jesus. We are uncomfortable, and we don’t like being uncomfortable. We’re burdened by this hope that lies within us.
Because on the one hand, you and I are surrounded by the weeds who look at this world and view its reality through a different set of lenses. There really are only two worldviews. A worldview that sees God creating everything in those six 24-hour days. Adam’s sin, God’s promise in Genesis 3:15 of the seed of the woman to crush the head of Satan, the serpent. Or there is the other worldview, totally wrapped up in evolution.
One, God’s worldview, always has hope. The other worldview has no hope. There is no hope. Oh, they can say that everything’s getting better and better every day because the recessive genes are dying off and the strong are moving on. But what does that do for you and your problem? Because you’ve got recessive genes, just like I do. Which means we are all going to die. You aren’t getting better. There is no hope in an evolutionary point of view. It is hopeless. Because it doesn’t see eternity. It only sees this continuum of time. And the continuum of time always has a beginning and always has an end.
But the hope that lies within you with which you are pregnant… That hope is an eternal hope that has no end. The glorified body that you will be given as Christ was given is an eternal body that has no end. That’s why there are only these two worldviews. And Paul is talking about the struggle of living out the faith of being pregnant in a world in which we struggle and suffer and we also complain, if not in our lips, most assuredly in our minds. And we grieve that we’re not like we once were.
Don’t settle on yourself. Don’t settle on your predicament, your difficulty or your problem. God is trying to get you to see beyond what is inside of you to what He has done in you, the hope that lies within you. Your loving Lord is giving you a bigger picture. Other believers suffer just like you. He’s reminding you of that. We suffer because we bear the name of our Redeemer upon us. Not because we’re like the rest of the world do we suffer. We suffer because we are pregnant with the glory that will be revealed.
We have it now. We will get to experience it fully when the divine physician delivers us on judgment day. But until then, we live with this glory inside of us. And all of the uncomfortability that accompanies being pregnant with God’s glory. But we suffer with hope. The lost glory of being created in the image of God and losing it, we gain it back. We have it back upon that deliverance day.
And then there’s prayer. Obviously, when God humbles us being in a pregnant state as we are, and knowing we are waiting and depending upon Him as we are, we pray. But we don’t even pray for what we want and need. At our best spirituality, we don’t pray for what we need or what we want, which is comforting because that means at our worst, we don’t either. And if the Holy Spirit prays for us at our best, those things for which we need and don’t pray for at our best, thanks be to God that at our worst, He’s still praying for us for those things that we need.
As we endure being pregnant with the glory of God to be revealed in us on the day of deliverance. Deliverance. Because in the meantime we live in this subjection to this world and all that sin is. What Adam brought into the world. But we live in subjection to this knowing that the deliverance came first. Go back and read Genesis 3. Adam and Eve sinned. God confronts Adam, then confronts Eve, and before He ever doles out any punishment to any of them, before He says, “Cursed is the ground because of you, Adam,” He gives Adam and Eve hope.
The seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent. The seed of the woman is Jesus. The woman, of course, is Mary. The serpent, of course, is Satan. The crushing of the head is the death of the seed from the woman, Christ. So before there ever is a curse, hope is given to Adam and Eve. Just like before you know for which to pray, the Spirit prays for you. God prays for you. That is God, the Holy Spirit.
This is comforting. As we await the deliverance of the glory that is within us to be revealed on the last day. This is that which we hope for and we wait. And we endure the uncomfortableness of being pregnant. And it has the dog days of summer sometimes. And then it has the cooler winter air. But we wait until there’s only eternal life in the glory and in the basking of Christ.
In His name, we pray. Amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus, the life everlasting. Amen.
