Much discussion has been generated in recent times over what has been called the quality of life. With the likes of a Dr. Kevorkian keeping euthanasia in the spotlight of public opinion, we tend to think about whether life is worth living in certain circumstances.
I suppose it is reasonable to want to see real purpose in your life. We all want to be fulfilled, not frustrated. And I believe that everyone, without exception, saved or lost, wrestles with the apparent futility of life. It is not a new problem, spawned by our technological age. It has been around since the beginning of time. We all want to know what life is all about. Are we merely involved in a routine and mundane existence, doing the same thing today that we did yesterday?
What is this thing we call the quality of life? Does the adding of possessions increase the quality of our lives? Does it decrease the level of frustration that we feel about it all? When you add possessions, you add payments, you add maintenance. It costs a lot just to maintain the standard of living which we choose for ourselves if that standard includes a lot of possessions. There are many people in the world who are materialists, living for what they own. But they turn around one day and find that what they own actually owns them. What they think they possess really possesses them. They find that they are simply obligated to more people. What really makes the difference in life?
What is really happening is that people are grappling with the meaning of their existence. It is the question of life. What difference do I really make? James, in his epistle said, What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4:14)
What a statement! What a negative, futile, hopeless statement! And yet, some of us can say, “Amen! I know what he means, precisely. I am here today and tomorrow I may be gone.” Some of us have friends with whom we went to school who are no longer with us because their lives were taken through some accident. And you become aware whenever it happens to someone who is your age that life is really a fragile thing. It could be gone tomorrow. What difference does my life make anyway?
The materialist looks at what he can possess and thinks, “If I can just gain more things, I will find some measure of fulfillment.” But is materialism an answer to the question of life? King Solomon is the best illustration of a man who gave himself to see if materialism would satisfy. Look at what he said in Ecclesiastes.
``Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. ``Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? …. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, 9)
He sounds like people today. He is struggling with the futility of life. He sees the routine and asks, “What can give me meaning?”
I thought in my heart, ``Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. …. I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well—the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king's successor do than what has already been done? …. Then I thought in my heart, ``The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said in my heart, ``This too is meaningless.” …. So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (Ecclesiastes 2: 1, 4-12, 15,17)
Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. 11 As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them? (Ecclesiastes 5:10-11)
He tried to fulfill himself with worldly possessions. He tried to fulfill himself with worldly works. He tried to fulfill himself with money, with entertainment and diversion, with sex. He hated his life and saw the futility of materialism. Then he came to an interesting conclusion in the end of the book.
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)
After he looks at his futility, after he looks at the vanity of life, he says that the only answer to it all is a relationship with God.
Luke 12:15 says that a person's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. But of what does our life really consist if it does not consist of that? The materialist tries to amass possessions. And when he finds that there is a futility in that, he does not understand. There must be more. Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards. It must be lived forward.” The things we need to know in our teens, we find out in midlife. There we find that material things do not satisfy.
The humanist knows this and looks at it from a different perspective. He says, “If life does not consist in the abundance of a man's possessions, life must consist in his relationships with humanity.” Some will say, “I am not really seeking more and more possessions. I am seeking a better relationship with my wife, my children. I am trying to be a better father (or mother). I am trying to relate better to my neighbors, to do good things for people.” But is this really the big picture? Is humanism the answer to the question of life? No. The humanist, being people centered, may be a little bit further along than the materialist, but he does not have the answer either.
We Christians look on and say, “We have the solution! Christ is the answer! He is the purpose for life! He is the reason for living! A relationship with God through Jesus Christ — that's the answer! Christ really is the answer to the question of life. That is the purpose of life, knowing God.” Now this is true. Christ does give meaning to life. But when we come into that relationship with Jesus Christ and find we struggle too. Many of us, even as believers, are frustrated. Why is that frustration apparent in our lives? Why are we so unfulfilled as believers, when we truly have found the purpose for living? We can understand how those who do not know Christ struggle. So, why is it that even as a believer we experience frustration? I believe that is precisely the question our text addresses.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. (Romans 8:18-27)
We experience a frustration because we, even as believers, have not yet arrived at the place we are going in our Christian lives. Here he is talking about a longing, a groaning. He is talking about a sense of frustration that we feel, that even creation itself feels. The longing is for God's purpose to ultimately be performed in our lives.
Why is it that creation groans? When mankind fell from God's grace back in the Garden, creation itself fell with man. The Bible indicates that when man disobeyed God, he brought death not only to himself, but to the created order of things. Creation, once perfect in God's sight, declared to be good, now suffered because of man's sin. It brought forth weeds and thorns. The labor of man became hard. Creation no longer cooperated with man, but was subjected to frustration. This is really a fulfillment of a scientific law called the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or the Law of Increasing Entropy. Simply stated, it means that creation is running down. Therefore, things tend toward decay. It seems to me to be a particularly keen observation, one that seems to contradict the popularly held laws of evolution. It would be nice if we could set a pile of bricks outside of our educational building, come back in 10 years and find them evolved into a sanctuary. The problem is, they would have evolved into dust. They would decay. Even our bodies are running down. Creation is subjected to frustration. It is subjected to futility. Things are coming to an end. Creation groans for the revealing of the children of God.
The creation groans. But then, we groan ourselves, because God is not finished with us. But in this passage of Scripture there is a threefold groaning, not just a twofold groaning — creation and us. We read, in verse 26, that the Spirit Himself groans as well, as He “intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
Why do we have this threefold groaning? In verse 29 of this chapter it says that God is conforming us to the likeness of His Son, Jesus. That is really the key to our groaning as believers. The reason why we are frustrated with our lives is because we have not arrived. We are not there. We still sin. We still fall short of the glory of God. And we groan within ourselves because God's purpose is not yet fulfilled in our lives. As believers, there is a desire in us, created by the Holy Spirit Himself, that we be like Jesus, and we are never fulfilled, never satisfied, never content, until we are precisely in that place. And so we long for the day when God's redemption is perfected in us. We long for the day when the salvation which God has begun in us is completed when Jesus comes again. We groan for that day. Paul likens it, in our passage of Scripture, to a woman in childbirth, suffering in pain to bring forth a new life.
Some suffering is pointless. And when he talks about our suffering with Christ, he is not talking about pointless suffering. There are some today who would have you believe that all the suffering you endure is somehow a suffering with Christ. But some suffering is just suffering. Some suffering is the result of evil perpetrated on humanity as a result of wickedness and is suffering to no end. Now, it can be suffering that God uses in our lives. It can be suffering that helps us to mature, but that is not what our text refers to when it talks about suffering with Christ. God truly uses all things and works in all things for the believer who turns to him in the midst of crisis and in the midst of suffering. God can take an evil thing and turn it around to our good. But sometimes we suffer because of our own stupidity. Not all suffering is suffering with Christ.
Suffering with Christ is suffering with a purpose in view. It is the suffering of a woman in childbirth, to bring forth a new life. It is the suffering to produce the life of God in us. The suffering that you women endure to bring forth a new life is suffering necessary for the new life to be brought forth. It produces something. You did not like the suffering, but you are glad for the result. And you thank God that every labor pain necessary for you to endure was suffering with a purpose.
I believe that there is another reason why we are frustrated and experience futility in life. It is because we do not see things from an eternal perspective. We, as Christians, need to spend some time thinking about our lives from God's perspective. I must confess to you, I go through the routine just like you do. I go to work, do the same things day after day. I get a check, put it in the bank, and that is the last I see of it. What's it all for? You see, even preachers need to sit down and look at their lives from God's perspective. And we need to begin to ask ourselves some questions. What really counts in my life? Why am I here? What am I living for? What are my priorities? What would God have me to do? Are we really living our lives from an eternal perspective, or are we just biding time?
One of the reasons I believe the church is so anemic in the world today is because we have not really ordered our priorities, ordered our lives, from an eternal perspective. We, like the world around us, are caught up in the prevailing lifestyle of our generation. Like them, we are looking for fulfillment in our lives from other sources than God. And so we are caught up in the activities and entertainment of the world around us. We look over our shoulder after 10 or 20 years of that and say, “What have we really done that counts?” John Henry Newman said, “Fear not that your life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning.” Some Christians are saved but their spiritual lives have never really begun.
We, as believers, are called to a higher calling than simply to be forgiven of our sins and live our lives until we die. We are called to be Christ's representatives in the earth today. We are called to be His ambassadors. We are called to share the Good News with a lost world. But sometimes, even our Christian lives appear to be futile. It is like the farm wife who got mad at her husband when they went to a carnival. After he stepped off the Merry-go-round, she confronted him and said, “You spent all that money, and you got off right where you got on. You ain't been nowhere.” Many Christians live their lives like that. We get off right where we got on. We have not really made any progress.
But we are people who are called out of this world with a specific purpose. We are God's kingdom on earth. We are not a social gathering. God has called us to be a church. And we are going to have to come together as committed believers in Jesus Christ, committed to Christ and committed to one another so that we make a difference in this place.
Let's invest our lives in eternal things, things which will never pass away, things which will usher in the Kingdom of God. Creation groans, we groan, even the Spirit groans for the purposes of God to be fulfilled in us. We are groaning for glory. Amen! Do your work in us, Lord Jesus.
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