Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from Jesus Christ, our Lord:

There may be a show or a series that you and your spouse, or family, like to watch together.  I know each family might have those where it’s still nice to gather around and watch together instead of each person just watching on their own screens.  A show that my wife and I have watched, and we got my in-laws into it as well, is a show called Ted Lasso.  I can’t promote it all in every way because there is some language and some themes that are not always the greatest, but it’s a show that was built from a commercial a long time ago.  This was kind of a silly commercial.  When NBC got European soccer on and they had the funny joke of when an American football coach goes to England to coach football, not American football but European football (soccer).  So here is this Midwest, happy-go-lucky guy who doesn’t understand what “offside” is and all these things, trying to coach a soccer team.  

But that show developed into a kind of positive, fun show that is encouraging in some different ways.  The way that it works in European soccer, too, is that there are different levels.  Maybe think about it like in Major League Baseball where you have the professional leagues and then you have AAA, AA, and A in Minor League Baseball and stuff like that.  But if you’re the worst of those teams (the Athletics or one of those teams that are really low), if you’re the worst three teams, you would actually move down to A, and the top teams, the AAA teams, the top three would actually move up to the professional league.  So there is kind of this fun moving around from league to league.  

In one of the soccer seasons, their team was very close to moving up but all the fans and the players were worried and they have this quote that they kept saying.  The quote is “It’s the hope that kills you,” because they were so close and they were so nervous.  If they were just in the middle or lower and they didn’t have a chance, then there would be nothing to be worried about and they wouldn’t be stressed and having that hope can crush you when it fails.  But the coach, Ted Lasso, who is this encouraging guy, says this to the team.  “So I’ve been hearing this phrase you all have over here that I’m not too crazy about.  ‘It’s the hope that kills you.’  You know what?  I disagree.  I think it’s the lack of hope that comes and gets you.  See, I believe in hope.  I believe in belief.”  Maybe you have seen that now kind of famous yellow sign with the word “Believe.”  That comes from Ted Lasso, because he encourages hope and believing and trusting.  

That idea, though, of the hope that kills you, that having hope is a bad thing, really runs contrary to what our lesson says today.  Having hope is very important and not having any hope can be devastating.

So in today’s message, we see that the hope that God gives us, gives us a look at something ahead, but what about that current hope?  There is a hope that turns groaning into glory.  It’s that same idea as with those people that think it’s hard to hope sometimes.  There is that groaning, that waiting, that unsureness.  But in the Christian life, it’s even more than that when we talk about groaning.

As Paul was writing to the Romans, Romans 8 is a very encouraging chapter that goes through all these different things.  If you remember, it ends talking about God’s love for us.  Here he is talking, though, about the present suffering that we’re going through.  He says it’s not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed.  He says that in Verse 23.  22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.   What does he tell us that hope includes?  He is saying it includes suffering and it includes this groaning.  Hope includes a patient groaning.  It is a patient groaning that deals with what we’re looking at and it’s saying it’s not quite right.  But there is a groaning.  He says nature is groaning, but we ourselves are inwardly groaning.  

We sang it in the Psalm.  People throughout many generations, throughout the whole world have been going through these groans since Adam and Eve brought sin into the world.  The writer in the Psalm says “My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning.  My strength fails because of my affliction and my bones grow weak.”  It’s important for us to not overlook that there is suffering, that there are these groans, that we look out into the world and we see disasters, if it’s tornadoes, wildfires.  We look at Nepal and these floods.  There are all sorts of groaning that our world has, but then there is groaning that we have, to say that there’s just something not right.  We see disease and cancers and our bodies break down.  

But Paul doesn’t pretend that there isn’t suffering.  He doesn’t say “Just think happy thoughts.  If you just manifest happy things, then those sufferings will go away.”  We admit that there is this hardship and pain and suffering.  So it’s okay for us to groan.  The book that we are finishing tonight, Vocation, talked about how sometimes un-satisfaction is a good thing because it’s telling us that there is something else better, that this world isn’t all it’s out to be.

But notice that this suffering brings a frustration and a groaning.  What can suffering do?  As people suffer, there is a truth that suffering can sometimes silo people.  So the encouragement that Paul has for us as he is telling us what is going on, to have this hope, is don’t let suffering silo you.  Why might suffering silo you?  What does the life of a Christian look like?  We have ideas and we say “If I’m faithful enough, if I go to church, if I give money, if I do the right thing, then God should give me ‘this.’  He should make all my plans, all my desires come true.”  So when they don’t, who do we get upset at?  We get upset at God.  “God, why are you doing this to me?  It’s not fair.  I’ve been faithful.  I’ve done all these things.  God, I’ve got a great plan.  Why can’t you just let me have my way?  You got it out for me?”  Or maybe we think that we’re the only one who is going through this.  Have you ever felt that way?  Where that pain, that loss, that sickness makes you say “No one understands what I’m going through” and you don’t want to hear that encouragement from others, so it silos you.  It puts you on this island from God and from others and not in a great place.

But we have to be reminded what purpose God has for the suffering, to remind us that there is something greater and that you’re not alone, and that this world isn’t everything.  Could you imagine if it was all about this world?  But the losses, the suffering, it helps us to see that there is something greater, that God is working out everything for our eternal good, not just for now.  How do we know this?  We look at what God is telling us, that as we are groaning it says we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.  24 For in this hope we were saved.  How are we saved?  That’s an important thing to look at.

How did Jesus save us?  What was His life all about?  We heard it in the Gospel lesson.  As Jesus said that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.  What was life like for Jesus?  Did He have a place to lay His head?  Was He a rich man?  No, it was not about comfort but about the cross.  Jesus shows us that Christianity is not about comfort, but about the cross, His cross most of all.  That He gave up everything and lived a life where people didn’t like what He said.  Even though He healed people and He served people, they didn’t like His message because it told people to deny themselves.  We heard that with Peter as Peter goes and tells Jesus “Never!  This should never happen!”  When we get frustrated at Jesus, at God, at the crosses that are in our lives, we shouldn’t be surprised because Peter does that very same thing.  The ones who walked with Jesus said “Never!  We don’t want anything to do with the cross.”  But notice what Jesus says.  “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.  26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”  If we are so focused on this world and the comforts of this world, then we lose sight of the cross, what God has done for us, that we are saved and redeemed through Jesus and we have redemption.  

Remember the hope that Paul is talking about.  We are saved through Jesus and His cross and then He promises in this life, will we always have comfort?  No.  In fact, just as Jesus redeemed us with the cross and then an empty tomb, the glory later, in this life, we also will carry crosses.  What will those crosses look like?

There is a general cross that we talk about.  Just for being a Christian, we will get persecution, hard things in this world and life, because you follow Jesus.  But then there are specific crosses.  If you look in the Old Testament, Jeremiah, as he is sharing God’s Word and he is struggling with it.  Maybe there are things in your life where the boss wants you to do something sinful and you say “I can’t do that.”  It’s a cross we carry for being a Christian and doing what is good and right.  Or for sharing our faith and sharing what Jesus says is true, that salvation is only through Him, and other people will say “Well, that’s judgment or exclusive.”  No, we’re saying Jesus died for everyone.  

There are all sorts of crosses that you can carry.  Just trying to go along with the crowd that doesn’t understand Christian living will put you under a cross.  But Jesus promises that we’ll do that.  But crosses aren’t something we choose.  They are things that are given to us.  Sometimes those crosses might come in the form of a disease or a difficulty or a loss, a pain and a suffering that just doesn’t seem fair and it seems like it’s there for a long time.  So we are groaning and saying “Where are you God” or “How long?”  It’s hard to wait.  Just like we talked about in the Children’s Sermon with the marshmallows, it’s hard to wait as you groan and it’s hard to see what is ahead.  

But notice what Paul says we are waiting for.  24 For in this hope we were saved.  But hope that is seen is no hope at all.  Who hopes for what they already have?  25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.  It’s okay to groan and to understand things aren’t always the way they are supposed to be, but notice, we are waiting patiently.  We are waiting for full glory.  Full glory awaits with hope in redemption.  All things are going to be made new.  Those sins, those pains, those diseases, your body breaking down, mine not as good as it was, the relationships, the broken relationships that exist that just can’t be repaired, the rifts in culture, all these things that we groan about because of sin.  It’s hard to see.  But that’s what hope is about.  Hope is about something that we do not yet have.  If we had it, it would not be hope.

Paul also writes about those things—faith, hope and love.  In that chapter about love, he says “And now these three remain:  faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)  In heaven, will we need hope?  We’ll have that glory and that perfection with God.  We will see Him face to face and that sin will be removed.  We won’t need faith because we’re seeing it.  We are living that.  There are hard things in our life when it comes to dealing with the hardships in this world.

I’ll never say that what you’re going through is not real, that it isn’t hard.  It’s okay to groan to God and to say that it is hard, but to put our hope in the right place.  As the quote goes, what is worse than having hope?  Having no hope at all, and especially as we look to life eternal.  

We go and share a message that brings us peace in the midst of the hardest things in this world.  No one can escape death.  No one can fix their own sins and become perfect before God, but Jesus does.  As Jesus took up the cross and says life is not all about our comforts, He walks out of the tomb and says “You can have hope—hope eternal.”  This is how we go forward, knowing that we have a glory waiting with a hope that turns that groaning into glory as we wait.  Amen.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7) Amen.