Our text begins with the bad news: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time" (v. 22).

"We know"--this is common knowledge, conventional wisdom, a fact everyone admits.  "The whole creation"--every person in this room and every living thing on this planet. "Has been groaning"--the Greek means "groaning together," all sharing the same suffering.  "As in the pains of childbirth"--the most horrendous pain a person can know.

The Jews used this metaphor for the times before the coming of Messiah; the Greeks used it to describe the dead of winter just before the rebirth of spring.  The metaphor carries the idea of hope--our suffering has purpose, as a mother's pain brings a child into the world.  There is hope and future in the midst of the trauma of life on this fallen planet.

This is happening "right up to the present time."  Paul, the greatest missionary and apostle in Christian history, is not exempt.  Neither are you.  Neither am I.

 I remember when I first realized that suffering is a part of life, and that not all of it is my fault.  I shouldn't be surprised when things break and people fail.  This is a fallen world acting like a fallen world.  Disasters and disease and suffering are part of life, for the perfect Son of God and everyone else.

Now comes the good news: "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" (v. 23).

"We ourselves" is extremely emphatic in the Greek.  Paul includes himself in the strongest possible terms, something like "we especially." "Have the firstfruits of the Spirit."  "Have" points to a present-tense reality: we "have" the Spirit right now.  The firstfruits were the first results of the harvest, always given to God in worship and thanksgiving.  They were given during the holiday of Pentecost, the very time when the Spirit was given to God's people as a firstfruit of the eternal harvest to come.  We already have the Spirit of God living in us as the children of God.

Yet we "groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons."  We have already been adopted (v. 15); the papers have been signed, the verdict rendered.  But we're not yet out of the orphanage.  We must still eat the poor food the orphanage can afford, and sleep under extra blankets because the orphanage's heating system is old and decrepit, and face life every day as orphans.  But our Father is coming soon to get us and bring us into his mansion in glory.  We "wait eagerly" for that day to come.

When it does, we'll receive "the redemption of our bodies."  To "redeem" in the Bible is to trade old for new, to replace, to trade up.  You won't get a better body--you'll get a new body.  You won't get a better world--you'll get a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1).  This is true for every child of God.

In the meanwhile, "in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?" (v. 24).  In the midst of, as we experience this hope, "we were saved."  The Greek makes it clear that our salvation is done, secured, completed.

But while we were saved, we are not yet saved.  We will one day be adopted and redeemed.  So we wait in hope for that day we cannot prove, for "hope that is seen is no hope at all."

We cannot see heaven; we cannot prove the existence or love of God; we cannot prove that we will spend eternity in heaven with our Father.  If we could, we would have not hope but fact.  As Paul says, "Who hopes for what he already has?"  Who today is hoping for the car you bought last week, or the promotion you received in January?

This is the case with all future experience--nothing in the future can be proven in the present.  I cannot prove that I will be alive tomorrow, or that you will.  I cannot prove that I will finish this sermon, or that you will finish hearing it.  I cannot prove that the world will be here tomorrow, for Jesus could come back this afternoon.

So "we hope for what we do not yet have" and "wait for it patiently" (v. 25).  Life is hard now.  We live in a fallen world which is "groaning" under the consequences of sin.  But one day our adoption will be completed, our bodies exchanged for eternal ones.

In the meantime we'll look for meaning and purpose in the Creator, not his creation; in God, not ourselves; in heaven, not earth.  When we put our hope, our need for meaning and fulfillment, in this world, we are inevitably disappointed.  Only when we put our hope in God is our hope fulfilled.  That's Paul's thesis.  Let's explore it for a moment.