Sunday Worship Sermon Manuscript — July 19

A Hope That Will Not Break

Romans 8:12–25 (NRSV)

Opening — A Last Dance Not Yet Finished

The 2026 World Cup is now reaching its final days. I don't think there has ever been a World Cup as thrilling as this one. It was a disappointment that our own Korea went out early — but as far as the sheer joy of the game goes, I wonder if any World Cup has ever given us more.

And at the center of all that joy stands one man: Lionel Messi. They are calling this tournament his "last dance," his final World Cup. And there he is, thirty-nine years old, still playing at an astonishing level.

Argentina, though, has not looked as invincible as we expected. There has hardly been a single easy win. Game after game, they have clawed their way through — late equalizers, last-minute turnarounds, victories snatched in extra time. From the quarterfinals on, it has been one comeback, one extra-time escape after another. And that semifinal against England — with barely five minutes left, they poured in two goals and turned the whole thing around. If a screenwriter tried to script drama like this on purpose, we would say it was ridiculous, impossible. That is the kind of cliff's-edge football Argentina has been playing.

In the semifinals, France — one of the favorites to win it all — lost to Spain. And so today, at noon, Spain and Argentina meet in the final. I can hardly wait to see what kind of match it will be.

I asked myself why this World Cup has gripped us so. The first reason is the underdogs. Cape Verde — a country most of us had never even heard of — played Argentina to a standstill in a genuine classic. Then Argentina had to come from behind to get past Egypt. They struggled to beat Switzerland. And then came that late, late comeback against England. Match after match, Argentina has had the whole world leaning forward, asking, "Could a miracle like this really happen?"

That, I think, is it. The power to turn around a game everyone had already written off. A thirty-nine-year-old veteran still rising to the moment. It puts before our eyes the very thing we secretly long for — the sheer, impossible joy of a game that should have been lost, turned around against all reason.

Our text this morning is part of a letter Paul wrote to Rome. Romans is not an easy book to read. But before we come to the text, there is one thing we must remember. Paul is writing this letter not in the flush of his early success — after the fruitful years of preaching the gospel and planting churches — but now, as the season of persecution closes in, with death waiting right in front of him. He is writing, you might say, the way a team writes a comeback when everything on the field makes a turnaround look impossible — and yet he writes as a man who believes that impossible reality can still be overcome, miraculously.

And here is what stands out in the mood of this text. Even as he faces the fact of death itself — of martyrdom — Paul does not shrink back one bit. He speaks of hope, boldly, with his head held high. And as I read his heart in these verses, it struck me: believing in Jesus is so much more than we tend to think. It is not sitting down in defeat before the limits of our circumstances. It is living on this earth as people who — recklessly, it may seem — keep speaking of hope even there.

Receiving the Spirit — The Power That Raises the Dead

Where does Paul's bold hope come from? He tells us it comes from "the power of the Spirit." Look at verse 11. Paul calls the Spirit the Spirit "of him who raised Jesus from the dead." The Spirit we are meant to understand is not merely a spirit that comforts us and warms our hearts. The Spirit is that very power that raised the dead out of the tomb — the creating power of God that brings life into being. We must not forget that.

So when we say, "I have received the Spirit!" — we cannot let it stop at merely getting through the hardships we face in life. To have received the Spirit means something more than the power to overcome our troubles. It means that the very power of God that brings the dead to life has come to dwell within us.

Verse 14: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God." The one who lives by the Spirit's leading is a child of God. The one who refuses to stand on the side of death, and instead stands on the side of God, who gives life, and bears witness to God's work — that one is a child of God.

Adoption — Chosen to Bear a Name

Paul goes on to use the word "adoption." Verse 15: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!'"

Now, our Korean New Translation renders this as "the Spirit that makes us his children." But many other translations — including the English that many of you are reading — use the word "adoption." Our translators most likely chose "made his children" because the word "adoption" makes us think first of the modern practice of adopting a child. But we have to remember that when Paul used this word in the Roman world, it meant something completely different from what it means today.

In Rome, adoption was a social institution by which a household secured a suitable grown man — an heir — to carry on its name and its estate. You did not simply take in just anyone. You chose one qualified to carry on the family line, and through a formal legal procedure you granted him the full rights of inheritance. So a Roman adoptee was not someone taken in out of pity. He was someone chosen to be granted two things: a family name, and an inheritance.

Once you see that picture, the weight of the words "you have become God's adopted child" changes completely. For God to make us his children means that God has chosen us as those who will inherit God's household and God's estate. Is that not astonishing?

The Heir's Calling — Toward All Creation

So then, what is the inheritance God hands down to us? Verse 17: "and if children, then heirs." And immediately Paul throws open the content of that inheritance to a cosmic scale.

Verse 18: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us." We usually read this "glory" narrowly — as my own personal salvation, my own private heaven. We take it to mean that I simply need to get through the troubles in front of me. But Paul at once turns his gaze to something far wider.

From verse 19, Paul begins to speak of "creation." The whole creation is waiting eagerly for the children of God to be revealed. Our salvation, he says, is bound up together with the destiny of all creation. So the eschatological salvation God has prepared is never confined to the salvation of one individual. It is not a life focused only on overcoming the single hardship that has come to me.

This tells us what the inheritance entrusted to us truly is. It is a calling toward the wholly other — toward beings other than myself. And not people only. It is the place of an heir who cares for this world God has made, for the whole of creation. The one led by the Spirit must listen to the groaning of creation.

So when we say God has redeemed us, it does not mean, "I've been saved — that settles it," and there we stop. It means God has called us so that through us God might make all creation new. For an heir is not someone who sits clutching the inheritance to himself, but someone who tends it and guards it.

The Pain of Childbirth — But Victory Comes Through the One Who Carries Us

Here Paul makes clear one thing we are prone to misunderstand. Verses 22 and 23: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies."

Paul uses the phrase "labor pains." We know, of course, that the pain of childbirth is severe. But if we fix our attention only on the pain, we can fall into a misunderstanding — as though we must suffer, must hurt, in order to arrive at salvation. The idea that we must drive ourselves into hardship, that only by passing deep through the agony of the cross can we win salvation for ourselves — this misunderstanding has been lodged within Christianity from the earliest church down through the whole history of the church to this very day.

But the phrase "labor pains" is not written to place the weight on the pain. It speaks of the new life that comes after the pain is overcome — not pain that is spent and wasted, but pain that faces forward, toward a new beginning, toward new life. In other words, the pain of childbirth does not make itself the goal. Its strength is spent looking toward the new life beyond the pain. So those who groan while waiting for God's redemption are not moaning in empty despair. They labor in the Spirit, their eyes fixed on the horizon where new life will be born.

Perhaps some of you are worn down because hardship has settled into your body and will not leave, or you are in despair, wondering why these things seem to happen only to you. If so, I want you to remember this: for us Christians, the direction of our suffering does not stop there. It is like labor pains — pain that leads on to new life.

Just as the mother's pain is not what produces the child, our suffering is not what produces our salvation. Salvation comes through the mighty grace of God, and through God's act of adopting us as his own. It is given — freely.

Let me come back to the football for a moment. One thing people have noticed about Argentina in this tournament is the "guard" around Messi — the teammates who protect him and serve him. The broadcast keeps showing the other players supporting him. And it struck me: the reason a thirty-nine-year-old Messi can still be so magnificent is the help of the teammates running alongside him. Most professional players play for their own careers. But these Argentine players show us something else. They decide how to fight for the team's victory rather than for their own careers; they sacrifice themselves; and they carry the whole game around one man.

Our salvation is exactly like this. It is not something I seize alone, gritting my teeth. It is handed to us through One who carries us — through Christ. That is why verse 17 calls us "joint heirs with Christ." We stand together in the place he has borne, and we inherit his victory as a gift.

Closing — Holding On to Grace Freely Given

Paul closes in verses 24 and 25: "For in hope we were saved. ... But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."

In the face of suffering, with death perhaps closing in, what Paul chooses — as one who has received new life by the power of the Spirit — is to hold a hope that will not be cowed. And he names the power to hold it: "waiting with patience."

We have been chosen as God's adopted children. We bear God's name upon our hearts, and we have become heirs to God's estate. And that estate is this whole world God has made. And yet — in the actual reality of the lives we live, it can feel as though this makes no great difference at all.

We come to church. We sit in worship every week. But whether we are inside the church or out in the world, the shape of our lives looks much the same. When that is so, we go on living without really knowing what difference it makes to believe in Jesus. However much we say that by the power of the Spirit we have received new life, that even in the midst of suffering we can hold on to hope, that we have become heirs, children of God — in actual life, we do not feel much changing.

Those who do not believe in Jesus seem to live better; my own life seems harder. At times like that, we can fall into deep discouragement. The church in Rome that Paul saw was in much the same situation. It was not a church Paul himself had founded, but even so — a church planted by disciples who had received Paul's teaching — the believers there were not so different from us. They lived in an age when reality would not change, when their faith was so threatened that believing itself could seem a trivial, worthless thing. Which is to say: not so different from us.

And yet, right there, Paul fiercely proclaims the power of the gospel. Paul himself was not, by any measure the world uses, a successful man. We know only that he was one who gave that up willingly. This was a man making tents to support himself, preaching the gospel at his own expense; a man whose appearance was not particularly striking, who even stumbled over his words. What great power could he possibly have seemed to have? And yet the words recorded in his letters make us — us, today — look again at our own faith.

People judge in advance, by the eyes they already have. Paul says faith is a life that refuses to do that. The thoughts and standards I hold — no, the standards and judgments the world has manufactured — are not always right. And at the center of that truth stands "the power of the Spirit."

A church that expects the power of the Spirit hopes not according to the verdict reality hands it, but toward that season of new life the labor pains promise. A church that lives by the strength of the Spirit hopes — through that mysterious season we call waiting — in the power of God who is shaping something even now.

For our being heirs — our being children of God — to actually come true here on this earth, it will happen as we take hold of the grace that Christ, the One who carries us, has handed us freely, and go forward.

Since we have decided, after all, to believe in Jesus — let us go forward together, holding a hope that will not be shaken. Since we have decided, after all, to build this church together — let us labor so that Yeolin Church may be built up as a church that gives itself, by the power of the Spirit, to the work of God. And let us put our strength together, so that our church may grow all the more, and become a diligent church of good and gracious influence.

Amen.