12 Grief over Sin (Romans 8:12-25)

Krisan Marotta: Good morning. We're in the middle of Romans eight today. It's one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Romans, probably one of my favorite chapters in the Bible itself. It is just the best of the best news. And we are in the middle of the argument. We're gonna finish it up next week and try to come next week because that is the, in many ways, the climax of the book and the climax of the thought so far. It just keeps building and getting better. Let me review where we are and what we've covered in chapter eight just to set the stage, because the chapter is really all of one thought, and we stopped in the middle more for time than any other reason. There's no real logical break there. And I'm going to review where we are in the book because as I've challenged you the first week, I really hope that you are taking it to heart and memorizing the book of Romans so that you can lay out the argument and the thought without a Bible open in front of you. So let me just set the stage of where we are in the book. Remember, in the first five chapters, Paul argues that we are justified by faith and not by keeping the law. In chapter one, he tells us that we've all sinned, and because we've all sinned, we now experience death as he defines it, and that is not just the fact that our lives will end, but all the brokenness and greed and lust and anger and bitterness and frustration and futility that we experience now. So we now experience that death, and that God abandoned us to that sin and death. He gave us over into the custody of sin and death. In chapter two, he argues that no one can be justified by keeping the law. So everyone is trapped or enslaved to sin. He argues not the moral person or neither the moral person nor the religious person can be saved by keeping the law, that we are all trapped in our sins. That argument goes into about the middle of chapter three, and then he finally announces the good news, and that is that there is a way to be justified, and that is through trusting in God that he will forgive us and make us holy because of Jesus' death on the cross. In chapter 4, he uses Abraham and David as an example of people who were justified by their faith and not by their works, because it would have been thought that if anyone was justified by their faith by their works, that was Abraham, and Paul argues no, Abraham is a great example of someone who was justified by his faith. And then he goes on to argue that justification, because it is based on a promise, justification is guaranteed and open to everyone who believes, not just the Jews, or those who are physical descendants of Abraham. In chapter 5, then he gives us the so what. So what that we're justified by faith. What does that mean? And he says we now have a reason to boast or to rejoice, because we've been singled out by God to be made glorious, to be made holy, and that that hope is guaranteed because God loves us. And that's the first major division of the book. In chapter six, then starts the next major division. And here he begins taking questions or objections to his gospel. So the first one, we've seen three so far, and the first one is that, well, okay, Paul, your gospel implies that we should pursue sin. Because if the more we sin, the more God has to forgive, and the more God has to forgive, then the more he's glorified, then we should pursue sin, because that'll bring more glory to God. And Paul answers, no, that's not what my gospel implies, because there's more to the gift than just forgiveness. Another part of the gift is breaking our bondage to sin. So continuing to pursue sin, the very thing from which we've been freed, would be to make a mockery of the gift, and it wouldn't bring glory to God. The second objection then says, okay, well, maybe we shouldn't pursue sin, but there's no reason not to, because there's no punishment anymore. There's no threat. If we remove the threat of the law and there's no sin that we can commit that is not covered by the blood of Christ, then why shouldn't we just sin because we're forgiven? And Paul says, no, sin still leads to death, and that's a biggest incentive to avoid sin. So death is he's defined it. The greed, anger, bitterness, frustration, cruelty, jealousy, envy, resentment, brokenness, all that stuff is a direct result of our sin, and when we sin we still experience it. And that is an incentive not to. Further, he adds the law was an incentive anyway. The law didn't really give us an incentive to avoid sin because the law forced us to rely on ourselves and we could only find sin there. So the law as instead of being an incentive to avoid sin, actually promoted our sin. So that leads to the third question, which is okay, if the law promotes our sin, then it must be an evil thing. And we know that the law can't be an evil thing because it was given to us by God. And Paul answers that one, no, the law is good. The law did us a wonderful and incredible favor in that it alerted us to the fact that we're sinful and that we need a savior. And without the law, multiplying our sins and making them more obvious, we might never have seen our need for a savior and tried to look around and looked outside ourselves for another solution. Then there's a follow-up question. If the law is then a source of condemnation for me because it shows me how sinful I am, how can it be holy and good? And Paul says the law doesn't condemn me. I'm condemned because I'm sinful. The law merely diagnoses that problem. It reveals my sinfulness, which was already present. That takes us into chapter 7, and where he's answering this question about what's the role of the law, and he describes what I call moral paralysis, or the distinction between my desire to be holy and good, and my inability to be holy and good. And you recall that's the section where he says, the very thing that I want to do, I do not do, and the thing that I don't want to do, I do. And on the one hand, I desire to be righteous, I agree with the law, I resolve to keep the law, but I fail. I continue to sin and I do the very thing I don't wish to do. I'm trapped by my sinfulness. So there's this whatever mechanism I thought would control my sin, whether you want to call it willpower or resolve or determination or whatever, it doesn't work. I'm left to myself, there's nothing I can do to stop being sinful. That's what I mean by moral paralysis, our inability to save ourselves from our sin or to stop our sinfulness. And he ends that section with this poignant cry of wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death? Who will save me from this moral paralysis? Who will who will get me out of this dilemma of wanting to be good and being unable to be good? And that's where chapter 8 comes in. Chapter 8 is answering that question, who will save me from this body of death? And his purpose in all of chapter 8 is really to explain why faith in Jesus works when the law didn't, why faith in Jesus solves that problem of moral paralysis, solves the problem of me wanting to be holy and not being able to be holy. So he gave us the direct answer to that in the first eleven verses, which we looked at last week, and that is he explains that faith in Jesus promotes obedience and righteousness where the law couldn't, because the law gave us had or the law had no provision for giving us the Spirit of God, while grace does. So the short, the summary of that argument is left to ourselves, we can't change our sinful nature. Apart from God, we don't have what it takes to produce righteousness. We don't have it within ourselves to become holy and good. And without God's spirit, then we have no possibility of becoming holy. And under the law, that's all we had. We were forced to seek inside ourselves, to to try harder, to to make ourselves, you know, to kind of resolve and and and screw ourselves up to the to the sticking point and saying, I'm gonna do it, and we couldn't. But thanks to the incredible mercy of God, not only did he justify us, that is, pay the penalty for our sins and forgive us, he gave us as a seal of that justification the gift of his spirit. And his spirit is what changes us. His spirit then has the ability to turn us from sinful people to righteous people, to make us people who not only want to do good, but are now able to do good. So this whole chapter is about how the Spirit then does that, how it changes us, so we are becoming people who not only want to be holy, but actually can be holy. Now, he is going to argue that that is a future hope, that we are not holy and righteous now, but we have that to look forward to. We have a taste of it now, we have the down payment now, but the full um the full explanation, the full inheritance is coming. So one through eleven he says the reason faith in Jesus works and where the law couldn't is because under grace God gives us his spirit, and his spirit will set us free. His spirit will free us from that moral paralysis. In twelve through thirty-nine, the rest of the chapter, is really an exhortation against legalism. And by legalism I mean trying to be holy on your own. Not um so it's pursuing righteousness or pursuing holiness out of my own resources. Remember, Paul uses the term flesh in this chapter to mean everything we are apart from God. So in my flesh, I am, everything I am is everything I am apart from God. And the central issue is who are you going to trust to bring about righteousness for you? Are you going to trust yourself to come up with it, or are you going to trust God to impart it? So when all is said and done, do we look to God or do we look to ourselves? And that's the key difference between a legalist and a non-legalist. So the Mosaic Law said, look to yourself. Look inside, give it your sincere best effort, and try to do it. That's what I mean by legalism. It's taking the challenge of the law and saying, okay, here I go, watch me, I'm going to keep it. Now remember, from chapter 6 on, Paul's been arguing that we are not the kind of people who can keep the law, not the way it's meant to be kept. Inside, outside, heart attitude, actions, thoughts, not just on the outside, but who we are on the inside. He says that kind of obedience is out of our reach. But the person who says, okay, I'm going to take that challenge, I'm going to look at the law, I'm going to figure it out, and I'm going to do it, that's what I mean by a legalist. And in this section, from verse 12 on, Paul is arguing or exhorting, encouraging us to leave that kind of thinking behind, to stop relying on our flesh, stop relying on ourselves, and look to God for righteousness. Now, just as an aside, let me tell you what I don't mean by the term legalist. Some people use the term legalist to mean a zeal for holiness or passion for holiness. And they think, well, you shouldn't get too passionate or excited or zealous for holiness because that's legalism. If you do that, you're just taking things too seriously. That's not what I mean. I'm not even sure you can be too eager for righteousness or too passionate for holiness, but that's not what I mean here. What I'm encouraging you to, when I encourage you to avoid legalism, I'm not saying, okay, you know, downplay righteousness or take sin casually. I'm saying avoid seeking righteousness through your own self-effort. Another misconception, another thing people mean by the term legalist that I don't mean is living a principled life. There are those who would argue that the mark of legalism is trying to live a kind of reasoned and principled life according to absolutes, rights and wrongs. And that's really becoming more and more prevalent today as we get into a postmodern society where people are saying, oh, there is no right or wrong. You can't look at someone else's actions and say that's right or that's wrong. There's no way to judge, everything is gray, everything is relative. And so those people that say, oh, well, there are rights and wrongs, there are absolutes. You can make judgments about what is good and bad and what is evil and what is not evil, those people are legalists. That is not what I mean by legalism. I don't think Paul is arguing against having moral principles. He would not, I don't think if he were here today, he would argue against moral absolutes. What he's arguing for in this chapter is don't seek those principles. Don't seek that right and wrong and good and bad and holiness out of reliance on yourself. You should have the principles, I think. You should recognize what's right and wrong. You should always seek to do right, but not on your own resources. Now, on the outside, the legalist and the non-legalist may look exactly the same. You we and from the outside, we might not be able to tell. A legalist and a non-legalist may act the same way, they might say the same things, they might think the same things, they might do the same things, they might avoid the same activities and pursue the same activities. What's the difference? The difference when all isn't said is done is who do you trust? Am I trusting in myself and my own resources apart from God to meet that standard or to find that holiness, or am I trusting in God? I mean, I think Paul in Philippians says it I think it's in the Philippians 2, he says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work within you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. That's the point we're at. Walk through your salvation, work it out, seek it, pursue it, live your life, knowing that it is God who is at work within you to bring it about, to will and to work for his good pleasure. So the point of this section is seek righteousness, seek to do the right thing, long for it, hope for it, try for it, through trusting in God and not your own resources. So last week, in the first eleven verses, his point was now that you've been justified, you have God's Spirit imparted to you. And holiness is possible for you in a way it was never possible before. And he's going to continue that thought today with the encouragement, therefore, leave legalism behind. Leave trying on your own behind. Now that you know you will be made holy, because God is at work within you, stop thinking like it's all up to you and living your lives like it's up to you. So let me do one more thing. Let me give you the outline of the chapter, and then we'll read it and then we'll look at the details. So in 12 through 14, it's his summary statement. He's saying basically, you owe no allegiance to self-reliance or living according to the flesh, because all self-reliance ever does for you is gain you death. In 15 through 30, then, he's going to discuss two things that are produced in those who trust God. So he's going to say there are marks of believers. The first one we're going to look at today, and the second one we're going to look at next week. So in 15 through 25, which we're looking at today, he says there's two things that are true about believers, and as the Spirit of God begins to work in your life and change you, you will see these things in your lives, and that is a grief over sin and a longing for righteousness. So the Spirit is going to confirm our belief two ways. He's going to change us so that we now have this agonizing grief over our sin. And encompanying with that is a deep kind of longing, hungering, thirsting for righteousness. The second thing he's going to say, which we're going to look at next week, starts in 26 through 30, and that is the second thing that's produced in believers is an absolute confidence that everything that happens to us is in our best interest. Because we know that the Spirit is interceding for us and his work is effective, we can know that God is in control and everything is working to bring about our inheritance. And then he concludes with the wonderful section in 31 through 39 that based on our because our inheritance is up to the activity of God and his spirit and not our own self-effort, we can have absolute confidence that we'll gain it. And all of that really makes one point. We don't owe anything to legalism. Legalism gains us nothing but death. What works, what will bring about our inheritance, what will bring about victory over sin, and everything we long for is to rest in the Spirit of God. So how do we solve that problem of moral paralysis that he described in chapter 7? How do we get out of that trap of wanting to be righteous and not being able? Through trusting in Jesus. Because through grace, God gives us his spirit as a as a down payment, as a seal of that justification, and the spirit will change us. Okay, let me read the passage and then we'll go through some of the details. So this is Romans eight starting in verse twelve. So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit are the all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear again, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry out Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us, for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we await as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees, but if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Okay, let's break that down into into sections. The first one we're going to look at is twelve through fourteen. So then, brethren, we are not under obligation to the flesh to live according to the flesh. This is his summary statement. It's so then. Okay, because of the fact that we've just argued I've just argued in the first eleven verses that we now have the Spirit of God and that that we didn't have under the law, but under grace we do. So then stop trusting in yourself. You don't owe anything to legalism anymore. Trusting in yourself to gain holiness will only lead to death in your present experience. But trusting in the Spirit of God is going to lead to life. So he's giving us his conclusion first, and he's saying, look, you're no longer slaves to sin. You're no longer under obligation, you're no longer prisoners of the flesh. Instead, the opposite is true. You're now under obligation to the Spirit. And this would have been a direct contradiction of his of the Judaism of his day, because the Jews believed that the way you became righteous was to look deep within yourself and keep the law. You know, you looked at the law, you squared your shoulders, and you just did it. You gave it your sincere best effort, good faith, you know, college try, and the law was there to motivate you and to threaten you if you failed, and so you just did it. And what Paul's saying is, no, all that exertion, all that moral exertion and self-effort that was required to keep the law, that's not going to make you holy. That's only going to result in death. It's going to make the death, the decay, the restlessness, the cruelty, the sharp tongues, the greed, all that stuff more obvious. And what's more, only those who trust in Jesus, only those who trust in Jesus and rely on the Spirit of God to make them righteous are actually going to make it. So let's look at some of the language. He talks in here in verse, like verse 13, those who are who are putting to death the deeds of the body. Is that 14? No, it's 13. What does he mean by that? I think he means turning away from and leaving behind the deeds and desires and thinking of our way of life or apart from God. So some people have looked at this phrase and said this putting to death the deeds of the body and said, okay, oh, I know what he means. He means that the spirit is good and the body is evil. So everything in the spiritual world is. Good and right and holy, and everything in the physical world is evil, and you're we're supposed to put away that physical body. We're supposed to leave the material world behind. I don't think that's what he's talking about. That was really one of the early, you know, Christian heresies. He's not talking, I think, about a physical body here when he says the deeds of the body, but using it more as a metaphor for this life, for the people we are here and now apart from God. The body, the word body was often an idiom to refer to yourself. It's like we might say, you know, a chick or a guy or they would say a body. It was just to refer to the here and now. So I think what he's saying is put away the deeds of the here and now, the the striving of here we are in our present way of thinking as a sinful, rebellious creature. We want to be turning away from that and turning toward the Spirit of God. For all who are led by the Spirit or sons of God in verse 13, he tells us so what does he mean, led by the Spirit? And he he's going to go on to talk a lot about what that means, not only in not just the verses we look at this week, but next week. Before we talk about it does mean, what it does mean, I want to give you a warning about what it doesn't mean. I think the first thing to realize is the Spirit is always leading us. As a new believer, I used to think that being led referred to some feeling or inner impulse or spontaneous urge, or if there was a thought that I couldn't get out of my mind, I decided that must be the Spirit leading me. So I was always looking for this, I don't know, like a feeling or an impulse or some kind of spontaneous nudge. I think you've got to be very careful with that because Paul has just spent a good deal of time, like the first five chapters, telling us that we're sinful through and through. And that apart from God, we are not capable of being righteous. So you want to be very careful in describing your inner urges and impulses as the spirit leading because we are still sinful. We are still waiting for our hope to be fully realized, and we can easily deceive ourselves and think, oh, if I want it bad enough, or if I prayed about it enough, and it hasn't gone away, then it must be the spirit leading us. That is dangerous. And I'm sure you've known people that have have done disastrous things claiming God or the Spirit led them to do it. I had a friend in college who married a non-Christian because she insisted she was led to convert him. That marriage ended in divorce and he did not convert, at least at the time I knew them. So you've got to be very careful about attributing our desires to the leading of the Spirit because they could just be our sinful desires. I was also taught as a new believer that how do you know if the Spirit's leading you? If three things lined up, then you knew that this was God leading you. If you had the desire to do something, if you had the counsel of wise and godly friends telling you to do it, and God opened a door. So if you had those three things present, you could be sure that the Spirit was leading you to do something. I'd like to share you a story of David and Saul because it directly contradicts that that theory of how we know God is leading us. It's in, you can find this in 1 Samuel 24. You'll recall that Samuel was king of Israel, but not Samuel, Saul was king of Israel, but Samuel had anointed David as king, even though Saul was still on the throne. And what you have in this section is Saul is trying to kill David because he knows that he's the next king. So you have God's choice, the righteous king, David, fleeing for his life before the wicked king Saul. And this goes on for years as Saul pursues David through the wilderness. And at this point in the story, David and his men are hiding in the cave, a cave when Saul comes in to relieve himself. And David's men say, Oh, this is the day the Lord has made. You you won't this is it. Go take his life. I mean, what more could you ask? Now consider this situation here. David knows he's the rightful king. He's been anointed by God's prophet, and yet he's fleeing for his life before this wicked, evil man who is still occupying the throne. I assume he wants to kill Saul. He probably had more than an urge. He probably had an intense burning desire built by years of seeing Saul's wickedness and Saul's actions and Saul trying to kill him. So I would assume he really wants to kill for to kill Saul. In addition, he's got godly men saying, Oh, go for it. Here are his troops. And they say, David, this is the day the Lord has made. What better opportunity can you ask for? You can't lose. God has delivered Saul into your hands. He wants you to do it. So David wants to do it. He's got fellow believers urging him to do it, and the door is open. I mean, talk about an opportunity. He's got Saul standing before him, literally, with his pants down. And Saul's walked into the cave to go to the bathroom. He's vulnerable, he's unguarded, he's unsuspecting. What more could David ask for? Now, most people would look at that and say, yep, that's the Spirit leading. You feel like doing it? You have the counsel of godly friends telling you to do it, and God drops the opportunity in your lap. How much what what else could it be? And yet David says no. He refuses to kill Saul. He refuses to be led by the circumstances or his own desires. And why? Because he says, I'm led by the Word of God. And the scriptures teach that whoever lays a hand on God's anointed will incur God's wrath. And Saul is still God's anointed. Saul's life is in God's hands, not mine. So he cuts off a corner of Saul's robe to tell him that he could have killed him, but he does not lay a finger on him. So if David had been looking for God to lead him through his impulses or his circumstances, I think he would have killed him, killed Saul. But he had a better source of wisdom, and that is God's revealed word. So whenever you have an impulse or a spontaneous urge or a thought you can't get out of your mind, evaluate it in light of the scriptures. Come back to the word. You know, you if you bypass your mind, you're on dangerous ground. I think the best way to be led by the Spirit is to study what He has to say. Read the Bible, meditating on it, learn it inside and out. Don't trust your emotions, don't trust your desires, don't trust your circumstances. God wrote it down for us to read. And I don't think the Spirit ever leads us by bypassing our minds or bypassing our wisdom. Think it through, but think it through biblically. That's what David did. He evaluated his desires, his counsel, his circumstances in the light of God's revealed word. And because he'd studied it and knew what it said about laying a hand on God's anointed, he knew what he should do. So I don't think being led by the Spirit is some kind of impulse or spontaneous urge. Instead, I think Paul's going to argue through this the rest of this chapter that being led by the Spirit is a normal, ongoing process of being convicted of our sinfulness, grieving over our sinfulness, and longing for righteousness. That's what the Spirit does in our lives. So let's let's go on. In verse 15, for you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you've received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba, Father. So what changes when we get the Spirit? What's different? What he's saying is you now approach God as an adopted son and not a slave. So let me give you a little background about adoption in Paul's day. In the Roman culture, a wealthy Roman patron would designate someone to be his heir or to inherit his wealth, and he would place him as a son. Now it didn't mean that the patron and the son would have it, would necessarily have a close relationship. That wasn't necessarily the case, although it could have been, but it was a legal reality that this is the person who is going to inherit. And in Roman culture they received that inheritance when they came of age, which was around 14, and the their benefactor may still be alive. It wasn't an inheritance that they got on the death of the benefactor, but when they became of age. Now, it is true that unlike a Roman adoptee, we have an intimate personal relationship with God our Father. But that's not what Paul's emphasizing here. He's not emphasizing the relationship so much as our legal status. We are now designated as children of God. We've been chosen to be heirs of God's promises, no strings attached, no conditions, no reason to fear his slave. So the contrast he's making is between the slave who would enter the room with eyes downcast and bow before the master and call him master, versus the child who would enter the room running to throw him or herself into her the master's lap, throw her arms around his neck and call him daddy. So we don't have the spirit of slavery leading to fear and you know, the downcast calling the master master. We have a spirit of adoption by which we can approach the father with confidence and love and approval, knowing that he's now our daddy. Our, you know, he's the master is legally responsible for us. The master has chosen us to inherit us. He has a stake in making us into the people we should be. Now, a slave he can sell off at any moment, but the child he's responsible for. So his point here here is we have become heirs, and if we are heirs, we are in a position to gain the inheritance, and that inheritance is righteousness. Look what he says in 16. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him. So the Spirit bears witness with our Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit brings uh makes us aware of the fact that we are children of God, and he confirms that two ways. Well, we're going to get to that. The first one is through suffering with him. But why is he emphasizing the heirs? If we are heirs, we are children, we are heirs, and we are heirs of God, heirs with Christ. That's the point he's emphasizing, because the heir will inherit holiness. If we are children, we are heirs, and if the content of our inheritance is holiness, and we will receive it. So give up legalism, give up trying to earn it on your own because you're going to inherit it. Now that you are a child, now that you can throw your arms around the master's neck and call him daddy, as opposed to enter with your eyes downcast and call him master. Now you are heirs, you will inherit, you give up trying to do it on your own and trust him for it. You're not under obligation to the flesh because you're a son, you're a daughter, you're an heir, and God will give you holiness. It's guaranteed, it's coming. So, how does the spirit bear witness with our spirit? If indeed we suffer with him, and that suffering is evidence that we're children of God, that suffering is evidence of the spirit changing our spirits that we are children and we are stand to inherit. What kind of suffering does he have in view here? I think he's got uh in mind the anxious longing we have to be set free from our sinfulness and and to be made righteous. So the grief over our sins and the longing to be righteous. Because he's going to go on to talk about creation longing for the same thing, and what creation is longing for is being set free from the futility and the corruption and the brokenness of life. So I don't think he's talking so much about trials and tribulations like he was in chapter five, the external pressures of the world, but more the psychological, the emotional, the inward struggle of wanting to be righteous, longing for it, and not having it yet. Going back to what he talked about in chapter seven, the moral paralysis. So the grief over our sinfulness and the longing to be made righteous. It's the kind of struggle that young children endure between between Thanksgiving and Christmas. You know, when our kids were little, it was like exquisite torture to count off the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. They knew they had to wait for this wonderful, glorious day to come, but it seemed so long. And that's the kind of suffering I think he's got in mind here. Um we have a taste of what's to come, we have glimpses of righteousness, and yet we still live in a broken world and we're still broken people. And so we have that longing to be heirs, to be fully to receive our inheritance, and we have this grief over our sinfulness and where we are now, and that's the suffering, that kind of longing for something you don't yet have the way a child longs for Christmas. Um that's evidence that the Spirit is at work in you. If God's Spirit is at work in you, you can know that by seeing this grief over your sinfulness, the longing for righteousness, and if you see that, then you know you are a child of God. And if you're a child of God, you're an heir, and if you're an heir, you will be made holy. So give up self-reliance. Now, the obvious question is why is the suffering so long and so hard? And why does it have to be so hard? Why doesn't God just kind of, you know, zap us into righteousness? Why do we have to endure so many years of longing to be righteous when we're not? And living in a fallen world where tragedies strike, where life is tough, where we hurt and hurt others when we want to be perfect. I don't know the answer to that. Um Paul's gonna answer that next, but he's not really gonna tell us why so much as tell us that it's worth it. Look at verse 18. For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. So his answer is, well, the sufferings of today, yes, they're hard, yes, they're long, but they're not even worth comparing to the glory that's coming. So he doesn't really tell us why, but he does offer the comfort that it's worth it. And that when all is said and done, we'll be glad we did it. And if we when we get to heaven, when we get to the other side, when we cross that finish line, we will look back on this path that we walked and said, It's worth it. If that's the path I had to walk to get to glory, then it's worth it. As hard as it is, as difficult as all the agony and the frustration, we're gonna look at that and say, that's nothing compared to what's coming. He repeat Paul repeats this theme in 2 Corinthians, and there he says he describes our current life as momentary light afflictions, and he says they're not worthy to be compared with the eternal weight of glory. So he contrasts this momentary light afflictions with the eternal weight of glory. Now keep in mind that for Paul, his momentary light afflictions included being stoned, being beaten several times, being imprisoned twice, being shipwrecked, going without food and sleep at various times, losing his reputation, and essentially going through life as a vagabond and ultimately being beheaded. I mean, that doesn't sound like a momentary light affliction to me. It sounds pretty tough. And yet Paul looks at that and says, it's not worth it. You can't even compare it, you can't even put it on the same scale as the eternal weight of glory. So he's going to go on to argue that we share this longing, we share this longing for righteousness and being freed from utility with the creation itself. And he uses the analogy of childbirth. Just like a woman in labor focuses on the birth that's to come and not the pain of the present, so he's encouraging us to focus on the new age to come and not the suffering of the here and now. And life is a lot like labor pains. You know, it gets harder, it gets more intense, it gets closer together. But he's going to argue that it's worth it. Just as going through all that labor is worth it when you get to hold that newborn baby in your life, so the next life is going to well be well worth our labor now. Look at nineteen through twenty-two. For the anxious longing of creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together till now. So he's saying, Creation shares this longing with us. Creation shares this he personifies it, this desire to be free from the decay and the death and the breakdown. So despite all this intricate beauty and design and the structure and this balanced system, this world is falling apart. It's it's broken in the same way we're broken. It takes energy and effort to keep it going, what physicists call entropy, where everything is running out of energy and and um breaking down. Creation groans for the glory for glory just like the children of God. So when he talks about in here the glory to be revealed, I think what he means there is made actual. So revealed in that not something we're told about, but something that is manifested or made actual. So the revealing of the sons of God is the time when the sons of God are actually made glorified and perfect. Now, he's going to go on to talk about us in those same terms, that just as creation hopes for the age to come when we when our glory is revealed, so we do not yet have what it takes to be completely holy, that's our inheritance that's coming, and we long for it the same way. So verse 23. Not only this, but we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For why does one hope for what he sees? But if we but if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, we wait eagerly for it. Okay, so the first fruits of the Spirit is the Holy Spirit, the down payment of our inheritance. Just the same thing he talks about in Ephesians 1. The Spirit is a pledge, a seal that God has chosen us and justified us. It's the first fruit, the down payment. So we groan within ourselves, we have this agony over our sinfulness, this longing to be holy, the mourning that Jesus talks about in the Beatitudes, the hungering and thirsting for righteousness, that kind of soul-wrenching despair of knowing you're sinful and seeing the pain and suffering it causes and wanting to be freed from it. What are we waiting for? We're waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Now, as I said, the Roman custom of choosing an heir was to legally designate that person who would receive the inheritance when they came of age. And Paul's saying we're groaning within ourselves, looking for that time when we actually receive the full inheritance. He's not saying we haven't been adopted yet. We have been adopted, we have been made a part of God's family, but we haven't realized that adoption in full. We don't yet have the full inheritance that comes with being adopted, so we're waiting eagerly for it until it comes, till we come of age. So we're adopted now, but we're looking forward to the full rights and privileges and the wealth of our inheritance. Just as an aside, I think the phrase our adoption is sons, the redemption of our body. I want to talk about that a little bit. Some people have used that phrase to say that, well, we have everything it takes to be righteous now. The problem is we're still trapped in this sinful body. So in other words, we have all the holiness we're ever going to get. The problem is we're still packaged in this sinful body. So what we're looking forward to is our adoption as sons, that is, the redemption of our body, when our b when our body is is brought into line with the perfection that we already have inside. I don't think that's what he's he's talking about here. I think the redemption of the body is the content, is not the content of our adoption, but the timing of our adoption. That those two things happen simultaneously. So that at the point when we receive our full adoption, receive our not our full adoption, our full inheritance. So at the time when we receive our full inheritance is the time when we will also receive a new body. So that the redemption of the body, I think, modifies the time at which that full adoption takes place, not the content. So I don't think Paul would argue that you have all the holiness you're ever going to get and you're just waiting for a new body. I think he would argue you have a taste, you have a down payment, but it's not until the age to come when you get a fully redeemed and glorified body that you will also get your full inheritance. Because if he'd had a physical body, he would have been sinful. They would argue that looking at a verse like this and say, well, we're waiting for our new body because our old body is sinful, and we know Jesus wasn't sinful, so Jesus didn't have a body. He was just a spiritual being. I don't think that's true. That was I think Jesus did have a physical body, and it's not merely being physical that makes someone a sinner. So the redemption of our bodies defines the timing of our inheritance, not the content. And then he he adds, I think the other reason you can take you can be sure of that interpretation is he says we don't yet have what it takes to be righteous. He sums this up in 24 and 25, for in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For why does one also hope for what he sees? In other words, if you had what it takes to be holy, if you had your inheritance now, why would you still be hoping for it? If you hope for what you you don't hope for what you already have, because you already have it. But we've been saved in hope, and we're with perseverance, we're waiting eagerly for it. So if you had it actually and tangibly, you wouldn't need to hope for it. I I don't think I think that's one of the clearest statements in the Bible that we don't yet have our inheritance, that our holiness, our moral obedience is not a full present reality, but a hope that is before us, a guaranteed hope, one that we can have absolute confidence of, but not one that's here yet. So let me just wrap this up a little bit and then I'll give you a chance to ask some questions. If all this is true, what should this mean to us? And to me, I think this section puts life in perspective. It gives you the, I think if you really understand it, it gives you the proper expectations for this life. First, that this life is the wilderness. This life is the labor pains. This is hard, this is tragic, this is gonna hurt. We should expect suffering. So although we have a taste of the life to come, we don't yet have the full installment or the full meal. We're not at the banquet yet. And we should expect this road to be hard. We shouldn't expect the health, wealth, and fulfillment gospel. I think that's heresy. I don't think God promises that. He promises us that there will be groaning and suffering and labor pains in this life. So on the other hand, so on the one hand, it puts life into perspective. We're still sinful. We shouldn't be surprised when we sin or when others sin against us, and we should be quick to forgive both others and ourselves because this is who we are now. Yes, we have higher expectations for Christians, but we shouldn't be surprised when they fail to meet them, because we're all still waiting for our inheritance to come. On the other hand, we have no reason to fear the future. We because we have hope. Yes, this life is hard and it's labor pains, but eventually we're gonna cross that finish line. We're going to get to the new world order. I mean, think about what, for those of you who attend this church, what we've been learning in Exodus. That yes, the Jews were let out of Egypt, but Moses didn't come and say, okay, we're going, and they all packed up and left, and it was nice and easy. They had to go through some pretty tough times to get there. They had to go through Pharaoh's hardening heart and making their lives harder and more miserable, and they had to go through all the plagues, the frogs and the locusts, and the you know, the angel of death. And it got harder as they went through those plagues, but they were let out. They had no reason to fear the future because God was going to lead them. And that's that I think puts life in perspective. We don't need to fear the stock market crashing or world traumas or the disasters or tragedies major and minor in this life, because we know the age to come is coming. And yes, it may be like labor get harder and closer together, but it signals that the new age is coming. I don't need to fear it. So what do we do? We set our heart on heaven, I think. We eagerly wait. Notice how many times eagerly waiting and hoping is repeated through this passage. That's really what Paul's point is. We're to focus on the age to come the way a woman focuses on the baby that's coming to endure the labor pains, and we should be willing to endure whatever God gives us with patience, knowing that joy beyond our wildest dreams is coming. As Paul said, the sufferings of this age aren't worthy to be compared to the joy that's coming. When we get our inheritance, we're going to look at this and say, it was worth it. I'd do it again in a second because of what we've gained. So, yes, this life will be hard, we shouldn't be surprised. Yes, we have all the reason to hope, and we should wait for it eagerly. Let me just pray to close us and then uh we have a few minutes for questions. Father, thank you that you are a God who loves us and saves us, and that you don't leave us trapped in our sinfulness or in our moral paralysis, but you and your grace and infinite mercy provide a way for us to escape that problem. We just pray that you be working these truths into our lives and into our hearts, making them real, making them the fabric of our lives, more than just how we'd vote in a theological debate, but make it the way we see and live and hear and walk and and go through our lives, that our hope would be real and that it would be a hope we could live and share with others. In Jesus' name. Amen.