Romans 8:12-25; Children of God

Jason Sterling May 3, 2026 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL Bulletin

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Transcript

Reading Romans 8:12-25

SPEAKER_00 0:23

You have a copy of God's word turned with me this morning, Romans chapter 8. Romans 8. So go to your New Testament. If you have uh visiting with us this morning or a guest, we just study the Bible at our church and we go through books of the Bible and study them together, normally rotate between Old and New Testament, and this morning or this spring, we've been in the book of Romans, and this morning we find ourselves in Romans chapter 8, which is considered by many to be the greatest chapter in all the Bible. So with that in mind, follow along with me. This is the Word of God, Romans 8, 12 through 25. 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 you by the Spirit, 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 of God are sons of God, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, and heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this 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 corruption 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 grown inwardly as we eagerly, as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 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. This is the word of God. Let's pray and let's ask for the Spirit to help us this morning with this passage. Let's pray together. Father, we come this morning in a room this size from lots of different places. Some of us are in a marriage that seems like it's hanging by a thread. Others of us, our bodies are breaking down and we're aging, and it brings a lot of fear. Some of us are experiencing grief. Grief because we lost someone we've loved, and it just won't seem to lift and let us go. Some of us are full of longings unfulfilled. And we could go on and on describing where people are this morning. You have brought us here. It's not an accident. And you have this word for us this morning. And so I'm asking that you would take this word and encourage us and give us hope. Show us Jesus, show us the goodness of our adoption, the glory of the gospel. Do this in Jesus' name. Amen. What do you do when life punches you in the gut and knocks the breath out of you? What do you do when you find yourself suffering in a way that you cannot seem to get your feet back under you? Some of us shut down. Others of us go quiet, we pull back, and we just kind of hang on and grit our teeth, waiting for it to pass. Some people walk away. We do anything and everything in order to make sense of the things in our life that don't seem to make sense. And rarely in the middle of that do we ask the question that Paul is asking here. Rarely in the middle of our suffering do we stop and ask, who am I in the middle of this suffering, whatever it is that you're going through? Because you see, suffering has a way of making us forget, doesn't it? Making us forget what is true. When the world comes apart, we wonder does all of this matter? Does being a child of God matter at all? Are these promises that I've grown up with or that I hear about every single week, are they real? And Paul knows this. And he knows that we cannot suffer until we know whose we are. Because you see, identity doesn't just shape how you feel, identity shapes how you suffer. Identity shapes how you deal with your pain in life. It determines whether or not, to say it another way, whether you're just groaning or whether you are groaning towards something. And there's a difference. One leads you to hope, and the other one leads to cynicism. And so the question this morning is this if we are children of God, what does that mean for suffering well in this broken world? If we are children of God, how does that shape how we suffer in this broken world in which we live? And the answer to that question, we look at, we'll see three things in this question. We need to know our identity, we need to groan honestly, and we need to cling to hope. Identity, groaning, and hope. That's our roadmap this morning. And let's look at each of those in turn. So let's start with our first point, our identity, and let's just work through the passage. Look at verses 12 through 13. It starts with this idea of putting the deeds of the body, putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, it says, and you will live. And when you first read that, that sounds like obligation, that sounds like pressure, but Paul immediately drops a word here that reframes everything. And you see it in verse 14, the word for. And what follows isn't a command, it is the reason behind the commands. We do not fight sin out of fear, and we do not suffer out of duty. You do both because of who you are. And who are we? Verse 15. Those who are led by the Spirit, they are sons of God. And then Paul makes this very significant contrast. You see it in verse 15, and he tells us that there are two spirits on offer here. The first is a spirit of slavery. And if you look at the passage, it's marked by fear, it's marked by performance, it's always bracing for rejection. And then Paul says, Christians have received something else entirely: a spirit of adoption. The cry of a child who knows who he is, not because they've earned it, but because they've been adopted. And it's important for us, if we're really going to understand this passage, to understand something about the Roman world of adoption. And it was no small thing. It was irrevocable, it was dramatic, and it changed everything immediately for the child. Every old debt was canceled, legally erased. The adopted child received a new name. They became an instant heir to everything that the father possessed. And here's the one that stops me every single time. The father became personally liable for all of the child's obligations. All of their debts, all of their crimes, every single thing. The debt didn't just disappear, it transferred. You see the gospel? You see the cross? You see, God didn't just look at your debt and wave it away. He takes it on. Jesus absorbed every single obligation that you and I have accumulated. Every sin, every failure, everything that we owe, Jesus took. And he paid for it himself. And notice what our adoption status produces here. Look again at the text. A cry. Abba. That's not how you address a judge. That is how a child calls for their father. And it's even more intimate than that. The word is closer to daddy than to father. And Jesus uses this word, get this. Every single, in every single one of his recorded prayers, with one exception. And you know what the exception is? At the cross. And as he's hanging on a cross, remember he doesn't cry Abba. He doesn't cry, Father, Father. Remember, he says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why? Because at that moment he was bearing our sin. That was the one moment in all eternity that Jesus could not call God Father, and he went there so that you and I never have to. And when you feel, when you can't feel God's nearness and presence, when suffering maybe has made God feel distant to you, and the word father is not coming easily in your life. Look at verse 16. It tells you what is still true. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit, God's Spirit, with our spirit, that we are children of God. It's not always loud, but it's always there, testifying, saying, You belong to me. But here's the problem. We can know all of that and still live like none of that is true. Which means you can have the spirit of adoption and still functionally live like you're a slave. What does that look like? How do you know you're living like a slave? Well, a slave, their access to God fluctuates based on performance. So if you're having a good day, you feel like you're all good with God, you're having a bad day, then you're out with God. It affects how you pray. When you're having a good day, prayer feels more natural to you. You feel more connected. Slaves also read every hard thing in their life and every suffering as payback. That God is paying you back for something that you've done, or that God is pulling back, or that God is disappointed in you, or that God is somehow keeping score. Slaves are also always bracing for rejection. You know what that's like? To walk through the world and always be like, oh no, what's coming next? There's no freedom, there's no life, there's no joy because you're scared that God is going to reject you. And here's the thing, we might not even know that we're actually doing this. And that's what Paul is after here. It's not just, hey, here's your status, but it's like, are you living out of your status? Are you living out of the truth that you are a child of God? Has that truth impacted the way you live in the here and now? Let me give you a picture. Think about parenting if you're a parent, or maybe you experience this as a child, but your child does something wrong, and instead of coming to you, they quietly disappear, they go quiet, maybe they go hide in the closet. Maybe they won't make eye contact with you, or maybe they're going around you in order to fix something before you find out. And what breaks your heart is not what they did. What breaks your heart's the hiding. What breaks your heart's the shame that they feel. The fact that they think that they've broken something that can't be broken. And everything in you wants to grab the child and say, just come. Just come to me and let me wrap my arms around you. I already know everything, and it doesn't change how I feel about you. It doesn't change who you are to me. You're still mine. You belong to me. You see, the orphan or the child hiding in the closet isn't an orphan. They are a child who has forgotten that they are a child. And that's what Paul's getting at. He's not just telling you your status, he's trying to wake us up to who we are, that we already belong, that the gospel has made you a child. And he's saying, now live out of that reality. And so, what would that look like to live in that reality? Well, we could spend a lot of time talking about that. But here's one thing, a few things you would smile more. You would laugh more. You know, sometimes Christians, we seem like we're pretty miserable. You're adopted by God, a child of God. We would laugh, we would be honest, we would move towards God, not away from God, because we know the relationship is secure. We'd be full of freedom and joy and peace and we would rest and we would suffer differently. Because you see, it doesn't mean being a child of God doesn't mean the pain goes away. But it does change how you respond when you're in the middle of it. A slave suffers alone, convinced that the father has finally had enough and given up. But a child suffers differently, held by the relationship that cannot be broken. Confirmed by a spirit that testifies that you belong to God. And while you know in the middle of it, you don't understand, you don't know why this is happening, but you know one thing with a hundred percent certainty, it cannot be, because you're a child of God, it cannot be that God doesn't love you. It can't be that. You see the difference in how we suffer out of being a child of God versus a slave? Our identity, number one. Secondly, our groaning. Look at verse 17. Heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ, provided that we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. This is a pretty strong transition. We go from the height of our privilege as uh in God's family, the heirs of God, children of God, to the harshest reality in the Christian life. You will suffer. But please understand, it's not because you've done something wrong. You're suffering because you belong to Jesus. That's what verse 17 is saying. The world rejected him, it will reject you. He faced opposition and disappointment and pain. We will face those things. Why? Because we belong to Jesus. We will suffer before we reach glory. Why? Because that was the pattern of Jesus, and because we're united to him and we're co-heirs with him, that will also be the pattern in our life. But notice here, he doesn't stop there with persecution. Verse 18, he broadens it and opens it up to everything. Every broken body, every devastating diagnosis, every loss, everything in the world that's not the way it's supposed to be. Paul opens it up to that. And notice he says, I consider. And so it's a deliberate act of the mind. Paul is deliberately, intentionally pulling what he believes about the future. He's pulling it into the present. In the middle of his suffering, he's not focusing on how he feels, he's not focusing on his present circumstances. He's looking forward. He's looking at what's coming. And what's coming for the Christian is glory. And he says it doesn't compare to the suffering that we're experiencing. And the word, not worth comparing, it's a word describing something heavy enough to tip a scale. So think about those old-timey scales. You have suffering on one side and glory on the other. The glory is so weighty that the suffering, the real pain and suffering cannot even begin to move the needle. Not even close does it compare to what is coming for the Christian. And then look at verse 19. I love this. He zooms out. And this is to me one of the most striking images in the Bible, but particularly in Romans. I love this. For creation waits in eager longing. And the word picture here that's given is standing on tiptoe. So imagine uh straining your neck, looking over the horizon, standing on tiptoe in order to see what is coming. J.B. Phillips translates this as creation standing on tiptoe. And that is an amazing image to me. Think about that with me. Every ocean, every tree, every mountain straining, looking ahead. They cannot see, but they know that glory is coming and they're looking for it. What is what are they waiting for? What are they looking for? Keep reading the text. You. They're waiting for you. The revealing of the children of God. That's us. Everyone who belongs to Christ, when Jesus returns, we will finally and fully be in all of our glory at the resurrection, conformed into the image of God, made completely what we were always made to be. That is the day that creation gets liberated to, along with us. Okay, but why are they groaning in the meantime? Well, keep reading, because they got swept up in the wreckage of the fall. Genesis chapter three didn't just break us and break humanity. It broke everything. Everything dies, everything decays, and the whole order groans together, waiting to be freed and me made new. Verse 23, we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we await, eagerly await redemption of our bodies. We have the Spirit, the first fruits, meaning it's a guarantee, it's a foretaste. And Paul says it's the first fruits of what is coming, and yet we still groan because we live in the gap. We live waiting. What theologians call the already, not yet. Yes, we are adopted, but we wait for the fullness of our adoption when Jesus will return. John Stott said that some Christians grin too much and groan too little, meaning they have no room in their theology for pain. And so they ignore it or downplay it or fake it till they make it or just smile and pretend like everything's okay. That's one failure. But the equal and opposite failure is groaning just to groan. And when we groan just to groan, it makes us cynical. Because Paul is saying we groan, and our groaning as Christians has a direction, it has a destination, and it's towards our future glory. And so, what has knocked the breath out of you? Let me be more specific. What is knocking the breath out of you right now this morning? Maybe it's your marriage. Maybe it's a diagnosis. Maybe it's an unanswered prayer or a broken relationship. Maybe you've lost someone you love. And Paul isn't telling you to feel differently. He is telling you what your groaning actually means. And that our groaning is not the sound of someone who has been abandoned. It's the sound of someone who knows that the story is not over. An orphan groans because no one is coming. We as children of God, we groan because glory is coming. Because this life has a destination and glory is on its way. And so, yes, groan. But groan on your tiptoes. Groan with your eyes fixed in the new heavens and new earth. Friends, that day is certain. And that is enough to sustain you today, whatever it is that you're going through and dealing with. Lastly, our hope. Look at verse 24. For in this hope we were saved. Okay, so not by hope. We're saved by hope. Jesus saves us. We're saved in hope. Okay, so the moment you were saved, God gave you a direction and it's forward. You're not just saved from something, you're saved into something. And it says you're saved into hope. Well, what are we exactly hoping for? Look at verse 23 again. We're hoping for that second moment in our adoption that's already secured when our sonship will be fully and publicly and cosmically declared, the day when no one will be able to look at you and wonder whether or not you belong to God, but you will be clothed in glory. And so what do we do while we wait? Look at verse 25. We wait for that day with patience, not passive resignation, not holding your breath. The word here, I love this, is it means load bearing. So it gets at this kind of patience that keeps you on your feet. When life is pressing down on you and is a heavy burden to bear, it keeps you on your feet because you know that the story is not over and you know how the story is going to end. And so the question in this morning in this passage puts to us is not whether or not you will suffer. The answer to that is very clear. Yes, we will suffer. The question in this passage is putting before us is how are you waiting? Say it another way, what kind of waiter are you? Because you see, there's a kind of waiting that's just holding your breath and gritting your teeth and putting life on hold, waiting for the gap to close, for your prayers to get answered, and everything to work back out so that everything gets resolved. That's not living. That's not life. That's not what Paul is describing here. Paul is describing Christian hope that doesn't put life on pause, that lives life to the fullest, that sees life as a gift, and it frees you to live fully because you are not carrying the weight of an unexpected or uncertain outcome. The resurrection has already happened, the Spirit has been given, the adoption is already sealed. It changes something in us in the here and now. You can enter into the suffering of the person next to you. Really enter into it because you're not carrying the weight of an uncertain outcome. You can grieve without being destroyed because grief and hope are not opposites. We groan and we also hope at the same time. What does that mean for our church? Well, this is the thing that stood out to me the most this week in this passage. Did you catch how many times we is mentioned in this passage? The groaning is not just yours, it's ours. The church suffers together. It's not a collection of individuals suffering privately and trying to manage their suffering on their own. No, we are the body of Christ, and that means that when suffering comes to the person next to us, and it will, we get involved. We jump in. We're not bystanders. We are part of what God is using in someone's life as the church to hold them steady. And when you can't get up and put one in front of the other, you have a brother or sister in Christ who comes and they put their arm around you and they say, Look, keep looking. Glory is coming. And Jesus, you have you are a child of God. The church is a group of people. That's all we do. We put our arms around each other in the middle of suffering, and we fix our eyes on what's ahead, and we groan together and we keep over and over pointing people and pointing one another to the certain hope that we have in Jesus and to our future glory. Florence Chadwick, I'll close with this, was one of the greatest swimmers, long-distance swimmers in history. She was the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. And in 1952, she wanted to swim from Catalina Island, 26 miles, from Catalina Island to the California shore. 15 hours in the water, you can imagine, exhausted. She had her father in a rowboat next to her and her trainer on the other side. And then when she was getting fairly close, a dense fog rolled in and she couldn't see ahead. And so she started to panic. Her trainer started to encourage her. They gave her things for her energy and all sorts of things to keep her going. But the fatigue eventually overwhelmed her and she begged to be pulled out of the water. And her father said, You were so close, you could have made it. She couldn't see. And so they pulled her into the boat and they uh rowed to the shore and found out she was one mile short. Well, two months later, she tried it again. The fog rolled in once again, but this time she kept swimming. And she kept swimming because she knew the shore was there. The fog was real, the cold was real, the exhaustion was real, but so was the shore, whether she could see it or not. That's what Paul is describing. The Christian hope is not a mental strategy, it is confidence in a reality that already exists. Yes, your suffering is real, but so is the glory that is coming. And the difference between Florence Chadwick and us is that we have the Spirit of God inside of us. He is in the water with us, reminding us that we are children of God and that he will never let us go. Jesus is already at the shore. He's already made it, he's secured a place for you, and he is waiting. And so, church, don't give up. Hold on to Jesus. Keep your eyes fixed on your future glory. You are not an orphan, you are a child of God, and that is foundational for suffering well in this broken and fallen world in which we live. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for adopting us. Forgive us for the ways that we live as orphans, performing, embracing, forgetting who we are. And Holy Spirit, would you come and do what only you can do, and that is bear witness with our hearts in the middle of the fog, in the middle of whatever it is that we're dealing with with. Remind us that we belong to you and help us to move towards one another, to encourage one another so that we keep our eyes fixed forward on the new heavens and new earth. Thank you for the glory that awaits us in Jesus' name. Amen.