Rom. 8.12-30 (The Well)

Children of God (v. 12-17)

12 So then—

Future Glory

Stop. Of course when someone starts a sentence like that, we’re supposed to think back to what they just said. Paul has just finished giving us the amazing antidote to the disillusionment he expressed in —there is a law of sin at work in us, and no matter how hard we fight against it, we’re unable to defeat it on our own. So what’s the solution?

That there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit of Christ has saved us in Christ, and set us free from the law of sin. Jesus fulfilled the law for us, condemned our sin in his body on the cross, and set us free to live according to the Spirit. And we have that firm assurance we saw in v. 11, that

11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

In other words, this will work. How can we be so sure that it will work? Because the Spirit living in us, giving life to our mortal bodies, is the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead (which, presumably, is a good deal harder than making us holy).

So Paul says if we have been saved in Jesus Christ, brought from death to life by the Spirit, then he will give life to us; he will cause us to set our minds on the things of the Spirit and become like Christ. Paul takes that fact as a given, and it’s really important to know that going in.

So Paul says, because of all that (v. 12):

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

In other words, if the Spirit assures us that this will happen, we owe him big-time. We are debtors toward him—and the debt that we owe is simply to do what he is giving us the strength to do: don’t live according to the flesh, but live according to the Spirit.

But then he says something that confused me for a long while. He says (v. 13):

13 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.

That confused me, because it sounds like he’s going back on the absolute assurance he gave us before. It’s confusing until we learn that God’s goal in giving us his Word is that we might know him and become like him, and that he uses a lot of different tools to make that happen in us. Sometimes he uses promises, and assurances (we’ll see a good number of those here, as you did last week). And sometimes he uses warnings, and threats of punishment.

And there are two reasons I think he does this. I think he does this because he knows that we’re all different—he created us, after all—so some of us will naturally be better motivated by promises, and some of us will naturally be better motivated by warnings. If you’re a natural worrier, the promises will do you a lot of good, because they’ll take the pressure off and enable you to think clearly. If you naturally throw caution to the wind and imagine nothing bad could ever happen to you, then you need those warnings to keep you in check.

The second reason I think he does this is simply because it’s true. If we continue in our sin, living according to the flesh, we will die. But if by the Spirit we put to death the sin in our lives, we will live. And he tells us the logic behind that (v. 14):

One doesn’t contradict the other:

14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

If by the Spirit, we put our sin to death, we will live—why? Because if we are led by the Spirit in that way, that means we’re his sons. That means we’re his daughters. And a father does not let his children die if he can help it.

My wife and I have two kids—Jack is six and Zadie will be two months old on Tuesday. Zadie’s not doing a lot of running yet—she pretty much just lays there being cute—but Jack is a Tazmanian devil. I think it’s physically impossible for him to walk: the kid runs. All the time. He’s a fan of parkour, so he literally bounces off the walls.

And we live in the dead center of Paris, which means that every day we’re cheating death with him, because there are cars driving by, and just a little sliver of sidewalk separating the cars from Jack.

To his credit, he’s very careful most of the time, but let’s say he ran out into the street and a car was coming, and I saw it. I’m his dad, and I love him more than anything. Which means I would be willing to grab him by the collar—or even by the hair, if I had to—and yank him out of the road to keep him safe. I would be willing to run out into the street myself and get hit by that car instead of him, if it would keep him safe.

If you remember, this is exactly what Paul just told us God did. He sent his willing Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and killed him to save us. And in so doing, he made us his sons and daughters. And God doesn’t let his children die. If by the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body, we will live…because we are his children.

And Paul says that if we are saved, if we have his Spirit, then we know that, almost instinctively. V. 15:

15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

There’s a girl in our church named Natalia; she’s Russian, grew up in an orthodox family, and began coming to our church a curious agnostic. My wife invited her to come read the Bible with some other women.

We were convinced she had faith before she even realized it, but she always hesitated to make that affirmation because there were still a few things she didn’t quite understand (and she knew she’d be rejected by her family if she did).

Then one Sunday I made an invitation to the church to anyone who wanted to be baptized; I explained what baptism was and what was required to be baptized (i.e. nothing but faith in Christ). And she came to me after the service and said, “Yeah, I don’t know what I’m waiting for; I should have been baptized a while ago.”

We’d been praying for her for so long, I was thrilled. I told her that we’d known for a long time that she had faith; and I said, “But now, you know that you’re his too.” And she just said, “Yeah, I’ve been his for a while now.”

That knowledge, that realization, is what Paul’s saying. If we belong to him, we know it—the Spirit does something in us to let us know—not just in our heads, but in our guts—that we belong to him.

But, Paul says, this doesn’t mean everything’s going to be rosy from here on out. There will be suffering, because Christ suffered. Because we’re God’s children, we’re also his heirs with Christ—heirs of everything that came to him. His suffering, but also the glory he received at his resurrection. And that is where Paul ratchets the assurance up a notch.

The Glory of the Children of God (v. 18-25)

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Whatever it is you’re going through, no matter how hard it is, there is no common measure between that suffering and the glory we’re waiting for. The good promised to us is infinitely better than the bad is bad today.

And this is great: the earth itself is aware of this fact. V. 19:

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 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. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Remember the Garden of Eden? When Eve sin, he cursed her (and all women after her) to painful childbirth and conflict with the men. When Adam sinned, God didn’t just curse Adam; he cursed the ground (). He said, “This world will fight against you; work will be hard. Planting and harvesting will be a challenge.” And Paul says that the earth itself in some way feels that something is off, and is eagerly longing for the day when Christ will make everything right again.

And we feel that even more keenly, because we’re actually conscious of what’s going on, v. 23:

23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

We shouldn’t have to say it, but we do: it’s okay to have a hard time dealing with this place. We feel like things shouldn’t be like this—it shouldn’t be this hard, life shouldn’t be such a burden—and we’re right. That’s an unhappy consequence of man’s sin against God. But even in the garden God promised that one day a man would come who would crush the serpent’s head: that all that’s wrong with the earth will one day be made right again.

We know this, and we hold onto this and we’re waiting eagerly for it, and until that day comes, it’s like we’re fighting to breathe. We’re groaning inwardly while we wait for Christ to return and right all of these wrongs.

It’s easy to see that as a bad thing, but it’s not. This groaning, this waiting, for the redemption of our bodies…Paul calls it hope, v. 24:

24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

We have to understand that the Bible doesn’t talk about hope the way we usually do. We say things like, “I hope the weather’s nice this weekend,” when we have zero assurance that it will be. We’d like it to happen, that’s what we mean.

Hope in the Bible is very different. It’s when we have the certainty that something will happen (because God promised it would), and we wait for it, and we look forward to it. Hope in the Bible is never a negative affair; it’s that feeling you get after a long trip, when your plane finally lands, and you know that just on the other side of that wall, your family is waiting to welcome you home.

Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Now, Paul decides to lay it on as thick as possible. He gives a kind of list of implications of everything he’s said so far, and the sum of the parts is the absolute assurance that we enjoy as God’s children. He gives us three separate reasons for assurance: two which are present, and one which is both present and future.

The Assurance of the Children of God (v. 26-30)

Our first assurance as the children of God is that the Spirit who saved us, the Spirit who causes us to live the way God would have us live, the Spirit who tells us we are God’s children, the Spirit who causes us to hope for the day Christ will return to renew all things...this same Spirit prays for us. We have the ultimate prayer partner. V. 26:

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

This is beautiful for guys like me who are prayerfully impaired. Praying has always been the hardest part of the Christian life for me—not just because it’s hard talking to someone I don’t see (though that’s part of it). Mostly, it’s because I’m very aware of how stupid I am.

M

I’ve seen it best in my marriage. My wife and I were married young (we were 22), and we got married way too fast—nine weeks after we met. It was stupid of us, and because we barely knew each other when we got married, the first five years or so of our marriage were just awful. And mostly they were awful because I just didn’t understand her. I still don’t. She’d get upset about something, and I’d be like… [Lost look] “I just don’t know. What’s going on?” And then she’d do something, and I’d get mad, and I had no idea why I was so mad.

Most of my life is like that—faced with nearly every problem, I just don’t have the faintest idea what’s happening, much less how to make it better. So I want to pray, but I have no idea how to start.

You can imagine my relief when I read this seriously for the first time and saw Paul say, For we do not know what to pray for as we ought. YES! That’s it! That’s the problem!

And the solution to that problem is better than I ever could have imagined: when I don’t know how to pray, the Spirit prays for me. And he always prays exactly what he should pray, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Because we are God’s children, we have the ultimate prayer partner: God himself. This should free us up a lot, brothers and sisters.

We never need to worry about praying wrong, because the Spirit’s there: “No, Father, don’t listen to that; here’s what he should have said. Do that for him.”

We never need to worry about neglecting to pray for what we ought to, because the Spirit’s there: “Oh, and Father, he forgot to pray for this, and this, and this.”

We should always seek to grow in our ability to pray according to the will of God; we should work at it and try to get better at it. But we never need to worry about our lousy prayers, because the Spirit’s interceding for us.

Next, because we are God’s children, we will be like him. V. 28:

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good...

Now this verse has been abused on a million coffee cups and bumper stickers, because they leave out the end of v. 28, and all of v. 29. Without the rest of the passage, this promise amounts to that kind of weak reassurance someone gives us when they don’t know how to reassure us—“Oh, honey, I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

Thank God Paul didn’t stop there—he does two things in what comes next that take this promise out of the realm of “Things your mom says to make you feel better when you’re sad.”

Firstly, he tells us that this will happen because God planned it that way. V. 28 again:

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

I’m sure you know this already, but it always bears repeating: none of this is an accident. Before he created the world, God had planned his Son; he had planned our salvation; he had planned to call us to himself, to give us his Spirit to bring us from death to life, to reveal himself to us and cause us to love him.

So when he tells us that all things work together for our good, I believe him: because that was his plan all along.

Secondly, Paul specifies for us what the “good” he’s talking about actually is. It is the farthest thing from a simple “Everything’s going to be okay.” The “good” that God works out for us is conformity to the image of his Son. V. 28 again:

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son [this is the “good” he’s talking about!], in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Before time began, God knew his children. Loanne and I waited nine years to have our first child; Jack was a long time coming. Then, when Jack was two, we began trying for a second baby. It took four years to have Zadie. When they finally came out and I saw their little faces for the first time, in both cases my first thought was the same: “I know you.”

If you don’t have kids it’s hard to describe, but if you do, you’ll understand. Newborns are weird looking: they’re wrinkly and mad, and don’t have much to merit our attention. You can look at a million newborn babies and feel nothing at all; but when it’s yours, you’re enchanted. You can look at that little face for hours. And the only reason that’s possible is because you know that face, you know that little person.

That’s what this “foreknowledge” of God is talking about. Before we ever arrived, God knew us as his children. And that knowledge wasn’t based simply on his knowledge of what we would do—no one chooses to be born, or born again—it’s something he does in us, because he’s known us forever.

So God has always known his children, and if he knew us as his children, he predestined us. When we use the word “predestined” people start to freak out, because they always link it directly to salvation.

Now that’s true—as we’ll see in a minute—but that’s not the angle Paul takes here. He didn’t just predestine us to be saved. He predestined us to be like Jesus, to be conformed to the image of his Son. And it wasn’t just for us—God had a plan here as well, a plan that’s bigger than any one of us: he predestined us to be like Christ so that Christ may be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

God’s plan for his people is that he might choose to save people from all nations, races and languages, and make of all of these disparate parts a family of brothers and sisters among whom there is a distinct family resemblance. His plan was to adopt people from all over the world, and to change them so that no matter what they look like, it might be immediately evident that This is one of Jesus’s little brothers. This is one of Jesus’s little sisters.

God’s goal in saving us is bigger than simply giving us eternal life. His goal is to elevate and glorify his Son Jesus Christ, by making his adopted children to be like him.

Lastly, Paul gives us an assurance that is past, present and future, and it is simply that our salvation is sure. V. 29 again:

Our Salvation Is Sure (Present and Future)

29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Our salvation was sure before the world was created, because God already knew us as his children.

It was sure before the world was created because since God knew us, he predestined us to be like Jesus.

Our salvation is still sure today, because those whom he predestined, he also called. He called us from death to life by his Holy Spirit. He opened our eyes to see the beauty of Christ and the wonder of the gospel. He changed our hearts to love what he loves and hate what he hates. He called us to himself.

Our salvation is sure because those whom God called, he also justified. He sent Jesus Christ to live our life and die our death and be raised for our justification—he put our sins on Jesus and killed him for it; then he raised him from the dead and gave us his perfect life. Now when he looks at us, he does not see the imperfect sinners that we are; he sees the just sons and daughters he has made us to be.

And our salvation is sure because those whom he justified, he also glorified. This is strange, because we just read, in v. 17-23, that we’re still waiting for this glory: we suffer with him IN ORDER THAT we may also be glorified with him, and we’re still waiting for this glory to be revealed to us.

This is what I love about this. The glory that is to be revealed to us—that day when Christ will return and renew our bodies and share the glory he received at his resurrection with us, forever—the glory that is to be revealed to us is so sure, and so certain, that Paul can refer to it in the past tense.

Our salvation is certain, brothers and sisters. If we belong to him, if the Spirit dwells in us, and has given us faith in his Son, then our salvation is rooted in the past, active in the present, and certain in the future. There is no room for doubt here, and the good news is that there’s no reason for doubt here.

Application

This text is profoundly challenging for us. And depending on what kind of person you are, it’s challenging for two different reasons.

There are two extremes we may go to in our personality, and all kinds of shades in between—this text speaks directly to those two extreme.

There is one extreme—these are the folks who are simply not comfortable with the idea of someone else doing everything for them. We’re proud people. It’s the American dream, isn’t it? You work hard, you pay your dues, and when your dreams can come true, you can proudly know that you’re the one who pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps and made this happen.

The reason this text is so challenging for us is because we’re not used to someone else doing everything for us. We’re proud. It’s the American dream, isn’t it? You work hard, you pay your dues, and when your dreams can come true, you can proudly know that you’re the one who pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps and

But this text doesn’t give us any room for that. He is the one who gave us his Spirit, set us free from sin, witnessed to our spirits that we are his children; it is his Spirit who intercedes for us; it is he who foreknew us and predestined us and