Our passage today, Romans 8:17-25, is all about that. It’s all about suffering and finding hope. It’s about understanding the design of God in suffering, seeing beyond our suffering, and learning to wait in patience in the midst of suffering for the glory that is yet to be revealed in us. So this is a passage, in my judgment, that we really need in these days. There are tools here that we’ve got to learn to use as we try to make sense of the days in which we are presently living. And to help us get at Paul’s teaching, we’re going to think about suffering and glory under two broad headings. First of all, suffering and glory in union with Jesus Christ. Suffering and glory in union with Christ.

If you look at the text with me for just a moment, I want you to see Paul highlighting three aspects of our adoption in particular. Verses 14 through 17, three blessings that are entailed in the fact that we have become the children of God. First, verse 15, he says because we are adopted children of God we enjoy the blessing of access. We have access. We can come boldly to God and call Him Abba Father. Access. Secondly, in verse 16, because we are adopted children of God we can enjoy the blessing of assurance. The Holy Spirit testifies with our spirits that we are, indeed, God’s children. And then finally in verse 17, because we are adopted children of God we enjoy the blessing of a glorious future inheritance. We are heirs of God and coheirs with Christ since we are God’s children now. Access, assurance, and inheritance - because we are the children of God. 

And as we turn our attention this morning to verses 12 and 13, I want you to see that Paul is beginning now to draw some preliminary conclusions. He is applying at this point all that he’s been saying so far. Notice how verse 12 begins, “So then, brothers.” “So in view of everything I’ve been saying, given all of these glorious truths, brothers, here are the implications.” And he structures his encouragement and exhortations to us around two controlling metaphors. Do you see them in verses 12 and 13? First of all he says, “If everything I’ve been telling you is true, we need to understand that Christians are debtors.” That’s the first metaphor - Christians are debtors, verse 12, “So then, brothers, we are debtors.” Then secondly, the next metaphor he says, “If everything I’ve been saying is true, we need to understand Christians must not only be debtors, they must also be executioners.” Verse 13, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” So do you see those two metaphors? We’re going to simply use those to structure our message this morning. Christians are debtors and Christians must be executioners.

This time, we’re going to focus on verses 9 through 11 where Paul elaborates on what it means to have the Holy Spirit come into our lives. And we can sum up the teaching of these three verses very simply in just three words. First in verse 9, Paul talks about residence. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell, to reside within us, and we’ll need to unpack that together in a few moments. Residence. Then verse 10, regeneration. That is, when the Spirit comes to dwell in us, He gives us new life in union with Jesus Christ. He regenerates us. Residence. Regeneration. And finally in verse 11, resurrection. The Spirit who resides in us, having regenerated us, will, God promises us, one day raise our bodies according to the pattern of Christ’s own glorious resurrection from the dead. 

This week, in verses 5 through 8 where our attention will fall, Paul is unpacking the basic contrast with which he has been working - the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit. He wants to make particularly clear that the whole world falls into one of these two categories. Either we live according to the flesh or according to the Spirit.

This week, we turn our attention to verses 3 and 4 which are really a continuation of Paul’s argument about our transformed lives, about how we are being sanctified. He wants us to understand how it is that God has done and is doing that great work - the grounds and basis for our sanctification. And if you look at verses 3 and 4 with me for a moment you’ll notice immediately that Paul structures his teaching here around the doctrine of the blessed Trinity. 

Today, as we turn to the second verse of Romans chapter 8 the metaphor changes. We’re no longer thinking about a judicial sentence pronounced over us. Now, we’re thinking about freedom from the bondage and the shackles of cruel slavery and that changes the entire trajectory of our lives. Verse 2 says we have been “set free from the law of sin and death.” So verse 1 is about justification. Verse 2 is about sanctification. Verse 1 is about God’s gracious verdict with regard to our legal standing before Him. But verse 2 is about God’s gracious work within us with regard to the way we live before Him. Verse 1 happens in the courtroom of heaven. Verse 2 happens, as it were, in the slave market of our own hearts. Verse 1 is about removing sin’s damnable pollution. Verse 2 is about destroying sin’s debasing power.

Well let me invite you now please to take a Bible in hand and turn to Romans chapter 8; Romans chapter 8. We are beginning a new series working our way through this great chapter. As I thought about what might speak comfort and encouragement to our hearts during this strange, uncertain time, it seemed to me there are very few places in Scripture that offer more help to us than the eighth of Romans. It is rightly beloved because it surveys, doesn’t it, the entire landscape of Christian blessing - from our justification, as we’ll see today, our right-standing with God, through sanctification and adoption, to glorification and on even to consider the new creation at the end of the ages. Here in Romans 8 our drooping heads are lifted, our fearful hearts are comforted, our doubting minds are assured, and we are reminded of the riches that are ours forever in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

But into that situation of weakness and neediness, God speaks a word of grace through the lips of the apostle Paul to needy Christians in Philippi. “My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” And this morning I just want you to see four things very quickly. I want you to see who the supplier is. I want you to see that He supplies. I want you to see the supplies from which He supplies your needs. And then I want you to see the Savior.