Inheritance - Suffering - Glorification
Romans 8:17-18 · Mike Doyle · Mar 17, 2024
Romans (2022-25), No. 066
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261934347552

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Morning. Can you tell that I'm Irish? We've got some interesting verses today, and hopefully they'll be clear to us as we go through. Roger's been teaching me about how to use the slides a little better, and I'm getting a little better at it. You'll probably notice as I go through them.

So the first thing in chapter eight. Chapter eight's divided into four paragraphs. The focus is not on salvation or justification. The focus is on spiritual growth. The Holy Spirit is mentioned 18 times in this chapter. So the first section was verse one through four, which we talked about the Spirit liberating us from the law and liberating us from the flesh, slice of sin nature. The second paragraph is five through 13, which Roger covered most of that.

We learn that the spirit's incompatibility with the flesh. The spirit can't get along with the flesh and vice versa. They're mutually exclusive. They cannot be mixed. The believer has an option though. He can either walk in the spirit or he can walk in the flesh.

The paragraph they're going to talk about today is 14-17, the Spirit's leading and His witnessing to us. And lastly, verses 18-33, the Spirit's intercession as we wait for glory. So, that's the way that the chapter is set up. And I'm gonna work on 15, 16, and 17 today. I know Roger did a lot of work on 15 last week, but I think they go together.

For we have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons, which we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, heirs also, heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. So, when you first, Encounter these verses, you think, well, there isn't a lot there. But I had to cut about five pages out of my sermon after I spent time here. It's really, we're on really holy ground here.

If Solomon in the Old Testament could ask a wondering question, which was, but will God, in fact, dwell with men on the earth? when his visible glory filled the temple. In 2 Chronicles, what shall we say when the living God in the person of the Holy Spirit comes to abide in us? I'm persuaded we don't really realize what this means, that the Spirit of God abides in us. Samuel Rideout said, if we did, what meekness would mark us, what disgust of sin we would have, what quickness in the reverence of the Lord and detection of the most suitable for subtle forms of evil, the Spirit of God living in us.

We can describe the sanctifying effect of simply the realization of this dependence fact. I can talk about it, I can pray about it. And as much as I know practically what the consciousness of this abiding would bring, the more I'm aware and the more he witnesses to me, the more my attitude begins to look at things from the standpoint of his view, not mine.

So if you take a look in John 16, John, the Lord said to John, but when he, the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he won't speak of his own initiative, but will, whatever he hears, he will speak and he will disclose it to you.

What is to come? So he's coming for a purpose. He comes in and dwells us for a purpose. He will glorify me for he will take of mine and disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore I said that he takes of mine and he will disclose it to you. Pretty interesting thing.

I'm envisioning the apostles listening to this and having not a clue what he's talking about. It takes the indwelling of the spirit to just comprehend what he's saying here. And you know, it's interesting, he's saying this to the apostles, but it's not limited just to them. Because he's gonna take the value of it and put it to us, every believer. This is gonna be true of them. Fruitfulness and all else spoken of in the 15th and other chapters surely are not limited to the apostles. So what does scripture teach to us the character of this indwelling spirit?

How does he operate? Notice particularly that he works by the truth. He guides us into all truth. God is light, in him there's no darkness at all, so when the Son of God occupies us with his life and the Spirit occupies us with his presence, he must enlighten. He has to do that, because that's what he is. Enlightenment suggests how it's secured, it is by the truth. Even the Lord said, look, sanctify them or set them apart, Through the truth, thy word is truth. So the emphasis here is put on understanding God's truth. And one of the biggest problems in Christianity today is people don't read their Bibles. They don't read them, so they don't know the truth. So they don't know how it works and how the spirit works.

It is the spirit of a man that understands. And this is the highest part of his being, controlling all the rest. This is God's order, and when the spirit engages in his sanctifying work, it is through this action, William Newell. Maybe put it another way. We think we understand by intellect, into the soul, into the spirit. If you're in Christ, it's the other way around. There's a revelation to your spirit by the spirit of God and you know, and we'll see more as I expand on this.

Again and again, we'll return to this fact. Spiritual intelligence is the very cornerstone of holiness and freedom from sin. Where does that come from? I read it in a book somewhere? No. It's the revelation directly to your spirit that these facts are true. That's how you know it.

The truth of God is embodied in his word. In that we have a full revelation which he has been pleased to make of himself and his counsels, centering in Christ and including what we've seen, the spirit of adoption. And we'll expand on that in a minute. I'm increasingly convinced the overwhelming importance of God's word Where would we be? We were studying this morning in Sunday school about Timothy, instructed by Paul to carry out some elder duties, I guess you'd say. But what's his reference? His reference is Paul the Apostle.

He had the information, he had the authority, and we have God's word, which is everything that Paul taught is written down, so we can go to that for authority. The importance of the word of God, the scriptures of the Old and New Testament is the very vehicle and the instrument the Holy Spirit uses to keep us informed, to show us. So in 15, this morning, Jim read, for you have not received a spirit of slavery again, leading to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, which we cry out, Abba, Father. The manner of communication between the Holy Spirit and our spirit is really kind of a profound mystery because we don't, until we understand or live like that, we don't really understand. I remember having a conversation with Miles Stanford one day.

I was really curious about how did he come up with these incredible positional papers. And his answer was really interesting. He said, the Holy Spirit gives me the entire paper in about 15 minutes in my spirit. And I know it's there, and I know what it is. He said, but it takes me six to nine months to get it through my soul and out through the typewriter on a piece of paper so you can understand it. It took that long to get information the Spirit showed him from the Word out onto a piece of paper where I could read it with my mind and maybe understand it.

So it is a mystery how he does it. But we'll see, of all men, all men's puffed up knowledge is challenged by Jehovah's question to Job. Who has given understanding to the mind? Who gives understanding to the mind? The purpose here is not to ridicule man's self-promoted knowledge, but simply to state the fact. Human philosophy and science know absolutely nothing of the quality or the nature of the Spirit of God. Nothing.

So, we'll differentiate a little bit. You notice in 16, he says, the Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we're the born ones of God. But the previous verse says that I was placed as an adult son. Wios is the word son come of age. I'm now qualified to be placed as an adult son, a mature son. before God. But 16 doesn't say that, even though it says, bear witness, our spirits were born ones.

Born ones are children begotten of God, born of God and called Tekna. They're born ones. So they're directly related to God. How? They have his nature because they're born of him. Both of these things in the Roman environment, one could be true without the other. You could be an adult son without being a born one. You could be a born one without being an adult son.

But in our relationship with the God of the universe, we are both of those things. We are born of God and we have been placed by God in the position of adult sonship. I hope that's clear. Meanwhile, because we're already adult sons, God has given us a spirit of adult sonship.

Galatians 4, 6, and 7 say the same thing. And because you are sons, born ones, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Therefore, you're no longer a saved, but a son, and if a son, you're an heir. That son is a weos. He's an adult son, heir of God through Christ Jesus. So the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, we're the children of God. I wanna make one comment about this Abba Father thing. It's really cool, and I'll amplify on it a little bit later. But the Spirit of God is the cause of that Abba Father.

If I have something wonderful happen to me, or you ever see these guys, they score a touchdown, or they hit a three-pointer, or whatever, and they open up their mouth and they just yell. They don't say anything, they just yell. That's what this means. It doesn't mean cry, it just means wow, this is really something. So as a child of God though, notice that this passage in Romans doesn't address itself to human intellect at all. It addresses itself to the spiritual consciousness of the saint.

Is it too much to say that you and I don't know anything spiritually without the Holy Spirit? I think it's an absolute for sure. I don't know anything without him. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirits. There's no cast iron certainty that can compare with this. When he reveals something to us, there is no doubt. It's in concrete, it's cast iron. It is absolutely the truth, no matter how you feel about it.

We are not told that the spirit bears witness to our spirit as if the knowledge that we are God's children were somehow unheard of, undreamed of to our own spirits. But it says he bears witness with our spirit. confirming things, that the child of God, having had it communicated unto him, God's own nature, Christ's own life, A believer is fundamentally and necessarily conscious of the glorious fact of a filial relationship with God. He loves me and I love him. And the only way you know that is the Spirit of God shows it to you. Along with this consciousness, the Spirit and dwelling witness enabling us to cry, wow. That's really something. I am a born one of God and I am an adult son. I inherit Abba Father. So it's the spirit's power whereby we cry Abba Father.

The operation of man's mind Either a philosophy or science constitute an eternal pursuit for certainty. There's no certainty in philosophy. If you're a scientist, whatever you study, there's always something new. The conclusions of philosophy are based on theories and hypothesis and are always being challenged, all the time, and perpetually overthrown by succeeding new schemes of philosophy. I don't know if any of you ever studied philosophy in school, but it was, I hated it. Because there was no, well, this guy's right. Well, maybe, no, that guy's right. Well, he's got some of it, this guy's got some. You never could settle down with these guys, never.

The value of the discoveries of science await new explanations of every makeup of the universe they're discovered in, whatever the science is. But with the child of God, there is no uncertainty. Nothing. A child of God knows. And by the Spirit, he was born again. He knows that. Can't change that. And forever witnessing to his conscience. And that is not a process of his mind, but it's a direct revelation that he is a born one of God. That's how you know. He tells you and he persuades you. So what is the witness of the spirit? How does that work?

Newell gives a great definition. He said, it is the producing of the consciousness of being born of God, of belonging to his family in Christ. And for us today who are in Christ, there should be the consciousness not merely of babes but adult sons. All of that should be cemented in your mindset. It is a sense of the very same relation to the Father which the Lord Jesus himself has. You have exactly the same relationship, the same life, the same intimacy.

How sad if a child should fall into the delusion that it must have certain feelings if it is to believe itself a child of its parents. You know how our society is today. When they stick a microphone in your face, what do they say? How do you feel about that? Well, I don't feel about it at all. I'm a son of God. I don't have to feel about it. I'm persuaded. I am. The unconscious certainty of a relationship is the beauty of the whole thing.

What we'll find and what you have found, as you study the word of God and you spend time in God's word, you learn things. And it isn't because you became a theologian, it's because the spirit of God begins to show you things. And mostly, I put them under three categories.

I find out where I am, in Christ in the heavenlies, who I am. I'm an adult son, and I'm a born one of God. Where I am, who I am, and what I am. And all of the contradiction to that, the struggle with sin and all of that, the only way you overcome that is realizing, well, what's really reality here? What has the Spirit of God revealed to me? He's revealed to me where I am, who I am, and what I am.

And either that's true, or what I think about it or feel about it is true. And my decision and your decision is to decide, where am I gonna land? There are tests divinely given us by which we ourselves are the offsprings of God, and John is a great one for tests.

He says in John 2.13, fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. I have written unto you children because you know the Father. It isn't that you're gonna know Him, you know Him now.

In 3.2, he says, Beloved, now we are children, technon, born ones of God.

It is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that if he shall be manifested, we're gonna be like him. For we shall see him even as he is. Do you ever entertain in your thought, you know, there's gonna be a day when I am face to face with the Lord Jesus, and guess what? Everything about me, including my body, is gonna be just like him, because I'm a born one, and I'm an adult son. 324 says, hereby we know that he abides in us by the spirit which he gives us. It's the only way you know, is the Holy Spirit. So how should a believer, this was kind of a rabbit I chased, how should a believer address God?

If I was going to, well let's say that the king of England comes into our assembly here and how would you address him? You'd probably look around at each other and say, what should we call him? Can't call him, is he a sir? Is he your royal highness? Is he whatever you are? How do we address him?

What happens with believers is that we find ourselves calling God our father in our prayers and in our communion. The witness, this witness will spring up of itself. in the heart that has truly rested in Christ and has shed blood. I'm sure you've all experienced that, that you've gone from Almighty God or whatever you're, to Father. Every time you don't even think about it. Conversely, if we find ourselves always in prayer saying, Lord, Lord, and never Father, we should go back to the beginning of things.

And I was thinking about that again this morning. to the record concerning our guilt in Romans 3 and our helplessness, and to the fact that God has set forth Christ as a satisfaction, appreciation. He's satisfied about me. He's resting there in his shed blood. If I'm not straight, notice how we've gone through Romans now for what, almost two years? We started out with fallen man, and we've succinctly gone through all stages of salvation, justification, and then our sins are forgiven, we probably have fire, we do have fire insurance, we're gonna go to heaven, that's done. Then we start into this whole issue about how do I deal with the fact that sin won't shut up? that I'm always fighting this sin thing. I thought becoming a Christian I would not have to worry about that. So Romans explains all of that in my identification with Christ. When He died, I died. When He was buried, I was buried, resurrected.

And now we've gotten to the point where the struggle with sin, the answer to that is the new principle of life in the resurrected Christ, which is brought by the Holy Spirit. And now in eight, we're talking about the work of the Spirit in a Christian's life. You can't grasp what the Spirit's doing if you haven't done your homework in the first seven chapters, because it means nothing to you. What's important about, and the real simple thing is do I think about God as my father?

That's how I know. Is he my father? Our Lord Jesus even said, when you pray, say father. If you were a Jew, you would never say that. Never. They didn't think it was proper to refer to him as father. They would refer to him as Jehovah. Yahweh. So we should take thought of a proper form of address. Yeah, we should. Jesus didn't say Almighty God, nor did he use the term Jehovah.

He said Father. When he addressed the Father, he said Father. He said, when we pray, you say Father. We have access, says Paul, in one spirit unto the Father. To us, there is one God, the Father. Today, some devoted Christians address God as Father God. Until I saw this, I thought, no wonder that term bothered me. But why not say Father as our Lord directed? If you're gonna use the phrase Father God, you know what it makes in grammar? It makes the word Father an adjective, not a noun. He's Father.

But if God sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying Abba Father, we can speak to the Father as did our beloved Savior himself. Now, if children, techna, born ones, heirs also, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified together with him.

Verse 17. Since or if is a first class conditional clause and you can translate it since. So if you say if children, there's no doubt. If you say since children, since I am a child, since I'm a born one of God, the rest of the information is gonna be true. Since I'm a born one, I'm an heir. We've noted that the word for children here, technon, is different from the word for adult sons, and I'm gonna show that again in a second.

It's interesting that we think of airship as that when my, if my parents have 20 bucks, when I die, I get the 20 bucks. If I have a brother, he gets 10 and I get 10. If I have four brothers, we each get five. Oh, it's at 250, right? It gets split up. But in this case, if I'm an heir of God, what am I? I'm a joint heir with Christ.

So whatever he gets, I get it all. You get it all. There's no division. None whatsoever. It indicates the fact that we really are begotten of God through the word, through his word by the spirit and are partakers of his nature. Therefore, heirship is based on relationship. I have two children and I die. If they're both nice to me, they'll get us to eat. No. When you start thinking about being, what does Christ inherit?

He's an heir of the Father. What does he get? He gets the entire creation, and the new creation, and everybody that's in it, and everything that's in it. But the most important thing he is, he's the son of the Father. That's the most important thing. So when all of that comes around and we're all there and we're co-heirs, what do we get? We get everything. It doesn't get split up.

And God is our Father. And the Lord Jesus is our very life. So if children, then heirs, fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, now, If a man is really a child of God by begetting birth, he becomes indissolubly God's heir. Once you're born of God, you can't go back.

He would be like. Well, the Lord Jesus gave his life on the cross for me. He was buried, resurrected, and he ascended into heaven, and he's seated at the Father's right hand in glory. If I were to lose my salvation, he would have to leave the throne, come back to the earth, go into the grave, go back up on the cross, and get down off of the cross. That's what it would take for me to lose my inheritance. What are the likelihood of that happening? Not gonna happen, because when God does something, it's done, it's over with.

So the glory, which is Christ by right, becomes ours by grace. When you think about the fact that you're gonna be glorified with Christ, I think we think, well, maybe we're gonna have double A batteries or something. we're gonna have the exact same glory as the Lord Jesus Christ has. When we are ruling and reigning with Christ in the millennial kingdom, how are they gonna tell those people walking around on the earth and the Jews that you and I are sons?

How are they gonna tell? That's how they're gonna tell. They're gonna say, oh, there goes one of those sons of God. Why? Because the glory of God will be coming right out of them. They'll be able to see. They'll be able to see the glory of God, and that's the greatest of the inheritance. John 17, 10, the Lord Jesus says, and all things are mine that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them.

Who's the them? It's us. It's an amazing statement. This is a fact of such overwhelming magnitude that I don't think our hearts really can grasp what's there. It is said of no angel, no cherub, no seraph, that he is an heir of God, only you and me. The young ruler said to Jesus, what must I do, do, to inherit? It's a whole contradiction in itself.

You get it free. What must I do to become heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ? That a guilty, lost, wretched child of Adam the first should have written of him that he's a joint heir with Christ, the eternal maker of all things. the Beloved of the Father, the Righteous One, the Prince of Life, only God, the God of all grace, could prepare such a destiny for such creatures as you and me. Newell says, God could only do this by joining us in eternal union with His Beloved Son as the last Adam, the second man. having released us from Adam the first and all his connections at the cross and having placed us in Christ risen in all rights of his dear son in whom he has appointed heir of all things. So right there is the plan. That's how he did it. He identified us with Christ.

If so be. controversial verse in some places. Be that we suffer with him that we may also be glorified. So the if-so there is an interesting thing because some people say, well, I've got to suffer with him if I want to be glorified with him. Or others say, I must obey him and work really hard so that when we get to the kingdom, I can be of service to him there. And if I don't, then I'm going to go to a place called the outer darkness. But here's the problem they've got. Are we going to be glorified with him only to the degree to which we suffer? The key to the question is that we may also be glorified with Him. So who are to be glorified with Christ when He comes?

All of us. If so, is really a particle of fulfilled condition. You can translate it since, indeed, be that we suffer. We suffer with him. It is accepted that we suffer with Christ. It is accepted fact, and it's all over Paul's epistles and John. Suffering is what we do, just like glory is what we're gonna do. It is divinely designed that we suffer. It is divinely designed that we will be glorified too.

Every single suffering that you have and that I have, every trial you go through, none of them are happenstance. God ordained them all. Now maybe the trial is happening to somebody over here and you're just real close to it, but you suffer with them. And if you have suffering within your body, your whole body suffers. If we have suffering within this body, our whole body suffers.

We pray for one another. And not necessarily all the time for relief because we recognize from Romans 5 what trials really are all about. What do they do? So if you look at Romans 5, it says that trials produce Patience. And patience, tried character. And tried character, hope. And hope makes us not ashamed because the love of God is spread abroad in our hearts.

So I wake up one morning, I say, I want some of this love of God spread around in my heart. Well, I gotta work it backwards. Well, how do I get that? How do I get the hope? How do I get the tried character? How do I get the patience through suffering? Suffering is one of the greatest gifts that God has ever given us. The privilege of being tried so that we can be proven.

So, to sum up now, suffering and airship and glorification all go together. If you look at the Greek words, all three words, an air, a sufferer and glorified, all start with this three little letters sun, S-U-N, and it just means co or with. So this verse really says, you are a co-heir You are a co-sufferer and you are co-glorified of the God of the universe. You don't get one without the other. They all go together and every single one of these things is a blessing.

So let's close. Father, how thankful we are that we are your sons. We are adult sons. We are born of you. and all that that entails. Father, I pray that we would, on a daily basis, more and more realize who we are and the blessings that you have showered on us, no matter how they seem to show up in our life in some other manner, that your whole agenda is to glorify us with your Son. We thank you, Father, we pray in your Son's precious name, amen.