Christ Life In Us Romans 8:31-32 Unshakeable

Well, happy Independence Day, 250 plus one day. So that's neat. Some people were apologetic. They were going to be so patriotic this morning. And I guess if anyone's listening to audio afterwards and doesn't know who I am, I am a Canadian citizen still, but living here on a temporary work visa and happy to be here, happy to be able to celebrate your semi-quint, say that again. Now if it's American, it's got to be the semi-quintennial. But if you're Canadian, you'd probably say semi-quintennial, right? But we couldn't, anyway. So, no, it is wonderful to be here and to get to celebrate that day with you all.

And we were talking a little bit before the service about you know, what this means. And one of the thoughts that came to mind to me is that what America won 250 years ago had ripple effects around the world. Roger, I think you were saying that in Canada today, or really anywhere you go, we have a brother here from India, a sister who grew up in the Ukraine. Clancy's wife is from England, maybe others who have come here from other places in the world that I'm not aware of. The freedom to worship God on the basis of your conviction from his word, rather than under the dictate of some human ruler, is an incredibly important freedom.

And we enjoy that today in Canada, more or less, unless they're putting on COVID mandates. Of course, the same thing happened here, too, didn't it? We all experienced that. And that brings to mind, as well, the fact that, you know, from where I was sitting, the flag obscured the cross this morning, which was a little bit of a, you know, there will come a day, and now I, it's probably, you know, too close to Fourth of July to say this, but there will come a day when there will be no national flag.

The Lord Jesus will rule the world. And so as much as we appreciate everything that went into what America is today, we do not worship a nation. We do not, we worship the Lord God alone, which is why America did what they did 250 years ago. So don't lose that in sight of, you know, don't let the nation obscure the Lord, so.

On to the text that we have in front of us today. As Mike said, I get to teach some really special verses this morning in the midst of a very awesome passage. And Mike just wanted to keep reading and reading, because it just gets better as we go here. But let's open with a word of prayer before we begin.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the freedom that we have to be here this morning on the basis of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that you've given us your word, that your word is the authority. that we do what we do on that basis alone. And Lord, we pray that nothing would ever dissuade us or discourage us from continuing to gather in your name as the body of Christ, come what may. And we pray this morning that you would be the one who teaches us and who shows us what it is that you have for us in your word this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I want to thank Andrew for teaching verses 29 and 30 last week.

I was able to listen to the audio on the drive up to the wedding. And what was really interesting is I had the talk for the wedding ceremony kind of going through my head. And I was amazed at how much some of what Andrew was saying paralleled with what I was going to say at the wedding. He was talking about being conformed to the image of Christ and how we're the bride of Christ. And that's exactly what I was going to be talking about at the wedding. And so it was really neat. We missed being here in person, but it was a good message. But I heard Andrew mention that I'd emailed with him a little bit. We talked on the phone a little bit about these verses and his take on them.

And he said that I'd called them a hot potato And it crossed my mind, I'm assuming you guys have that game as well, correct, yeah? Cuz he seemed to understand what I was saying, but you're passing around, it's usually not an actual hot potato, right? And when the music stops, if you're left holding the potato, you've gotta deal with it. And now when I said that, when I call verses 29 and 30 kind of this hot potato, I didn't mean to indicate that there's anything wrong with the verses. And I think Andrew knew that and he made that clear yesterday.

I said that just because there's so much theological baggage, right? When I say the word predestined, or especially if I say predestinated, what automatically comes to your mind? The Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, right? The doctrine, the idea that some are chosen from eternity past to be regenerated or born again, and that some are predetermined from eternity past to go to hell. Because you can't have one side without the other. If God predetermined that some people would be born again, then he also predetermined that some people would go to hell. Essentially, predestination, as the Calvinists teach it, says that some people are guaranteed to become Christians and others are guaranteed not to.

And that is an impossible idea to try to fit into the Bible. The Bible is clear that the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for the whole world, and that anyone who receives it has eternal life. And if we take the personal responsibility to receive the gospel out of the equation, we destroy the gospel. And evangelism just shrivels up right along with that.

So Calvinistic thinking gets us into this terrible mindset that says that the gospel is not for all men, and yet Read the Word. We know in a thousand ways from the Word of God that the gospel is a free gift offered to all people, and your responsibility is to receive it.

And what's going on in Calvinism? I know I'm recovering a little bit of what Andrew was teaching last week, and I don't mean to overlap, but we've got to understand the context here, and Andrew taught this really well. what what calvinism was going on there uh... is a misunderstanding of what it means to be a fallen, sinful person in Adam's race. And you might be familiar with TULIP, T-U-L-I-P, the acronym that Calvinists use for their doctrinal position there. And the first tenet of Calvinism is total depravity, right? Now, you might hear that and think, yeah, we're totally depraved because we're part of Adam's race, we're thoroughly sinful, there's no righteousness in us.

But the Calvinist means something a little bit different by that. They take that farther. The Calvinists do something that really destroys the gospel. They define faith as a good work. They define faith as a good work or a righteous deed. And think about what that does, right?

Because if faith is a good work and the gospel is not of works, Ephesians 2.9, And if I'm totally unrighteous or totally depraved, incapable of any good work, then what does that mean? That would mean that faith couldn't have been for myself. And so they say that if a person is ever going to put their faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, well then God's gotta first regenerate them so that they can have faith. Okay?

So now, Who's responsible for whether a person gets saved or not? Well, it depends on whether God regenerates you or not. And so it turns it into God who chooses who gets to be saved and who doesn't. And of course, that's all tied in with the second tenet of Calvinism, the you, which is unconditional election, which says that God chooses certain people to be saved and chooses the rest will go to hell. And that's the Calvinistic way of thinking about predestination. But where did they mess up? What was the problem? Right out of the gate by defining faith as a good work. And what's wrong with that? What's wrong with defining faith as a good work?

The Bible's very clear that we are all unrighteous sinners, but the Bible never defines faith as a good work. What does Romans 4 verse 5 say? But to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. You couldn't make that statement if faith was a good work, because it says very clearly, he who does not work, but believes. That word believes is the same as the verb form as the word faith. same word, you couldn't say that if faith was a good work or a righteous deed. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. So it's very clear that faith, putting your faith in the gospel is not a good work, it's simply resting in the truth of what God has done.

Now, you look at that verse, and if you know some Calvinists, or you've ever been one, I have a friend who says, we're all recovering Calvinists. Most of us have probably had a Calvinistic phase in our faith, if you've been a Christian long enough, because it caters to the human intellect.

It just seems to make sense. It's a system that we can get our hands around. And so, what will the Calvinists pick out in that verse? What are they gonna say? They're gonna say, but look, it says that faith is a gift, right? Through faith, it is the gift of God.

And in the English, you might be tempted to think that, okay? Because in the English, we have that, what's my grammar word? Pronoun, right? The pronoun that, okay? And that, not of yourselves. Well, in English, our pronouns usually refer to the nearest antecedent, which in English would be faith, right? The faith, oh, the faith, that's the gift. But in the Greek, it's impossible, because in Greek, faith is a feminine noun, and that, the pronoun, is neuter. And what was interesting is I said, hey, Dear, let's ask AI.

I don't use AI in preparing my messages. It's kind of this personal conviction. I refuse to do it. Okay, because over the last few years, I found out just how wrong AI can be on many, many, many things, okay? It especially doesn't know anything about immigrating to the United States of America. It's just, it's always wrong.

It's just, you know, then you go talk to the attorney, he says, where are you getting your information? But, so I don't, I don't use AI to study the word of God, but sometimes there's a, I just, you know, most of my Greek books are still packed in boxes, because we're just, you know, working in the corner of our bedroom still. And I was like, I am 99% positive that there's no instance in which a pronoun in the Greek can modify a noun or whatever, however you call that, I'm not the, of a different gender. And so we asked. They said, okay, and it says no, never can a neuter pronoun be connected to a feminine noun.

And then I said, well, hey, let's just push it one step farther and say, what is the pronoun that in Ephesians 2.8 attached to? And it comes back and says, well, we're not totally sure. And they reference these different theologians because the popular view is to say, wow, that refers to faith. But grammatically, so it contradicted itself.

You can't. Grammatically, you cannot have that gift being faith in this verse. So faith is not the gift. The idea here is that salvation is a grace gift from God. God saved you by grace. That's the gift. Faith here is the personal responsibility on our part.

Sorry, I just burned like 10 minutes of the sermon on that, but it's important. So faith is not a good work. Faith is not given to certain people and not to others. And God does not have to regenerate you before you can believe. You believe and the Lord regenerates you. So faith is simply accepting what God has provided by grace. And any unbeliever is free to do that. It's just like receiving a gift that I offered to you. You have to receive it. You have to actually take it from me and receive it. That's the gospel.

And we don't want to take this word predestined and run into this whole Calvinistic mess because it doesn't fit with the rest of scripture. It contradicts so much plain scripture. And that's a critical principle or rule of hermeneutics. Your interpretation cannot contradict numerous plain texts of scripture.

So we get to these verses 29 and 30, and we see that word predestined, and we automatically insert the idea that he's talking about being born again. But as Andrew pointed out last week, the unbeliever's not in view here. This whole chapter, in this context here, Paul's talking to the Christian. And in fact, in verse 29, he's defined how he's using the word predestined. If you're paying attention, he's not talking about the unbeliever receiving eternal life.

He's talking about the Christian being predestined or marked out, is the way I kind of like to translate that, because it just gets that theological baggage out of your mind. Being marked out to be conformed to the image of Christ, and that's true for all Christians, every believer. has been predestinated or marked out to be conformed to the image of Christ. Not from eternity past, per se, but the moment you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you became one of his. And as one of his, you are marked out to be conformed to Christ. And, you know, back in verse 17, Paul Paul began talking about how you as a Christian are being prepared for what? Being prepared to share the glory of the Lord Jesus for all eternity.

He says, the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, heirs, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, which as we talked about is sins, we do suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with what? The glory that is to be revealed to us.

And then, What Paul is doing here, he's expanding on that truth. He's been expanding on that from there all the way down to this point here, that in order to glorify us together with his Son, he's got to make us like his Son. He's got to conform us to the Son, and that requires trials. That's been the major theme here. And we have to learn to fellowship with Jesus in his suffering.

And I've titled the message this morning, Unshakeable, because if we trust what's being taught here, that's the result in our lives. This picture is from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. And there were very few buildings in the epicenter that survived. This is one of them.

And if we know that God is in control and that he's using the trials in our lives to accomplish his work, then we can remain unshaken through whatever we face, confident that God is in control, that he is good. And when everything around us is crumbling into rubble, We can be at peace. We can trust the Lord no matter what. No matter what. So when we get to verse 29 and 30 in this Romans 8 context, the theme is confidence in what God is doing.

And you have that string of things in verse 30, right? Predestined, called, justified, glorified. And Paul strings these things together, not so much as an order of operations, but as a package deal. When you look at the the Greek crown, it's like these same ones who he predestined, or the same ones that he called, and the same ones that he called, and the same ones that he justified, and these same ones are the same ones that he's glorified. And the idea is that every Christian gets the whole deal. Every Christian gets all of it.

You have been called and predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. so that we will ultimately be glorified together with him. And God will accomplish that work, he will complete that work, and we are to have absolute confidence that you and I, each of us individually as part of that, will arrive at that destination. So the point is that if you've put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that's your personal response to the gospel, if you have put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, then you are a son of God. And if you are a son of God, then you can know without any doubt that the father will complete his work of conforming you to the image of his son and ultimately glorifying you together with his son.

And that is the confident conclusion that Paul reaches here in our verses for today, verse 31 and 32. Based on everything that he's been saying up till now, Paul makes this incredible statement, right? If God is for us, who is against us? That's a very bold claim to make as a Christian, and it's true. This is absolute truth. If God is for us, and he is on the basis of what he's just taught, then who can be against us? Who is against us? But let's start at the beginning of verse 31, because that's the last half of verse 31. But the verse begins...

What then shall we say to these things? And the question is, well, what things, Paul? Don't you love the word things? You know, it's actually kind of a common word in the Bible, so it's like, well, what things are we talking about here? And, you know, this could refer to everything that Paul's been telling us up to this point. You know, everything about God's plan and his purpose for you in trials, and that's definitely involved. It's all, you know. But look back at verse 28.

I have this habit of marking my, this is my study copy of Romans, and I just, I mark it up and when I see things, now you gotta be careful, this is English, this is the translation. If you're gonna be a careful student, you wanna compare to the Greek. But the English is good, okay? If you don't study Greek, don't worry. I mean, the Lord's given us good translations. But if you look back at verse 28, I've got the words all things circled there. And then down in verse 31, we have again these things.

And I just drew a line between those two things because context is important. He was just talking about these all things, right? In verse 28, we know that God causes all things to work together for good. Which means every circumstance, everything in our lives, you know, God is working all of these things together for good. And in context, this is particularly talking about difficult circumstances, difficult things. And then in the kind of in-between verses there, sandwiched in between, He's giving this explanation for why we can know this, that all things work together for good, right? And he goes into that, and then in verse 31, he picks that up again.

Well, then what do we say to these things? On the basis of the fact that we know that God is working these things together for good, How do we respond to that? Paul's asking, so if this is true, if what I just said is true, that God is causing all these things to work together for good, well then how should we respond to these things? And it's true, right, that God is, if it's true, if it's true that God is working all things together for good, for believers, according to his sovereign plan to conform you to his son, then how should we respond to the trials that we face? Because what is our natural response? How do we all respond when some difficulty or some trial comes our way? We complain, right? We get miserable. We get depressed. And we always think it's justified, by the way. this isn't fair, or this doesn't happen to other people. But Paul is asking, what should we say?

How should we respond when we face these difficulties? And the last part of verse 31 is that answer. In light of the knowledge of what God is doing, this is how we can respond to any trial we might face. And no matter how difficult or painful the trial is, we can always respond with these same words, if God is for me, who is against me? And the idea is that if God is for us, who can possibly be against us? And we want to think about that a little bit this morning. What does that mean? Really, if God is for us, who could possibly be against us?

Because Paul has just explained that everything is being used by God for good, right? Not just some things, everything. Absolutely everything. That means that the most wicked act of hatred that somebody could commit against you is not out of God's control.

That doesn't mean He caused it. We've got to be very, very careful to define that. God does not cause your pain and suffering. But He is using it to accomplish His good purpose in you. He is using it. And no matter what happens to us, no matter what someone might do to us, no matter what someone might say, or what circumstances, come upon us, God is turning it around to accomplish his good. It's just like Joseph said to his brothers, right? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.

In fact, the Lord even allows Satan to bring specific attacks against you at times. Peter writes, your enemy, you, okay, your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. And what did Jesus say to Simon Peter in Luke 22? He said, Simon, Simon, very personal. He's like, Simon, I got something to tell you here that's important. Behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.

Now, that word sift to me sounds like a lady baking a cake, okay? But if you've been around any kind of grain harvesting, we don't usually use the word sift for what's going on. We actually use the word thrashing. We're thrashing the grain. And if you've been around this, you understand why. Because this is a violent process. Process. Was it here? Process.

This was going to be very painful for Peter. He was not going to go, I'm just going to shake you through the sieve here. Satan has requested to thrash you, Peter. Jesus doesn't say it, but I'm not going to let him do that. No. Jesus allowed it. He allowed Satan to do this. Why? Not because he took pleasure in Peter's pain. but he knew the good work that would be accomplished. The Lord used Satan and what he intended for evil to do what he intended for good in Peter's life. And if you're a farmer, you understand that thrashing is what separates the good harvest from the straw and the chaff. The farmer knows what it takes to harvest the crop. And by the way, Anyone been in a modern combine? Grain harvesting? No? Okay. If you ever get the opportunity, they are high tech. These things cost over a million dollars. And the technology that's built into them today is unbelievable.

And the fine-tuning of the harvesting process is phenomenal because the farmer knows that too much thrashing and the grain will be damaged. Too little thrashing and the crop will be full of chaff and worth less. And so there's a very careful, calculated thrashing. It's not just, you know, beat it to death. No, it's a very careful process.

And so the Lord's no different. The things that the Lord allows in our lives are very carefully calibrated to bring about the best possible result. Which means that if he allows something to happen to you, you can guarantee that he's using it to conform you to Christ.

And that's a powerful, powerful truth. If God can sovereignly use every and any attack against you to accomplish his goal, well then, Paul's conclusion, how can anything stop him? How could anything be against you? If God is gonna use all these things for your good, for you, then how can anyone be against you? Because he is always able to use it towards his good end.

So that's a huge takeaway for us today. I don't know what you're facing. Some of you I know a little bit, but maybe what you're facing has you stressed out. Maybe what you're facing has you even depressed to some degree. I don't know the specifics of your situation, but I know that you can claim this promise right here. This is God's word. can ultimately be against you because as a child of God, God is for you. He is for his good work in you. Sometimes you think, well, if he knew what I needed, no, he knows. He knows you far better than you know yourself. He knows what you need far better than you know what you need. And he loves you and he is for you. And so nothing that he allows into your life can be against you.

We need to hold onto that. And that totally changes our whole outlook, right? You may be in the midst of a very long trial or a particularly difficult or painful trial. But when you're resting in the knowledge that God is using everything to conform you to his son, then you can have peace. And that is a very rare thing to have these days, isn't it? There's not a lot of peace in this world. If you really get to know where people are at and what they're going through, there's very little peace. There's a lot of turmoil. But as Christians, no matter what we're facing, we can have peace. resting in this truth, trusting this to be true.

And then verse 32 really continues on out of verse 31. So verse 31 says, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all. How will he not also with him freely give us all things?

And what Paul's doing here is he's giving this powerful proof to back up what he just said. Paul's been talking about the fact that as Christians we are sons of God, and he's explaining that God's purpose for you as a child of God is to conform you to his son so that he can glorify you with his son.

And that all sounds very wonderful, except for the fact that being glorified together with Christ requires that we learn to suffer with Christ, and that's not an easy thing. Right? And this is why so much of the New Testament is written. You'll notice this a lot. So much in the New Testament is written to encourage Christians, to encourage them to stand fast, to just carry on with the Lord.

Because the Christian walk would be easy if it didn't involve so much suffering. But the suffering is required. It's a required part of coming to know the Lord Jesus. And the temptation in the midst of suffering can be just to begin to wonder, What guarantee do I have that God hasn't dropped the ball here?

How do I know really that he is doing this, that he's gonna complete this? This trial, this, this is too much. This is too hard. I don't see how God could possibly be loving and good in allowing this to happen to me. Maybe, Maybe God's not carrying through on his promise. Maybe I can't really trust him with this whole work that he's carrying out. And verse 32 is intended to answer those kinds of doubts. Because Paul says, if you're thinking that God is going to fail in bringing you to glory, then you're not thinking straight.

Because you need to understand what it cost God the Father to make you his child. To redeem you out of sin and death, he gave his only son to die in your place. Jesus purchased you with his blood. I love this in Revelation 5 verse 9. We have the angelic beings and the 24 elders, and it says, and they sang a new song, singing to Jesus. And they say, worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals. Why? For you were slain and purchased for God with your blood, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

If the father fails to complete his sanctification work in you, then the blood of Jesus has been wasted. That's Paul's point here. That's his argument. That's powerful. Incredibly powerful. The father is not going to do that. The father is not going to waste the blood of his precious son. So remember that the goal that the Father had in rescuing you out of death was more than just saving you from hell.

God's goal in redeeming us was to create this whole body of believers, not just Holly Hills, but this global body of believers that has been built since Acts 2 that would be like his son Jesus. conformed to his son. And I loved Andrew's talk last week about the way that Eve was fashioned to be fitted to Adam, to correspond to him. And that's the parallel, that what God designed in marriage was intended to parallel the conforming work that he's doing in you as a part of the body of Christ. He's fitting you for his son, the Lord Jesus. The goal is to perfect a bride for the Lord Jesus.

All of those will be glorified when he comes, which is in the context of the revealing of the sons of God, that glorious day. And we see in verse 29, right, we see the purpose of conforming us to Christ. It says, the firstborn among many brethren. We are the sons of God who are to be glorified together with Jesus.

That's God's goal, not just to get you out of hell. That was necessary, that had to happen, but that didn't complete his work in you. He intends to bring you all the way through to total conformity to his son. Not that we become, right, we gotta be careful there, not that we become God, like Christ, but that we become like him. We become like him in nature, we share his character.

Just like Eve didn't become, right? God did that very carefully. Eve did not become a man. Okay, let's be, boy, today we gotta be clear on that, right? Eve is a woman, very distinct, very different. We do not become the Lord Jesus. We do not share his essence as the God-man, but we do share his nature so that we can commune and fellowship with him.

That's what Eve was able to do. Adam was looking for someone who could fellowship with him. She had to be like him, and that's what God made, and that's what God's doing with the church. He made us. to be just like a bride to a husband. We are fitted to be with Him, to fellowship with Him, to know Him.

If God fails, if God fails in bringing you, every single one of us here, as members of the body of Christ, if he fails to complete that work, to bring you into conformity to his son, in order to glorify you together with his son, then he has wasted the blood of his son, Jesus Christ.

And he's not gonna do that. So this is an incredibly powerful proof of the fact that God will complete his work in you. And so you and I can rest assured that God is not careless about what he's doing in your life. He's very, very purposeful. Nothing that you're facing today or tomorrow or the next day, nothing that you're facing just slipped through unnoticed by God. If he allowed something to come into your life, then it's intentional. Very intentional. It's part of his plan to conform you to the image of his son, to make you a bride suitable to his son.

And that brings us to this interesting phrase at the end of verse 32. Anyone ever kind of wondered what this was about? It says, we get the word all things again. It says, How will he not also with him freely give us all things? And the question is, well, what things, okay? And this isn't the things that we talked about earlier from verse 28 and 31, because those things are the trials and difficulties that we face. Here, the all things refers to what God is going to give us. And the key here is the words also with him. Well, with who?

Well, in the context, it's the Son, Jesus Christ. Okay, together with Jesus Christ, God the Father is going to give you something. And what we need to understand is that God the Father intends to give all things to the Son. This is all tied back in with verses 16 and 17 and 18, right, that Jesus is the heir of all things. Look at Hebrews 1 verse 2.

Oh, let me get there. In these last days, as we're kind of jumping in the middle of it first, but in these last days has spoken to us in his Son, Jesus Christ, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. So Jesus is the creator of the world. He's also the heir of all things. Look at this one, Psalm 2, 7 through 8. Psalm 2 is this fantastic psalm about the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is in the words of Jesus Christ. These are words put into the mouth of the Messiah. I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord Yahweh. He said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession. The day is coming when Jesus will take up his inheritance.

He hasn't done that yet. But at the end of the tribulation, he's going to return to this earth, not to suffer and die like at his first coming, but to inherit the entire created order, to inherit the earth. He's going to be the last Adam, where the first Adam failed. Jesus Christ will perform with perfection. He will be the last Adam, the Lord of the earth, the whole thing. And this little comment here, this little phrase encompasses all that.

Christ is the heir of all. He's the heir of the entire created order. And if we understand chapter 8, we understand that we are marked out to be his fellow heirs. Verse 17, if children, and we are, then we are also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, co-heirs with Christ. Because we are joined to him and made like him as his brother and the father makes us co-heirs with the son.

That's what it means that the father will with him, Freely give us all things. And there's such an important word there in that phrase that we don't want to miss. It's the word freely. Freely give us all things. The words freely give are actually one word in the Greek. It's charizomai. Do you recognize charizomai? Do you recognize the word grace? Right? Charis.

When we think of being heirs with Christ, we should never think of that as something we earn. We should never think of it as something we earn because it's a grace gift. It's a gift of his grace. And there are a lot of people close to our theological camp who will teach that while all Christians are saved, in order to have an inheritance, you've got to measure up. You've got to keep a certain standard of behavior, and that's not what we read here. Hey, this passage tells us that if we are children of God, then we are heirs, and God guarantees that. He guarantees that promise, and everything that God is taking you and I through as Christians is what prepares us to be an heir.

We've gotta be prepared for that, but it's not our work. It's His work, and the whole point of this passage here is that He will not fail in that work. He will do it, and we can trust Him about that. But the thing is whether or not we trust him doesn't change the fact that he will do it. But whether or not we're trusting does have a huge impact on our joy and our peace in the midst of trials. He's gonna finish his work.

But whether or not you're trusting him about that has a lot to say about how you're handling the trial. And that's why it's so important to understand these things. So I hope that this passage you find is very encouraging because whatever you are going through right now, whatever happens to you, whatever you're going through right now or in the coming days, the coming week, coming months, coming years, you can be sure that God is very carefully and purposefully working. He's preparing you to be glorified with his son in order to be a co-heir with Him, a co-heir of all things. And that understanding is what allows you to be at peace.