Last night we continued our study of Paul’s letter to Romans by looking at the second half of chapter 8.
Intro: No condemnation (8:1), because the Spirit is in us giving us life (8:2), the Spirit dwells in us (8:9)…
8:9-11 – Your body is included in this total salvation.
8:12-13 – …the practical implications of this are that we don’t owe our old life anything…all it gives us is death
8:14-18 – What kind of Spirit is this Holy Spirit we’ve received?
He’s the Spirit who leads. (14)
He’s not the spirit who brings terror over how we relate to God. (15)
He’s the Spirit who is enabling us to look up and say, “Father.” (15) (we share Jesus’ status)
He changes our deepest being, so that what He says, is what we say too… (16)
…and so we know that, even our sufferings preach a message, that we’ll share Christ’s glory (17)
In other words: The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives transforms all of life.
- Our relation to God (1)
- Our thinking (5)
- The destiny of our bodies (11)
- Where we get our direction from (14)
- Our Father and our family (15)
- Our deepest sense of who we are (16)
- Our outlook on our circumstances (17)
- The significance of our lives (18)
8:19-25 – “For” (19) a further explanation of the “to be revealed” in v.18.
i.e. What is Paul talking about with this “glory”?
v. 18-23 Point: Even our sufferings testify that the promises of God are true: How?
We see them as part of the global sufferings, the “groaning” of all creation which the bible describes (22) and we know that even the decree of God which subjected them to all this futility had a note of hope in it (20…Gen 3:15!), which means that the whole creation will be delivered and perfected (22). And it is not just that our deliverance is part of the renewal of creation, it is that our deliverance is the reason for the renewal, it’s perfecting and release is part of our perfecting and release—it shares in what God has done for us, and will do in us.
Further: we look at Christ, and see Him suffering, and realize that our sufferings are actually because of our union with Him (v.17), so that what is true of him is true of us…first suffering as part of this creation, then enjoyment of the renewed, delivered creation and all the glory of Jesus.
v.24 This is the hope we were saved in. This hope hidden all the way back in Genesis 3:15.
And we now know that it is the hope of Adoption (full reception as sons) which the Spirit brings us the first taste of! (v.16)
v.25 There is an element of the unfinished in our salvation, we haven’t really experienced what it means to be saved yet..
Here’s the chart I put up last night (click to view):
8:26-27 – The Spirit even overcomes the confusion we face because of the sufferings in this world. He knows what God’s will is when we don’t, and He prays for us.
8:28-29 – Nothing in this life is not untended by God to help us on this journey…The journey to become like Jesus: perfected humans, fully alive in a perfect earth, forever in total connection to the Father.
Nothing can stop this plan.
This is a very different vision of life than the one in the world around us.