Transcribed by Beluga AI.
I’m just going to read a few verses. Romans 8:18-30.
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. 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. 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. 24For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
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. 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. 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. (Romans 8:18-30, ESV)
Okay, let’s pray. Father, teach us today about hope and glorification and redemption of our bodies. These are theological themes that often go over our head.
But Lord, we pray for wisdom and revelation that you give us something that’s practical, something that we can hold onto so that we can live out this Christian life properly. Help us, Lord. Meet us in this time. We open our hearts wide to you. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
There are many, many key verses in these two chapters. Many different themes and things we could talk about. We could spend the rest of this year easily on these two chapters, especially Romans 8.
But if you have a key verse or a key section and a theme that you would like to share, please do so. I shared my key verses just now. I think Jackie wants to.
Romans 8:3. So in Jesus, the power of sin has been broken. Yes. Yes. Amen. Amen. Thank you.
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, (Romans 8:3, ESV)
Anybody else? Abigail, you.
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39, ESV)
Amen. The power of salvation. From Romans 8:38-39. Amen. Amen. Thank you.
Anybody else? Ron? Yes. Amen. Yes. Romans 7:15.
15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (Romans 7:15, ESV)
We, out of love for the Lord, start hating sin more and more as we live out this Christian life. That’s so true.
Anybody else? Romans 8:14.
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8:14, ESV)
Yes. Romans 8:14. We are led by the Spirit, which proves that we are now sons of God. Amen. Amen. Larry?
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (Romans 7:19-20, ESV)
Yeah. Amen. There’s a constant struggle of this sin and this flesh that is in us that I’m definitely going to address today.
Okay, well, just something to think about to yourself. What do you hope for? What do you hope for? What are you? What are you driving toward? What do you, what do you really hope for?
There’s a hope that is mentioned in the verses that I read. Verses 18 to 30. Can somebody summarize what that hope is from that? From Romans 8:18-30. What is the hope? Tim?
In hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage.
Yes. Yes. So can someone rephrase what Tim just read? This freedom from corruption, from bondage, this freedom of glory. What is glorification?
Yes, Tim. Amen. Yes. Yes. I don’t know what you hope in. But I put hope, and I think maybe Tim is a little theologian in the making, to understand glorification like we understand justification at the beginning of your Christian life. God says “not guilty,” but that doesn’t mean we’re innocent. We have to prove our innocence. That sanctification, where we struggle with sin and we put to death the deeds of the body by the help of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit pierces us and convicts us of our sin.
But glorification is when the presence of sin is no more. And for a believer who is struggling with sin and hating the sin, striving and beating their body and repenting, and beating their flesh, at the end, glorification is where we put our hope, when sin will be no more and we’ll be out of this flesh, this meat suit. We’ll be freed from this body, and we will have no more flesh where sin resides. But we’ll have a resurrection body where the temptation to sin is no longer there.
That is where the Christian puts his or her hope in, a freedom from sin, from the presence of sin. And that is heaven. Only if you’ve been battling against sin in this life.
I have a, that’s my main hope, but I have a smaller hope, which is I want to age well. When I read Moses and his eyes are undimmed and his body is full of vigor, and he just goes to sleep and just peacefully, he’s taken to heaven, that’s how I want to go. I don’t want to be limping. I don’t want to be in pain. I don’t want to have cancer. I don’t want disease. And so now, as I’ve entered my fifth decade of life, I’m looking toward the end.
How do I want to spend my 60s, 70s, 80s, or however long I am on this earth? And that’s why I pushed myself. I spoke a few months ago that I joined a basketball league, 35 years and above, at a church league. And when I’m thinking church league, it’s going to be very nice, and we’re gonna just… Everyone’s gonna share the ball and pass. And it’s not about victories, and we just… We don’t want to injure each other.
It was not like that. It was quite competitive. It was. It was quite shocking to me how competitive it was. I told you in the beginning, I thought I was a lottery pick. It did not pan out in the season that way. I thought I would be averaging a certain number of points. I’m like a fraction of a point. I barely shot, I barely touched the ball. I didn’t have a lot of playing time. I let other people play. I got injured twice. I was diving for the ball, I injured my right wrist. I had trouble shooting for a while, and somebody swiped down as I got a rebound and dislocated my finger. So most of the season, my shooting ring finger was dislocated, so I was in pain.
We did well in the beginning. We have two good players, and we have a coach, someone who coached basketball. The coach basically said, this tall guy, you stay in the post, and this other guy, you shoot and you dribble. The rest of us get out of the way. That’s what the coach said.
And so as somebody who is participant of that kind of a team, it wasn’t very fun. We played well enough to be in the top four to make the playoffs, but we were limping into the playoffs. We were on a losing streak. We were losing by quite a bit because the good players were being double teamed. And we slumped toward the second half of the season. And we bowed out of the playoffs with not much. It wasn’t very close.
But the last game, which was, you know, we’re already out of the playoffs, people are not showing up as much. And so the other team only had one player on the team. So we mixed up the players. The pastor of SBCC, Pastor Greg, was on one of the teams. I got put on one of the teams. When you have two pastors on a team, the ball moves. We share the ball because he’s a good Christian.
And I exploded in my points. I had about 15 points, couple threes, a lot of rebounds, a lot of free throws. And I showed what I’m capable of if I get the ball. But I have to admit that as I enter into my fifth decade, the reason why I’m able to score on this last game is because there was not much defense. People just kind of leave you alone. It didn’t really count. The playoffs are over. People are just, you know, doing whatever they want. There is no pressure to win.
And in that kind of environment, when nobody’s guarding me, I can still score. But when somebody’s guarding me tight like I was as I was in college, they called me Warm Up Ray because during warm up I made all my shots. But during the game time, when somebody’s up on me, I tended to miss under the pressure.
But I joined this team to push myself. Not because I really want to score a lot or do well in basketball, just to get my body out of a rut. And the first game, just running one length of the court, sprinting. I was already breathing heavy by the first minute. Second minute, fourth minute, my lungs are already burning. And that’s how I felt on week one.
But now we’re on week 12. I played the whole game this last game. Of course, it wasn’t as intense, but I ran with ease. And it just took 12 weeks to just show up once a week to get uncomfortable. I had to go through injuries, I had to go through pain, I had to struggle, struggle.
But at the end, I come out of that three months later, more in shape.
And for the Christian, as Ron said, if you misunderstand Romans 7, we might think, well, we’re all human, we’re all sinners. And so what I’m struggling with, I’m going to struggle with to the day I die. Nothing is going to change.
And if you think that way, that in your 50s I have knee pain, I can get injured. I’m afraid. If you live that way, for sure, in your 60s, in your 70s, you’re going to move less, you’re going to become more immobilized, you’re going to become more stiff. And in your 60s, 70s, you’re going to age poorly.
But in your mind, if you resolve, no, my best decade is in front of me. My 50s are going to be better than my 40s, my 60s are going to be better than my 50s. If you have that mindset and you put yourself in uncomfortable situations and you say, I don’t want to live with knee pain, I don’t want to live with back stiffness. I’m going to do what I can to get my heart back in good order, even physically, somebody who has that mindset is going to age much better than somebody who says, my best days are behind me. My glory days are in my 20s and 30s. I just have to take it easy, I have to be safe, I don’t want to move.
If you think this way, you’re going to age poorly. But if you think, well, I can start today, I can struggle today, I can strain today, I can put myself in discomfort today, because a better version of me is on the other side. By the end of this year, I’m going to be stronger, faster. By the end of this decade, I’m going to be healthier, I’m going to be better than I was even in my 30s, in my 20s.
The same for a Christian. If you think I am a slave to sin, I am this way. And I’m going to be this way to the day I die. I guarantee with that mindset, you will be enslaved to sin. And the wages of sin is death.
If you keep on sinning, is there any assurance that you’re innocent? Will you be confident on Judgment Day that Jesus, my defense attorney, will say, “This is my disciple, he’s innocent. I’ve covered and cleansed him by the blood of Jesus,” when, in fact, on a daily basis, we proved our guilt by remaining enslaved to sin. And the wages of sin is death.
But Romans 7 ends with, “okay, I’m struggling, I’m straining, but thanks be to God for Jesus.”
And then chapter 8 begins to give us this incredible, incredible picture of what this Christian life can be. And I read verse 12. Let me read it again.
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 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. (Romans 8:12-13, ESV)
So if you say, I’m a sinner, if that’s your mindset, you still live like a sinner. If you, you still live like a slave, you keep feeding that flesh, it says right here, you will die. You might have confessed Jesus, and that might be your, you think that’s your ticket to heaven. But as I read here, there’s more to it.
We need to struggle and hate sin. As it said in Romans 7, we need to, we need to repent and beat our body and cry out for forgiveness and ask God to change us and just, just, just be flat on our face saying, “Why did I think that way? Why am I still acting this way? Why did I? Why is my emotion like this still? Why? Why am I still like this?”
And you’re frustrated and you’re on your face and say, “I hate this part of me.” And you’re struggling with your sin to the point of shedding blood. That is a mark of a believer. That is a mark of a believer not condemned under the law, but someone who says, “In Christ, this is not my destiny. I have the Spirit in me. And now I have a power to overcome this sin. Maybe not perfectly, but I’m striving. And one day in glory, I will be free.”
Heaven will not be heaven for you if on this side of eternity you’ve been, you loved your sin and you love this world, and you are coddling yourself and you say, and you’re giving yourself excuse and justifying your sin. Heaven will not be heaven for you, but heaven is As you struggle and strain, there is the prize. Now you’re freed from this body, this flesh which pulls you down towards sin. Now you’re in glory, and now there is no more presence of sin.
That is the hope that we have. That one day this thing that we’ve been struggling with, the shackles will fully come off. We’ll have a resurrected body. That is glorification. That is the promise. That is here in Romans 8.
But in verse 13, it says second half. “But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
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. (Romans 8:13, ESV)
I encourage you, at the end of each day, ask the Spirit to convict you. How did I sin today? As I was living out this day, I did not think I was sinning. I did not know I was sinning. But as you avail yourself at the end of the day, ask the Holy Spirit to convict you and pierce you. How am I sinning? And I don’t even recognize that I’m sinning.
That is what the Holy Spirit is going to do for you and me.
Verse 14.
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 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. (Romans 8:14-17, ESV)
Why do we go through trials? Why do we suffer? Why does our body break down? Why is there cancer? Why are there illnesses? Why do we go through this type of suffering, this persecution, the hatred of this world toward a Christ follower is so that we can be conformed more and more to the image of Christ.
If everything is smooth sailing, if everything is comfortable and you never have an aching back, you never have a bad day in your life, everything is smooth until glory, you’re not going to look like Jesus.
But every time we suffer, every time we cry out, we’re flat on our face, it’s an opportunity for us to be conformed to the image of His Son.
And we read about that more in verse 18.
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. 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. 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. 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. (Romans 8:18-25, ESV)
In the same way, when we exercise and we put our body through suffering, it is a groaning. Who wants it? We just want to be healthy without trying. Just pop a pill and the weight goes off, and the muscle comes on without suffering. We think we’re going to be transformed into the image of Christ without suffering. It just doesn’t work that way.
And this hope of this redemption of our body, full adoption as sons into glory when the presence of sin is no more. That won’t be heaven for you unless you spent this life groaning over your sin, like, “Why did I do it again? Lord, help me. I’m such a sinner. Please break this bondage of sin, this flesh. Help me to crucify it, Lord. And you, I nail it on the cross. You lived a perfect life. You died for my sins so that you can set me free. Why am I still struggling with this sin?”
And you groan and you suffer and you pray and you repent, and you’re in the presence of God. And you say, one day I will be free from this flesh. That is what hope and glory is. Verse 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. 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. 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. (Romans 8:26-30, ESV)
And you might think, okay, I’m predestined to be saved. We’re missing a few steps. You’re predestined. And first you’re justified, not guilty. And those who are justified, there is glory waiting for us.
But if you look at the previous verse, verse 29, we are predestined not to be saved. We are predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
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. (Romans 8:29, ESV)
He is our standard.
So we don’t look to other sinners and say, okay, he’s a sinner, I’m a sinner. I’m okay, you’re okay. We don’t look to each other. We look at Jesus. He’s our standard.
That’s why we read the Gospels. That’s why we get familiar with the life of Jesus. And that’s why Jesus is called, Revelation 19, the Word of God, from beginning to end, Genesis to Revelation.
It’s about Jesus, and we are understanding his character. He is our standard, and we fall short of that glory, of that perfection. We don’t know how to pray. We pray for a good life, we pray for a good job, we pray for good health. And the Spirit looks at us and says, no, that’s not how you should be praying. You should be praying to be set free from this sin so that in this area you can be more like Jesus. That’s how the Spirit is interceding for you and me.
We pray for physical things when there’s a spiritual work that God wants to do, and the Spirit is interceding for you and me.
This temper has to change. This wrong desire has to be sanctified. This mindset has to shift. This action has to stop. The Spirit intercedes for you. He knows exactly, according to the will of God, what you should be praying. We don’t know how to pray for ourselves, but we lean into the Spirit.
And then one by one, the Spirit says, “Okay, work on this.”
He doesn’t give us a hundred assignments because, well, we can’t focus on 100 things at once. He just gives you one. So, okay, just focus on this. Repent about this. He’s interceding one at a time.
Work on this, Ray. Be conformed to the image of Christ in this area. Look at Jesus. Look at how he spoke. Look at how he, look at how he acted. Look at his emotions.
The Spirit is interceding for you and me. And one day, if you’re struggling, if you’re battling with your flesh, heaven will be heaven for you when sin will be no more.
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, thank you for reminding us of what our hope is, that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. And that process begins here and now. It begins today. Today is a day of salvation. Today is when the Spirit is interceding for all of us so that we can be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
We admit that we pray all the wrong prayers. We don’t pray the most fundamental prayers of repentance and asking for help to be conformed in specific areas to the image of His Son.
Holy Spirit, please convict us. If the Spirit is in us, then this activity should be happening all the time. If we belong to Christ, this should be the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit that He convicts us of our sin that we are, we don’t even know we’re sinning throughout each day.
We avail ourselves, Holy Spirit, you’re groaning for us. We groan over our own sin as you show them and reveal them to us, one by one. We’re justified, not guilty. Right now you’re sanctifying us, conforming us to the image of your Son.
One day in heaven we’ll be totally glorified, freed from this body of death. This flesh that pulls us toward heaven and away from heaven, pulls us toward hell and away from heaven.
We crucify our flesh each day with its passions and its desires. We deny ourselves. We carry our cross. We remind ourselves that the old us is dead and the new us is being raised in the newness of life by the Spirit.
Lord Jesus, please help us. Please meet us as we finish out this service. We thank you for Your Body that was broken for us and Your blood that was shed. Please minister to us and renew our hope for glory.
Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
