Open to Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight. Don't you ever wish no one got sick? No one got old. No one had to suffer. But in this world, in this age, in this fallenness, People get sick, people get old, people suffer. In the paragraph before where we are this morning, Paul writes, For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. 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. For the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided, and here's the kicker, provided we suffer with him, in order that, second kicker, we may also be glorified with him. To be glorified with Christ, we must suffer with him. So in all of the wonder and joy of Romans five through first part of eight, now Paul brings us and puts us right where we live without losing sight of the glory to come. Apostle wants you to know that you have not received a spirit that turns you into fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when the Lord adopted you to recognize you as His own children. And now through the Spirit, we recognize God, not as a judge administering law, but as a dear and very precious Father. So what does the Spirit do in our lives that is so important? Well, He is changing us by His power to become more and more like Christ. He is residing in us as the very life of God in our souls. And he is assuring us of our relationship and our standing as children, the sons and daughters of God. But then these last words. provide it. We suffer with Him in order that we may be also glorified with Him. We are alive both in this world and in the world to come. As Christians we are both. This means that we will experience the splendor of one and simultaneously often the suffering of the other. This is just the way it will be. So let's follow the melodic line here in the symphony of Paul's understanding of the Christian life. So he turns us then in verses 18 through 30 to the difficulty of God's children. We are now experience present suffering while longing for the future glory. We have here His groaning and glory. One before the other, yes, but both together, simultaneously. There is groaning in glory for creation, there is that in the Christian, and there is that by the Spirit for our good and God's glory. For I consider the sufferings of this present time, Paul has written, are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. So you must never minimize the fact or the severity of suffering for the Christian in this age. The words here for you are, wait eagerly, verses 19 and 23 and 25. And hope, verse 20 and verses 24 to 25. Your evaluation of the present suffering in the light of future glory is shaped first by its example in creation. Verses 18 to 22. I consider the suffering in the present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed in us. There is the top of everything. for now we turn to creation what do we see in creation for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God for the creation was subjected to futility and not willingly but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God for we know The whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. So the creation is now subject to the curse because of the fallenness of man. Deliverance from the curse awaits the time when the children of God will receive their glorified bodies. So creation groans while standing on tiptoe, anxiously anticipating the day of glory for God's people. The world we live in now is subjected by God to the futility of fallenness. And it is waiting the day we will enter into the glory of a radical transformation in the material universe when all will be made new. That's its example in creation. So you look out into the world and you see glory and groaning. Then we have its experience in ourselves, verses 23 to 25. We share in creation's groaning and hope. And not only the creation, Paul writes in verse 23, but we ourselves, we have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope is actually seen, is not hope. For who hopes for what he has or what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not in a sense yet see, we will wait for it in patience. We are groaning now, fallenness and sin under the curse with brokenness in our world, in our relationships, in our families, and occasionally sometimes even in the church. but we have the first fruits of the Spirit. So we have the Spirit who anticipates in us that future glory. The Spirit in us is in us the new creation, if you will. Our eventual adoption as sons, the fulfillment of being placed as God's son is the reception of a glorified body. We don't have it yet. Here it is. We now groan while we wait for a future glory. We are assured of hope and we are adopted as sons, but not yet. We live in that tension, that space of an already and not yet. Many errors come concerning the victorious or the victimized Christian life. Those flow from an understanding verses 23, from not understanding verses 23 through 25. You are delivered, but not yet. You are adopted, but not fully. You have the spirit, but not in fullness. You've grown now in suffering and struggling because there is a splendor to come. And so we have the difficulty of God's children first in the example that we see in creation, secondly in the experience of it ourselves, and thirdly in its expression by the Spirit. Now to me, this is the stunning one. I understand creation. I can look out, I can see brokenness. I certainly understand brokenness in me. I'm having a hard time seeing out of my left eye because of the little filariasis crawling across it. So I'm experiencing brokenness right now. But the Spirit, really? Listen. Likewise, Likewise, in the same way of creation, same way of us, 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, there's that word again, groanings, too deep for words. He who searches hearts knows what's the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So here we are in a fallen world, as fallen people, and the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. The weakness here is that we are living in the world of fallenness and sinfulness. And often we're just struggling, it's just hard. And sometimes we don't even know what to pray. But the Spirit himself, who knows God's mind and the God's will and the purposes of God, prays for us and in us. And so, like creation and like us, the Spirit is groaning a too-deep-for-words kind of intercession. he is not alluding here to some inarticulate or ecstatic speech that the Spirit produces in us rather he is connecting the heaviness in creation and the hardness in our lives with the Spirit's groaning He groans deeply because of our own suffering and sins as well. Think! The third person of the Godhead is living in your body. He knows, experiences your suffering and so God in one sense is suffering in you. And he intercedes then and aligns your heart with God's will through these deep intercessions that he offers. We can't experience them, we don't hear them, we are just said they exist and be blessed by it. So the Spirit's work in us is to align our own hearts with the trajectory of God's will. It is a really hard place to be in life when you don't want what God has given you. Now what strikes me here is how Paul is framing a theology of prayer for us Briefly, here are its key points. Prayer is always in the context of fallenness and futility. It is shaped by our needs, our own groaning as sons and heirs. And our own weakness and ignorance is assumed. It's okay. Sometimes, maybe a lot of times, I don't know what to pray for here. I don't. How do you pray for certain things? That's okay. Why? Because the Spirit knows God's mind, God's will, and God's purposes. And so there is a sense where we go, okay, I don't know, but the Spirit knows. Thank God for the ministry of the Spirit in us. So the Spirit prays for us according to God's will. His praying is always aligned with God's purposes. In Romans 8, 28, through 30, here is what the Spirit is praying for. And so, it's expectations to, according, it's expectations due to God. Here's one of the most precious and hope-giving texts in the New Testament. And we know. Cause you to pause and go, do you? Do you? We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. In order that he, the son, might be the firstborn, the protocos, the pattern among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called. Those he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. And between justified and glorified is a lot of stuff. So in the midst of groaning, in the midst of struggling with sin while we're walking in the Spirit, we know that God is at work in our situations to transform us and to conform us into the likeness of Christ. That's what He's after. That is what the Spirit's praying for. That's what the will of God is. This is the whole trajectory of our sufferings. When we say that God is at work for our good and His glory, we had better understand that this, we understand this in terms of God at work to change us. It's not merely for our good, but that we might be different. When someone says, I cannot see the good in this, that's a misunderstanding of the text. The good that God is always working toward is your Christ-likeness. So to not see the good in it is not to see how God is at work to change you. And may I say, get discipleship or get help. There are plenty of people who here in this church want to be instruments of seeing so that you can become an instrument that is changed. Why is this so? On what is this grounded? It is grounded in the personal and the providential sovereignty of God. Those whom God loved and chose, he has determined beforehand that they will be like Christ. Then he moves in time and in those people's lives to make it so. He calls them, He justifies them, He glorifies them. These are not oh maybe outcomes, potential outcomes, these are assured future realities. So we lean towards the glory to come and the present experience of groaning now because God is at work in everything to mold us to be like Christ. And may I say, particularly in the hardness and heaviness and sorrows. So what do we learn from this? How does this fuel hope and shape affections? God has a glorious purpose for his people and for his creation at large. But that purpose unfolds through the struggle with fallenness. God is at work for our good to display his glory so we are free from the power of sin but not completely until that day so there is groaning now until the glory later. Now in the midst of life transforming sufferings where do we struggle in our relationship with God? Many sufferers who I've talked to, who have sat across the table from, have said to me, if God really loves me, why is he allowing this to happen? Now, that's not a biblical question. And because of what he is about to say, For we are now inseparable from God's love while we're experiencing no condemnation and we are more than conquerors. Now, first we have the surety of God's love in our answers, verses 31 to 36. We are gloriously sure of God's love because there is no condemnation. What do we say to these things, verse 31? What do we say to all these things that we have just said? What do we say? Here's what we say. If God be for us, who can be against us? That's what we say. We stand in faith and hope believing what God has said in the midst of suffering as he is growing us in our saintliness and our virtues so that we say in the midst of all of this, there is no one Who can ultimately be against me? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Already and not yet. Who shall bring any charge against God? Here's our second response. Who can be against me? No one. Who can condemn me? Who can put me back under law and make me try to interact with God as judge? Who can condemn me? Jesus Christ is the one who died, more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. The Spirit is interceding in us and Jesus is in heaven interceding for us. Third response. First response, who can be against me? Second response, who can condemn? And third response, who shall separate us from the love of God? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword, as it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Since God is for us, who can be against us? God's enemies? The fallen world? Our sins? Satan? Yes, because God is for us. None of these is against us successfully. Since God graciously gave us a son, will he not freely give us all things? Absolutely. The gift of God's son not only obtained all God intends for us, but it also makes it sure, as Stott puts it, the cross is the guarantee of the continuing and unfailing generosity of God. Since God has also justified us, who can charge us? There's no one. Our right standing before God means there is no lesser court to judge us. Since Christ has died and risen and intercedes, who can condemn us? None! For Jesus stands to answer every and all accusations with his perfect and completed sacrificial work. A. W. Tozer, quoting Frederick Faber, says, he utters no word in his interceding work, but before his father stands and shows a nail-pierced hand and a spear-pierced side, that's his intercessory work. And since all this is so, what persons or circumstances can separate us from God's love? Well, nothing. Yet the brutal reality is that like Christ, our sacrificial lamb, we are set for suffering as well. I can only conclude that we will have an ever greater experience of the surety and reality of God's love in the midst of all the groaning outlined here. We will never be separated from God's love in the midst of a creation who groans, with a spirit inwardly who is groaning interceding. In our own experience of sorrow and suffering and sin, Because there is a mediator in heaven, our faithful high priest, who shows himself and all is well with our souls. And finally, in our affirmations, verses 37 to 39, we are gloriously sure of God's love because we are more than conquerors. There's no condemnation with all that it means, and we are more than conquerors. Listen to what he writes. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure Are you? Can you say yes with Paul or do you go, oh really? I am sure neither death nor life. Angels are rulers so heavenly and earthly rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 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. If we have the love of God, we've got it all, brothers and sisters. That's the point here. In all these adversities, all the things of Romans 8, 28, all things in verse 32, all these things in verse 37, rather than being separated from Christ's love, believers are more than conquerors, present tense. Keep on being conquerors to an ever greater degree. Or you could say, we keep on winning glorious victories. Through him who loved us, Jesus Christ and his love for believers enable them to triumph. Thanks be to God who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. Here's our conviction and here is our confidence. Absolutely nothing in his creation can thwart his purpose for believers in Christ. What a climactic way to affirm the believer's salvation. So, we are and we will be more than conquerors over sin, law, self, and suffering. We have an abiding confidence in God's love for us. Once again, John Stott wrote, quote, we need these assurances today when insecurity is written all across the human experience. Christian people are not guaranteed immunity to temptation, to tribulation, or tragedy, but we are promised victory over them. God's pledge is not that suffering will never afflict us, but that it will never, ever, ever sever us from his love. Amen? more than conquerors in the midst of groaning, headed for glory, inseparable from God's great love for us. Let me no more my comfort draw from my frail hold of thee. In this alone rejoice with awe thy love's mighty grasp of me. May you know and believe these things. You are at work in the midst of a creation in groans, our experience of groaning, and the Spirit who is interceding with groaning to bit by bit bring us into the glory of likeness in Christ. And in that transforming process, may we confidently affirm in faith that we love you and we can never, ever be separated from your love in our Lord.