The Spirit Helps Us

Introduction

You’re making your way to Romans chapter 8. We’re going to begin reading in verse 18. Romans 8 and verse 18. This section is one we covered a couple weeks ago, but it’s pretty in depth, and so I wanted to split it into a couple sermons. And so I’m going to read the majority section here, and then we’ll focus more toward the end for the most part on the sermon this morning. So good to be with you, and I’m looking forward to opening God’s word together as we look into some things I think are pretty important, even for a morning like this, a morning in which there’s lots of joy and there’s a lot of celebration. But the reality is there’s also a lot of sorrow and sadness for some people.

And that is just the way it is at times. And I want you to know that’s okay. I want you to know that Scripture says that’s okay. it’s okay to grieve, it’s okay to groan, it’s okay to rejoice and to celebrate. All of those things are good, and it’s part of our world, our fallen world, and that’s what Paul’s talking about here in Romans the eighth chapter, part of which we’ve already covered to some degree. and I think sometimes some messages get a little bit warped on things like groaning and grieving and sorrow, as if maybe you have a weak faith if you ever sorrow over the things that you go through. Or because maybe heaven isn’t bright enough in your mind that when you’re sad, you need a stronger faith.

And I would suggest to you that is simply not true at all, and is actually bad theology, according to what we read in scripture and the sort of things that Paul says here in Romans chapter 8. So begin reading with me in Romans chapter 8 and verse 18. He says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. 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.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 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. 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, and 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 might be the firstborn among many brothers, and those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified.

He was actually talking about this very text. He wrote a book not too long ago about the heart of Romans, which is chapter eight, and in this interview they were having this discussion about kind of the human desire for certainty. We like to know that things are kind of wrapped up and tightened with a bow and everything’s the way it’s supposed to be, and we don’t have to go through any problems, and if we do things God’s way, then it’s all going to be okay, and kind of all those sorts of ideas. And Wright made this statement. He said, Some will say, Well, if God is God, he wants us to be certain. No, according to the New Testament, because God is God, he wants us to be faithful.

And being faithful means hanging in there in the dark as often as not. And that’s what he’s describing here in Romans chapter 8. This idea, it’s not that we’re just certain all the time, that we know all the answers, and that someone can say, Well, if you believe in God, well, how come there’s things in life you can’t explain? Or how come there’s evil, or you go through difficulty, or you go through suffering, then the answer is not that God just wants us to be comfortable, and that’s his highest interest. God most wants us to be faithful. And in that faithfulness, understanding that God has a purpose, he has a purpose for his creation, he has a purpose for humanity, some of which we talked about last time, a couple weeks ago, and that all of this is working toward a final end in which God is going to redeem all humanity.

He’s going to redeem the creation itself. He’s going to make things the way they were supposed to be, and humanity is going to rule the way it’s supposed to rule. That’s the early part of this reading that we focused on last time. That we are the glory is going to be revealed to us. And just as Adam and Eve were supposed to reign and rule in the garden and they ruin that through sin, when there’s a new heaven and a new earth, we’re going to reign together with God. This is what scripture tells us. It’s what Jesus says to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. This is the message of where this is all headed and where it’s all going. And so this is the hope in which we are saved.

Not that if we believe in Jesus, then all things will be good and right in the world from then on. That’s not the hope. The hope in which we are saved, which is the middle part of the reading this morning, is that our bodies will eventually be redeemed. Now, there’s a lot of things that we don’t know, and he points some of those out here, but there are some things that we know as well. And so there’s a little bit of a structure here in the text. And when I work through these passages in Romans, I try to point some of these things out so you see them. I even highlighted some of it on the screen when we had the text up there. But I think there’s a kind of a loose structure here with the things that we know and the things that we don’t know.

1. The Whole Creation Has Been Groaning

And I actually think there’s some comfort in both of those. And the first of those is that we know this is obvious. Sometimes people try to deny or pretend like it’s not real, but we know that the whole creation has been groaning together. And it’s not just creation that’s groaning, we are groaning. We are going through difficulty, and we are going through suffering. And sometimes, as God’s people, there’s a temptation to kind of sidestep the idea of evil and suffering and difficulty in the world, as if that’s some sort of negative argument about the existence of God. But actually, what Paul’s saying is no, this is the perfect argument for the existence of God, because the idea here is that as we are suffering and going through difficulty in this life, only much more so do we now long for what is to come.

This world is subjected to futility because of what happened in the garden, because of sin. And there’s certainly echoes of creation, among other echoes that are here present in this passage, of what happened when sin entered the world, and then futility because of sin. And from that point on, the story is that God is trying to bring all of this back, working with his people, as we’ll hear see in just a minute, to restore what was lost. And so the first thing we have to admit is that the groaning is there and the suffering is there. It’s not something to pretend doesn’t exist or to ignore, but to realize that in the midst of this suffering, God has a plan. There’s an answer, there’s something to look toward.

There’s hope. And he talks about this right here in this passage. It’s not something that we full fully experienced. We have the first fruits of the Spirit. Paul says something like a down payment in Ephesians chapter 1. We’ve got kind of the inklings of it. We see little bits and pieces of it, but we haven’t fully realized what this redemption is going to be like. That’s not going to happen in this lifetime. Here we go through difficulty and suffering and we groan together with all creation, awaiting this adoption and this glorification. Last time I ran out of time talking about adoption. So I didn’t really get the chance to kind of expound on that very much. But in the ancient world, adoption was seen as sort of a glorious thing, especially among the elite.

And in fact, four of the first five emperors of Rome were adopted into their position. Probably the most well-known one is Octavian, who was adopted by Julius Caesar to then be the one who ruled. But each one along the way, I think it’s Caligula, maybe was the only one who wasn’t, and he was still a relative. But each of them, as they were deciding what was going to happen, who, in a sense, was going to inherit their power, that decision was made and they were adopted to have that position. It’s the very thing Paul’s talking about here. This is the feeling God has toward us. We’re going through difficulty, and there’s going to be suffering before glorification, but in all of this, we’re going to be adopted and be heirs, fellow heirs with Christ.

Now in 17 he says, provided we suffer with him in order that we also may be glorified with him. Suffer? That doesn’t sound real fun. Thought we were going to be heirs and rule. But what Paul recognizes is in the midst of this world, there’s going to be difficulty and suffering before there is glorification. Before we get that final result, where we are realizing that adoption in fullness, and we reign together with Christ. There’s going to be difficulties we go through. And so we have to approach life knowing that is a reality. And part of where we stand in this is those who are priests in God’s temple, which is also echoed here in this text. The Spirit is dwelling among us, he says repeatedly in this text.

And where does the spirit dwell? The spirit dwells in the temple. And so this is sort of temple language, and we are serving in the temple. We are priests, we are a royal priesthood. And sort of our purpose in this whole thing is that we are serving and we are working for God’s administration. We are working with his purpose and according to his will. And part of how we do that is we stand in the midst of darkness and we utter to God what’s in our hearts, but sometimes we’re not able to do that well. We do not know what to pray for as we ought, he says. That the Spirit Himself intercedes for us. What is the Spirit’s work? What does the Spirit do? These are kind of questions we ask a lot.

I’m not going to tell you this morning, I know all the answers to that, but I will say this. This is one of them. This is one of the things the Spirit does. He helps us. He helps us in way we can’t help ourselves, and we don’t know the right things to say. And so this is the sort of idea we want to get into as we look through this text. We don’t know sometimes the right words to utter. And I want you to understand this morning, you can find comfort in that. That when you don’t know the right words to utter, God has a purpose, and he has a plan that he’s working, and the spirit is there to help. And he who searches the hearts knows the mind of the spirit.

And so, even though we don’t understand, God understands. It’s kind of a crazy thing that I mean, maybe you’ve been there before, I’m assuming many of you have. You don’t even know the right thing to pray or the right thing to say. But the comfort is that God already understands. The Spirit is interceding, and God understands even better than we do what we need in that moment. And then we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him. I want to spend some time in just a minute talking about that. I read it the way it’s worded in the ESV. Unfortunately, I think the translation in the ESV and some other translations really give a bad idea of what’s being said here.

And so I’ll talk about that in just a moment. But here on the slide, I worded it the way that I think is accurate, and that is that in everything or in all things, God works for good. He’s on the side of good.

And then there is this kind of structure with this idea of glory and suffering that I’ve already talked about a little bit. That God is promising that we will be glorified, but in the midst of that, there’s going to be some suffering before we get there. And so as he’s talking about suffering, he wants to explain why. Because the creation has been subject to futility, right? Because our bodies need to be redeemed. Because things are not right now. They’re not the way they’re supposed to be. Because of that, there’s going to be difficulty, there’s going to be suffering, and there’s going to be pain, there’s going to be grieving. But in the end, notice the end of this passage in verse 30. Those who love him and those who are called according to his purpose, they’re going to be justified, and then ultimately they’re going to be glorified.

2. It Is Okay to Sorrow

And so there’s difficulty, there’s an uncomfortable nature to what happens in this life and this reality. But the ultimate end of this is something that we can hope for, that we can look forward to. And so there’s some truths that we need to think about as we go through this life and this reality, thinking about the suffering that we face. The first of those is something I alluded to earlier, and that is that it is okay to sorrow. It’s actually part of our weakness. I don’t think weakness here means that we lack faith or something like that. It’s just we exist in an unredeemed body. That’s where we are. We are in a temporary state. We are in a life now that’s not going to be the eternal life.

And so we’re dealing with things that relate to that. And so right now, we are awaiting the redemption of our bodies. It tells us in verse 23. That’s the hope that we are saved. But so what that means is in the moment we don’t have that redeemed body. And not having a redeemed body, having a corruptible body, having a body that is perishable, having all the things around us in life that are perishable and corruptible, that means we’re going to go through some things that are difficult and hard. That’s just part of this life. And if we see this from the right perspective, and if we frame this the right way, we understand that this only heightens our longing for what’s to come. Right? Because our goal is not to stay in this existence in this reality.

Our goal is not to set our mind on the things of the flesh. Paul’s talked all about this earlier in Romans chapter 8. No, but we want to live according to the Spirit. And when we live it according to the Spirit, we’re led by the Spirit because God is taking us somewhere. Right? He has a point, he has a purpose to what’s happening around us. And it’s not to stay here and do the things here and to be successful here, and that’s not the sign that all things are good and well. We can just look through biblical history, but also just history in general to see that people who are trying to do right and follow God often go through difficulty. We can read the story of Job, a man who is blameless and righteous.

And according to much theology that we would see today, he should have never gone through the things he went through because that would mean that things weren’t right in his life. And of course, the whole story is that’s just not the way to see God. That’s not the way things work. This theology of retribution is false. The idea that if I’m going through problems and difficulty, well, that means I’ve done something wrong or I’m not right with God or something to that effect.

It exists in a state of corruption, right? And it’s a state that when the sons of God are revealed in glory, the whole creation is going to be freed and set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. This is ultimately what we’re looking for. This new heaven, this new earth, where righteousness dwell, where all things will be right again, and God’s glory and his righteousness will be revealed in full. That’s the message Paul is pushing here. And the just or the righteous shall live by faith. The ones who trust God, the ones who put their faith or put their belief in God, they’re going to be the ones who ultimately then are glorified. This is the point he’s making here in Romans chapter 8.

Through all the difficulty and suffering, at the end of this, these people are going to be glorified. And so it’s okay to groan. It’s okay to admit you’re sad. And that you’re struggling. And that you’re grieving, that things are hard, that you’re going through something that you don’t like. It’s not a weak faith to say that you’re not happy with your circumstances at the moment. No, this is just the sort of thing that happens in this temporary life. And Paul says as much, the whole creation is groaning together. We don’t grieve or groan or sorrow like those who have no hope. I mean, Paul makes that clear. But certainly there are difficult things that happen. And it is somewhat irresponsible, kind of from a religious or theological standpoint to try to pretend like that’s not true, to kind of put on a face and pretend like everything’s good all the time when we know it’s not.

And a lot of what we’ve been seeing in the book of Romans is that reality. Things are not right. Things are not good in this world. There’s darkness and there’s evil, and that has to be corrected. And we admit that and we realize that God is the answer. When we try to act like that doesn’t happen or it’s not real, we’re kind of negating the point Paul’s making through much of the book of Romans, how badly we need God and his plan and how badly we need Jesus Christ to fix this mess that we see all around us created because of the actions of sinful men. And so don’t be afraid to groan. We have an entire book of the Bible about lament and quite a few psalms.

3. The Spirit Helps Us in Our Weakness

And they’re there for a reason. It’s not so that we pretend like we never have anything to lament about. It’s to help us show that sometimes there are lamentable things in life. There are things that are hard and difficult that bring us pain that make us shed tears. And all of that is fine. Particularly with the right reference and understanding what all of this is heading toward. And that God’s purposes are not tied up in what we see here in this temporary existence. But there’s something more we’re looking forward to. The second of the ideas that we looked at earlier, the things that we know is that the Spirit is helping us in all of this. Right? So it’s good. We need to be willing to admit that we suffer and we go through difficulty, and that people throughout history, people throughout scripture suffered and went through problems, but there’s also this reality, this kind of fortunate reality, showing God’s mercy and his grace that the Spirit is helping us in our weakness.

Verse 26 says, likewise, so this is you know obviously tying into something before, which is why I read the earlier text. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. So what is this weakness he’s talking about here? He just talked about how we are saved in this hope. Well, in the hope of what? That our bodies will be redeemed. The redemption of our bodies, and right now we’re groaning together inwardly. So the weakness that I think he’s referring to here is in the moment, we’re groaning inwardly in our unredeemed bodies. That’s our state of weakness. You know, eventually our bodies will be redeemed, all things will be well. Remember, these are the texts we read sometimes in Revelation and other places.

That’s when God’s plan has reached its fullness. And all the things Paul’s talking about here now have been realized to their fullest extent. Not just the down payment, not just the first fruits of the spirit, but we’ve got it all, and now we are in the presence of God forever. When we get there’ll be no more tears and crying and pain and difficulty. That will all be resolved. And God will have made it all right. But now in the moment, that very admission that is true, that will happen means that now it isn’t the case. But God, being God has a plan to help us, to work with us ultimately through what’s going to be this existence that sometimes is dark and dreary and causes us to groan.

And so the spirit is at work. At the very moment when we are struggling to pray and have no idea even what to pray for, just at that point, the spirit is most obviously at work. God hears and answers the prayer which we only know as painful groaning. The tossing and turnings of an unquiet spirit, standing before its maker with the pains and puzzles of the world heavy on its heart. What this person is saying is that the times you feel most confused and lost for words or in your deepest grief is when Paul says the Spirit is most clearly active and working in your life. When you’re going through something and you don’t even know how to utter the right words to say what you need from God.

That’s when the Spirit is there working. And we know this because it’s what scripture tells us right here. I don’t have to have a sensation or a feeling or anything like that. That’s not the idea. Not that we don’t ever have sensations or feelings as we pray or sing or whatever. I’m just saying that’s not really the definition of the spirit working in our life. What we know is scripture tells us, even in these moments, when we are in a darkest place, when we are sorrowing, we are groaning, when things don’t make sense and we can’t explain them, and we don’t know what to say to God, the spirit is there interceding for us with groanings too deep for words. Even the spirit doesn’t know what to say.

That’s what the scripture tells us. As we are groaning, the spirit himself is groaning. But he who searches hearts knows the mind of the Spirit. The Spirit Himself can’t even utter words. He’s just doing groanings too deep for words as the Spirit is searching our heart and looking for what’s there. But God understands, and God knows. God can translate all of that because He’s all-knowing and He’s all-powerful. He understands what’s happening, He knows what we’re going through, He realizes what this life is like and where we’re headed. He gets it all. Even His own son sorrowed. With tears like drops of blood in the garden before he gave himself as a sacrifice for all humanity. And so sorrowing is not the problem. It’s understanding how to do it well.

And that’s what Paul is saying here makes all the difference. And so there can be comfort even through sorrow. There can be hope seen even through difficulty. Once we understand that the answer is not that suddenly things will all be made right here. But what we are doing is praying according to the will of God, that his purpose is and his plans. And notice that the Spirit is interceding for the saints according to the will of God, according to God’s purpose. And God’s purpose is much bigger than me and you as individuals. His purpose is kind of a far greater plan to redeem everything. I can’t even fathom how that works. That’s okay, I don’t have to. Because the Spirit intercedes. He intercedes for me and for you according to the will of God.

And he does his work in ways that I don’t quite understand. But God certainly understands, and he knows. We’re told in the gospels he knows everything we need before we ask. And so don’t be afraid of your sorrow or your groaning. Or admitting that there are things that are difficult and hard in life, that’s just part of life. And God says that’s okay. But we can cast our burdens and let him bear them for us, Peter says. And this is part of the Spirit’s work.

This is like a it’s a title for God. Some may say they think it’s a title for the Holy Spirit. Either way, it doesn’t necessarily matter to me. I think here’s referencing God. But he is the one who searches hearts. He’s the one who knows. And so even in our groaning and our grieving and our sorrow and the things that we’re going through, he knows your heart. He knows my heart. Even when we can’t express it very well. Right? When we’re going through something that’s hard to explain and difficult to comprehend, yet in the midst of all of that, we know we still trust God, and we can’t quite express how all of that works. He knows. Because he is the one who searches the hearts.

4. In Everything God Works for Good

He’s aware. And we come to this text in Romans 8, verse 28, which your Bible likely reads something like this. We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. There’s a number of issues with translating it that way. And I’m certainly not in favor of reactionary theology. So what I’m about to say doesn’t mean we translate something to mitigate something else. But what I would say is this is translated for that very purpose. The Calvinistic influence in our culture kind of has caused this translation to happen the way it does. So what I mean is, I think the right idea here is in everything, God works for good with those who love him.

There’s a working together that’s actually been going on through this whole text. We are fellow heirs with Christ. We’re suffering with him, we’re going to be glorified with him. And what’s happening here is that God is then going to work with us for good. But there’s kind of this fear in dominant culture and religious culture that’s been here for quite some time, that this idea would be like we’re going to work together with God for our salvation. Which is really not what’s being talked about here at all, anyway. And it’s strange that in a book, or really the entire Bible, but particularly what Paul’s doing here, where God is the subject, it’s the revealing of God’s righteousness, and a strange twist in this translation, the subject of the action is all things.

All things work. The all things aren’t working. It’s God who works. And the idea here, it’s really where we get our word synergism from, the sinner Jo-O is this idea of working together. And if you have biblical software to do this, you can go look this term up, and there’s a similar one to it that also kind of does the same thing. Aaron’s probably already doing it. And you see, this is people working together. In almost every instance when this term is used in this context like this, it is people. It’s two people or two concepts working together. In James, it’s faith and works that are working together. And so this sort of fits into what’s being talked about before, now that we are servants in his temple and we are uttering prayers to deal with the darkness and the sorrow that we’re going through, and now he is working for the good.

God is on the side of good. And the reason why I’m making a big deal about this, because I want us to understand what this does not mean. Sometimes people get the idea, a really incorrect idea, I think, that all the terrible things that we go through, God is going to turn them into a wonderful conclusion or end. You know, all things work together. All the things you’ve been through that are horrible and terrible, you know, they’re all gonna be kind of mixed together and twisted and come out and be this glorious thing in the end. That is not what Paul’s saying. Maybe you’ve heard this. You’ve heard the cake analogy. I’m gonna read something. This is a writer who wrote this. I like to compare suffering to making a cake.

No one sits down, gets out a box of baking powder, eats a big spoonful, and says, hmm, that’s good. And you don’t do that with a spoonful of shortening or raw eggs or flour either. The tribulation and suffering in our lives can be compared with swallowing a spoonful of baking powder and shortening. By themselves, these things are distasteful and they turn your stomach. But God takes all of these ingredients, stirs them up, and puts them in his own special oven. He knows just how to long to let how long to let the cake bake. Sometimes it stays in God’s oven for years. We get impatient and want to open the oven, thinking surely the cake must be done by now, but not yet. No, not yet.

What really matters is that the cake is baking and the marvelous aroma is filling the house. I find that people who trust God with their sufferings have an invisible something, like the invisible aroma of a freshly baked cake that draws people to them. As Paul put it, all things, all the ingredients of pain and suffering work together for good to them that love God. Romans 8 28. Hashtag blessed, hashtag Jesus is my boyfriend. This is so utterly ridiculous. This is not life. Is God working all sexual abuse and murder and child abuse? All debilitating diseases, the loss of a mother, the loss of a child. Is he working all those things together into a beautiful aroma and cake to make us smell how wonderful life is?

No. Life is hard. And God doesn’t try to hide that. And neither does Paul. All of those things I just mentioned are terrible, and they will always be.

There’s never a situation in which any of those things suddenly become good. Now, God certainly can take horrible and terrible things and make good things come from them. But that doesn’t suddenly make those things good now. We aren’t baking cakes. We are living lives in which bad things happen, difficult things in which people die and they suffer and they go through problems that are horrible that are even unspeakable in a crowd like this. And those things do not suddenly become good just because God and his work in the end redeems all humanity. It doesn’t make all of that good and pleasant. That is terrible theology. And what it does is the very thing I mentioned earlier, which is make people who are sitting in those moments with those problems who feel that in a very real way, feel bad about their faith because they think, well, I don’t, I’m not happy right now.

I don’t feel good. So that means I don’t have enough faith. No, you understand it just right. You see the world much more clearly than something like that garbage.

And sin is devastating.

5. Conformed to the Image of His Son

What we really need is God’s plan of redemption. In which he will redeem my body and your body, and not just that, he will redeem all humanity, in which he doesn’t minimize the pain and the suffering that you have gone through in this life, but he does promise glory in the end. A glory that far outweighs the sufferings of the present time. And that’s really where the end of this text goes. He says he foreknew and he predestined that people be conformed to the image of his son. Right? This is the goal. This is the plan. Before the foundation of the world, God knew what he was going to do, and he had this plan that those who love him will be conformed to the image of his son.

And he predetermined that. Now don’t get all worried about the wording here. Predetermined just means he determined before. Right? And he knew before that was what he’s going to do. We’ll do more with this later on when we get to chapters 9 through 11. But let me just quickly show you some things here because I know this is an issue in our culture. In chapter 11 and verse 1 and 2, Paul is talking about whether or not God has been faithful to Israel. That’s really what’s going on in 9 through 11. Right, he’s talked all about Jesus, and so the question from a Jewish perspective is well, has God rejected Israel? Has God been faithful to his promises? And Paul says, yes, he has.

Who are part of Israel, part of the elect, were they saved in the end? Well, first of all, this passage and the others around it are not about salvation anyway. They’re about God working his plan and the way he chooses to work his plan through the people that he’s chosen to work his plan. And he foreknew that. He knew all that, how that was going to happen. It doesn’t have to do with individual salvation, as most of the book doesn’t. He just knew before what he was going to do. He already had a plan in place. And he’s working that plan. And certainly, he goes on to talk about how much of Israel was broken off, right? Because of unbelief. And he says, if they if they want to come back, if they leave off of their unbelief and they then believe again, I can graft them back in.

That’s what chapter 11 talks about. So this idea of foreknowledge or predestination really doesn’t have to do with your personal salvation. It’s about God’s working in the world and his purposing and him knowing beforehand how he’s going to do this. And the way he’s going to do this is that we are going to be conformed to Christ’s image. And he talks about this not just in Romans, but in Colossians and Ephesians. This is how this is going to work. We’re going to be like his son, so that his son may be the firstborn among many brothers. And then all things will be made right.

And then glorified. So now we’ve returned back to verse 17. We’ll be fellow heirs, provided that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him. Paul’s a good writer.

Conclusion

And so in the midst of the sufferings that you might go through and the difficulties you face in life, Paul wants you to have assurance that those things are okay to think. It’s okay to groan. It’s okay to feel like something’s not right here because it isn’t. And we’re longing for something else.

And when we found it and we’ve conformed ourselves to Christ’s image, there is nothing that anybody else can do to take us away from him. And that’s where he’s going to go in the rest of this text. What shall we say to these things? He continues. If God is for us, who can be against us? Is God for you this morning? That’s the question. If God is for you can go through the difficult things, the evil, the darkness of this world, knowing not that things will just suddenly be made right here in every way. But God has a plan for you for eternity and a new heaven and a new earth. Where there will be things all made right. Where you will be vindicated. When you’ve given yourself to him, he will dwell in you, and you will dwell in him, and you will be there for all eternity.

And that can begin this morning. You can give your life to Jesus Christ. You can die with him, be buried with him in baptism, be resurrected with him to newness of life. This is where Paul started some of this in Romans 6. You can live by the Spirit and not according to the flesh. This is what happens to those who love him. And in all things, God works for the good with those who love him. Do you want to work with God? Be a part of his plan and his purpose. You can begin that this morning. Why don’t you come now as we sing together?