Suffering Together with Christ

Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles, this morning to Romans chapter 8, Romans chapter 8 for a time of study in, in the word this morning. we're doing a verse by verse study through Romans chapter 567, and 8, and as we continue in our study of this section of Romans, we come this morning back to Romans chapter 8, verse 17. And basically this morning we're going to spend all of our time in verse 17. We were able to cover all that's in verse 17, but in an overview and a rushed fashion at the end of our preaching time last week, but there were some loose ends that that we had to leave untied and we'll seek to tie those up this morning.

By the way, am I echoing? OK, can you de-echo me so that this congregation will only hear me once, which is enough. if you want to give a title to the, message this morning, it would be, suffering together with Christ, suffering together, with Christ, and basically, virtually all of the message this morning will be on the phrase that we find in verse 17, wherein Paul says, if indeed, we suffer together. If indeed we suffer with him, and we'll see that literally that is if indeed we suffer together and we'll try to unpack that and approach this with questions and try to explore what the answer to those questions might be.

Let me start with this though. In the city of Rio de Janeiro, there is a mountain, Cuercovado, that rises about 22,300 ft above the city. And at the peak of that mountain is a massive statue of Christ that is over 600 tons and rises itself 130 ft over this mountain peak that overlooks the city of Rio de Janeiro, and a number of years ago, a German writer Rolf Italiander wrote a work. In which he imagined a poverty stricken man living in the city below, making his way out of the slums where he and everyone he knew lived and beginning a laborious climb up the slope.

Of this mountain where the statue of Christ the Redeemer stands, and he painstakingly and with difficulty climbed his way the 2310 ft up this mountain until he got to the foot of this massive statue of the Christ. And when he got to this statue, he began to pray to the statue and in his prayer, he said this. He says, I have climbed up to you, Christ, from the filthy confined quarters down there to put before you these considerations. There are 900,000 of us down there in the slums of that city.

And you, Christ, do you remain here at Corcovado surrounded by divine glory? Go down there into the impoverished towns. Come with me into the shanty towns and live with us down there. Don't stay away from us.

Live among us and give us new faith in you and in the Father. Amen. What we see in the prayer of that poverty stricken man in this literary work is a beautiful expression of our heart's desire as human beings to not be alone in our suffering and in our pain and specifically to want a God who is with us in our suffering, in our deprivation, deprivation, and in our pain. This man was praying to a statue, and we don't pray to statues, but if he was praying to the real Jesus Christ, Christ would say to him, I have already answered your prayer in a far more glorious and profound way than you could ever even begin to imagine.

And one of the things that we began to look at last week is one of those glorious aspects of gospel truth wherein we observe that when we suffer, we suffer with Christ. as we look at Romans chapter 8, let me just reread the, the passage we covered last week, and then we'll hone in on what we're going to look at today. Paul says, the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit. That we are children of God and if children heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

Now you'll notice probably in most of your translations that when Paul says if indeed we suffer with him, that the word him in many of your translations is italicized, meaning it's not in the Greek text, both when it says we suffer with Him and so that we may be glorified with Him in neither of those locations is Him actually appearing in the Greek text, it's a decent translation. to include him, but for our purposes this morning, we will serve ourselves well if we try to be as literal as possible and understanding what it is that is being said here.

And so at the bottom of the screen, there's a literal rendering. Literally, this could be rendered, we are fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed, we suffer together.

In order that we might also be glorified together, so we're co-heirs with Christ. Paul says, and, and what does that mean? He unpacks what it means to be a co-heir of Christ. It means that we suffer together in order that we might also be glorified.

together. if you underline the word we in both of these places, we're fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we underline that we, and in order that we might be glorified together, underline that we, because my personal interpretation is that inside of that we is us and Jesus. OK, this isn't just something we do, we suffer with Christ. I'm going to make sure I suffer with him.

No, the we in these two clauses includes us and Jesus. It's something we do together. We are fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we in Christ suffer together, in order that we might also be glorified together. Does that make sense?

All right, so what we're going to do, I don't know that I've ever preached a message where this was the sermon outline, but what we're going to do this morning is, look at 3 questions. Or ask three questions that are raised by this statement of Paul, if indeed we suffer together. that are raised by that statement that we will try to answer, this morning and the first one we'll answer so quickly you're going to think we're going to fly through the sermon. but here's the first question, and that is, is suffering together with Christ a condition that must be met in order for us to be co-heirs with Him of glory?

in fact, reading the new American Standard translation, it's like the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we're children of God. And if we're children, we're heirs also heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, and we're like, oh, man, this is so great. The assurance here is amazing. And then we read, if indeed we suffer with Him.

And that's a conditional statement and all of a sudden, this feeling of assurance that we had, is immediately taken away and we start asking, do I meet this condition? Have I sufficiently suffered with Christ in order to meet this condition and thus be entitled to this assurance that the Spirit is, according to this passage, speaking to those who are children. of God, and someone may wrongly say, or rightly, they may say, well, what, I don't know that I've really suffered with Christ.

And so does that mean I'm not a child of God?

Does that mean that I'm not a co-heir with Christ of, of glory? And so it's a legitimate question, is the suffering together with Christ that Paul is referring to in this if statement, a condition that must be met in order for us to be co-heirs with Christ of glory? Do you guys understand the question? OK, my answer to that question is a resounding yes.

It absolutely is a condition that must be met in order for us to be co-heirs with Christ of glory. This if that we find at the beginning of this clause, if indeed we suffer with Him, could be translated if. some translations say providing that or provided that or many commentators suggest something like if indeed, as we most certainly do, or if indeed as is in fact the case, and with that understanding this if could be translated since, and there are times where this very conjunction, like in 12 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 6, where it's actually translated as sense, or I'm sorry, because, but however you word it, whichever conjunction you think is best here, there's no way around the fact that, suffering together with Christ is an essential component that is required.

It is a condition that must be met in order for us to be co-heirs with Christ of glory.

And so that raises the second question. And that is, well, if that's the case, then what does it mean for Christ and me to suffer together, because whatever it means, I've got to make sure that I do this so that I meet this condition and I'm thus entitled to whatever the assurance that this passage is speaking. Unfortunately, I think when some read a statement like this, if indeed we suffer with him, our first thought is what we need to do. What do I need to do to meet this condition and energizing that, especially for someone who might be prone to doubt their salvation and someone who is legitimately a child of God to read this and say, Man, I don't know if I'm really saved because how much have I really suffered in my life?

And can it be said that I've suffered with Christ? And So there's energy behind this question that is, well, what does it mean for Christ and me to suffer together? Because I got to know what it means to be able to assess whether I meet this condition of Christ and I suffering together. Well, we're going to provide a few answers to this question.

and I believe there's 3 total. answer number 1 is this, what does it mean for Christ and us to suffer together? number 1, it means that Christ has made himself a joint heir with us in suffering. I would strongly encourage you, don't let your first thought be, what do I need to do to meet this condition?

Let your thoughts first go to Jesus and contemplate what he has done to meet this condition. And clearly, what is being affirmed here and elsewhere in the New Testament, is that Christ has made himself a joint heir with us and experiencing the sufferings of this fallen. And broken world. John Stott in his book The Cross of Christ says it is wonderful that we may share in Christ's sufferings.

It is more wonderful still that he shares in ours. Barnhouse, the commentator in his great commentary on the Book of Romans, says this, Let us realize that the Lord Jesus Christ is joint heir with us, not only of the glory and grace, but also of the sufferings through which we are called to go at the present time. The unsaved do not have any fellowship in their sufferings. We do.

And so let our thoughts first go to Jesus and looking at what he has done before we begin to contemplate what we are supposed to do in order to meet some, condition. And so let's think about it. How has Christ become a joint heir with us and our suffering? What sufferings did Christ endure when he was on this earth 2000 years ago?

Good luck trying to write all this down, but, just, hastening through this, we, we, we see him throughout his life experiencing many of the things that we experience in a fallen. And broken world. He was hungry in Mark 11:12. He said when he was on the cross, I'm thirsty.

So he thirsted. In John 19:28. In John 4 he was traveling through Samaria and he was wearied from his long journey. So he experienced the weariness that plagues us in this fallen and broken world as we live in bodies that are subject to weakness and And decay.

We also know that when he was in this world, he suffered from homelessness at various points, and he said in Luke chapter 9 that foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but, but the Son of Man often has nowhere to lay his head. We also see passages like John chapter 11 when Jesus comes upon the scene where Lazarus had died and he sees the family weeping. over the, the death of their beloved friend and family member, Lazarus, and, and we observed that as Jesus beheld this, it says he groaned in a spirit, and he was troubled in a spirit.

And the language here indicates there was some violence that occurred within the spirit of Jesus.

And it almost had the idea of anger. Jesus was profoundly troubled. violently troubled by what he observed, angry at death, angry at evil and hurting with those as he walked on the scene, he opened up his heart to the pain that they were experiencing, and he entered into their Pain and there was a violent, troubling and groaning in his spirit. And in John 11:35, he wept.

And that means way more than just a tear fell from his eye. Because as he wept, people said, behold how he loved Lazarus. So he wept profusely. Mark 8:12, he sighed deeply over what he was encountering of the unbelief of people who kept challenging him for a sign.

In Matthew 9:36, he looked over the multitude and that were desolate and living and wandering about without a shepherd and his bowels churned with compassion for, for them as he witnessed this scene, he was pained with the pains of compassion. He suffered from the compassion that he felt as he beheld the great need of the multitude before his public ministry was launched. Christ was driven into the wilderness, and he was tempted by, Satan over the length of 40 days. We know of three of those temptations, but we know from the Gospel accounts that there were many more and no doubt other temptations along the way throughout his public, ministry.

As he is approaching or in the Garden of Gethsemane approaching his death, he says to his disciples, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. My, my soul, he's saying is experiencing a crushing even now. He's not even been arrested. He's not been crucified, but he is in agony and suffering even now, he says, to the point of, of death.

He was one who was despised and rejected by men, someone who was acquainted with sorrows and and grief. He was hated by his fellow men and by his own people. He was persecuted, harshly mistreated at various points, harshly spoken about throughout his public ministry. He was unjustly arrested.

He was falsely accused. He was spat upon. He was punched. He was blindfolded and then repeatedly punched and mocked by those who were punching him.

He was crowned with thorns by the Roman soldiers. They took a rod and they beat that crown of thorns into his brow. He was mocked by them. His clothes were stripped from his back and he was tied around a great stone.

And he received in his back and on his body repeated lashings with a cat of nine tails that cut into his skin and shredded his skin with each lash of the whip. He was nailed to a cross. He had to carry that cross to the place of crucifixion. He fell under the weight of that.

Someone else had to carry it the rest of the way, but they got to the place of his crucifixion, and Christ was laid upon the cross, and nails were driven through his hands and driven through his feet, and he was crucified, and he suffered the agonies of a slow. And gasping and agonizing and bloody death. And while he was on the cross, all of that that I've just described, he would say that's nothing compared to what happened on the cross when I experienced abandonment from my father in the midst of my worst moment of suffering and agony.

So much so that Christ in a moment of bewilderment, cried out, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Why have you forsaken me? And imagine the pain that would cause him to utter that cry, and then imagine the pain when there's no answer. In his darkest moment, His father does not respond. The father at other points spoke from heaven and said, This is my beloved Son.

You are my beloved Son, and you, I'm well pleased. The Father could have easily answered from heaven, but Jesus received silence in his deepest, darkest moment of suffering, and we know from the New Testament that on the cross Christ was suffering the torments of the boiling, torturous wrath of God that was unleashed upon Him. For the sins that we have committed. Indeed we can say that Christ has made Himself a joint heir with us in our suffering.

We deserve God's condemnation, judgment, and wrath. Christ said, I'll make myself a joint heir with you of that, and I will let myself receive that as an inheritance upon myself. This inheritance you deserve from God, I'll place myself under it, and I will inherit that myself so that you won't have to. Not only that, but on the cross, we saw last Sunday that Isaiah hundreds of years in advance, looked ahead to the Messiah being crucified.

And one of the first observations he makes is surely our griefs he bore and our sorrows he carried. Not only did Christ experience all the sufferings and the sorrow and the pain that I've just described, but also on the cross, every sorrow and every grief that we have ever known was also placed on Christ. And he felt all of our pain and every sorrow and every grief throughout his life and even on the cross. He was tempted and tried in all points such as we are and yet without sin.

If you want to know what it means for you and Jesus to suffer together, your first thought ought to be, I'm going to look at Jesus and try to comprehend how it is that Christ made himself a joint heir with me in my suffering. We can depict it graphically this way that when Christ was on the cross, he experienced Satanic assault. Satan was involved in his crucifixion. We know from Genesis 3:15 it's foretold that Satan, the seed of the serpent, basically would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman.

So the devil was unleashing his fury, and Christ also at the cross was receiving in his own person, human injustice and evil. mistreatment. Also on the cross, he was experiencing God's just wrath. And while he was on the cross, he also experienced our every sorrow and our every grief.

Christ left the immunity of heaven. His immunity to pain that he was entitled to, and he came to this broken, suffering world and entered into our world of blood and sweat and tears and thorns. And he allowed himself intentionally to become a joint heir with us in the sufferings and the agonies of this world. What does it mean for Christ and me to suffer together?

The first answer is it means that Christ has made Himself a joint heir with us in our suffering. A second answer is it means that Christ through His Spirit and His love is with us in all of our sufferings in this life. We suffer together, because he's with us in our moments of suffering. We can enjoy withness.

Being with him and him being with us, and that makes our sufferings more manageable. A little confession about myself. My therapist told me I needed to confess this to you guys. I'm kidding about that, but I sometimes when I'm at a hospital or in some building that uses elevators, like, I don't have any phobia about getting on an elevator, but if, if I'm on an elevator that is making a lot of noise and a lot of racket, there are times where that really messes with me.

And, And for some weird reason I have no trouble getting on an elevator, any elevator, if other people are on the elevator. But there are times where it's like, it troubles me to get on an elevator by myself. And I don't know why, but I don't mind getting trapped in an elevator if there's other people in the elevator. But I don't want to get trapped in an elevator by myself, and there's been occasions where I've been like no one's around to get on the elevator with me, so I just take the stairs.

and every once in a while that, that messes with me. But it's like, and I don't fully understand why, but if there's other people with me, it's more OK to imagine getting trapped on an elevator. And the same with the sufferings that we experience in this life. This is the heart cry of that poverty stricken man who comes up to that detached statue that's, that's, a couple 1000 ft removed from the suffering down below saying, come and be with us in our suffering.

And Christ has done that through His earthly life and also through what he endured at the cross, but we don't just look back and relish the fact that He came and suffered with us then, but we also relish the fact that He, Christ, is with us even now in our suffering. In fact, I would encourage you to go through the rest of the book of Romans, and if you want to know what Paul means by suffering in verse 17, go through the rest of Romans 8 and even into Romans 9 and try to identify what are all of the words and synonyms that he uses that could help describe the suffering that he's talking about and you see things like, like this, he, he speaks of the sufferings of this present time, verse 18, verse 19, he speaks of the anxious longing of the creation and the futility that creation is subjected to, and that word futility in a context like this has the idea of frustration.

He speaks of slavery to corruption and to decay. in verse 22, he speaks of the fact that all of creation groans.

and then he says in verse 23, we believers also are groaning and longing for our adoption as sons and the redemption of our bodies. And not only does creation groan, and not only do we join creation and groaning ourselves, but the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who is with us and in us, he's also groaning. Do you see the solidarity there? We groan with creation, and the Spirit of Jesus Christ within us.

is very present within us. And he's groaning too. In fact, he helps us to groan. And when we can't even utter our groanings and words, he goes ahead and intercedes for us and our experiences of weakness, when we don't even know how to pray as we ought, the Spirit says, I will groan, I will express the groanings that you experience in this fallen world that you yourself are not even able to experience.

So we know that the Spirit of Christ within us, He is suffering with us. He's groaning. All of creation is experiencing and suffering the pains of childbirth, and we all are a part of creation, and we're a part of that experience of the pains of childbirth. Verse 35, he uses the word tribulation, Stress, and then there's persecution.

So that's definitely included. There's famine, which is one of the results of living on a fallen planet and a cursed planet. There's nakedness. There's peril.

There is sword. He says in verse 36, For your sake, Lord, we're being put to death all day long, and this seems to be speaking of the suffering of persecution. he also speaks of death that might attempt to separate us from the love of Christ. Death is an enemy, and we experience that enemy.

We suffer the ravages of death in our physical persons, and he also makes reference to principalities, and it seems like the context would indicate that's evil principalities that make war against us and would seek to separate us from. The love of Jesus Christ. And then Paul didn't write with chapter divisions. So let's go right into Romans 9 very quickly into just the first couple verses.

And we think, man, Paul in Romans 8, he must be in a really great mood. Well, in a way, he is, but We're stunned to come into Romans 9 and hear him say, as he's celebrating all these wonderful gospel truths, he says, I'm telling the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart for the sake of my kinsmen, speaking of his fellow Jews.

And notice what he says, I'm telling the truth in Christ. He knows what I'm feeling, and he can testify to you what I'm feeling. And my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows what I am feeling, but I experienced great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart on top of all the other things in the way of suffering that I have just described.

And yet amazingly, He's going to teach us many things to give us perspective on suffering. The only thing I want to pull from. The rest of Romans 8 for our purposes this morning. is that in the normal sufferings of this life we experience togetherness with Christ through His Spirit who groans with us, and Paul, as the chapter wears on, says, who will separate us from the love of Christ.

No one can, can separate us. Think about what he's saying there. Christ and and us, we are together on this fallen planet at this time, and nothing is going to be able to put a wedge between us and separate Jesus from us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Look at verse 35. Will tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril sword will sufferings separate us and distance us from Christ? Absolutely not, he says. In fact, in these sufferings, we overwhelmingly triumph through this one who loves us.

And he closes the chapter by saying, I'm convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that's in Christ. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, The love of Christ, the love of God in Jesus Christ, these things are profoundly with us, as we experience the sufferings of life in a fallen world. One commentator describing the sufferings of Romans 8 says, what are the sufferings?

He says, there are sufferings which are common to the whole of the human race and others that belong only to believers.

All of that is included. But Paul says we have Christ. Through His Spirit with us and he's feelingly with us. As he groans with us.

There's a third answer to this question, and that is, what does it mean to suffer together? It means that Christ views our present suffering as his own. he doesn't come to us and just say, I noticed that you're suffering, or that is your suffering. I'm here with you, but it's your suffering.

No, what's interesting is overwhelmingly in the New Testament, there's abundant evidence that Christ looks at our suffering and says that's mine. He owns our suffering as his own. which makes him a sympathetic high priest. We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize or suffer with us in our weaknesses.

some of the other indications of this in the New Testament in Acts 9, Jesus confronts, Paul or Saul of Tarsus, who was persecuting and ravaging the church, and he said to him, Why do you Persecute me. I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. He doesn't say, Why are you persecuting my church? He says, Why are you persecuting me?

Anything you're doing against my people, you're doing that against me. I'm being persecuted right now. He says to Saul of Tarsus, and you are persecuting me. The persecutions of my people are mine.

In Matthew 25, Jesus is going to say to some, I was hungry. I was thirsty. I was a stranger. I was naked.

I was sick and I was in prison, and you did nothing for me. And they're going to say, when did we ever see you naked and sick and in prison and hungry and thirsty and a stranger and didn't reach out to? When, when did we ever see you like this? And Jesus says, inasmuch basically as you saw the least of my brethren experiencing hunger and thirst and being a stranger, needing a place to stay, being naked and sick and in prison, inasmuch as you saw the least of my brethren experiencing any of those things, that was me that was experiencing them.

And inasmuch as you failed to give them something to eat and drink and to take them in and give them clothes to wear and tend to them in their sickness, and to visit them in prison to the degree that you failed to do that to them, you failed to do that to me. Man, as the people of Jesus Christ, we ought to enjoy hearing him talk like that, like, wow, my, my hunger and my thirst, and my needs, and my nakedness and my sickness in whatever form and anything that's happening in my life, he cares so deeply about those things that he claims them as his own.

This would only make sense in 1 Corinthians 11:27. Paul says, Now you are Christ's body and individually members of it, right?

Well, in the preceding verse, look what he says. If one member suffers, all the members suffer together. And by the way, that that verb suffer together, it shows up in Romans 8:17. This verse, 1 Corinthians 11, I'm sorry, that's 12:26.

1 Corinthians 12:26, this is the only other use of this exact word in the New Testament. If one member suffers, all the members suffer together. So if we are a member of Christ's body and Christ is the head, is the head a part of the body? And so if we as members of His body suffer in any way, shape, or form down here on Earth, the whole body suffers, and Christ would say, I, as the head of this body.

I suffer together with you. So you put that together and We can now ponder what it means to suffer with Christ in terms of what we do. we suffer with Christ whenever we're persecuted for Christ's sake. We suffer together with Christ whenever we experience human injustice for any reason.

you really, in our lives sometimes we're wronged, not simply because we're Christians, but we're wrong just because the people around us are unjust. We get falsely accused of things and in the workplace, maybe serious wrongs are done against us and it's not because they know we're Christians and they're out to get us. Maybe that is the case, but maybe it's just they're evil people and we suffer injustice and whenever we experience human injustice for any reason we're suffering.

With Christ and he is suffering with us.

We also suffer together with Christ whenever we experience temptation or satanic attack because he experienced the same thing, and he as the head of the body of which we are members is is very feelingly with us in those moments of temptation and satanic attack. We could also say that we suffer together with Christ whenever we experience sorrow or grief of any sort. Jesus Who knows the number of hairs on your head? Why would anyone want to know that information?

And if you said, why do the number of hairs on my head? he wouldn't say, Well, I'm omniscient. I can't help it. I have to know it.

No, he would say, I know that information because I want to know it. That's how much I care about you. And a savior who sees every sparrow that falls and knows the number of hairs on your head because he wants to know them. He cares about every sorrow, every grief, every pain.

And so in our moments in which we suffer, On the receiving end of wrongdoing or physical ailments. or we dive into a lake like Johnny Erickson did decades ago and hit one's head against a rock and snap our neck and become paralyzed. Someone like her can know in my sorrow and in my grief, in my physical disability. Christ suffers with me.

Also, we suffer with Christ whenever we willingly enter into the sorrows and griefs of other people, whenever we weep with those who weep in order to get under their need with the intent of meeting that need. When we reach out to someone who maybe is in great need, great sorrow, great grief, or great deprivation. go over to, an African country and see the abject poverty that will literally shatter and devastate you by what you see and leave you forever vulnerable and leave you with heartrending cries to God.

God, why would you allow this to happen?

And as you experience the pain, witness that your heart is made vulnerable to that pain, and you're letting their pain into you, and then you get under that need to try to address that pain in any way that you can. When you open up your heart and enter into the griefs of other people, you're suffering with Jesus. Suffering with Jesus because that's exactly what he did. We also suffer with Christ whenever we allow ourselves to experience grief over the lost.

I guarantee you, in fact, Paul's language in Romans 9:1-2 clearly indicates that as he had unceasing grief and sorrow in his heart and expressed that through weeping, That the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ were with him and that he was, he was entering into the very heart of Jesus, who wept over Jerusalem. As Paul allowed himself to be made vulnerable to the very pain in the heart of Jesus for Paul's fellow men. These are ways and perhaps there are others that it can be said that when we suffer, we, we suffer together with Jesus.

That brings us to the 3rd and final question that we'll go through more quickly than we did question 2.

And that is what is Paul's intent then in verse 17B when he says, and if we're children, we're heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer together so that we may be glorified together, why does he insert that in there? He's speaking assurance and then he says we're fellow heirs with Christ. If we suffer together in order that or for the purpose that we be glorified together, why does he insert that suffering element in there?

Well, a few answers to this question. Answer number one, I believe Paul is comforting us with the thought that suffering is not evidence of our lack of salvation. It is actually one of the proofs that we are God's children. Don't view any suffering, any sorrow, any pain that you experience as maybe evidence that, God has not saved you.

And no doubt throughout church history, there have been people, and I've talked to people like this who, who began to view their suffering as an indication that, that God has rejected them and cast them off. When in fact, you see evidence in their life that they're genuinely children of God. Paul is comforting suffering believers, and affirming them and the fact that you're suffering does not mean you lack salvation. In fact, it's a part of the package of salvation.

It's a part of the path to glory. One commentator says, we are called of God to live a life that would include trials. This is not inconsistent with our new relationship to the Son of God as co-heirs, but rather it is proof that we've been joined to Him who when he was on earth was despised and rejected of men. He was a man of sorrows himself and acquainted with grief.

And so if you as a co-heir with Christ, are experiencing sorrows and griefs, You should see that as a sign of your relationship to Jesus. Another thing that I think Paul is intending to convey here is that he is comforting us with the thought that suffering is not evidence of God's distance from us. And you can even add to that or his disapproval of us or the fact that he's against us, somehow. there's no way to read Romans 8.

And get the impression that when we suffer, that means God is distant from us. We have seen overwhelming evidence in the way Paul words things in this very chapter that no, God is very much with us in our suffering and in our griefs and in our pain. Also, answer number 3, what does he intend and speaking about our suffering and attaching that to glory at the end of verse 17, I believe Paul is informing us that our sufferings on the pathway to glory make us just like Jesus. we're fellow heirs with Christ.

If we suffer together so that we might be glorified together. Even Christ on the other end of his suffering as he was raised from the dead and he's speaking to his disciples, and he says, Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? For me, he says it was suffering and then glory. It was required that I suffer.

Before I enter into my glory, and so we who are co-heirs with Christ. would not be surprised that we must suffer also and that our sufferings are a part of that path to glory. In fact, Jesus' glory in heaven is all the greater because he suffered. When he is seen in the book of Revelation in the future, he is seen as one slain.

When he introduces himself to two of the churches in the book of Revelation, he says, I'm the one who died. And for all of eternity we will praise Him as the one who died. Jesus will bear for eternity the scars in His hands and feet and inside of His crucifixion, not because there just was no help available to eliminate the scarring. He's bearing the scars because he wants to, and we will praise Him for eternity for his suffering.

We will be speaking about how he suffered for us and with us and our love for Him through eternity, and the glory he receives will be all the greater because of how he suffered. And so understand that, that the glory that we will experience with Christ. It's, it's, it's not in spite of our suffering, it's tied to and it emerges from our suffering. The 4th thing and final thing Paul is intending here is I believe he's intending to encourage us to be willing to suffer with Christ in any way, shape, or form.

If that's what God wills, if God wills that we be stricken with some disease and suffer for a season or suffer for the rest of our lives, great pain and great deprivation, if that is what God wills, then OK, and I will understand that Christ is with me. And that if it is God's will in this country that there come a day in the near future where we have to suffer for the sake of Jesus Christ and suffer persecution, if that's what God determines, then we're willing to not only accept that but to actually embrace that.

Paul wants us to be willing to Embrace suffering in any form, including the suffering of persecution. In fact, I believe that if there's someone reading this verse, verse 17, who willfully, as the pattern of their life, is intentionally compromising truth and compromising biblical conviction because they want to avoid persecution.

And they run away from suffering with Christ in that form at every opportunity. They have just reason to read verse 17 and question whether or not they're really all that interested in being a co-heir with Christ. Do I really want to be a co-heir with Christ of glory when I won't be a co-heir with Him in His suffering? You can't be a co-heir of glory without being a co-heir of suffering in all the forms we've talked about this morning, including Persecution Well, those are 3 questions that we Have sought to ask this morning and, have also sought to answer.

I just want you guys to be encouraged. Paul here is not saying you are a co-heir with Christ, only under the uncertain condition that you might be willing to choose to suffer a particular form of suffering called persecution with Christ. Paul's idea is more like this, we are children of God, and if children were heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, since indeed, we suffer together in order that we might be glorified together. Paul is simply in this passage, trying to unpack what co-heirship with Christ entails.

And he wants us to know it includes suffering. don't view your sufferings as some glitch in the plan. Don't view your sufferings as evidence that you might not be God's child. It is actually a part, a vital part of God's children's path to glory and co-heirship with Jesus Christ.

Let me ask you to bow your heads. And let's just rejoice in The, the affirmation that the spirit speaks in A passage like this. And ask God to give us minds that are supernaturally enabled to really get wrapped around the depth of what's being conveyed here. We're going to take up.

An offering in just a moment we would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to give. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for Your word This is Your word is so deep. This is not pie in the sky.

This is not Paul putting his head in the sand and And playing mind games with us, Paul is so real and realistic. Christianity offers a unique perspective on the problem of evil and suffering unlike any other religion could offer. And we thank you, Lord, that in your word, you choose to give us that perspective. Help us to receive it and to apply it in our own lives and to walk in the good of these things as we along the way, experience griefs and sorrows and hurts and brokenness, fallenness.

and persecution. And rejoice in your feeling presence, loving presence with us. Thank you, Jesus, for making yourself a joint heir with us of our suffering. Of the wrath we deserve, the judgment we deserve, the condemnation we deserve, so that we might be free of that wrath and condemnation forever, and so that we might have a sympathetic companion in all the other forms of suffering that we endure on this side of glory.

We thank you for the opportunity to give of our offerings to you, Lord. Receive these funds and do much with them. For the glory of Jesus, we give ourselves to you in Christ's name, and all God's people said,