Romans 8:14-17 [Trinity Sunday—CWS B]
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace--Tucson, AZ
May 30, 2021
14
Indeed, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery so that you are afraid again, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we call out, “Abba, Father!” 16 The Spirit himself joins our spirit in testifying that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, we are also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, since we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him. In the name of our Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, dear friends, It is sometimes difficult to gain people’s trust. We find it challenging to have full confidence in people. Recent Gallup Polls show that to be true. There are some organizations which, you would hope, would be worthy of our trust and confidence as Americans. Some seem to be, but we might be surprised at others. Would you believe that nurses have the trust of 89% of the people? That is VERY high. That first-place confidence in honesty and ethics has belonged to nurses for 19 years running. Also very high for honesty and ethics are grade school teachers at 75%. Advertisers, members of Congress, and salespeople are at the bottom of the list. Among institutions, the military is trusted “a great deal” or “quite a lot” by 72% of the people; churches or organized religion only 42%. As you might expect, TV News, internet news, and the United States Congress are all very low—in the 13%-18% range. Admit it, it’s hard for us to trust. It’s hard to have full confidence in anyone or anything in this world, which is why there are no 100%s in the polls. This comes from others letting us down, from us letting others down, and even from us letting ourselves down. But there’s no reason to feel that way about our God. Today is Trinity Sunday. We celebrate and talk specifically about the fact that our God is 3-in-1, three distinct persons, yet just one God. And this, the only true God, is the one we can trust. Today we’ll examine who each person of the Trinity is and what they do for us. What we’ll find is that we are… CONNECTED TO A GOD WE CAN HAVE FULL CONFIDENCE IN It will be obvious why, as we see that: 1. THE SPIRIT IS OUR GUIDE 2. IN THE FATHER WE CONFIDE 3. FOR US THE SON HAS DIED
We know, especially after celebrating Pentecost last Sunday, that the Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity who gave us faith. The apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians, reminds us that no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit (12:3). The Holy Spirit gives us faith in God as his free gift. But that’s not Paul’s point in this text. Here he speaks of sanctification. To live a life of sanctification means to live a holy (or sanctified) life. So sanctification speaks of the good and godly things we do in our dayto-day lives. Our sinful nature has no interest in serving God. But the Holy Spirit who gives us faith, also leads us to live out that faith daily. Paul says so here. He says that those who are led by God are sons of God. If you back up a few verses prior to our text, you find these words: But you are not in the sinful flesh but in the spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit lives in you (v.9). THE SPIRIT IS OUR GUIDE as we attempt to continually cast off the sinful nature and keep in step with God’s will. Without him there prompting us and strengthening us, we would not live for God. Instead we’d be like an out-of-control semi-truck that flies off the mountain highway and down those gravel and sand off-ramps put there to prevent major accidents. Those ramps are not the intended roads. When things go bad for the semi-truck, they drive off the road and get safely stuck in there. When we sin, we go off the road God intends for us and onto a road not designed for God’s people to travel. Instead of saving us, like that gravel might do for a truck driver, getting stuck on the road of sin leads only to eternal death. You see why the Spirit of God is so vital to our living for God! THE SPIRIT IS OUR GUIDE who leads us on the road of righteousness. It says here, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. When Paul wrote, sons were actually the heirs; women received an inheritance through their husbands. In this way, all people were taken care of in families. God has taken care of us as he adopted us into his family—except that he has elevated every one of us, men and women alike, to the status of heirs (or “sons,” as Paul puts it). We all have an inheritance that is personally ours, because the Spirit has brought us into the Father’s family. As God’s children, we are waiting for our inheritance—eternal life in heaven. An elderly gentleman was out walking with his grandson. “How far are we from home?” he asked the grandson. The boy answered, “Grandpa, I don’t know.” The grandfather asked, “Well, where are you?” Again the boy answered, “I don’t know.” Then the grandfather said good-naturedly, “Sounds to me as if you’re lost.” The young boy looked up at his grandfather and said, “Nope, I can’t be lost. I’m with you.” It may seem sometimes as if we are lost in this life. If that appears to be the case, then it is simply because we have forgotten that the Holy Spirit is with us, leading us all the time. If he is living in us, then we can’t be lost. The Spirit lives in us, assuring us that we are children of God and helping us to live like children of God. THE SPIRIT IS OUR GUIDE who keeps us CONNECTED TO GOD.
It is by that Spirit that we call out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The word “Abba” means “Father” in the Aramaic language—one of the languages spoken in Jesus’ day. We can trust that we have a child-parent relationship with God the Father. How is that? Well, for starters, he is the Father of all things, because he gave all things and all people life. The prophet Malachi reminds us of that when he says, Don’t we all one Father? Hasn’t one God created us (2:10)? But you might say, Yes, but when Adam and Eve sinned, they brought all of humanity down with them! Any loving relationship with the Father of all things has been destroyed! Yes, that’s true. Because of our sin, we send the message to God that we do not want him as our Father. And, because of our sin, God should be only our Judge instead of our loving Father. But there is another reason he is called “Father.” Galatians 3:26 tells us how that can be: You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Because of Christ’s redeeming work and because of the Spirit’s work of bringing us to faith in him, we are—there’s that phrase again—“sons of God.” So we can call him “Father.” We are no longer slaves to the fear of God’s judgment. We are his children with an inheritance. Because we have faith in Christ, we get what’s coming to us in Christ—forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. And we can call out to God our Father and confide in him. Sometimes today, fathers are not so loving. The children of those fathers have a difficult time picturing a loving Father. Even if that was the case in your house, let’s all try to imagine what the perfect father would be like: he would give you life, protect and care for you no matter what, provide for all your needs, listen to your problems, help you handle them, and always be there for you—good times and bad. He’d forgive you no matter what you did, and give you unconditional love—no strings attached. Isn’t that everything that the Bible tells us our Heavenly Father is like? He “fathers” perfectly! You and I have a Heavenly Father who knows us so well and loves us so much because we are his children. When we are lonely or sick or hurting or confused—his heart goes out to us even more. He loves us as if we were the only child he ever had. How blessed we are to be CONNECTED to a loving Father like that! We can go to him with FULL CONFIDENCE. His love was especially expressed to us when he made the ultimate fatherly sacrifice for us, sending his Son Jesus to be our Savior. We are CONNECTED to this loving Father and WE CAN CONFIDE in him!
The Apostle Paul alludes to what happened when the Father sent his Son into the world to redeem it: we are also heirs…since we suffer with him. This reminds us that Christ suffered for us. And he did suffer, didn’t he? He gave up his position in heaven, at God the Father’s right hand, in order to suffer. He placed himself under God’s expectations of earthly perfection—the same perfection which our sin does not permit us to live up to. Jesus was perfection in the flesh. But that didn’t sit well with some powerful people who rejected him. And so, he became the perfect sacrifice. He would suffer and then his perfect life would be the payment for sin. His perfection was then credited to every person. Many do not have confidence in Jesus. They do not trust that he is the Savior. They do not believe that it was for them that JESUS DIED. There is no Spirit to guide them, no Father to confide in, no forgiveness from Jesus. The result will be eternity in hell. But for us and all who do believe, there is an estate to be settled at our death. We are God’s children and his heirs. This estate is unusual in that we are the ones who must die in order to receive it! Only at that time will we receive the eternal life in heaven that is promised because of Jesus’ suffering and death. With all of that background, now we can look again at these words: we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him. When you know the way of salvation as we do, we know that it cannot mean that by suffering we earn the glories of heaven. Christ’s atonement for sin was all that was needed for salvation. But like Jesus, as we go through life as Christians in a sinful world, we will suffer too. And as we endure suffering and remain CONNECTED to God because of Jesus, who died for us, we know that we will also share the glory of heaven with Jesus. We Are CONNECTED TO A GOD WE CAN HAVE FULL CONFIDENCE IN—there is no reason to doubt that! The Apostle Paul assures us: The Spirit himself joins our spirit in testifying that we are God’s children. The Spirit assures us that we are indeed children of God and CONNECTED to him! The Spirit is Our Guide. In the Father We Confide. For Us the Son Has Died. All three persons of the Trinity have been, and continue to be, working for us, living in us, and loving us up to and after the day we join them in heavenly glory. It is a strong and eternal CONNECTION we have! The world is full of people that make it hard for us to be confident and trusting, but I pray that through the words of Scripture on this Trinity Sunday you are able to see that you are CONNECTED TO A GOD WE CAN HAVE FULL CONFIDENCE IN! Amen. Now the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.