That's Incredible

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on February 27, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Romans 8:14-21.

When you think about it, our reading from Romans today is one of the most exciting promises we’re given in all of the Bible.  Paul tells us in these verses that we, as Christians, are the children of God.

            You may be thinking, “So what’s so exciting about that?  Yes, of course we’re children of God.  We’ve heard that all our lives.  What’s the big deal?”

            Well, that’s the thing.  It is a big deal.  But some of us have heard for so long that we’re God’s children that we’ve kind of come to take it for granted.  And that’s too bad.  After all, God did not have to make us God’s children.  God chose to make us God’s children, and in this passage, Paul explains a little about just how that works.

            Paul tells us that, as Christians, we have received a spirit of adoption.  Think about that:  a spirit of adoption.  Think about how special that is.

            When a child is adopted, that only happens by a deliberate, constant, persistent choice by their parents.  That’s not to say that natural-born children are not planned, or that they’re not loved, but think about what takes place when a child is adopted.

When a child is adopted, the parents involved are specifically choosing to love a child that they have no obligation whatsoever to love.  After all, they had nothing to do with bringing that child into the world.  They’re not responsible for that child.  It’s not their flesh and blood.  If they did not adopt that child and love that child, no one would think any less of them. When someone adopts a child, they are making a conscious, deliberate choice to love someone to whom they do not owe any love at all.

            That’s what Paul says God did for us.  When Paul says we’ve received a spirit of adoption, Paul is saying that God specifically chose to love us without being under any obligation to do so.  I think that’s a pretty big deal.  In fact, it’s about the most incredible, wonderful thing I can think of.

            It’s really a shame that we sometimes take this stuff for granted.  We’ve heard things like “God is love” and “we’re all God’s children” so much that we forget sometimes how special that really is.  It’s true that God is love, but God would not have to be love.  There are lots of societies that do not believe in a loving God.  There are lots of societies that believe in a vengeful God, or in an arbitrary God.  There are societies that live in fear of God.  The fact that God is love is an incredible, wonderful thing.  The fact that we’re God’s children is an incredible, wonderful thing.  We should never take those things for granted.

            But that’s not the most incredible, wonderful thing about this scripture.  Let’s look a little farther.  Paul says that when we refer to God as our Father, that’s the Holy Spirit meeting our spirit and testifying, to ourselves and to everyone else, that we really are children of God.  Then, Paul says this:  if we are children of God, then we are heirs of God.  That means that we are joint heirs with Jesus Christ, and will be glorified with Jesus Christ.

            Think of who we’re talking about here.  We’re talking about Jesus Christ.  We’re talking about the divine Son of God.  We’re talking about someone who could walk on water.  We’re talking about someone who could feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.  We’re talking about someone who could bring the dead back to life.  We’re talking about someone who went to the place of the dead and conquered death itself.  We’re talking about someone who then returned to heaven and took his place next to God the Father.

            On our own merits, we’re so far below Jesus Christ that there’s no comparison.  Yet Paul says that God, by giving us a spirit of adoption, makes us joint heirs with that same Jesus Christ.  In other words, Paul says God has elevated us, we lowly, weak human beings, to the same awesome level as Jesus Christ himself.

There is no way in the world we deserve that.  There’s nothing we could do to earn it.  Even granting that God loves us, even granting that God adopts us as God’s children, this is such an unexpected, really unimaginable gift that God has given us.  I mean, Jesus is Jesus.  And we’re, well, us.  Yet, Paul says we are just as much God’s children, just as much heirs of God the Father, as Jesus Christ is.  Jesus is the Son of God, but I’m a son of God, too.  That’s really kind of unbelievable, but that’s what Paul is telling us.  I’m a son of God.  You are a son or a daughter of God.  That’s an incredible thing!  That’s an awesome thing!

            Now, of course, being children of God and joint heirs with Jesus does not mean that our lives on earth will always be easy.  But of course, that’s the other thing about being put on Jesus’ level—Jesus’ life on earth was not always easy.  In fact, a lot of the time it was not easy.  Jesus went through times of great frustration.  He went through times of great suffering.  He went through times of loneliness.  He went through times of feeling abandoned.

            Paul tells us that, as children of God and joint heirs with Jesus, we’re going to have to do our share of suffering, too.  That’s one of the great misconceptions that people sometimes have about faith:  the idea that if we’re truly Christian and if we love God then we should not have to suffer.  Paul says that’s nonsense.  Of course, we’re going to suffer.  Paul says that suffering is a necessary part of the process.  But, Paul says, the suffering will be worth it.

            Paul reminds us that Jesus had to suffer what he suffered in order to be glorified as he is now glorified.  In other words, Jesus had to suffer in order to get his inheritance as an heir of God the Father.  In that same way, we may have to suffer sometimes, too, so that we can get our inheritance as heirs of God, too.

            Now, that does not make our suffering any less real.  It did not make it any less real for Jesus, either.  Suffering is suffering, and it’s not any fun.  It’s hard.  It’s painful.  It takes a toll on us physically, it takes a toll on us mentally, it takes a toll on us emotionally, it takes a toll on us in just about every way you can imagine.  The promise of a reward later does not make our suffering any easier to handle now.

            What that promise does, though, is give us hope.  That’s pretty wonderful, too.  Look at it this way: what’s the worst thing that you could think of happening?  To me, the worst thing would not be to be suffering, no matter how bad the suffering was.  To me, the worst thing would be to be suffering without hope.  To be suffering, and to believe that there was no hope that I would ever see an end to my suffering, and then to believe that there was no life after this one, so that all I’d have in my future was suffering and then death.  That kind of complete hopelessness would be about the worst thing I can imagine.

            What Paul tells us is that we will never have to face that.  No matter how bad things get, we always have hope.  We can always live in hope.  That hope is part of what God promised to us through our adoption as children of God, through our status as heirs with Jesus Christ.

            It’s that status as heirs with Jesus Christ that gives us that hope.  Jesus suffered, but Jesus overcame it.  If Jesus was able to overcome death, and if God, despite how unworthy we are, puts us on the same level with Jesus, then, we, too, will eventually overcome suffering.  We’ll overcome death itself.  We’ll overcome it, not because of who we are, but because of who God is.  By putting us on the same level with Jesus, God gives us the hope that we can do what Jesus did.  Not in the sense of having the same power Jesus had on earth, but in the sense of being able to do what Jesus did—to overcome death and be taken up into God’s presence in heaven.

            That’s the great hope we have.  It’s not hope in the sense we normally think of it.  It’s not a matter of us saying, “Well, I hope we’ll overcome suffering and death, but I really don’t know.”  It’s hope in the sense that it’s not something we can see.

The fact that we cannot see it, though, does not make it less real, nor does it mean we cannot be certain of it.  We cannot see the town of Pierre right now, but we know it’s there.  We cannot see the governor at this moment, but we know she exists.  We cannot see the air we’re breathing, but we know there is air here.  

That’s what our hope of overcoming suffering and death is—it’s not something we can see, but we can know that it is real, and that it exists.  We know it because it was something that was promised to us by God, and we know God keeps God’s promises.  It’s the most exciting, incredible, wonderful promise ever made, but there it is.

God puts us on the same awesome level as Jesus Christ.  That means you, yourself, are awesome.  So am I.  Whether we feel awesome or not, we are.  You’re awesome, and I’m awesome, not because of who we are, but because of who God is.

Each of us, as a Christian, is a child of God.  Each of us has received a spirit of adoption.  That spirit means that we are joint heirs with Jesus Christ.  God puts us on the same level as the divine Son, not because we deserve it, but because God has chosen to love us that much.

That’s pretty awesome.