Romans Study # 27 Romans 8:11-27

Had to take it down do some editing and now re-post.

Romans Bible Study #27
Romans 8:11-27
Sonship, Suffering, Glory
Word: HOPE

11But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. 12So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-- 13for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" 16The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,
17and 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.
18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
19For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 24For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
Our Victory in Christ
26In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. NASB

9-11But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!
12-14So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!
18-21That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
22-25All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
The MESSAGE

verses 9-12 God is the source of that body of yours, it should be used to bring Him glory.
Verse 13 lesson 26 was all about this. We are in the middle of a violent rebellion against the flesh that pushes us to ignore and disobey God. The devil and the fight against him is not mentioned in Romans except where he is seen as a defeated foe. So, we are our main problem. Self violence to self, not other people’s sins , but to your harshness and critical spirit. Relying on God’s word and faith to take us onlward in the Christian life.

Verses 14-17 WOW! The amazing truth that we are sons, heirs, of God. It is too big to wrap our minds around. What He owns we own. We inherit the earth. We truly are His son, that implies approval and love. If I know God approves of me, I can pass that approval on to my wife and kids. That Approval can be something that is freely given not earned, freely given. Then it is not a burden buy a tremendous 'setting free.” Spend time with the God who chose you, who sees the end from the beginning and loves you. As my heart cries, “Abba, Father" something transformational happens.
Verse 17 “suffering” We suffer with Him, by imitating what He did, giving up self to do what the Father wants. Being that grain of wheat that unobtrusively falls into the ground. Those sufferings are never the focus, the focus is on the next life, with the incredible rewards that come to a son, heir, such as us. Verse 18 Suffering will come but our hope is built on the truth that “glory will be revealed to us.” Not now, not here, will be revealed.
Verse 18-20, corruption and death in this world, came as a result of the fall, they are not the perfect will of God, and somehow, creation knows this and waits eagerly, with their necks craning to see, are they coming yet?, is that them?, is this the time?, is our freedom coming finally?
Thank God for hope, a firm belief in a firm outcome. The whole of creation is subject to futility, (can I get an Amen?) in HOPE.
Futility -- an act having no useful purpose, An action to achieve a goal that is unachievable.
I picture treading water, digging a hole and then filling it in. Feeding a teen-ager... ha ha.
Verse 21 slavery to corruption, “it’s all gonna burn”, “we’re all gonna die”, “death and taxes”
As soon as you are born, you start dying. Decaying...not a lot of good news about this life.
Verse 22 All pain is labor pain, even the pain of suffering and death.
If you are in the hospital and hear a woman
groaning and crying out, your response to that groaning will be totally different if you are on the maternity ward or on oncology unit! The perspective that we are to have is; this is childbirth not oncology. Death where is thy sting, Grave where is thy victory? The groaning, the pain of this life is going somewhere- toward new life, not death.
Verse 23 Believers are not protected from the corruption and futility of this world. Bad things happen to us. Over and over Paul makes it clear in this verse, “yes, you too, will suffer the futility of this creation, the futility, the decay, but in hope.” There is no “king’s kids don’t have to ... verse in the Bible. Just the opposite, we are called to have faith and trust in what we cannot see, called to see this life as a “stopover” on the way to reality.
Verse 24 The now and the not yet of salvation, all we have is hope, there is nothing that we can
see, nothing tangible. So it is hope, a sure belief in a sure thing, that will get us through this life of futility and decay.
Verse 25 The surety of our hope, enables and strengthens our hearts to persevere. God is the guarantor so it will happen!!
Verse 26 The “third person” of the Trinity is introduced and shown to be working on our behalf. He is a person. He does love us. He does have the ‘mind of God’ on every issue, on every thing that concerns us. He always prays in unison with the Father. He always prays for our ultimate “good.” We will not always know the will of God, and sometimes the reason we will not know the will of God will have nothing to do with some sin in our lives. We just will not know it. At those times the Holy Spirit is there to take the burden off of us and to pray for us, and to always be praying the will of God for us, the exalting of Jesus through us, always praying for the ‘working together for the good’ for us.

Prayer, fasting, and tithing are manifestations of the fact that we are weak. Praying says I am weak spiritually and need God. Fasting is becoming voluntarily weak physically. Tithing is becoming voluntarily weak financially. All to show that God is the unseen source of our lives. Prayer is a manifestation that we are desperate. Help, help, help, is our constant prayer.
The Spirit does not need to groan, the Spirit is expressing our groaning, and connecting it to the sovereign, all-knowing will of God. We don’t dictate to God, we humbly groan, not knowing what is our ultimate best. This verse is totally connected to the verses before it. Here we are in this very real world where bad things happen to everyone, no one is spared. Futility is real. Death is real. But death is not final, futility is not the final word. Yes, we are IN this world and suffering is real, but when we are beyond the point of knowing how to pray, we can be comforted that the burden is not ours, the Spirit will pray for us, intercede for us, according to the will of the Father, our Ultimate Good!! Our hope is not in this life, there is a river who streams make glad. If our hope was only in this life we would be pathetic.The amazing, incomprehensible inter-play of the Trinity is glimpsed here and this little glimpse overwhelms our senses.

This is such a good lead in to our next lesson.
Need to just take time before we pray to thank the Holy Spirit for interceding for us, when we don’t know how to pray.

Various quotes and thoughts:
“Sanctification has its seat in the heart; but it regulates the whole man, and appears in his conduct in every-day life. If a man experiences the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, then . . . sin grieves him, Satan tries him, the world troubles him, and Heaven attracts him. (hope)

Spirit of Jesus, sanctify us deeply, thoroughly--that we may be just like Jesus! Sanctify us . . . by every trial, by every affliction, by every privilege, by every comfort!"
James Smith


John Newton’s “It’s going to be worth it,” story/ illustration updated to modern times....
The power of a proper view of eternal reward.
Driving to a bank. When you get to the bank massive $ will be deposited into your account, from an inheritance. Next to the bank is your favorite new car parking lot. The $ would enable you to buy every car on the lot. 25 feet from the bank your 1997 Ford Escort breaks down. Imagine how silly it would be to walk that last 25 feet, crying and wailing, “my car is broke, my car is broke.” So as our bodies start to show decay- keep in mind the hope of eternity.


This study brought to me a new appreciation for the word hope. It passes away in the next life. No more need for it, but it is sooooo needed here and the gift of it from God is sooooo important to our “making it” in this dark, bleak, world. I looked at a picture of a person, who is far, far, from fulfilling the purpose of God for their life and the word ‘hope’ came to me, and now my ‘looking’ at that picture and at that person, must change, because God is in control and God has subjected all things to futility in HOPE. I need to join my thoughts with His and to have hope, for the lives of those around me and for my own life.

I have never met the man I could despair of after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God. Oswald Chambers

God used circumstances in Hannah’s life, that He was the author of, to drive her faith and trust to Him. Hannah knew what hope means.

5 But he gave a double portion to Hannah, for he loved her even though the Lord had kept her from conceiving. 6 Her rival would taunt her severely just to provoke her, because the Lord had kept Hannah from conceiving. 7 Whenever she went up to the Lord’s house, her rival taunted her in this way every year. Hannah wept and would not eat. 8 “Hannah, why are you crying?” her husband Elkanah asked. “Why won’t you eat? Why are you troubled? Am I not better to you than 10 sons?”

1 Samuel 1:9 Hannah got up after they ate and drank at Shiloh. Eli the priest was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s tabernacle. 10 Deeply hurt, Hannah prayed to the Lord and wept with many tears. 11 Making a vow, she pleaded, “Lord of Hosts, if You will take notice of Your servant’s affliction, remember and not forget me, and give Your servant a son, I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and his hair will never be cut.”

12 While she continued praying in the Lord’s presence, Eli watched her lips. 13 Hannah was praying silently, and though her lips were moving, her voice could not be heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14 and scolded her, “How long are you going to be drunk? Get rid of your wine! ” 15 “No, my lord,” Hannah replied. “I am a woman with a broken heart. I haven’t had any wine or beer; I’ve been pouring out my heart before the Lord. 16 Don’t think of me as a wicked woman; I’ve been praying from the depth of my anguish and resentment.” 17 Eli responded, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the petition you’ve requested from Him.” 18 “May your servant find favor with you,” she replied. Then Hannah went on her way; she ate and no longer looked despondent.