As we continue our January intensive in the book of Romans, do take your Bibles please and turn now with me to Romans chapter 8, which you can find on page 942 if you’re using, excuse me, 944 if you’re using one of the church Bibles; 944. You will remember chapters 1 through 3 are about the bad news of universal human sin and guilt. Having no righteousness of our own, we have an urgent need for the righteousness of Christ. That was the bad news. Then chapters 3 and 4, the good news. Paul pointed us to God’s gracious provision of the righteousness of Christ for us in the Gospel. And then as we saw this morning in chapters 5 through 7, Paul turns from the purely legal to begin to discuss the practical. In the Gospel, God deals not only with sin’s penalty at the bar of heavenly justice, but also with sin’s power and pollution in the Christian’s heart. Having forgiven us, He works to change us. Justification, chapters 3 and 4, always comes along with sanctification, chapters 5 through 8. And now tonight in Romans chapter 8, Paul brings this whole discussion of the practical benefits of salvation in the heart and life of a Christian to a preliminary conclusion in this part of the letter.
And as we read it together, I want you to look out in particular for Paul’s special emphasis on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Before now, the Holy Spirit has really only been mentioned about four times in the whole book. And all of a sudden in Romans chapter 8, the Spirit is mentioned 22 times over. The Spirit, Paul wants us to see, is the active, divine agent by whose power alone we are enabled to live a life of growing personal holiness. And so in light of that, we are going to work through Romans chapter 8 under four headings that tease out for us the Spirit’s amazing ministry in us and to us. First in verses 1 through 14, we’ll look at the Spirit and sanctification. Secondly, 15 through 25, the Spirit and adoption. Third, 26 and 27, the Spirit and intercession. And finally, 28 through 39, the Spirit and preservation. So the Spirit and sanctification, adoption, intercession and preservation. Before we look at those themes, let’s pray and then we’ll read the passage together. Let’s pray.
God our Father, how we need to hear Your voice, Your Word. We pray as we read it that You would work by the Holy Spirit to give us understanding and grace to receive and rest upon Christ as He comes to us and speaks to us in His Word. For we ask it in His holy name, amen.
Romans chapter 8 at verse 1. This is the Word of God:
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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.
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
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 firstfruits 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.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Amen.
Do you know what imposter syndrome is? Imposter syndrome – it’s that horrible feeling that after your recent promotion your boss is going to discover just how incompetent you really are, that you are going to be exposed as a fraud, that everyone will find out that you don’t know actually what you are doing and that you are in fact entirely out of your depth. Whether you experience that in your working life or not, as a pastor I know for sure that many of us suffer from imposter syndrome in our Christian lives. We worry that at any moment our sin and our failures will be exposed and God will change His mind concerning us. We live with a deep, hard to shake, almost visceral sense that we don’t belong, that we shouldn’t be counted among the people of God at all. We suffer from spiritual imposter syndrome. And the key to dealing with it, Romans chapter 8 says, is to remember that we are not left to ourselves, to our own meager resources to live the Christian life. The Spirit of Christ, Paul is going to teach us, dwells in us to sanctify us, to keep us, to help us, to lead us, to teach us, to preserve us. You are not an imposter, believer in Jesus. You are the possession of God and the residence of the Holy Spirit. He will keep you. You are in His hands. You are His. You are His!
And the first way that Paul drives that point home is to highlight for us the Spirit’s work in our sanctification in verses 1 through 14. Would you look there please? In the first half of Romans 8, Paul is essentially – in the first verse, excuse me, of Romans 8, Paul is essentially restating his teaching on justification by faith in the work of Christ. Notice what he says in verse 1. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus..” We stand, as believers in Jesus, beyond any possibility of ever being condemned. Now and forever we are beyond condemnation if we are in Christ Jesus.
But then in verse 2 – look at the language of verse 2 – Paul mentions the “law of the Spirit of life” and “the law of sin and death.” You see that language? Now the meaning of those two phrases is debated, but most contemporary scholars take both phrases to refer to the same moral law, summarized for us in the Ten Commandments. Without Christ, God’s law is the law of sin and death, but in Christ there is the law of the Spirit of life. That law, when you are in Christ, that law no longer condemns; now it sets us free to live differently. Now, verse 4, the righteous requirements of the law are met in us. Now we live new lives of growing obedience and holiness.
And in verses 5 through 14, Paul contrasts that new life in the Spirit with our old lives in the flesh. Do you see the contrast? The flesh, by the way, you may know, is Paul’s shorthand for the prevailing principle of sin in the heart. That’s what he means by the flesh. And that is why the mind, he says, that is set on the flesh, is death, verse 6. It is hostile to God and cannot submit to His law, verse 7. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God, verse 8. The Holy Spirit, by contrast, is the new governor of our lives when we become Christians. And so Paul says in verse 4, Christians walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Christians have their minds set on the things of the Spirit and not on the things of the flesh, verse 5. We are under new management. Christ, by His Spirit, reshapes our mindset so that we love more and more what He loves and hate more and more what He hates. We delight increasingly in the Word of God and the worship of God and the ways of God. We love to be with His people.
I was talking to someone this morning who said to me, “I don’t know how to get through the week if I can’t be here among God’s people to praise His name and to hear His Word.” That is the mindset that the Holy Spirit works in the lives of His people. We love the church. We love His worship. We love to praise His name and to seek His face. We want to obey Him. We grieve over our sin. We hate that we are not yet who we are called to be, who we long to be. And so the Spirit gives us new minds.
And the result is a new lifestyle. We “walk according to the Spirit.” I often grieve over how little change I see in my own sinful heart. I wish I was much further on in my walk with God than I often find myself to be. But then I think about the trajectory that my life – before I was converted – I think about the trajectory of my life back then and I think about friends and family from back then who today still do not know Jesus. And I think about the course of their lives, how our two paths diverged and the thing that made all the difference for me was nothing special about me, but was the way God by His grace broke into my heart and changed me. And only because of His grace I have taken a different life, a different path, a different course. Without His grace, my life would be as empty as theirs because my life was on the same trajectory as theirs. But now, the Holy Spirit has taken over mastery of my heart and I am not now what I once was – I am not what I want to be, what I will be by God’s grace, but I am, praise the Lord, no longer what I was.
And that is what Paul says of the Roman Christians, isn’t it, in verse 8. “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.” He dwells in you, and that’s what makes all the difference. You do not live the Christian life under your own steam, but the Holy Spirit inhabiting the heart of a believer changes everything. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we coast along passively. In fact, Paul uses three metaphors to show how Christians are active in the pursuit of holiness. He says we are debtors, we are executioners, and we are followers. Debtors, executioners and followers.
We are debtors, first of all. Verse 12 – “we are debtors, not to the flesh” to live according to the flesh. The flesh, our remaining sin, claims our allegiance. It demands our obedience. Taiwan is in the news a lot. It’s like Taiwan – China claims dominion over Taiwan, doesn’t it, but Taiwan says, “We are free.” Sin claims, demands our allegiance, but Paul says, “You are free. You don’t owe sin anything.” We are not debtors to the flesh anymore. We are not under obligation to sin anymore. Sin is no longer in charge of your life, believer in Jesus. But we are still debtors, Paul says. We are debtors, though not to the flesh. So to whom are we debtors? We are debtors, the implication is, we are debtors to the Spirit, to live according to the Spirit. We owe our allegiance to Him. He rules us now.
We are under obligation to the Spirit to live His way, which brings us to the next image that Paul uses to describe our responsibility in sanctification. We are debtors under obligation to live in obedience to God by His Spirit. What does that obedience entail? Look at the next image. Then secondly, we are executioners. Verse 13 – “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” This is what the puritans used to call the discipline of mortification – putting sin to death. We are executioners to kill our sin. An executioner is not moved by the entreaties and the cries of the condemned. The sentence has been passed and an executioner has no discretion at all to commute the sentence. Their only role is to kill. The condemned can plead and cry and offer every excuse they may wish. Our sin offers all sorts of bargains to us, doesn’t it – all sorts of excuses, all sorts of justifications for being allowed to live on in our hearts. But an executioner must be death to all of it. He has no other duty but to put the condemned to death. The deeds of the body, Paul says, must be put to death. We need to kill it. Kill your sin.
Do notice that language carefully. He doesn’t say, “manage it.” He doesn’t say, “manage your sin.” He says kill it. Many of us confuse the two, let’s be honest, and then we wonder why we’ve made so little progress in the Christian life. We are trying to manage our sin and yet we are not willing yet to kill it. Is that you, I wonder, trying to manage what God calls you to kill? You must come to the point where you are ready to put it to death. Remember John Owen’s famous adage – “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” Those are your choices. Kill your pride. Kill your laziness. Kill your lust. Kill your greed. Don’t manage them; crucify them! So we are debtors, under obligation to live according to the Spirit. That means, that entails being executioners, to put our sin to death with a certain ruthlessness and resolve and determination.
And then thirdly, Paul says it also means we are followers, led by the Spirit. Verse 14 – “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” You know that’s one of the greatest marks of being a child of God. The Holy Spirit leads us. He leads us by His holy Word to be a debtor. To live according to the Spirit means we must live His way. To be an executioner, to put sin to death by the Spirit, means we cannot allow sin room to live. We must weed it out, pulling it up by the roots. Kill it! And to be led by the Spirit means we are increasingly shaped by the Spirit-inspired, Spirit-illuminated Word of God in holy Scripture. Christians who feel their debt to live according to the Spirit, who resolve to do what they must to kill their sin, are led by the Spirit. That is to say, they are Bible people. The Spirit does not ordinarily work without the Word. You want God to lead you? You want to fulfill your debt to live according to the Spirit? You want to kill your sin? Open the book! Get into the book! Be people of the book! That’s the great mark of being a child of God, Paul says. The Spirit leads you by His Word. There is no obedience, no mortification of sin, no direction from God in life without His Word. Have you been neglecting His holy Word? And so that’s the first thing Paul says about the Holy Spirit’s ministry – sanctification.
Secondly, look at verses 15 through 25 and the Spirit’s ministry in our adoption. Verse 14, Paul just said, didn’t he, to be led by the Spirit is one of the great evidences of being a child of God. And that thought, the thought of being a child of God, moves Paul to reflect on the next great privilege the Spirit has given us. We have received the Spirit, he says, not of slavery to fall back again into fear, but the Spirit of adoption as sons. The Spirit is the Spirit of adoption. It is His work to help us discover and experience the depth of the privilege that is ours, having become the children of God. And so it’s by the Spirit, Paul says, that we cry, “Abba! Father!” Jesus called God, “Abba,” didn’t He? He approached God, His Father, with holy reverence and with breathtaking intimacy. And the Spirit’s ministry in us is to generate that same intimate immediacy, that same holy boldness, “to come to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Church members, you know, you will occasionally come, you will make an appointment and come to see me in my study. And sometimes I’ve noticed some of you are a little bit intimidated. It’s a mystery to me why, but sometimes you show up and you are visibly nervous. But do you know it has never ever occurred to my two boys to be nervous about coming to see me. It’s never occurred to them. I’m quite sure they’d never understand why anyone would be intimidated to visit with me. They’re my boys; I’m their dad. If they were hesitant, if they were formal, reluctant – it would signal something is wrong, wouldn’t it? This isn’t right. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. They’re supposed to feel free and direct and intimate with me.
When you become a Christian, the Spirit of adoption was poured into your heart. It is His job to help you come to the Father like His beloved child, like Jesus came to the Father – bold in the assurance that you are always, always, always welcome. You’re always welcome. And so Paul says “the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God.” Over and above the evidence of spiritual change in our lives from which we can deduce by observation and self examination the fact of our own adoption, there is an additional, albeit mysterious, internal testimony in the heart given to us directly by the Spirit of Christ, assuring us that we are children of God. It is mysterious and it’s not always equally strong nor does it happen in the same way or to the same degree in the life of every Christian, but it is real and it is precious – the Spirit given to us to assure us of our enormous privilege.
John Murray said of the blessing of the believer’s adoption, “This is surely the apex of grace and privilege. We would not dare to conceive of such grace for less to claim it apart from God’s own revelation and assurance. It staggers imagination because of its amazing condescension and love that we should be called the children of God.” The apex of grace and privilege. Staggering imagination because of its amazing condescension and love. The Spirit’s role in our hearts is to help us see and feel something of the wonder of our privilege as adopted children of God. You can almost hear something of that very wonder, can’t you, in the voice of the apostle Paul in verse 17. “If we are children,” he says, “then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs, heirs together with Christ.” Heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ Himself – that’s who you are! That’s breathtaking. It staggers imagination because of its amazing condescension and love. You are the heir of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Doesn’t that stagger you? If it doesn’t stagger you, keep reading please, because Paul has a little bit more to say about just how glorious our adoption really is that might help us recover our awe, our wonder. Notice in particular he says adoption has both a present and a future dimension to it. Do you see this? Look at how in verses 18 through 25 the reality of present suffering is placed into the context of the final fruition of our adoption in the resurrection of the body at the last day when all things will be made new. Creation groans, he says in verses 20 through 22, longing to be set free from corruption and “obtain the freedom of the glory of” – what? – “of the children of God. And we ourselves,” verse 23, “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for” – what? – “adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” We have been adopted by God the Father in Christ the Son by the Holy Spirit in our conversion. When we believed the Gospel we were adopted. The Spirit of adoption was sent into our hearts to assure us of our new status as beloved children of the Father.
But our adoption now will one day be consummated and completed in the resurrection of the body when at last we will become like our elder brother, the Lord Jesus Christ, inside and out, and our mortal bodies will be glorified along with Him. The scope, do you see the scope and scale of your adoption? It is cosmic. It takes a renewal of the whole creation. It encompasses the transformation of your mortal body on the last day. And that really is stunning, isn’t it? The apex of grace and privilege. “Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God.”
The Spirit’s ministry of sanctification, His testimony to our adoption, then look at verses 26 and 27. Notice in the third place the Spirit’s ministry of intercession. These have to be among the most precious verses in the New Testament, don’t you think? All Christians recognize themselves I’m sure in these words – “We do not know what to pray for as we ought.” Hasn’t that been your sentiment many times? Precisely the kind of problem, let’s be honest, that generates our spiritual imposter syndrome, isn’t it? We’re supposed to be mature Christians and we don’t know what to pray. Words won’t come. We run out of steam. We stutter and we stumble our way through our prayers. Our minds wander and then we begin to reproach ourselves, don’t we? “Maybe our lack of eloquence is proof that we are second-rate Christians if we are Christians at all.” “We don’t know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit,” Paul says in verse 26, “intercedes for us.”
Now the intercession of the Spirit isn’t like the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ’s intercession, His praying for us, is mentioned later in verse 34. Jesus prays from the throne of glory in heaven at the Father’s right hand, but the Spirit prays in our hearts, Paul says, “with groans too deep for words.” Here’s what I think Paul means – sometimes all we have are groans. Isn’t that right? Sometimes that’s all you’ve got – a sigh, a tear, an upward glance. The best you can muster, the most eloquent you can be is, “O Lord, help me. Help me. Help me.” But Paul is saying the Spirit makes our groans – with all their imperfections, all their inadequacies – He makes them eloquent in the ears of God. When the Father searches our hearts, He hears the wordless cries, He hears the Spirit’s perfect arguments, the Spirit’s irresistible entreaties because the Spirit always does what we cannot yet do as we should – He intercedes, Paul says, according to the will of God. He makes our groans eloquent in the ears of God. Go to God with your groans. Go to Him with your groans. The Spirit makes them eloquent in the ears of God.
Sanctification. Adoption. Intercession. Then finally, preservation. Interestingly, there’s no further mention of the Holy Spirit directly in the rest of the chapter. Did you notice that as we read it through? Up till now, Paul is focused very much on our present experience as Christians, showing us how shot through the Christian life is with the work of the Holy Spirit. And now, all of a sudden, he sort of takes a step back and goes, as it were, behind the scenes of our salvation. He lifts the curtain and takes us back behind the Spirit’s ministry into the eternal purposes of God to help us see that everything we enjoy as Christians, all our privileges, they are not mistakes. Have you begun to get that yet? Your salvation, God hasn’t made a mistake with you. He’s not about to change His mind concerning you. The cross was the Father’s idea. The Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into your heart. You are a Christian because God purposed to make you His and He is never, never going to let you go.
And so verse 28, we have the familiar and precious reminder of the doctrine of providence. “And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose.” Remember, not that all things are good, mind you, but that all things work together for good. All things are woven together in the purpose and design of God for final good, for the eternal good of those who love God. And then this glorious truth Paul places in turn into the context of God’s eternal, electing purposes. In verses 29 through 30 – look at 29 and 30 please. We can be sure that everything will work together for our eternal welfare, for our everlasting blessing, because it’s all part of the sovereign plan of God. “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.”
To foreknow means to forelove. That’s what it means. God foreknew individuals before they were made. He thought of them personally in love. And Paul says He predestined them to be His own. Then in time He called them, through the preaching of the Gospel and the power, irresistible power of the Holy Spirit, worked faith in their hearts so that they were justified in His sight. And every single one of those who He called and justified, having been chosen and predestined and loved in eternity, He also infallibly, certainly, surely glorified. The key thing to note is the exact identity of the subjects of every one of God’s actions. They are the same at every stage. Do you see that? None who were predestined failed to be called. None who are called fail to be justified. None who are justified fail to be glorified.” Once God has set His love on you, you are His forever. You are His forever.
That’s Paul’s point, and because God is sovereign in salvation, because He saves sinners – we don’t save ourselves – everything He has made, everything that exists, everything including the sorrows and the celebrations, everything must ultimately serve His eternal purpose for our everlasting good. Nothing can thwart His plan. Nothing. We are perfectly, eternally secure. That’s the big idea. And Paul brings that out explicitly, doesn’t he, in verses 31 through 39. “If God is for us, who can be against us,” verse 31. He gave His own Son for us. Do you really think, having given His Son, He will withhold anything else you might ever need? Or can the devil successfully prosecute his case against us, accusing us before God? Verse 33 – no, God has already declared us righteous in His sight. He has justified us. There can be no possibility now of condemnation. Verse 34 – Jesus died for us, bearing all the condemnation Himself in our place. And now He pleads our cause in heaven; Jesus Himself, ever living to make intercession for us. And the Father has always given His Son whatever His Son asks for. And so when Jesus pleads your cause, you can be sure that in His prayers is your security.
And so can anything separate us from God’s love? Verse 34 – “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” The worst things this groaning, broken world can throw our way, the worst evil human beings can devise, the worst suffering we can endure, can any of it drive a wedge between you and the heart of God? Absolutely not. Verse 37, “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure” – sure, I am certain, there is certainty – “that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Here’s the final ground of your assurance, your certainty, your confidence, your peace – God’s love cannot be broken. He loves you. He’s always loved you. He will never stop loving you. His love gave Christ to the cross for you. His Spirit pours His love into you. His love orders everything, everywhere for your good. You are loved eternally and unendingly.
The real cause, you know, of imposter syndrome is far too much focus on ourselves. We look at ourselves and we see plenty of reason to feel like an imposter, like we don’t belong, like we can’t possibly be welcome in the household of God. But here’s the antidote. Do you see it? The Spirit of God is in you, sanctifying you, assuring you of your adoption, interceding for you, and He does it all in the context of the unbreakable, divine love for you, preserving you and keeping you and securing you. So maybe you need to stop navel gazing. There is a palace for self-examination, to be sure, but there is no place for self-absorption and no place for morbid introspection. So lift up your head and see the privileges that have been lavished on you and rejoice and adore almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in whose saving embrace you live secure, now and forever.
Amen. Let’s pray together.
Our Father, we bless You for Your Word. We pray that You would write it upon our hearts, that You would, by Your Word, so discipline our minds to prevent self-examination ever becoming morbid introspection, to prevent the shame and grief we rightly feel over our sin becoming unbelief that our sin, though profound, cannot ever be pardoned. Instead, show us, may Your Spirit fulfill His office in our hearts, showing us, assuring us that “we are children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” Show us the wonder of our privilege and ignite our hearts with praise, for Jesus’ sake, amen.