Heirs With Christ
Romans 8:12-17
Jeremy Bell
November 17, 2024
Sermon Recap PDF
Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” — John Owen
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” — Matthew 5:5
Application:
1. Celebrate and enjoy your status as a child of God
a. Cherish your adoption
“God adopts us out of free love, not because our character and record show us worthy to bear His name, but despite the fact that they show the very opposite. We are not fit for a place in God’s family; the idea of His loving and exalting us sinners as He loves and has exalted the Lord Jesus sounds ludicrous and wild – yet that, and nothing less than that, is what our adoption means.” — JI Packer
b. Enjoy God as your Father
“If God cares for the birds, who Father He is not, is it not plain that He will care for you, whose Father He is?” — JI Packer
c. Celebrate the grace of your inheritance
“All those that are justified, God vouchsafeth, in and for His only Son Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption; by which they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God; have His name put upon them, receive the Spirit of adoption; have access to the throne of grace with boldness; are enabled to cry Abba, Father; are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by Him as a Father; yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption, and inherit the promises, as heirs of everlasting salvation.” — Westminster Confession of Faith, 1646
2. By the power of the Spirit, keep putting the flesh to death
Questions for Discussion/Application:
- Consider taking time to read Romans 8:12-17 out loud. What initial insights or observations of the text do you have?
- In the day in and day out of life, what does it look like practically to seek to “put to death the deeds of the body.”
- Why is it so absolutely critical that as we seek to put to death sin in our lives, that we keep the gospel of Jesus Christ ever before us? What might some of the consequences be in a person’s life of seeking to put to death sin apart from a deep awareness of what Christ accomplished for us on the Cross?
- The biblical call is to take remaining sin seriously and in the strength God Himself provides, to put to death sin. God also calls us to rest in our justification and adoption. How do you personally want to grow in these ways — (A) seeking to proactively put to death sin, and (B) resting in your justification and adoption?
- Re-read verse 15 again. What is God saying to us through this verse? What is the significance of the fact that have been adopted into the family of God and are sons and daughters? How can that awareness transform our relationships with the Lord?
- How can we grow to live more of an ongoing, deep awareness that we are sons and daughters of the living God? How can we enjoy God as our Father to a greater degree?
- Consider taking time to pray – asking God that He would help us to enjoy our status as children of God and by the power of the Spirit, to put to death sin.