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Much Obliged

Romans 8:12-25

Can we live acknowledging our obligations? Can we live as debtors? Not to ourselves. Contrary to “you owe it to yourself,” Paul argues that our ultimate debt is to our gracious God.

Much Obliged

 — Dale Beaver

Message Notes

Romans 8:12-25

12 Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. 13 For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” 16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. 18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

 

Negatively, to be under obligation is to take the posture of a slave.

 

Romans 8:12, 15a

12 Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.

15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves.

 

To be a slave to sin is to be chained to death.

 

Romans 8:13a

For if you live by its (sinful nature) dictates, you will die.

 

Positively, to be under obligation is to take the posture of gratitude.

 

Romans 8:15-17

15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” 16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory.

 

Romans 8:29-30

29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.

 

The Spirit of adoption frees us from the obligation to sin.

 

Romans 8:17

And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

 

Romans 6:6-7

6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.

 

Romans 8:13

But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.