We Are the Children of God

STUDY: # 987-CHURCH IN THE HOUSES FROM: JULY 3 @ 9, 2018

TOPIC: "We Are the Children of God" Romans 8:18 – 23 How much does the present grieve you! This “era” that we live cannot be compared to the “glory” that will be shown to us (Vs.18). What we go through and suffer for Christ is nothing when we compare it to what we will receive, our inheritance in the heavens and the coming kingdom. That great day will come when the Lord will call us and acknowledge us in public before the hosts of heaven. Even the worst pains suffered by the martyrs will seem like mere pinpricks when the Savior crowns our foreheads with the crown of life (James 1:12). That will be the reward for persevering in faith, even under persecution.

I.

We are part of everything that God created. How important do you feel?

A. Notice how important we are to God.

1.

Paul points out that all of creation is waiting with a "burning desire" for the moment when we will be manifested as "God’s children," before a new and wonderful world (Vs.19).

2. This will be when the Lord Jesus returns to Earth, to reign and we believers come with Him.

3. We already are "God’s children." But the world neither acknowledges us, nor appreciates us as such.

4. The world is waiting for a better day to do this, and that day will not be able to arrive until the King returns to reign with all His saints!

5. ALL OF CREATION IS ON ITS TOES TO SEE THE WONDERFUL SHOW WHERE THE CHILDREN OF GOD ENTER IN POSSESSION OF WHAT BELONGS TO THEM!

6. (Vs.20) Adam sinned and his transgression (violation of the law) also spread to creation; subjecting it to vanity. This happened in animated things (with life) as well as in the inanimate (without life). All of creation suffered the consequences of that first transgression. (Genesis 3: 17,18 "... cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you ...")

7. The earth is cursed.

8. For this reason, we see that men, animals, and plants die. Everything is afflicted by all sorts of diseases and woes.

9. Man’s sin has its results. And these results have spread throughout the creation!

10. Creation has been subjected to vanity, and trivial (not important) things. Frustration and disorder permeate in creation. It was not by its own will, but by God’s decree because of man’s disobedience, whom from the beginning has been the ruling head in this world with his own laws.

11. (Vs.20) Creation has hope that she too will be freed from the bondage of corruption.

12. For creation, there is a promise of freedom! (Vs.21)

13. "Creation looks back" to the "ideal" conditions that existed in Eden. Creation does not forget Eden.

14. Then it contemplates the devastation caused by "the arrival of sin."

15. It (creation) has always maintained the hope of returning to a wonderful state.

16. Creation itself will be freed from the bondage of corruption, to enjoy the freedom of the golden age in which as "children of God we will be manifested in glory."

17. THE GREAT GOD WILL LET US SEE HIS CREATION WITHOUT SIN! SHE WILL BE IN GLORY, LIKE WHEN HE DID IT AT THE BEGINNING!

18. (Vs.22) We live in a moaning, sobbing and suffering world.

19. It’s like when Hurricane Maria hit our Island; it seemed as if a nuclear bomb had burned it.

20. The entire creation "moans as one" and suffers pains like childbirth.

21. The earth is shaken by cataclysms (disasters of great proportions that affect the entire planet).

22. The plague of death is above every living being.

23. (Vs.23) Not only creation, but we ourselves suffer. We are not exempt.

24. Although "we have the first fruits of the Spirit, that fills us with anointing and power," and is the one who guarantees our final liberation, even so we "moan" for that day of glory to arrive soon.

25. The "Holy Spirit" Himself is the first fruits of what we will have in eternity.

26. Just as the first handful of ripe grain is a pledge of the whole harvest to follow, the Holy Spirit is the pledge or guarantee that every inheritance will be ours, the new heaven, the new earth, and the other inheritance that we have to win.

27. Specifically, He is the guarantee of the coming adoption, of the redemption of our body (Ephesians 1:13,14).

28. In a sense, we have already been adopted, which means that we have been placed in the family of God as "children."

29. That is, we have been appointed (chosen) for the redemption (to be delivered from the debt or curse) of our body.

30. Our spirits and souls have already been redeemed. Our bodies have yet to be redeemed. This will happen during the rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:13- 8).

31. Later (2 Peter 3:12) the heavens, lighting up, will become debris, and the elements, being burned, will fuse (melt). Amen.