Romans 8:12-17
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 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. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 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!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 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.

In our reading today St. Paul seems to have both good news and bad. The good news is that you are claimed as heirs with Christ because you are lead by the Spirit. You no longer belong to the flesh because the deeds of the flesh have been put to death. The context in the Greek tells us that the putting to death of the flesh is a continuing action. The death of the flesh is not just a onetime affair rather it is a daily dying. That is, of course, the bad news; the thought of daily dying to the desires of the flesh, the very desires that seem the most natural to you, and putting your faith in the leading of the Holy Spirit sounds like a tough act to perform. And it is. But St. Paul assures you that you are not to fear because the leading of the Spirit bears witness to the truth about your identity and the truth is that you are “children of God.”
You are children of God through faith; the gift of faith was bestowed upon you at your baptism. The very act of baptism is the claiming of a child for Christ. The imagery in baptism is much like the imagery Paul uses in Romans; the putting to death of the flesh and the rising to life as a new creation, claimed as a child of God thus the leading of the Spirit.
But there is even worse news then the death of your flesh in Paul’s message today; that news is the message that as Christ suffered you will be joined in His suffering so that you may be glorified with Him.
Are you suffering today? I know many who are. How do you make sense of Paul’s message that God knows that we must suffer as a child of God? I have decided that there is a divine conspiracy in the Christian message in our world today. The conspiracy states that, “If you are chosen to follow Jesus than all you’re suffering will cease and you will have every material possession that you desire. After all God wants you to be happy why wouldn’t he give you all the desires of your flesh?” What a load of garbage! That promise is empty and if you hang your faith on the conspiracy then you will be sorely disappointed.
Siddhārtha Gautama was the founder of Buddhism. Gautama was a prince and was kept within the gates of his palace all his life. One day he decided to take a walk outside his palace and say the suffering of the people. He saw the wretched conditions that the people of his time endured. He immediately renounced his throne, left his wife and children, and formed the Buddhist philosophy. This philosophy states that suffering is caused by desire and we you have no desire that you will not suffer. Well he was right. However I submit to you that it is exactly the sufferings that you endure that makes you who you are. Only a coward would avoid things like falling in love, having children, or preaching the gospel because there is a chance that in these events their heart might get broken.
The Christian identity is not an easy one. I fall short daily. Sometimes I scream at God, “I have had enough! I am done, I quit, if you want these freaking people then claim them yourself! This is not the life that I desire. This life is more pain that I can handle! I don’t want to even get up in the morning! Jesus, you have sold me a false bill of goods. I don’t care about eternal life when I must watch my family and friends suffer right here and now in the only reality that I know. Didn’t you go to the cross so that my sins would be forgiven? What is with this mess that I find myself in? I am so tired of being a maggot on a pile of poop, eating said poop to survive. I used to make an obscene amount of money and want for nothing financially. Why did you take that away? Why must I suffer the life of a maggot? Whyyyyyyyyyy?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry6udsW9leA
Then I hear Jesus softly responding to my lament, “I am not afraid of your pile of poop circumstances. I came into your world and suffered your fate so that you may have eternal life. I am omnipresent, present everywhere. Just as present in church on Sunday as in your pile of poop covered with maggots; I love you; you are a co-heir with me to the Father’s riches. This is your identity, a child of God forever and ever. Your circumstances do not define your identity; being claimed by me is what makes you who you are. You no longer live according to the flesh because you were baptized and I claimed you, I choose you to follow me not the other way around. And what seems like suffering is tearing you away from gratifying the desires of the flesh. That is all that you have known in this world. But these things that you feel make you hole yet are against my ways are in fact not good for you. You’re a father, you know that sometimes you must say no because you love your child not because you are punishing them.
I suffer with you, you are not alone! You are not a slave to this world, you are mine. You are free if only you would realize that the state of sin is the pile of crap and I came into that pile and ransomed you out for eternal life. For now though it is my will that you stay in that pile because I love you just as I love your neighbor and I have chosen you to call your neighbor to myself. Your bonds have been releases you are no longer a slave to sins of the flesh you are free because I have claimed you as a child of God. I claimed you at your baptism! YOU ARE MIN E Therefore regardless of your circumstances Your identity is in me.”
Understand that suffering the death of flesh functions as law in our lives. The law exists to make you aware that you are sinners and unable to obtain salvation on your own. The law can only accuse and put to death the sinner, until Jesus invades. Then the gospel promise comes in to your lives apart from the law but attested to by the law and the prophets. The gospel is delivered to you by a true, called and sent preacher that points to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and proclaims to you, “I have claimed you by the authority of Jesus Christ through faith.” Jesus accomplished for you what the law was powerless to do.
Earlier I played a video of lament, a video of a crushed sinner crying out to God for mercy; challenging Him, if you will, to come into that sinner’s life. I end today with another visual aid. The message of the gospel from a called and sent preacher, the message is fittingly entitled “Inheritance;” the very promise that delivered to you today in our reading.
PLAY VIDEO! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEisSxR2cps
Amen.