Assurance #5 – Suffering and Assurance (Romans 8:17-23)

Read the Bible passage

Sermon outline

We have never faced a year like this…

  • Is God both good and powerful?
  • Why does God let his beloved children (Romans 8:15) suffer?
  • And yet the Bible seems to insist Christians will suffer…

Romans 8:17 “…we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we might also share in His glory.”

  1. Present sufferings cannot compare with future glory (Romans 8:18)

Romans 8:18 “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

  1. But why can’t we be pain free now AND have future glory later?

We live in a groaning world

Romans 8:22 “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

But why is the world a ‘groaning’ place?

Romans 8:20 “For the creation was subjected to frustration (futility), not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it…”

The backdrop to the argument in Romans 8

Genesis 1-3

Subjected to frustration….in Hope

  1. What are some of the implications for us?
  2. Things are not the way they should be
  3. The place of Christian environmentalism in a frustrating world?
  4. Suffering is not the end of the story

Romans 8:19 “The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.”

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.