Today’s passage: Romans 8:26-30

Helpful thoughts:

• Our imaginations of the greatness of Christ’s return and our glorification all fall short of how wonderful it will really be.  In the same way (“Likewise”), our prayers fall short of all they could really be.
  • But no worries, because the Spirit of God prays perfectly for us on our behalf!
  • The Holy Spirit knows everything about you, inside and out.  He also knows everything about God, of course.  So, He always prays exactly what we need, as we need it, in perfect harmony with the will of God.
• The promise of verse 28 is for Christians (“Those who are called”) and the “good” is to conform us to the image of Christ, which is the “good” that is not worth comparing to all the bad of this life (Verse 18).
  • Definition of terms:
    • Foreknew – God established a relationship with you (He knew you) before the foundation of the world.
    • Predestined – God chose you to be His child.
    • Called – God’s effectual working where you were drawn into a relationship with Him.
    • Justified – You are declared, “Not guilty” and because Christ’s righteousness has been given to you, you are also declared, “Righteous” in God’s sight.
    • Glorified – You will be made to be just like Christ.  All sin will be gone.  Your heart’s desires will be completely pure. You will have a resurrection body just like Christ’s forevermore.

Questions to consider:

1. How does this passage encourage you to pray with humility, but also confidence and endearment?  Can you mess this up?  If you pray something outside of God’s will, what will happen?  What is the Spirit doing?  What will definitely come to pass?
2. How much of our salvation is God’s doing?  Why is this so important to understand and accept with all humility, especially when compared with a passage like Romans 3:10-11?  If we would struggle to “like” the idea of God’s sovereignty in our salvation, what might we need to understand or even repent of?  If someone were to say, ‘I can’t believe in a God like that,” what logical mistake would they be making?  Does God exist the way He does because we can believe in Him?
3. The all-knowing, all-powerful, loving, eternal God is praying for you and guaranteeing your safe arrival to a glorious eternity with Him…how safe are you?  This world is a wreck, and we all bare the scars in different ways and in different severities.  Some of the scars are of our own doing.  What is God doing about it?

Today’s passage: Romans 8:18-25

Helpful thoughts:

• When our full adoption is realized (When we see Jesus face to face and are made to be like Him), the cares and sufferings in this world won’t be worth trying to compare.
• Adam was given the responsibility to have dominion over the earth.  This world has not enjoyed that dominion since the fall.
  • This aspect of the fall and of God’s redemption reminds us of the layers of consequences for our sin and the layers of goodness that await us in the future.
• The Spirit’s work to give us new life and to begin the progressive work of sanctifying us gives us a taste of what’s in store in the days ahead.  This taste satisfies us like nothing this world could ever provide.

Questions to consider:

1. What kind of good things would you expect to equally offset the worst things in your life (Think like a number scale… Where -10 would be offset with a +10)?  It can be overwhelming just to imagine a day when all of the bad things (Like sin and suffering) are simply gone…so how much more do we have to look forward to if the “good” of the future is not worth comparing to the “bad” of this life?
2. When people seek to make things perfect in this world, what are they missing?  What don’t they understand?  Why won’t things ever be made right or perfect before Christ returns?  What even mars their ability to give a right definition of a perfect world?
3. How does the groaning and the hope for that day help you to navigate and persevere each day through this world which has been subjected to futility?  What are you looking forward to the most?

Today’s passage: Romans 8:12-17

Helpful thoughts:

• We are no longer bound or enslaved to our sin.
  • If a person says they are a Christian but they are living in bondage to sin…if there is no struggle for repentance and change and no growth over time, it would be right for them to doubt their salvation.
• We should interpret the idea of being led by the Spirit in the context of this passage.
  • It is contrasted with bondage to sin.  Being led by the Spirit and being obedient to the Word of God are synonymous.
  • To think of being led by the Spirit as having a holy sense of direction or special utterances would not fit in this context.
    • If a person is trying to tap into the authority of God to do, or to coerce others to do ungodly things, that is evil.
• In Roman law, adopted children were promised all the rights of naturally born children.  Those rights included inheritances that were given once the child was full grown.
  • Child of God, God has chosen to give you His fatherly love and everything that comes along with being his heir.

Questions to consider:

1. How does the idea of adoption’s full benefit coming at maturity coincide with passages like Philippians 1:6 and 1 John 3:2?  When will we reach full maturity and receive this full inheritance as God’s children?
2. If someone is trying to say they are being led by the Spirit to do something, or to say something and it does not agree with what Scripture says, what is really happening?  Why can you be confident in saying “No” to that person or those people, even to rebuke them?  Do you need special seers to know how to follow God? (2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Peter 1:3)
3. Considering the context of this chapter, how does verse 16 work?  How does the Holy Spirit bear witness or testify to our inner man that we are God’s children?  What changes do we see in our thinking, affections, desires and actions that give us assurance of our salvation?

Today’s passage: Romans 8:1-11

Helpful thoughts:

• Christian, Jesus Christ has suffered the just wrath of God against your sin…all of it…entirely.  There is no condemnation left for us to face.
• A transition took place near the end of chapter 7, where Paul contrasted the OT law (The rules to obey) and the law of sin.
  • Think of this law like how we would say the law of gravity…what goes up, must come down.
  • What is of the law of the Spirit will be spiritual.  What is of the law of sin will be sinful.
    • Christian, you have been set free from your bondage to sin.
• At conversion, a few amazing transformations take place:
  • The Spirit of God dwells in us.
  • Our minds begin to be governed by the Spirit (Ephesians 4:22-24).
  • We are given eternal life and promised resurrection.

Questions to consider:

1. Why is the attribute of God’s justice so important to the promise of no more condemnation?  What does God’s justice tell us about what Jesus suffered on the cross?  If we were to pay for our sin after Jesus already paid for it, what would God cease to be?  How do these truths rightly stir our hearts in love for Christ and in awe of God?
2. If you were set free from the law of gravity, what would happen to you when you jumped?  What then does it mean to be set free from the law of sin?
3. Can we accomplish transformation that leads to righteousness and eternal life on our own (Verse 7)?  Would we ever figure it out through our own cunning and righteous desires?  What has God done for us and how much of it was His doing?

Today’s passage: Romans 7:7-25

Helpful thoughts:

• The failing of the Law to bring people to salvation is not the fault of the Law.
  • Let’s illustrate this with the modern law of a speed limit on the road.
    • If I do not have love for others, I will go too fast and cut through traffic in a way that endangers others, even without any speed limit sign.
    • With the presence of a speed limit sign, I may desire to break the law by going too fast, even being exhilarated by my sin…OR
    • I may remain under the speed limit, considering myself to be an upstanding citizen and worthy of praise.
      • The only way to go the speed limit in righteousness is to do it in love.
      • Therefore, the law did not cause me to sin.  It made me aware of my sin, provided me a benchmark to further my sin, and provided me an unfounded cause to glory in self-righteousness.
• From verse 14 on, Paul is giving a personal testimony to his own struggle.  This is the battle in the heart of every Christian.
• The path to joy is not a high view of self.  That path to joy is a right and humbled view of self and a high view of God.
  • Paul calls himself a wretched man, and gives glory to God who has rescued us through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Questions to consider:

1. If we were to blame the Law for “making us sinners,” who would we actually be blaming for our sin?  Who is the giver of the Law?  How would this compare to Adam’s blaming after the fall (Genesis 3:12)?
2. Do Christians live flawless lives?  Why do we desire to “keep up appearances” as much as we tend to do?  What are we robbing ourselves and other believers of when if we pretend that Romans 7:14-25 doesn’t pertain to us?
3. Why do we have every reason to continue praising God for our rescue from sin?  Did Jesus simply wipe our slate clean and give us a fresh start or…something much more?

Today’s passage: Romans 7:1-6

Helpful thoughts:

• Romans 6:8 teaches us the “old man” died with Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 4:22-24)
• Paul is comparing anyone’s obligation to the Old Covenant (Or the Mosaic Covenant) having ended through death to the idea of a widow being free to marry again.  We are now under the New Covenant in Christ.
• There is an aspect to this illustration where two things came to an end.
  • On the one hand, when Christ died, we died with him.
  • On the other, Christ fulfilled the Law (The Old Covenant) on our behalf.  The purpose for which it was given has been served and so we are free to live under the New Covenant.

Questions to consider:

1. What kind of a “marriage” was that of the Law and Israel?  In what ways was it a terrible relationship?  In what way did it do exactly what God intended?
2. If a person were to think we were still supposed to keep all the Old Testament laws today, how would this passage help to answer that concern?
3. When a person did what was right under the law, what did that accomplish?  What motives may have been mixed together in their actions?  How is the “new way of the Spirit” different?  Are we trying to earn anything?  Are we fearful of judgment?  What has gone given to us that now motivates us to live according to the Spirit?

Today’s passage: Romans 6:15-23

Helpful thoughts:

• Paul asks a question similar to 6:1.  We pursue righteousness because we have been freed from sin and we have a new master who is good.
• Obedience to God is done out of the heart.  We can be righteously motivated in our freedom from sin to do the right thing.
• Because we know we have been liberated from our slavery to sin, we should no longer want to serve our old master.

Questions to consider:

1. If a person sees “praying the prayer” as a license to sin and get away with it, what has evidently not happened in his heart?  What do followers of Jesus do?
2. When you are committed to something, or when someone has your allegiance, how does that change your actions?  Why isn’t it right to view Christianity as an option or something that some people get “more into” than others?  How do our desires and actions help us gauge our commitment and allegiance to Christ?
3. How can verses 21-22 help you in your fight against and victory over sin?  What truths can we tell ourselves in times of temptation from these verses?

Today’s passage: Romans 6:1-14

Helpful thoughts:

• Knowing that Christ suffered for all of our sin once and for all could result in two responses:
  • Sin all the more because you think it’s “covered” and you will “get away with it.”
  • OR, rejoicing in the grace of God, repenting and living a new life of growing obedience.
    • Only one of those options is the life of a converted, regenerate believer.
• The “baptism” spoken of in this chapter is our true spiritual immersion into Christ’s death and resurrection.  When we put our faith in Christ, our old self dies and we are raised to new life in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).
  • The ordinance of baptism (When a new believer is baptized in water to profess their faith in Christ) is a picture of the reality that has already transpired in their life by God’s grace.
• If you are in Christ, the old you is dead.  Sin was your master, but you died…so now you are free from sin and you have a new master who is love.

Questions to consider:

1. Who are you?  What does this passage teach us about our identity in Christ?  What kind of life is the Christian going to live?  What will be their strength and motivation to do so?
2. Whose are you?  Did your freedom from slavery to sin make you your own master?  Why is it so wonderful to be under the authority of God?  If we squirm or bristle at the idea of having a master, what might that tell us about our understanding and acceptance of God and the Gospel?
3. Where are you?  Are you pursuing righteous living in order to be good enough under some kind of law (What you think are God’s requirements) or are you living under grace (Rejoicing in God’s forgiveness and pursuing Him in love and gratitude)?