No one enjoys the thought of suffering, but in a post from a couple of years ago, I reminded Christians that our sort of suffering is a fundamentally different kind.

Let me make an analogy between the physical and the spiritual.

Would you not agree that there is a fundamental difference between pain in the cancer ward and agony in the delivery room? One is suffering that brings life; the other is that of death.

As a pastor, I have watched many people struggle with cancer. It is such an awful disease. I think of one friend who went through so much – – lost her hair during chemotherapy — – had her body ravaged by the disease – and then she slowly died. Her hospital room was a place of pain.

The delivery room is also full of pain. If I ever complain about discomfort, my wife who has delivered four babies is happy to remind me that I am not acquainted with real pain. Never the less, the agony of labor is of a different kind than cancer suffering. Labor is pain based on a beautiful hope.

Everyone in this life will suffer. And, if Christ does not come back in our life time, we will all die. But, for a believer, the sufferings of life are those of the delivery room. Romans 8 says that our sufferings are “birth pains” that will one day give way to the sons of God being revealed.

If you are believer with cancer, then you have all the hope of eternity. Remember, our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

Soon and very soon, Jesus will come back and we will be eternally with Him.

Challies:

Don’t run away from this blog post just because I’m quoting a Puritan. Yes, Puritans are scary with all their big words and frilly collars, but some of them had remarkable insights into God’s Word and into human hearts. Read on to see an example of that. I am confident that it will be a blessing to you.

Here is the context: Once a month our church has what we call Adult Fellowship. This is a time where we gather as adults and look at a particular topic, working toward application. Over the course of this year we’ll be looking at sanctified sins—sins that we commit but tend to give a pass to. We allow them to be respectable sins. As we do this, I’m offering a brief overview of John Owen’s Overcoming Sin and Temptation. What I am trying to do is take one chapter per month and distill it to its essence, while still allowing Owen to speak in his own words.

I’ve now summarized the first two chapters and, in doing so, have been reminded of just how powerful Owen’s book is. Let me share with you the essence of the first chapter which is titled “The Foundation of Mortification.” Mortification, of course, refers simply to killing or destroying or putting to death. When we mortify a sin, we put it to death by the power of the Holy Spirit. As this is only an opening chapter, it touches just briefly on subjects that will be dealt with in more detail a little bit later on.

Owen bases this chapter on Romans 8:13: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death [mortify] the deeds of the body, you will live.” He shows that this verse describes a condition, a means, a duty and a promise.

Read more here.

D. Martyn LLoyd-Jones:

If we tell Christians that their past sins, their present and their future sins have already been put away by God, are we not more or less telling them that they are free to go out and sin? If you react in that way to my statements I am most happy, for I am obviously a good and true interpreter of the Apostle Paul. It was because he preached such things that people said, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? (chapter 6:1). That is the very charge they were bringing against him, and if we do not preach and represent the gospel in a way that sounds dangerous at first, we are not preaching it truly. The true preaching of the gospel is always liable to be misunderstood by people in that way. The Apostle has already given the answer in chapters 6 and 7, proving that there is no risk at all, but the opposite.”  D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans 7.1-8.4, Banner of Truth, pages 273-273.

We can put it in the form of an illustration. The difference between an unbeliever sinning and a Christian sinning is the difference between a man transgressing one of the laws of England or any other State, and a member of a family doing something that is displeasing to another member of the family. In the one case a man commits an offence against the State; in the other a husband, say, has done something that he should not do in his relationship with his wife. He is not breaking a law, he is wounding the heart of his wife. That is the difference. It is no longer a legal matter, it is a matter of personal relationship now, and that, a relationship of love. The man does not cease to be the husband of the woman, nor the woman to be the wife of the husband. Law does not come into the matter at all; it lies outside that realm. In a sense it is now something much worse than a legal condemnation. I would rather offend against a law of the land objectively outside me, then hurt someone I love. Romans 7:1-8:4, Banner of Truth, page 278.

Romans 8 has been called the “inner sanctuary” within the cathedral of Christian faith.” It sets before us some of the most wonderful blessings we enjoy as believers: being free from God’s condemnation, indwelt by God’s own Spirit, adopted into his family, destined for resurrection and glory, and full of hope because of God’s love for us and because of his promise to bring good to us in every circumstance of life.

But as we remember bad news on 9/11, this Fall at our church we will begin a series from Romans 8: a chapter that is a wonderful summary of the best news ever proclaimed. Is there someone you ought to tell so they can hear it?

Read Romans 8 for yourself. Why wouldn’t we share such incredible news? After all, everyone likes to “bear glad tidings.”

• Young couples smile when they tell their parents that a grandchild is on the way.
• No one waits to send a text message that reads, “We won,”
• Or to say, “the test for cancer came back negative.”
• Wouldn’t you like to be the person who let someone know that his or her mortgage had been paid off?

With Romans 8, we have good news that is infinitely and eternally better than any of those examples and we can be stoked to share it.

If you are going through a tough time in life, or if you have questions about how all things can work together for good, or you know someone who is, then invite them to be our guest for this exciting new series and find answers to your deepest questions.

The Romans 8 series will begin on September 11, 2011 when we go back to two services at 9 and 10:30.  Remember this is the chapter that begins with the truth that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ and concludes with the assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. In between, Paul encourages that all things work together for God for those who belong to Jesus.

So here’s what you do:

1. Determine that you and your family are going to be here.
2. Identify several individuals or families you know that may not have a church home.
3. Pray that God would open their hearts to hearing the Good News.
4. Call and say, “Would you be my guest for a new sermon series at The Red Brick Church this Fall?” We could go out to breakfast before?  Or, we could have lunch afterwards?

Remember that song many of us learned to sing when we were children, “This Little Light of Mine”? It wasn’t just a nursery rhyme. It was based on Jesus challenge in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14-16) that Christians are the light of the world and that under no circumstances should we pull the plug on our lights. Rather, we should wave the glory of Christ about as conspicuously as possible as we invite people to come hear the greatest news ever heard.

I am preparing to preach from Romans 7. In reading Romans, I was so struck by Romans 2:6-7:

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.

This is such a challenge for me personally.  At times, I find myself feeling very impatient with pastoral ministry. Yet, Paul summarily reminds us that patience should characterize God’s people.

How are you doing?

Let’s don’t become weary in doing good.  At the proper time we will reap a harvest if we don’t give up.  Galatians 6:9-10.

I am adding Romans 2:6-7 to my list of verses to memorize.

Moses emerges with God’s Ten Commandments, a set of requirements that people have to fulfill not in order to get rescued by God from slavery, but because they have been rescued.

Stated succinctly, the imperative of the Christian life (be godly) follows the indicative (we have been freed from sin).

. . . I said, “Do you want to know what you are saved from? In a word, you are saved from God.” They just gasped and to this day when I attend that convention people come up to me and say, “I had never thought of that until I heard your message.” It is God who saves people from God because his wrath is stored up against the day of wrath, and he most certainly will demonstrate, as he has demonstrated his love toward us “in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  (Commentary on Romans, 161, emphasis added).

Sproule references Romans 5:8 in making his point, but John 3:36 also comes to mind:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him (John 3:36).

Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains the point of Romans 6.

As a Christian I am here in the new field and Satan cannot touch me, as were are told in John’s First Epistle, chapter 5, verse 18, ‘That evil one toucheth him not’. He cannot touch us because we are no longer in his kingdom. He cannot touch us; but he can shout across the road at us. Every Christian who falls into sin is a fool. The devil cannot touch us; when then do we listen to him?  We do we allow him to frighten us? Why do we pay attention to him? . . .We should resist him. ‘Resist the devil and he will flee from you’ (James 4:7); but we fail to realize it. The whole object of the Apostle in this sixth chapter is to get us to realize it.  (David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans 6, 26-27, emphasis added).