A Sermon on Romans 8:12–17 preached by Ps Phil Hunt

The Text: Romans 8:12–17

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 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. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 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!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 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.

Introduction

Have you ever told someone, “I owe you one”? There are a few moments in life, if you are fortunate, when someone does something for you that is so impactful, so timely, so gracious, that your heart instantly and without any effort overflows with joyful gratitude. I think we have all experienced that.

That is how I feel about my wife, Lori. She willingly moved with me to Kenya in 1992, and then here to Zambia in 1993, and has stood with me through some wonderful, glorious days, but also some very difficult seasons. There is nothing that I would not do for her—not out of obligation, but out of love and gratitude. It is a delight to be able to do something for her.

I also feel that way about a man named Bruce Richards. He was my high school teacher and my basketball and baseball coach. He invested in me at a time when my father had been forced out of our home because of his violent behavior toward our family—but that is another story for another day. As a sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy, Bruce gave me responsibilities and opportunities far beyond what any high school student deserved, and he became a mentor and eventually one of my dearest friends. In many ways, Bruce is the reason I am in ministry today. After high school, he invited me to move to New Hampshire in the United States to serve alongside him in youth ministry, giving me opportunities to lead, to teach, and to preach.

I owe that man a debt I could never repay. If I were ever given the chance to serve him in return, I would gladly do so with a joyful attitude, with excitement at the opportunity to reflect in some small way the deep gratitude I have for how the Lord used him in my life.

But Paul says here in our text this morning that there is Someone else we owe—God himself.

Background: The Problem of Romans 7

Look at verse 12. Paul begins this section with three words: “So then, brothers.” Notice what follows: we are debtors. And you ought to be asking, debtors to whom? And debtors for what?

To understand that, we need to see the problem Paul has been describing in chapter 7. Turn back one page and look at chapter 7, verse 25, where Paul concludes that chapter with a summary statement of the struggle he has wrestled with through those twenty-five verses:

“So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

Paul was agonizing over the fact that in his regenerate mind he wanted to obey God, he desired to follow the Lord and to please him—yet it seemed that every time he turned around, his flesh, his fallen human nature, would gravitate toward the very things he despised. He would think the very things he did not want his mind resting upon. So he cries out in verse 24:

“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me?”

Do you see his agony? “I have tried to live for Jesus and I have failed. I have given it my best shot. I have determined in my mind again and again and again that I will never go back and do that sin—I will never lose my temper again, I will never have that lustful thought again, I will never watch that again. Lord, that is the last time. Forgive me one more time and it will never happen again.”

Can you relate to Paul? Have you ever been there? No wonder he cries out in agony of soul: “Wretched man that I am!” He tried to deliver himself, and he failed miserably. So in verse 25 he asks and answers his own question:

“Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ!”

That is who will deliver him. It is Jesus who comes and delivers us from the power that seems to dominate us in our Christian experience.

You see, God’s solution for sin was to send Jesus Christ to be condemned for those sins. He took sin in his own flesh—though he himself had never sinned—and carried all of our sins to the cross, thus taking upon himself the condemnation that was rightfully ours. The soul that sins shall die. Jesus took our sins and died. In his death, he fully satisfied the just demands of a holy God and fulfilled the requirements of a righteous law. This is what it means when we say Jesus died for me. His substitutionary work upon the cross satisfied all the just, righteous demands of God’s law.

Now the question before us today is this: how does the finished work of Christ become actualized—experienced—in my life? How does God apply this to us?

We have already seen in chapter 8 that he does this by sending his Holy Spirit to dwell within us. Every child of God has the Holy Spirit living within them. Last week, Hector preached on the life in the Spirit from Romans 8:1–11, and we learned that the Father ordained salvation, the Son purchased salvation, and the Holy Spirit applies salvation. This morning we continue in verses 12 through 17 to see the next glorious work of the Spirit on our behalf.

You see, the Spirit does not merely give us life—he transforms our very identity. He takes slaves and makes them sons. That is the title of our sermon this morning: From Slaves to Sons.

From this passage we will see three glorious truths about the Spirit’s work in our lives: the Spirit frees us from slavery, the Spirit adopts us as sons, and the Spirit assures us as heirs.

I. The Spirit Frees Us from Slavery

We must start where Paul starts—with our obligation to God. Notice the first words of verse 12: “So then.” Paul is connecting what he is about to say to everything he has already said in chapter 8. Because the Holy Spirit has delivered us from condemnation, because the Spirit has given us eternal life, therefore we are debtors. We owe God a debt.

Empowered by the Spirit (v. 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.”

This verse has been called the summary of the Christian life. Paul lays out two ways to live: according to the flesh, or by the Spirit. Those are the options. And that is the only meaningful division among the people assembled here this morning. Not Zambians and South Africans, or Americans and Canadians—just two types of people. Those who live according to the flesh, and those who live by the Spirit.

If you live according to the flesh, you will die. If you live by the Spirit, you will live. So I put before you an option this morning: death or life?

The flesh Paul speaks of is the fallen human nature that all of us must reckon with—ruled by sinful passions and not submitted to the will of God. And when he says those who live according to the flesh will die, he does not mean only physical death, though that is true. It is appointed for man once to die. Our bodies are growing older and more frail, and one day they will die, because it is the inevitable result of sin’s contamination.

But Scripture does not stop at physical death. It speaks of a second death. A man I encountered recently at a medical clinic in Lusaka said, “Don’t worry about dying—it happens and then it’s just over.” With the doctor and others present, it was not the moment to unfold this morning’s text. But Scripture speaks clearly:

Revelation 21:8: “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

For every man, woman, and child who dies having lived according to the flesh—their body will die, and then spiritually they will be cast into the lake of fire and punished eternally. That is the second death: eternity separated from God.

So here are your options. If you live according to the flesh, there is an ongoing pattern, and it results in spiritual death. If you live by the Spirit, there is an ongoing warfare you must engage in, and it results in eternal life. The Christian life is a war. And in verse 13, Paul tells us how to fight it:

“…if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

Notice: you put to death the deeds of the flesh. That speaks of human responsibility. The child of God has a responsibility to engage in this battle against sin. But notice also that it is not done in our own strength. You put sin to death—but how? By the Spirit. There is the divine empowerment. Paul writes in Philippians 2:12–13:

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

You must work it out—because God is the One working within you. The Puritan John Owen, in his 1656 work The Mortification of Sin, is credited with saying: “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”

This is active resistance to sin—the intentional putting to death of sinful behaviors, the decisive rejection of fleshly practices. There is no sanctification without conflict.

Led by the Spirit (v. 14)

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

In the Old Testament, the law led people to Christ. As Paul writes in Galatians, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. The law was not given to justify us or to make us righteous by our own keeping of it. The law was given to show us that we are not good people, that we cannot meet God’s righteous demands—to guide us and lead us to Christ, who then saves us. The law then hands us over to the Holy Spirit, who leads us day by day.

The Spirit leads us into all truth, leading us to put to death real sins—sexual immorality, anger, pride, idolatry, greed. This is the process of sanctification. This is holiness. It is not perfection, but it is progress.

We are engaged with the power of the Holy Spirit, so that when temptation comes again, we say no—and we find that when we say no, the Holy Spirit empowers that no, and we win a victory in that moment. The no held. That is the Spirit’s empowering as we choose to engage and resist the sins that so easily beset us—not in our own strength, but in the Spirit’s power.

The Christian life is a war against sin, and we fight this war with the Spirit’s empowerment. We follow the Spirit’s leading. The Spirit warns us. When temptation comes, the Spirit says, No! Hang on! Keep your mouth closed! Switch off that screen! And because the Spirit of God is within us, when he speaks, we can respond and say, No—I will not. The Spirit empowers us in this fight.

And here is the contrast Paul wants us to see. Sin seduces gently, and then gains control as a deceitful taskmaster, making the sinner a slave. It promises freedom but delivers bondage. Notice verse 15:

“You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.”

Beloved, as believers, that is not who we are anymore. We are not slaves driven by fear, controlled by sin, bound by the flesh. Look at what we received instead.

II. The Spirit Adopts Us as Sons

Romans 8:15: “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!’”

Last year I was in Johannesburg for ministry and stayed with some friends there. I was introduced to a boy—perhaps eight or ten years old—and my host said, “This is our son.” They had adopted him. Then he told me his story.

A man was walking the footpath between a township and the highway in Johannesburg, through an open field. As he walked that path in the afternoon, he heard what he thought was a puppy or a kitten making small sounds. He stepped about a meter off the path and found a ShopRite bag that was moving, with little sounds coming from inside. He walked over, opened the bag—and found a newborn baby boy. Still wet with blood, the umbilical cord still attached, lying on top of the afterbirth, tied in a plastic bag and discarded in a field.

That man picked up that little baby, rushed him to the hospital, and the baby was eventually handed over to a ministry that cares for abandoned infants. And the man who runs that ministry adopted this little boy as his own son.

That is us. Every one of us was born into sin, helpless and abandoned. And if it had not been for a loving, sovereign Father—who came along and saw us in our absolute helplessness, in the blood of our birth, unable to do anything for ourselves—if our Father had not passed by and had compassion on us, and picked us up, and washed us, and clothed us and fed us and nurtured us—we would all be dead in our trespasses and sins. But we have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Our adoption establishes a relationship. It is a legal standing before God—a divine declaration that we are his children. Adoption bestows upon us an objective standing that is a once-and-for-all declaration that can never be repealed. You are a son, a daughter, of God. And it came about by divine initiative, resting upon the loving purposes and will of God. As Paul writes in Ephesians 1:5:

“He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.”

Not only does adoption establish a relationship with God—it gives us access to the Father. We have the right to come to our Father because we are his sons. We are no longer separated from the Father by a curtain, as in the Old Testament temple. We can enter his presence—Hebrews 4:16—with boldness, enjoying an immediate relationship, enjoying fellowship, and enjoying face-to-face access with God, our heavenly Father.

Not only does adoption establish a relationship and give us access—it places a yearning in our hearts for our Father. Notice the cry in verse 15. We have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, “by whom we cry.” That word cry means we pray, we cry out. And notice: we are not led to cry, “I am God’s child.” That is not the cry. Rather, we are led to cry, “Abba! Father!”

The word Abba is an Aramaic word—a respectful term of endearment. It is something like what in some cultures is expressed as “Papa.” The little two-year-old who crawls into his father’s lap, looks up into his face, and says, “Papa, I love you.” That is the word: Abba.

It was never used by the Jews to address God. Only Jesus used this word to address his Father. In Mark 14:36, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays:

“Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

And so Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, has given to you and me his own special name for his Father. Papa. When I was growing up, it was Daddy. Abba. Father. Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:9, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” You see, the Spirit of adoption gives us the right to call God Father. This is not presumption. This is God’s invitation to you.

Do you run to him with longing, loving eyes? Do you cry to him, Abba? Father?

Some of you, like me, did not grow up with a father in your home. Some of you have fathers who hurt you, abused you, and abandoned you. Perhaps your father was angry, authoritarian, or simply absent. Let me tell you something this morning: God is not like that. He is a Father of tender love and vast mercy. He is a Father who genuinely cares, who graciously forgives, who follows you with tender, watchful care. He is a Father who provides your every need, who instructs you and guides you—a Father whose eyes are upon you all the time.

No wonder our hearts cry, “Abba! Father!”

Before we move on, can we pause and meditate on what Paul is describing? This is not merely theology to study—this is a relationship to enjoy. If you know Christ this morning, you have the Spirit of adoption dwelling within you. That means you have the right, the privilege, to call the Creator of the universe Abba, Father. Not Master. Not Judge. Not “the man upstairs.” But Father. Daddy.

III. The Spirit Assures Us as Heirs

We must now answer this question: how can we be sure that this is real? How do we know we are not deceiving ourselves? How do we know we are truly God’s children?

The Spirit’s Witness (v. 16)

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

Present tense, continuous—we are now and we are forever the children of God. Notice the nature of this witness: it is the Spirit who bears witness with our spirit. This is an internal confirmation, an assurance that the Spirit of God places within us. Two things happen: our hearts yearn for our Father—“Abba, Father”—and our lips speak to him, “Abba, Father.”

How do I know I am being led by the Spirit? The Spirit of adoption cries from my heart to God: Abba, Father, I need you. Abba, Father, help me. Abba, Father, I want to glorify you. Abba, Father, I want to worship you.

And there is the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. As 1 John puts it: “Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this you will know that you are of the truth and reassure your heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”

We do not merely talk the talk—we walk the walk. We look at our lives and see that there is fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is being produced in us. We are not where we want to be, but we are not where we were, because the Spirit of God is leading us to be more and more like Jesus. And that Spirit of adoption dwelling within us puts in us this longing, this cry to call out to God as our Father.

The Heirs’ Inheritance (v. 17)

“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.”

If children, then heirs. Heirs of God—we inherit God himself. We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Jesus Christ. But notice that our inheritance is linked to Christ not just in his glory, but also in his suffering. We suffer with him now so that we may be glorified with him later. And we embrace this cost gladly, joyfully, because we know who we are and whose we are.

Conclusion

What is the point? Here it is: we were slaves; now we are sons.

If you are not in Christ, you are still a slave to sin. You are still in that discarded bag on the side of the trail—helpless and hopeless, with no future. You are in the flesh. And those who are in the flesh will die.

But the Father planned for your salvation. The Son purchased your salvation by dying for you on the cross. And this morning the Holy Spirit will apply that salvation to you and adopt you as a child of God. Sir, ma’am—will you invite him to be your Savior right now, right where you sit? Surrender to him. Ask his forgiveness, repent of your sins, receive God’s free gift of grace and eternal life in Jesus. The Spirit of God will adopt you as a son of God. He will lead you, he will empower you, and he will put that longing for your heavenly Father in your heart. Do not walk out a slave—walk out a son.

If you are in Christ, Christian friend, live as a son, not a slave. Do not live in Romans chapter 7. Live in Romans chapter 8. You can call God, Abba! Not Master, not Judge, but Father. When you are weak, when you are helpless, when you are failing—cry out to him: “Dad, help me! I am so sick of falling into this sin again and again. I have tried. I cannot do it. Father, help me.”

Will you let your heart cry out to him—Abba, Father?

We cry out to you, Father, amazed that you would come to those who are dead in their trespasses and sins and seek us out—that you would find us in our helpless and hopeless state, unable to save ourselves, unable to do anything to justify ourselves, and that in your sovereign love you came and chose us and called us to repent of our sins and to believe in Jesus. And when we do, you put your Spirit into our hearts: not a spirit that leads us back into slavery to the flesh, but a Spirit of adoption as sons—a Spirit through whom we cry, and long, and say: Abba. Father.

Father, do your work in us by the power of your Holy Spirit, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.