"Joint Heirs" (Trinity Sunday)

Romans 8:12-17

12 So then, brothers and sisters, 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 children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

In this very room, not even 24 hours ago, two young people joined together in the bonds of matrimony. They stood about where this pulpit stands now, and they exchanged vows and rings and pledged their love and devotion to one another. It was really something: it made me think of the other times I’ve stood in sanctuaries, gardens, fields, chapels, and even an art gallery  to officiate such ceremonies, made me think of my own wedding nearly nine years ago.

I often tell couples that come to me about performing their wedding that it’s important not to confuse the wedding ceremony for your actual marriage. You see, at a wedding, everything (or most everything) is perfect: the decorations, your hair, makeup, dresses, shoes, tuxes, music, flowers, and you’re surrounded by friends and family who love you, support you, who paid to travel from out of town and bring you a toaster or a gift card to Target. There’s literally cake and dancing! It’s perfect. It’s no wonder some people call it the happiest day of your life, a day when it’s sort of culturally acceptable to be selfish, to have everything revolve around your wishes and your desires, a day when it’s even ok to get a little crazy. But as so many of us know, before long, the excitement of that day becomes a wonderful memory, and then work calls us back to reality, the bills start coming, the lawnmower breaks, the faucet leaks, the price of a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk goes up, and the perfection of that day gives way to the cramped reality of life together.

And it doesn’t matter how wonderfully perfect a couple is, how amazing the new family seems, there are always hardships waiting down the road. Whether it’s a dramatic sister-in-law whose antics drain energy and patience from the family, a pink slip and a severance check, a blown head gasket on your only car, or the dreaded diagnosis that leads to weeks of recovery, months of therapy, years of expensive medications, or one very difficult conversation about boxes, plots of dirt, and chiseled stone markers, no one travels through life on a gravy train with biscuit wheels; hardships will come. But for that one day, a couple can believe that everything is going to be perfect, that life is theirs to command, and the heavy clouds of despair will never darken their skies.

I suppose we could say that faith—the Christian faith—is often seen like that. The new believer can have lofty visions of what life with Jesus will be like: running through breezy meadows, laughing and carrying on with Jesus in his unusually light skin and perfectly quaffed hair, going through life smiling at everybody from the cashier at the grocery store to the stranger on the sidewalk, nearly skipping through the door to Sunday school, so overwhelmed with joy that they could hardly sleep Saturday night, never letting anything get them down, and always—always—humming the tune to their favorite hymn while they tell everyone they know about Jesus and how wonderful it is to be “saved.” I suppose many of us began this journey of faith that way, filled with glorious expectations of a life lived in utter joy and complete happiness, never worrying about a thing and always ready to say, “Praise the Lord!” to whatever might come our way. But when the clouds roll in, when times really do get hard, when it’s not so easy to say, “Praise the Lord,” and the tune to your favorite hymn sounds like the mocking noise of a playground bully, well…faith may not be so rose-colored after all.

I suppose if anyone knew that it was the Apostle Paul. In fact, when we’re first introduced to Paul (then called Saul) in Luke’s stories in the book of Acts, he’s one who saw to it that the Christian faith was not an easy one, as he sought out followers of the Way to arrest them or even execute them. Later, after his own conversion, Paul experiences his own hardships as he was often run out of town, arrested, beaten, ship-wrecked, and ridiculed (sometimes even by those who called themselves Christians). I think it’s safe to say that Paul didn’t view the Christian faith, a life with Jesus, as all cake and dancing, and it seems to me that he wanted to be sure that other believers didn’t fall into that fallacy as well.

In the text before us this morning, Paul sounds, well, he sounds like Paul, writing these sort of high, theological thoughts about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit. He talks about putting away the misdeeds of the body, of letting go of the ways of this world in order to take hold of our adoption as children of God, heirs with Christ, guided by the Spirit—it’s all really good stuff! In some ways, Paul is laying the foundation for what would become the doctrine of the Trinity, our understanding of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: one God in three persons. Paul’s words are encouraging too. Just listen again to what he says in verses 14, 15, and 16: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” He goes on to say that as children of God we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” Now that ought to be comforting to us in many ways, right?

I suppose that’s often seen as the other side of the Christian coin: happiness and joy in this life, and after we’ve been put in the ground we’ll really get the good stuff—big ole mansions on gold streets and a stadium seat to watch all those poor fools in hell who wouldn’t listen to us. We’ll get all that God left to us in his will (maybe that’s what some of really mean when we talk about being “in God’s will!”). For a lot of folks, that’s where they put their hope, in the notion that they’ll get all kinds of glorious things when this life is over, that at the entrance of the pearly gates they’ll be given a blank check to get all the great things they always wanted on earth, that they’ll get to see momma and daddy, grandma and grandpa again, they’ll all visit with one another at their own mansions, and if Jesus just happens to be there, that’ll be alright too. The notion that we’re children of God, heirs with Christ, serves as hope for some of us in that we’re hopeful that we’ll get all the things we want in the “sweet by and by.” And maybe we do, but I don’t think that’s what Paul’s getting at.

I don’t think Paul’s implying that the point of faith, our existence as children of God, heirs with Christ, followers of the Holy Spirit, is to hang on until we’re either dead or Christ returns. No, I think for Paul, faith in Christ has a much more immediate effect. Look again at verses 16 and 17: “it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…” we’re children of God, joint heirs with Christ—IF! If!? If!?! If what? I don’t know about you, but I was always told there were no conditions to faith, no conditions to being a Christian, that all I’d have to do is say a so-called “sinner’s prayer” and I’d be “once saved, always saved,” and then, when I died—no matter what kind of life I lived in the meantime—I’d get to go to heaven and have ice cream on gold plates. If!? Surely Paul means something like, “we are children of God if we go to church regularly, live a good life, and stay out of trouble,” or “we are joint heirs with Christ if we say the right things, belong to the right church, read the right Bible, like the right people,” or maybe Paul meant to say “if you say a little prayer, get baptized (all the way under), and have your name on the church roll,” or maybe some of us would like to think Paul meant to say “if you live in the right country, vote for the right candidate, and always take the conservative (or liberal) side on social issues…” But that’s not what Paul says. In fact, if I’m honest with you, I don’t really like what Paul says after that great big IF.

“…[W]e are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” Suffer? That’s not what I signed up for. In fact, I was kind of hoping to get out of that whole deal altogether. I mean, sure, others will suffer, but I expected to be the one there telling them that “everything happens for a reason” and “God’s in control,” but suffer myself…? I don’t know about all that. Surely Paul’s being specific here, right? I mean, he’s got to be talking about those who suffer for the sake of the gospel, those whose lives are in actual danger because they live in places where their faith is outlawed. Surely that’s what Paul means isn’t it? At least then I can be off the hook; then I can ignore that word “if” and say it actually applies to someone else, right? Then again, I suppose I could do what so many Christians do in this country and call even the slightest annoyance “persecution,” that every time a person of another opinion gets the same rights that I have already I can shout out with the rest of those on Facebook and cable TV and say that I’m having to “suffer” for my faith, all the while enjoying the comfort of my home, the love of my family, and all of that cognitive dissonance. Do you suppose that’s what Paul meant when he said “if, in fact we suffer with him...”? I don’t think so either. And I’ll tell you why.

This week I attended the funeral of a young man I knew when he was a member of the youth group of a church I pastored. He was twenty years old, a smart, handsome kid, well-liked, served his country in the Marine Corps, and had a loving, supportive, faithful family. One afternoon, for reasons no one will ever understand, he took his own life. Seeing his parents, his brother, his grandmother as they wept, as they questioned, as they suffered…I think I caught a glimpse of what it means to be a child of God, to be joint heirs with Christ, to suffer with God.

You see, I’m convinced we grow closest to God—not in the midst of all the great things in life—but when the pain seems almost unbearable, when the grief is sharp and cuts deep. It’s like…well, it’s like the death of an only Son. I’m convinced that the best way to understand the nature of the Triune God is by way of suffering. For it was on the cross that suffering was truly put on display before the universe: the suffering of God the Father as the Son of God gasped for breath, as he cried out in agony, as he died. It was there that the suffering of God the Son, in Christ Jesus, was made so gruesomely plain, and it was there that even the Spirit suffered as all of creation witnessed the death of the Creator.

To know God, to be a child of God and an heir with Christ, is to know suffering—real suffering. To be led by the Spirit is to be led through suffering—not away from it. To be joint heirs with Christ means that we will suffer, that we will endure heartbreak, tragedy, and pain—not be blissfully unaware of its existence. To be joint heirs with Christ means we share in all of what God is, all of who Christ is, not just the glory, but the suffering too, and in that—in that heavy reality—we will find ourselves more deeply in love with God than if we simply choose to sit on the side and avoid the suffering altogether, for it we do not suffer the sorrow, agony, and darkness of this life alone. God is not some removed being to whom we pray when the way is dark, hoping he will shed light on the path. No, when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, when sorrows like sea billows roll, when all else seems lost, we are not alone, for the cross tells us that God is with us, that we suffer with Christ, and if —IF!—in fact, we suffer with him, we will also be glorified with him. Amen.