Rabbi Schneider - The Price of Being an Heir
As we continue in the book of Romans, I left off last time in the 16th verse, and I want to continue on in the 17th verse. Hear the Word of God. "We're children," Paul says, "and heirs of God. Children, and also," he said, "heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him". There's two things I want you to think about here. Number one, that we are heirs. So listen, I'm going to read the previous verse too to put it in context. "The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ".
Now, I want you to just stop for a second because I'm reading something that is so powerful. But a lot of times we're not impacted as we should be, and ought to be, and want to be by truth. What we just read, what we just heard was that we are heirs of God and heirs with Christ. Now I want you to think about who you are and what your destiny is. We've already got done reading in Romans 8, that we're sons and daughters of Hashem. We are born again, we're sons and daughters of God. We're adopted, but more than being adopted as we would think of adoption in the earthly realm. Because in the earthly realm, when someone's adopted they're not the biological children. They're legally adopted but they're not the biological offspring of the ones that adopted them.
But when we use the word "adopted" in the New Testament, it's something altogether different, because we're talking about not just simply being legally adopted by the Father. But when the Lord says that we're adopted, we're actually born of His Spirit. We are His biological children. We've been given the gift of His own Spirit by which we cry out, Paul said, "Abba Father". So you and I are literally sons and daughters of God. I want you to get this. This is not just figurative language. This is spiritual, I like to say, scientific reality. You and I are literally the sons and daughters of God. We've been made partakers of the divine nature, and we are in the Son living by the life of the only begotten Son, Jesus. We are in the Son now, His own offspring.
And now Paul says, not only are you sons and daughters, but you're heirs, heirs of God and heirs with Christ and of Christ. Think about your destiny. Pretty soon you and I are going to meet Jesus face to face, rather because of His coming and manifesting His glory in the earth that is returned, or because of our passing away. But it's going to be happening so quick. Sooner than you and I realize we're going to face the Lord, we're going to see the Lord face to face. And when this happens, the Bible says, we are going to receive a kingdom that is just... we can't even comprehend it. The Bible says, "Eye has not seen and ear has not heard. Never has it entered into the heart of man," Paul said, "the things that God has prepared for those that love Him".
And so I want you to get ready for your destiny. You and I have a future. This should give us joy and confidence that we are going somewhere, that we've got a bright future, that we've got a huge, we've got a huge future and victory in front of us. I mean, this should give us reason to be happy. When we wake up in the morning, and sometimes we feel grumpy, sometimes we don't feel happy, right, sometimes we feel oppressed, you know what we need to do? We need to take a step of faith and begin to rejoice. We need to begin to say: "Thank you, Father that You have made me your son, You have made me Your daughter. Thank you, Daddy, that I am born of You, that Father the same love that You love Jesus with you love me with. That I am in the Son, a son and daughter of Yours. And Father, thank You that You have made me an heir of God, and an heir of Christ Jesus. That I've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places."
And not only that, but eye has not seen and ear has not heard, it's never even been conceived of the good future that's in store for me and you. I mean, this should be reason. We should take a step of faith every day and begin to rejoice in this. We declare it by faith. Listen, part of being a warrior and part of living in victory is to rejoice continuously. Paul said, "Rejoice! Again I say rejoice". Rejoicing is not a feeling. Rejoicing is an act of the will. And the will, beloved ones, is cold blooded. What do I mean by that? The will is not captive to our emotions and the will is not to be captive to our circumstances. The will is captive to the Word of God. So we don't allow our emotions to control us, we don't allow our circumstances to control us, but we take a hold on God's word by our will.
And you and I every day as warriors we want to just stand up and rejoice, Thank you, Father God, that I'm alive. Thank you that you chose me before the foundation of the world to be your son, to be your daughter. Thank you, Father, that the same love that you love Jesus with You love me with. And thank you, Father, that You made me an heir. So Paul says, "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed", there's the new section, "if indeed we suffer with Him so that we might also be glorified with Him". And let's once again take a pause and take a step back to be able to refocus what the Lord just said. "We are heirs," Paul reveals, "if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we might also be glorified with Him".
What do I want you to take? That there's some suffering involved here? Paul said you're going to receive this inheritance, that there's no words to explain how glorious it is, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we might reign with him. There's a price to pay. That's why Jesus said, "He wishes to come after Me must pick up his cross, deny himself and follow Me". Jesus said, "If the world loves you, woe is you". And so we have to recognize, beloved, that there's a price to pay for being a son and a daughter of God in this earth, and it involves suffering. And Paul said, "We're heirs of God and heirs with Christ if indeed," we just got done reading, "we suffer with him".
What does it mean to suffer with him? It means many things. Part of it means is you're willing to be rejected because you stand for Jesus. I mean, we need to be willing to be identified personally as a Jesus lover. I mean, I know that a lot of times I'll be like in different, you know, businesses or whatever. Even when I came here to Colorado, I had to go to the rental car place. And the manager there was really, you know, being very, very friendly to me and very talkative to me. He recognized me from another time I had been here. And, you know, I talked about "Yeah, I'm going into the mountains". I have a cabin up there. And he mentioned something, I said, "Yeah, I go to the cabin," I said, "Mostly just to be alone with God and to seek His face and pray".
And as soon as I brought God into the picture, immediately I could see his nonverbal step back from me. Immediately I saw him distance himself a bit. I mean, we are moving now in a culture that is becoming more and more anti-God, anti-Christian, anti-Jesus. But you and I are those that are blessed to be able to share in Jesus' sufferings. Jesus said, "If they persecuted me, they persecuted you". I want to encourage you, stand in your faith of Christ. Don't ever be ashamed. Jesus said, "If you're ashamed of Me and My words in this wicked generation," He said, "I'm going to be ashamed of you when I come again in the glory of my Father with the holy angels". So recognize that we will suffer for being Christians. And we need to be willing, beloved ones, to pay the price.
Let's continue on and see what Paul says next here. "For I consider that the suffering of this present time, the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us". If you see me going like this, there's like little bugs that are flying around me, so I'm trying to get the gnats away. Listen again. Paul said this. Because he just got done saying, "We're heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with Him so that we be glorified with Him". Next he says this: For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. In other words, yeah, you're going to suffer a little bit right now. But the amount of pain that you're going to experience is not even worthy to be compared to the great reward that is yours, to the great glory that you're going to be brought into, to the fullness of your inheritance.
So let's be willing to be warriors and to man up a bit, if you will, woman up if you like to use that language. Let's toughen up a bit and recognize, yeah, there is a price to pay. There is a price to pay. But the price that we pay is not worthy to be compared with the glory that awaits us. It's similar to what Paul said. Remember Paul said that before he met Jesus... he talked about his lifestyle. He says he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee from the tribe of Benjamin, he was educated under Gamaliel the leading Jewish sage of his day. I mean, Paul had respect, he had position, he had power. But he said all those things he gave up. He let them go that he might be founded Christ Jesus, not having a righteousness of his own derived from the law but a righteousness that comes from Christ.
And he said, he considered what he gave up, Paul said, but dung, when compared to the value of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord. Paul said, "I don't even want you to talk me up about anything that I've given up. I consider what I gave up but rubbish when you compare it to what I've gained a relationship with the Living God through Yeshua my Messiah". And so beloved, I want to encourage you today. We have too many weak Christians that walk around complaining and just you know, down, they're not willing to suffer for Jesus, they're not willing to be rejected for Jesus, they're not willing to speak out for Jesus. They just want to fit in with everybody. They don't want... And it's just like this is nonsense. This is the world. The Bible says, "Friendship with the world is enmity or hostility towards God".
We can't be accepted by the world all the time and still be a vibrant, passionate lover of Jesus. Jesus said, "Don't think I've come to bring peace. I've come to bring a sword, to separate a man from his wife, a mother from her daughter". He said, "He that loves father, mother, even his children more than me is not worthy to be my disciple". And so beloved, Paul was just talking about the incredible privilege that we have, the incredible destiny that awaits us, the identity that we have as sons and daughters. But we should also realize, yes, there is a price to pay for this. Very small price, but a small price to pay. We share in the sufferings of Jesus that we might be glorified with Him and enter into the fullness of our inheritance.
Paul said in the book of Philippians that we've been chosen not just to reign with Jesus, but to suffer with Him as well. And suffering comes in many different ways. There is the suffering that takes place because we deny ourselves in order to do God's will. That hurts. Many different things. Jesus didn't want to go to the cross. He said, "Father, if it's possible let this cup pass from me". The Bible says He was sweating drops of blood. Such excruciating suffering He was going through in order to be obedient. But the Bible says He became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Therefore, God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name above every name. That is the name of Yeshua HaMashiach. Every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus of Nazareth is Lord.
So there's a suffering that you and I experience in terms of participating in the sufferings of Jesus when we too choose to deny ourselves to be obedient to the Father, just as Jesus did when He picked up His cross and got nailed to it. And so we have to realize that it's not about our feelings, it's not about our emotions, it's not about what we want. Suffering comes to us when we follow Jesus, who said, "But Father, not my will but thy will be done". Remember as Jesus was going to the cross, "He said, Father, if it's possible let this cup pass for me". But then He said, "But not my will, Father, but thy will be done". And then He continued on and let Himself be nailed to the cross.
See, we share in the sufferings of Jesus when we do the right thing even though it hurts us to do it, when we humble ourselves because the Father has called us to humbling ourselves, when we go to somebody and ask for their forgiveness, even though that might be hard to do in the flesh, but we know the Spirit is leading us to do that. So many ways. But when we're following Jesus, there is a suffering that's involved. But the Bible says that by being obedient and sharing in the sufferings we receive a name that only God and you and I as individuals will know. And we're going to reign with Him forever in glory.
And then Paul continues on here from the 19th verse through the 22nd verse. And he talks about, once again, just creation right now even being subjected to slavery. And even as I'm speaking, there's fires all over the United States because of the drought that's taking place. Huge forest fires wiping out masses of the tree species and all these atrocities that are taking place in nature with tsunamis and pandemics, etc. Yes, creation itself is in slavery. But soon Jesus is returning. And my question to you and I today is this: when He returns will you be standing in faith waiting for Him? Will you be in love with Him, keeping your oil burning at His return? Because if you do, beloved, you'll understand the verse that I just read. "Eyes have not seen and ear has not heard the things that He has prepared for those that love Him". Until next time, beloved, God bless you. I love you, and Shalom.