on which everything else depends, is, Am I trusting to Him as my divine Redeemer? am I resting in Him as the Son of God?  Some of us here now have a sort of nominal connection with Christ, who have a kind of imaginative connection with Him; traditional, ceremonial, by habit of thought, by attendance on public worship, and by I know not what other means.  Ceremonies are nothing, notions are nothing, beliefs are nothing, formal participation in worship is nothing.  Christ is everything to him that trusts Him.  Christ is nothing but a judge and a condemnation to him who trusts Him not.  And here is the turning-point, Am I resting upon that Lord for my salvation?  If so, you can begin upon that step, the low one on which you can put your foot, the humble act of faith, and with the foot there, can climb up.  If faith, then new birth; if new birth, then sonship; if sonship, then an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ.’  But if you have not got your foot upon the lowest round of the ladder, you will never come within sight of the blessed face of Him who stands at the top of it, and who looks down to you at this moment, saying to you, ’My child, wilt thou not cry unto Me “Abba, Father?"’

SUFFERING WITH CHRIST, A CONDITION OF GLORY WITH CHRIST

   ’...Joint heirs with Christ:  if so be that we suffer with
   Him, that we may be also glorified together.’—­ROMANS viii. 17.

In the former part of this verse the Apostle tells us that in order to be heirs of God, we must become sons through and joint-heirs with Christ.  He seems at first sight to add in these words of our text another condition to those already specified, namely, that of suffering with Christ.

Now, of course, whatever may be the operation of suffering in fitting for the possession of the Christian inheritance, either here or in another world, the sonship and the sorrows do not stand on the same level in regard to that possession.  The one is the indispensable condition of all; the other is but the means for the operation of the condition.  The one—­being sons, ’joint-heirs with Christ,’—­is the root of the whole matter; the other—­the ’suffering with Him,’—­is but the various process by which from the root there come ’the blade, and the ear, and the full corn in the ear.’  Given the sonship—­if it is to be worked out into power and beauty, there must be suffering with Christ.  But unless there be sonship, there is no possibility of inheriting God; discipline and suffering will be of no use at all.

The chief lesson which I wish to gather from this text now is that all God’s sons must suffer with Christ; and in addition to this principle, we may complete our considerations by adding briefly, that the inheritance must be won by suffering, and that if we suffer with Him, we certainly shall receive the inheritance.

I. First, then, sonship with Christ necessarily involves suffering with Him.